I open the car door outside the Tsangarides Winery and savour the fresh February village air of Lemona, this small hamlet in the Troodos foothills.

It’s been a year since our last visit and we’re looking forward to renewing our acquaintance with Angelos Tsangarides, co-proprietor with his sister of the winery. We are introduced to Angelos’s father who is also at the winery this day. We follow Angelos upstairs to a large tasting room overlooking almond and clementine trees. Today the room is warmed by a wood burning stove, necessary on this chilly morning.

Over a Cyprus coffee, metrios style, like a medium sweet thick expresso served with a glass of water on the side, we chat about wine, wine making, local grape varieties, tourism and developments at Tsangarides. Over the past year, Angelos has been consolidating winery activities, investing in new equipment and restructuring operations by taking on the role of wine maker himself with the advice of a wine consultant. He is very much enjoying this development.

Angelos is a keen advocate of the local grape varieties, Xinisteri white grapes and Maratheftiko black grapes. He explains that Xinisteri is typically blended with a small percentage of either Sauvignon Blanc or Chardonnay. He favours Chardonnay in the blend.

A new development is that Angelos is now producing a Muscat dessert wine.

After our metrios coffee and chat, Angelos takes us to visit the cellars and

the bottling area. We buy some wine to enjoy over dinner with friends and he generously gives us a bottle of his Shiraz Rosé bottled this very day to taste.

Angelos tells us that he woke really early this morning, excited about the prospect of bottling the 2015 Rosé. As he tells us this, his face lights up and he is smiling the smile of someone who loves what he is doing. He says that he is very happy that he made the switch from the strictly business world he was working in previously to work in the family winery, that he loves what he does and finds it rewarding and satisfying.

As we say farewell to Angelos so he can get on with the rest of his busy day, he asks me to let him know what we think of these wines and we promise to share our wine tasting notes with him.

Here are the tasting notes I emailed to Angelos after we enjoyed the wines one evening soon afterwards with friends:

“Hello Angelos, We have tasted the wines from our visit to you and here are some comments:

2014 Maratheftiko organic wine

Good colour and clean on the nose with some fruit/floral aromas.

While young, a very drinkable smooth wine now. Soft tannins, some drying from the tannins but what one wants in this kind of wine, with complex black fruit and floral tones.

It’s the tannins which provide the health enhancing characteristics of red wine apparently, so good to be aware of the tannins.

One of our guests said that the wine would benefit from ageing – yes, undoubtedly but very drinkable and enjoyable now.

Given the fairly high alc 14.5% VOL, I feel it has a freshness and lightness to it.

We all enjoyed it. Very good flavours for an organic wine which sometimes produce different flavours to what one expects

Muscat 2014

One of our guests said. ‘I adore this wine’

What I particularly liked about this wine is that it has fresh and robust acidity so that although the wine has the characteristic aromas and flavours of a sweet wine, it wasn’t sweet. This is important when enjoyed with cheese as well as a dessert and it means that it complements rather than overwhelms the food flavours

Very popular and all drunk very quickly by our guests

2015 Shiraz Rosé

Bright rich red colour, clean on the nose with light fruit aromas

Delicious taste with dark fruit with touch of peach and quite spicy. Almost has a bit of fizz /bubbly effect so a lighthearted wine but I could feel the heat of the wine.

Very enjoyable. Will be a popular choice for the spring and summer

Thanks, Angelos.  We enjoyed these wines as you can see and also the Xinistiri which is a favourite on the white wine side. “

We subsequently enjoy lunch one day at Minthis Hills Golf Club and restaurant in the countryside above Paphos.  We order a glass of Tsangarides Xinisteri each and it arrives in aviation bottles of 187 ml. which we really appreciate as this is preferable to having a glass poured from an already open bottle. I have written before supporting smaller bottle sizes as options for wine lovers so I really am pleased to see this Tsangarides offering.  Angelos subsequently mentions to me that these aviation bottles of Xinisteri are extremely popular.

In reflecting upon our visit to Angelos and his comments about the rewarding nature of his work, I wonder if this is the portrait of a happy man:  working in a business alongside his family, in a beautiful rural setting, learning new skills, feeling he is making progress, being his own boss and doing something he loves, which is making wine.

Much has been written recently about this elusive emotion called Happiness and how to achieve it. After reviewing several sources in search of a succinct statement to describe the connection between work and happiness that would resonate with Angelos’s comments, the following statement by the late Steve Jobs of Apple Corporation seems to fit the bill:

“ Your work is going to fill a large part of your life and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do…”

Sounds like Angelos Tsangarides – a fortunate man.

 

Reference: Tsangarides Winery.  www.tsangarideswinery.com. Organically produced wine

Metrios Cyprus wine    www.cyprusisland.net

Minthis Hills Golf Club.  www.minthishills.com.
Quote from the late Steve Jobs: Stanford Commencement Speech 2006