Let me say up front this wine was controversial. Served to a Zoom group, this was all about minerality, that sort of wet stone flavors. Fruit was there, as was a floral element, but somewhat subdued. Nice attack, good finish, with the fruit making a belated reappearance.
I loved it. It was interesting, complex, light bodied but very intense. A few in the group agreed with me. Nobody actively disliked it, but some felt that it needed a lot more fruit. At around $55, it is not cheap, but I liked it enough to buy a few more bottles.
That’s an outstanding wine! But definitely one that needs both age and time. Definitely all about minerality - there’s some fruit there, but it needs some aging before the minerality starts to let it shine through.
It is also the first vintage that was made without Hatzidakis himself, (he committed suicide on August 2017). Great person and one of Greece’s greatest winemakers, I really hope that his children (~19years old) will be able to continue his legacy.
We tasted Hatzidakis Familia 2018 a little while ago, so it looks like despite Haridimos’s passing the house is still producing prime quality stuff. I hope they have the perseverance to keep on doing the good work.
Hatzidakis Assyrtiko under Haridimos Hatzidakis was never fruit driven, per se, for me. Other nuances like iodine, tobacco, gun flint(reductive), fennel, ginger, etc. were more pronounced for me with citrus and other fruit character being secondary characteristics at best.
I had the 2016 twice and have two more bottles in my cellar. I really like it. Remember it more as a medium body wine though (think it does spend quite some time on its lees?). Anyways it is true this is all about its minerality which i really like! Great wine.
2017 was the first vintage made after Hatzidakis sad passing. So maybe his kids has made a few adjustments.
They definitely have big shoes to fill but so far they are very wise, consistent and low profile. The biggest impact, is that they lost the biggest portion of the fruit that they were buying. Given that there was a big shock at the family and until they realise what happened, the other producers moved too aggressive against Haridimos’ children. That resulted a major price increase…
Really special wines! I’ll need to seek out the 15. Visited and tasted there in 2013. One of the most memorable, eye-opening tastings I’ve ever experienced. A sad story.
Just bought the last three bottles. I have no idea if this will age, so opening another this week, and keeping the other two for five and ten years respectively.
I have older vintages in my cellar going back to 2002 and have drunk quite many bottles across the range that were 10+ years old. I can certainly confirm that all of Haridimos’ wines age really well. Can’t vouch for the wines made under the new regime: based on what I’ve had, while good, they do feel quite different to me and definitely not as mesmerising. As someone mentioned further up, some of the key sources are now in other people’s hands. Early days, though. Time will tell.
More generally, I used to both buy and cellar Santorini very extensively cca 2000-2015. Based on my experience, I would say -provisionally - that most of the top-quality Santorini Assyrtikos are best enjoyed 5-10 years after the vintage. The jury is still out on the second-wave producers (Karamolegos etc.) who simply haven’t been around long enough. As for Assyrtiko elsewhere (other than Santorini), at this stage, I would tend to err on the side of caution. There are perhaps a handful of really structured promising wines (Stegasta springs to mind, and Economou’s few vintages might age really well, although personally I see no reason to hold off on the latter, plus it’s made in a very atypical style), but my impression is more track record is needed before we start jumping to conclusions.