Volcanic Slopes Vineyards, ‘PURE’, Santorini

Pure is a boutique project which began with the 2013 vintage. It is part-owned by Matthew Argyros, and is located in a simply but beautifully renovated ‘Canava’,  an old cellar on a hill, carved from the pumice just outside Episcopi Gonia. Only 6,000 bottles are produced each year, and the wine comes from a couple of parcels of very old vines. Two hundred year old vines. Let me write that again: two hundred year old vines. Half are planted on the white pumice from Pyrgos and half are on black basalt from Megalo Chori. Part is free run juice and part very gently pressed from whole bunches. The wine ferments in concrete and then spends 14 months on fine lees before bottling. It’s a complex, rich, but very nicely-balanced wine with probably a good potential to age. We receive a small allocation, but this is fast becoming one of the cult wines of Greece.