Time for Wine

Are you an oenophile? Then Oenorama 2004, Greece's bi-annual trade show for the Greek wine industry, opens March 12th at the EKEP center in Athens. The show is free to foreign visitors and offers a chance to taste wines from dozens of producers in Greece, from giants like Boutari to tiny undiscovered vineyards offering artisanal wines. If you think that Greek wine begins and ends with retsina, you have a very palatable surprise in store.

This year, the show also includes olive oil producers as Oenorama begins to cover the growing Greek gourmet foods industry.

One of my personal favorites is a Greek wine called Mavrodaphne, an unusual dessert wine with a romantic origin. In addition to sipping it along with a nice honey-drenched piece of galaktobouriko (Greek custard pie), it can also be used as a base for a not-exactly-Greek barbecue sauce.