Criterion Wine Tours

15/07/2024

Highlights from our recent Northern Greece tour! 🇬🇷

👑 Visiting Vergina, the extraordinary burial site of the Kings of Macedon
🍇 A fabulous visit and tasting with Apostolos Thymiopoulos, the godfather of Xinomavro
⭐️ A gastronomic 6-course tasting dinner at Restaurant 1902 Paleo Poli
⛰️ Visiting the monasteries amongst the extraordinary mountain-tops of Meteora
🍷 Wine tasting & matching nibbles followed by a ‘light lunch’(!) at Gerovassiliou winery in Epanomi
🇬🇷 The wines from our final winery visit to Oenops (but we tasted SO many fabulous wines during the tour too!)

Wonderful wines, fabulous food, great company and amazing memories created… what more could you ask for!?

10/07/2024

Η ΚΥΡ-ΓΙΑΝΝΗ ΔΕΙΧΝΕΙ ΤΟ ΔΡΟΜΟ ΤΗΣ ΒΙΩΣΙΜΗΣ ΑΝΑΠΤΥΞΗΣ Το Κτήμα ΚΥΡ-ΓΙΑΝΝΗ έγινε το πρώτο ελληνικό οινοποιείο που εντάχθηκε από τα τέλη Απριλίου 2024 στο ...

28/06/2024

The extraordinary topography of Meteora with its mountain-top monasteries 🇬🇷💙

25/06/2024

A visit to the Katogi Averoff wine cellars is an impressive experience! The path between the oak barrels comes alive with artistic lighting, visual effects, and a glass walkway where you can see the hundreds of bottles lying down!

The winery is in the village of Metsovo, founded in the 1950s, and was the first Greek winery to plant Cabernet Sauvignon. 🍇🍷🇬🇷

24/06/2024

Taking a break from wine tasting, we took a morning tour of the beautiful town of Kastoria, which included highlights of the Neolithic settlement, the monastery of Panagia Mavriotissa and the Archontiko (traditional houses) of Doltso.

Kastoria is an historic town nestled between lake Orestiada and Grammos and the Vitsi mountains; highly recommend for a visit if you’re on holiday in the area!

23/06/2024

Visiting one of Greece’s premier wineries Alpha Estate 🇬🇷 🍷🍇

22/06/2024

We had a fascinating visit to Domaine Karanika
in the region of Amyndeo, who produce Greece’s best sparkling wines. 🍾🥂🇬🇷

Owner Laurens gave us an entertaining, thought-provoking treatise before a tasting of his wonderful wines, which are imported into the UK by Maltby&Greek.

21/06/2024

A fabulous visit and tasting with Apostolos Thymiopoulos, the Godfather of Xinomavro, at Thymiopoulos Vineyards in Naoussa, Greece 🇬🇷

Apostolos is not just a talented winemaker, but he has become an ambassador for Greece’s new wines and winemakers, taking Greece beyond the southern Mediterranean and establishing it on international markets. He has pushed the boundaries of the Xinomavro grape into new single-vineyard expressions, and in 2022 he was awarded Decanter Magazine’s ‘Rising Star of the Year’. 🙌

An absolute pleasure to be able to visit the winery and receive an in-person tasting from the master himself, thank you 🙏

20/06/2024

Lovely visit to family winery Κτήμα Φουντή -Estate Foundi where Georgia gave us an excellent wine tasting including 2008 and 2005 vintages of Xinomavro.

20/06/2024

19/06/2024

Our first winery visit of our Northern Greece tour was to Kir-Yianni. 🇬🇷🍷

Founded in 1997 by Yiannis Boutaris, one of the leading figures in the Greek wine industry, following his departure from the Boutari Wine Group which was established by his grandfather in 1879.

The winery is now run by fifth generation Stellios Boutaris, with the aim of producing wines that appeal to the taste of the modern wine drinker, whilst balancing a long family tradition and using new innovative wine-making techniques.

Thank you for having us! 🙏

17/06/2024

Our wine tour to Northern Greece kicked off in authentic style with a fabulous dinner Akadimia restaurant (Ακαδημία restaurant) in Thessaloniki.

With lots of new faces joining the tour, it was a great opportunity for everyone to get to know each other, enjoy some delicious food prepared by Chef Kostas, all accompanied by Christos Katsanis and his wines from the historic estate Domaine Porto Carras new era in Halkidiki.

12/06/2024

Just 3 days to go until our wine tour to Northern Greece kicks off in Thessaloniki 🇬🇷

We’ve got a fabulous line up for all 9 days of the tour, including numerous visits and tastings at some fabulous wineries, a guided tour of the monasteries in Meteora, and a visit to the ancient site of Philippi.

Watch this space for updates and photos!

07/06/2024

This evening we’re hosting a French Pairs wine tasting where we will be comparing and contrasting how wines made from the same grapes can taste so different.

