Xinomavro, Oenops Wines 2023
Silver, Decanter World Wine Awards 2025
Mix any six bottles and you pay the Any 6+ price at checkout — no code needed.
£10 tracked UK delivery, however many bottles.
We pack and send twice a week, Wednesdays and Fridays, by Royal Mail Tracked 48.
Members pay £20.40 — £5.10 less on this bottle. Membership is £120 a year and carries the EDKA Promise. Membership terms
Why this wine
Nikos Karatzas buys from growers in Naousa and Amyntaio and then keeps out of the way: wild-yeast fermentation in concrete tulips, ten months in amphorae, no filtration. The result keeps Xinomavro's aromatics and acidity intact rather than sanding them down with oak. A pure, unforced introduction to Greece's most serious red variety.
At a glance
- Grape
- Xinomavro
- Region
- Macedonia, Greece
- Alcohol
- 13.00%
- Body
- Medium
- Acidity
- High
- Tannins
- Medium
- Sweetness
- Dry
- Drink
- Short (3-5 yrs)
- Pairs with
- Red Meat, Poultry & Pork, Cheese
How it tastes
Cherry and floral notes layered with spice and a mineral edge, pure rather than heavy. Medium-bodied and dry at 13%, with high acidity, fine medium tannins and a delicate freshness on the smooth finish. Xinomavro 100%.
The producer
Oenops was founded in 2015 by Nikos Karatzas, a négociant winemaker who sources indigenous and rare varieties from cool-climate sites and old-vine plots in Drama and Macedonia, farmed by growers working to an organic philosophy, and vinifies them plot by plot in stainless steel, concrete, oak barrels and amphora with minimal intervention. The Xinomavro comes from selected vineyards in Naousa, at 330 metres on limestone and clay in the mountain foothills some 30 miles from the nearest coast, and from the cooler, higher Amyntaio at 580 to 650 metres; training is matched to each plot, mostly double cordon to keep yields low, with the gobelet method reserved for vines over 90 years old, and all the fruit is hand-picked in the cool of the night. After careful sorting and a short cold soak, fermentation ran slowly on wild yeasts in 31hl tulip-shaped concrete tanks with a small proportion in 5hl open-top barrels and 5 to 8% whole clusters for structure and complexity; blending followed immediately, and the wine then spent 10 months on its fine lees in amphorae before being bottled unfiltered.
Food and drinking
Serve at 16–18°C. Good with roast lamb, grilled sausages, a tomato-rich pasta, or cured meats with hard cheese. Drinking well now and will keep for five to ten years. Worth decanting: bottled unfiltered, it throws a light sediment. Sealed with a DIAM closure. Suitable for vegetarians and vegans.