Santorini produces some of the world’s most exciting, inimitable white wines, driven above all by the island’s unique terroir. In recent years, winemakers have reached a new level of precision. They have studied their vineyards in greater detail, begun releasing village and even single-vineyard wines, and become more rigorous in the cellar, while actively experimenting with styles, including reinterpreting the historic Nykteri category and producing orange and sparkling wines that broaden their audience. At the same time, challenges from climate change and tourism have grown, requiring producers to think strategically about how to position their industry for success in the years to come.
Assyrtiko vines have adapted alongside their growers to one of the most demanding viticultural environments in the Mediterranean. Grapevines are trained close to the ground to withstand the island’s fierce winds, with shoots woven into basketlike nests that protect the grapes. The Greeks call this system kouloura. During flowering, it protects the fragile buds from sandstorms. All season long, it helps the berries stay on the vine in brutal winds and conserve scarce moisture. It is among the most labor-intensive training systems, requiring experienced viticulturists and meticulous hands-on work.
Santorini’s dramatic landscape is the result of a massive volcanic eruption in the 16th century BCE that ended the Minoan civilization. The vines here grow on nutrient-poor volcanic soils locally known as aspa, dominated by porous pumice and volcanic tuff, with ash, sand, and solidified lava—primarily basalt and basalt-like andesite. The climate is marked by relentless heat and exceptionally low annual rainfall, at around 316 millimeters (12.4 inches) on average.
In these hot, arid conditions, Assyrtiko benefits from one of its defining traits: the ability to retain remarkably high acidity even at full ripeness. Soil pH on Santorini averages around 8.2, while the wines themselves often measure close to 2.8.
And yet, Assyrtiko is far from exclusive to the island. There are roughly 4,000 hectares (10,000 acres) of the grape planted worldwide, 2,000 hectares (5,000 acres) of which are in Greece; of the country’s total, 1,000 hectares (2,500 acres) are on Santorini. Beyond the island, however, most examples lack the tension and salinity that define Santorini’s wines. So why do wines here feel so electrified, tasting of salt and lemon, distinctive among global examples?
First, phylloxera never made it to Santorini. The volcanic soils proved inhospitable to the pest, so the vines here remain ungrafted—and mostly very old. Records list the oldest at around 150 years, though local growers insist there are vines far older. Some believe that certain root systems could be over a thousand years old.
Second, yields are naturally low, a result of the island’s arid climate, its nutrient-poor soils, and the inevitable ailments of old vines. On average, yields are between 20 and 25 hectoliters per hectare. In 2025, extreme heat and drought reduced production to just 2.5 to 3 hectoliters per hectare, the lowest level in modern history. Lower yields generally result in greater concentration, as vines channel their energy into fewer berries. Under these conditions, Assyrtiko vines produce grapes with intense fruit expression, high potential alcohol, and striking acidity, yielding wines of exceptional density and structure.
Finally, Santorini’s vines live on a salt diet. Incredibly strong Aegean winds blow tiny droplets of seawater onto the land. This sea spray, rich in sodium chloride, settles on the vines and, more importantly, on the soil. This has several effects. Sodium displaces potassium in the plant’s diet, as vines preferentially absorb sodium. While potassium is essential for vine survival, sodium can partially substitute for it: the two elements have similar properties, and sodium is easier for the plant to take up. Leto Paraskevopoulou, the head of production at Gaia Wines and a biochemist, explains, “In a way, the vine becomes addicted to salt—rather like junk food—which can ultimately be harmful to the plant, and that is part of the reason for the low yields.”
While sodium is toxic to plants at high concentrations, Santorini’s vines are remarkably tolerant to salinity, a trait developed over thousands of years of viticulture in this environment. Even so, high salinity limits productivity, which is not necessarily a drawback, given the well-established link between low yields and wine density. Additionally, potassium neutralizes tartaric acid—the strongest acid found in grapes—whereas sodium does not. The relative lack of potassium helps preserve high natural acidity and very low pH, contributing to the structure that makes these wines distinctive.
Salt that settles on grape skins also makes its way into the press and, eventually, into the finished wine. There, it underlines fruit concentration, lends a more umami-driven profile, and adds structure and fullness.
Paraskevopoulou says, “Assyrtiko produced off the island shows a very different profile. Take those from Nemea, in the northern Peloponnese. The soils there are more fertile, and the wines are fruitier, more floral, and lighter bodied. We measured sodium levels in both regions—wines from Santorini contained 700% more.”