In the line-up:
🍾 Non-vintage & vintage champagne from the same producer
🍷 Two pairs of reds
🍷 Two pairs of whites

Which ones would be your favourites??

24/05/2024

Possibly one of the best Ripassos we had during our trip to the Veneto recently. 😋🍷

16/05/2024

Stunning views at Coffele Winery in Soave, with a wonderful presentation of their wines by Alessandra. Followed by a fabulous tasting at their historic cellars in Soave 👍🍷🏰

14/05/2024

Verona really is a stunningly beautiful location ❤️🇮🇹

12/05/2024

Another wine tasting in the village of Negrar at Damoli Winery.

The Damoli family have roots in the village going back to 1623, but have only recently reinstated their focus on winemaking after a 20 year break. It’s very much a family affair run by Bruno Damoli, an expert in viticulture, and his two children Daniele who is the winemaker, and Lara.

They only use organic and natural products in the vineyard and produce just 15,000 bottles of wine annually. Lara gave us an excellent tasting of 8 different wines including Spumante, Ripasso and Amarone. Thank you! 🙏

11/05/2024

Straight from Verona airport to our first winery visit at Corte Merci winery in Negrar di Valpolicella, hosted by Nicolas.

Some lovely wines and a delicious home-cooked lunch meant we were there for nearly four hours! 😋🍷

01/05/2024

When you go to a fine dining experience at the very talented Chef Adam Thomason’s house, you’ve got to have some fine wines to match surely?!

A spectacular evening with our Meetup group, with wines from Alsace, Italy, Spain, Chile and Portugal!

26/04/2024

Really looking forward to the ‘Real Wine’ Fair at To***co Dock this weekend where the focus is on natural, organic and biodynamic wines from passionate growers around the world.

Our Meetup group has one ticket spare so if you’d like to go, follow this link and book your place!

https://www.meetup.com/the-london-wine-dining-and-travel-meetup/events/300207756/

23/04/2024

Anyone fancy coming on a wine tour of Southern Australia in 2025? If so, register your interest now so that you'll be first to know when when the bookings open! 🇦🇺🍷🦘

Our first wine tour to Australia. Such a huge country is too big to cover in one tour so we will concentrate on South Australia and Victoria where there are numerous sub-regions with famous names like Barossa Valley, McLaren Vale, Adelaide Hills, Mornington Peninsula, Yarra Valley. There will also b

18/04/2024

Three factors make the wines of Viñedos de Alcohuaz: the sun, its granite soils and the altitude of the high Andes. And it’s one of the most extraordinary wineries on earth.

The vines planted here are some of the highest in Chile. And the Carignan vines at 2,188 metres are probably the highest plantings of that variety in the world.

The winemaking is intended to retain the character of the place, with all the grapes crushed by foot in stone lagars, native yeast fermentations, and using mainly concrete eggs and barrels to store the wines in their underground mountain cellar.

The wines? Stunning 🙌🍷

14/04/2024

Entering Elqui Valley - which runs from the Andean foothills to La Serena on the Pacific Coast - feels like entering another world. Surrounded by harsh, vast desert, this pocket of land is lush with orchards and pisco vines under some of the clearest skies found on Earth.

And as a wine region, it’s extraordinary. Vineyards in the Elqui Valley often focus on producing aromatic wines like Sauvignon Blanc due to the influence of the Pacific Ocean, and chardonnays which are derived from the northern valleys.

If you’re visiting Chile, this region is a must. It’s utterly breathtaking, stark and mystical.

03/04/2024

One of the highlights of our Chile wine tour was a visit to world famous Viña Cono Sur in the Colchagua Valley.

Viña Cono Sur was founded in 1993 with the goal of producing innovative, expressive and premium wines, that communicate the spirit of the New World.

The name refers to the geographical origin, wines that come from the ‘southern cone’ of America - namely Chile 🇨🇱 and its privileged wine valleys. The logo also suggests the silhouette of South America 😮

21/03/2024

Fabulous winery visit to Matetic Vineyards in the San Antonio Valley 🇨🇱

18/03/2024

A wonderful day exploring the colourful and edgy city of Valparaiso 🇨🇱

Steep streets, maze of alleys and staircases piled high with crumbling mansions, and some of the best street art in Latin America, this is a place where anything goes 🖼️❤️🤩

16/03/2024

Fabulous visit to Casas del Bosque winery in Casablanca Valley, where we travelled up to the Mirador and were wowed by the stunning views… and the food and wine matching lunch 😋🤩

10/03/2024

Bumped into an old acquaintance in Santiago last night! Fabulous to see Oz Clarke who happened to be passing through at the end of his trip to Argentina… and staying at the same hotel as us!

Three Wine Men

07/03/2024

What a great visit at Bodegas RE with host Cristián. Amazing clay fermentation vessels, fabulous wines 🍷 and balsamic vinegar!