Top 100 wines of Cyprus - Page 5

Discover the top 100 best wines of Cyprus as well as the best winemakers in the region. Explore the varietals of the wines that are popular of Cyprus and the best vintages to taste in this region.

Discovering the wine region of Cyprus

Cyprus is a wine-growing island in the eastern Turkey/mediterranean">Mediterranean, located 80 km from the Southern coast of Turkey and a little further from the western coast of Syria. Cyprus is the third largest island in the Mediterranean. It measures 140 miles (225 km) from east to west and about a third of that distance from North to south. The Cypriot wine industry was at its peak in the Middle Ages and has seen a steady and progressive decline over the following centuries.

The location of the island once made it a useful port of call for voyages from Greece and Italy to Egypt and the Levant. Cyprus was of great use to medieval merchants and traders. Not only did the island's wine find markets abroad, especially in southern Europe, but the ships that exported the wines were a market in their own right. The downside is that Cyprus was not only useful as a Trading post.

It was also desirable as a strategic military stronghold. Over the millennia, the Greeks, Romans, Assyrians, Egyptians, Persians and Venetians ruled the island. Later, the Ottoman and British empires added Cyprus to their conquered lands. Several hundred years later Madeira served the merchants and armies of the Eastern Atlantic in the same way.

Discover the grape variety: Sémillon

Sémillon blanc is a grape variety that originated in France (Bordeaux). It produces a variety of grape specially used for wine making. It is rare to find this grape to eat on our tables. Note that this grape variety can also be used for the elaboration of eaux de vie. This variety of vine is characterized by large bunches of grapes, and grapes of large size. Sémillon Blanc can be found in several vineyards: South-West, Languedoc & Roussillon, Cognac, Bordeaux, Armagnac, Provence & Corsica, Loire Valley, Rhone Valley, Savoie & Bugey, Beaujolais.

Food and wine pairing with a wine of Cyprus

wines from the region of Cyprus go well with generally quite well with dishes of beef, lamb or spicy food such as recipes of roast beef with garlic, lamb keftas or risotto milanese.

News from the vineyard of Cyprus

Andrew Jefford: ‘What can you do? You just keep moving forward’

The extensive Saadé family was one of Syria’s largest landowners: Latakia-based Orthodox Christians whose agricultural wealth developed industrial and trading offshoots in Syria itself, as well as in Lebanon, Cyprus and elsewhere. The family lost all its land and factories in the confiscations and nationalisations which accompanied the short-lived 1958-1961 United Arab Republic, when Syria temporarily unified with Egypt; but it continued its trading and shipping activities. Under Johnny Saadé, t ...

Extreme weather may cut Italy’s 2023 wine harvest: Forecast

Extreme weather events mean Italy’s 2023 wine harvest could be up to 14% smaller than in 2022, said national farming group Coldiretti today (3 August), in an initial forecast based on assessments of the situation across the country. It’s still early days and much depends on conditions in the coming weeks, said Coldiretti. Yet it said national production could be around 43 million hectolitres in 2023, compared to 50m hectolitres last year. If this proves accurate, 2023 would rank alongside 1948, ...

Walls: Tasting Hermitage 2001 20 years on

In 2001, George W. Bush was sworn in as the 43rd President of the United States. Meanwhile in the UK, Tony Blair led the Labour Party to its second landslide victory. A lot can change over the course of 20 years. According to many Rhône winemakers and wine collectors, this is how long a bottle of Hermitage should lay undisturbed until you open it. Is it really worth the wait? I recently tasted 11 Hermitage 2001s – seven red, two white, two sweet – to test the 20 year hypothesis and see how these ...