It’s clear that Assyrtiko is a wine of singular character. It has a distinct phenolic quality, framing the fruit and acidity with a subtle bitterness. This phenolic bitterness is perceptible even in the free-run juice, while, for top cuvées from the oldest parcels, some producers use a brief cold maceration—about 3 to 12 hours—to maximize flavor and aromatic extraction. A significant amount of postfermentation work, such as intensive bâtonnage, is carried out to ensure that the wine’s sharp edges are fully integrated, while a long maturation period is essential for the wines to achieve their full potential. Long aging capacity—especially for whites—is a defining characteristic of Santorini wines, largely because of their dense profiles, high acidity, low pH, and elevated phenolic content. A classic stainless-steel Santorini typically peaks at around three years, yet it is not uncommon to encounter 7- to 10-year-old examples that still show remarkable youthfulness, and oaked bottlings can easily age for a decade or more.
From a business standpoint, Santorini operates much like Champagne: producers must either buy grapes or lease vineyards. Most of the land is owned by roughly 1,000 small growers, the majority holding less than 0.6 hectares (1.5 acres). They decide for themselves to whom to sell, or whether to lease their plots.
Even local wineries rarely manage to purchase vineyards outright. Why would growers sell when Assyrtiko grapes fetch an average of €5.50 per kilogram, and in 2025 prices rose to around €12 per kilogram? By contrast, grapes elsewhere in Greece go for as little as €0.50 per kilogram; only Crete comes close, at about €1.30. No one wants to give up such a gold mine.
Growers are protected by the Santo Wines cooperative, founded in 1911. About 40% of them sell their entire crop to the co-op each year. If growers can’t sell their fruit elsewhere, Santo Wines is a safety net. The cooperative accounts for roughly 25% to 30% of the island’s total production, yet its gravity-fed winery in Pyrgos—perched dramatically above the port—has the capacity to vinify all the grapes grown on Santorini if needed. Despite persistent stereotypes about wine cooperatives, the quality-driven Santo Wines is a dynamic, progressive winery, experimenting with concrete eggs, amphorae, single-vineyard cuvées, and even the island’s first traditional method sparkling wine.
Like all wineries on the island, the co-op is primarily focused today on dry white wines. But it wasn’t always this way. Until the 1980s, Santorini’s wine identity was largely built around Vinsanto, a sweet dessert wine that had been prized for centuries both on the island and beyond. Dry Assyrtiko, by contrast, was produced mainly for local consumption and remained weakly commercialized. This balance reflected both tradition and technical constraints: without temperature control, producing stable dry wines at scale was difficult, whereas Vinsanto—based on grape drying, natural sugar concentration, and high intrinsic stability during aging—was better suited to its historic technological realities.
The turning point came in the late 1980s, when the Boutari family, the star of Naoussa, recognized Santorini’s potential for producing great white wines. Boutari Winery began harvesting Assyrtiko earlier to avoid excessive alcohol, invested in modern equipment, and introduced tightly controlled fermentations in place of the spontaneous methods then common on the island. There was a similar shift simultaneously at Estate Argyros, the island’s largest landholder.
These estates inspired a new generation of winemakers, including Yiannis Paraskevopoulos and Haridimos Hatzidakis, who had worked at Boutari before founding their own wineries—Gaia Wines and Hatzidakis Winery, respectively. Gradually, a grower-producer, récoltant-style movement began to take shape.
Hatzidakis, for instance, restored an abandoned vineyard in the village of Pyrgos in 1997. At the time, he was the only winemaker permanently residing on Santorini who worked his own vineyards and handled vinification himself. He was the first on the island to practice organic farming and to ferment with indigenous yeasts, actively promoting the idea of maximum terroir expression.
Paris Sigalas was also instrumental in advancing this philosophy. In the early 2000s, he released the island’s first single-vineyard Santorini, from the Kavalieros site, in Oia. He likewise became an advocate of oak aging and intensive bâtonnage, inspiring an entire generation of young Greek enologists.
Parcel-by-parcel vinification and aging gradually became the norm, allowing growers to wait for optimal ripeness in each vineyard, extend the harvest window, and construct more precise blends. Estate Argyros even established an in-house laboratory, enabling analytical decisions to be made without waiting weeks for results from Athens.
