Tsangarides Shiraz and Maretheftiko Rose

The wine is poured and we are ready to taste the Tsangarides Shiraz and Maretheftiko Rose.

At the end of our recent visit to the winery, Angelos Tsangarides, Managing Director and Co-Owner asked us to try their latest rose.  We gladly accepted the invitation as this is an interesting wine for two reasons.   It is made with organic wine making processes and is a blend of Maretheftiko, a Cyprus indigenous grape with Shiraz, a well known international variety.    Organic wine making and blending of indigenous and international grape varieties are two particular interests of this winery.

We decide to work our way through a systematic approach to tasting and consider colour, nose and palate.   This rose is a clear, bright red.   It’s clearly a youthful wine with fruit aromas and medium intensity on the nose.   On the palate, this wine is medium dry on the sweetness continuum with low acidity.   It is a balanced, smooth wine with other characteristics of body, intensity, length in the medium range.    Flavours of strawberries and cherries with light vegetal overlays of green pepper are noted.

Our conclusion:  a pleasant, easy to drink,  balanced rose. Ready to enjoy now.   A good accompaniment for appetizers or as an aperitif, served chilled.

Wine experts claim that the black Maretheftiko vine has the greatest potential to produce quality wine among the indigeous varieties on the Island.   They consider that it could produce wines with the structure of Cabernet Sauvignon.   The challenge is that it is a difficult vine to grow commercially since it is one of the few non-hermaphrodite vines in the world and must be planted in vineyards of mixed varieties to ensure good pollination.   At Tsangarides, they are experimenting with how to increase their Maretheftiko yield by trying different approaches to planting.

Angelos mentions to us the growing interest in indigenous grape varieties among wine producers and consumers.    A major project sponsored by one of the large Cyprus wine producers was conducted to research and identify traditional Cyprus varieties.  Much work was conducted by the internationally known expert, French ampelographer, Dr. Pierre Galet from Montpelier.    Ampelography is not a familiar term.   It comes from the Greek ampelos for the vine and graphe for writing.  It is the science of describing and identifying vine varieties using such characteristics as leaf shape and lengths and angles of the leaf veins as well as other elements.    It is a field of botany that requires specialized training.  This important study identified several indigenous Cyprus vine varieties, including Maretheftiko.

Wine writer Oz Clarke mentions Cyprus in his new book and in his summary of European wines writes:  “Even Cyprus is waking up”.    Faint praise yet encouraging recognition for the work and innovative practices of Cyprus wine makers.

References:  Oxford Companion to Wine:  Jancis Robinson MW

My Top Wines 2013:  Oz Clarke

Tsangarides Winery.