Alongside oak, alternative aging vessels began to appear. At Gaia Wines, for example, Leto Paraskevopoulou—who spent a year at Domaine Sigalas before taking over her family’s estate—works not only with barrels but also with concrete globes and amphorae. She favors extended lees contact; unlike her father, she does not rack the wine off the lees immediately after fermentation, instead allowing prolonged interaction.
At Artemis Karamolegos’s namesake winery, founded in 2003 and now one of the island’s largest landowners, the cellar features the currently in vogue Stockinger casks alongside clay and concrete vessels, which Karamolegos uses to express his single-vineyard sites.
In total, there are just 19 producers on the island. According to Master of Wine Yiannis Karakasis, none of them should be overlooked, as they’re all doing impressive work under extremely challenging conditions.
Freshness, salinity, concentration, and a light phenolic bitterness form the backbone of nearly every white wine from the island. When the label simply notes Santorini, without further indication, expect a precise, classic style, typically fermented and aged in stainless steel.
One benchmark example of the contemporary Santorini profile comes from Estate Argyros, whose base cuvée draws on century-old vines from some of the island’s top sites. The 2022 vintage has orchard fruit and white peach aromas, with a dense texture and the hallmark saline-mineral tension. Another reference point is Domaine Sigalas. The 2023 vintage reveals the variety’s signature maritime character, and its fruit intensity and balance suggest impressive evolution in the bottle.
Within Santorini PDO, there is also a category called Nykteri (from the Greek nycht, meaning “night”), an homage to the old local custom of harvesting grapes from the best vineyards slightly later than usual and pressing them before sunrise to preserve freshness. Barrel aging is mandatory. While no one harvests at night anymore, producers have kept the tradition alive by bottling their finest, oak-aged lots under the Nykteri designation. At Venetsanos Winery, the Nykteri spends six months in lightly toasted second-fill barriques; the 2022 vintage shows creamy texture, juiciness, and delicate waxy notes. Perhaps the most striking rendition comes from Artemis Karamolegos. Its 2021 Nykteri was fermented in 250- to 300-liter French barrels (20% new) and aged for three months in the same wood. It has a dense texture, pleasant phenolic bitterness, and distinct saline edge.
Given Assyrtiko’s tannin profile and concentration, its leap into the orange wine category was almost inevitable. The first to make an orange wine was Karamolegos, with the 2016 Mystirio. Sourced from 150-year-old vines, the grapes undergo two weeks of skin contact and minimal sulfur use; the result is a fiery, assertive wine. In contrast, Gaia Wines Clay Assyrtiko 2020, aged for four years in amphorae, with active bâtonnage, is round in texture, with a thread of bergamot.
The island’s sparkling interpretation of Assyrtiko comes from Santo Wines—100% Assyrtiko made by the traditional method, aged for 16 months on lees. It offers ripe lemon and honey flavors, with a hint of petrol.
Producers on Santorini have long realized that, given their tiny production volumes, the island’s future success will require premium positioning. Their strategy is to highlight individual vineyards. Through years of microvinifications and careful observation, a set of informal grands crus has gradually emerged. The pattern is clear: the higher the vineyards and the older the vines, the more distinctive the wines.
The island’s topsoil, consistently poor in organic matter, varies little in composition. Some sites contain more pumice, which retains moisture effectively, while others hold more basalt, which traps heat. The deeper subsoils, however, are richer in nutrients, and the roots of ancient vines are believed to reach these hidden reserves.
The oldest vines are found in the communes of Akrotiri and Episkopi Gonia. In the latter, Estate Argyros farms the legendary Monsignori vineyard, planted with vines up to 200 years old. The parcel cuvée is bottled only in outstanding vintages; 2021, for instance, was skipped because quality was not high enough. Fermented and aged for 11 months on fine lees with bâtonnage in stainless steel, followed by a year of bottle aging before release, the 2020 vintage shows remarkable phenolic depth, a lemon-mineral balance, and a spicy nuance.
The highest vineyards—up to 400 meters (1,310 feet) above sea level—are around Pyrgos and Megalochori, which locals unanimously consider the island’s most privileged terroirs. In Megalochori, Karamolegos tends two hectares (five acres) of 150-year-old vines that produce the grapes for his Papas bottling. The wine undergoes a half-day cold-soak, fermentation and 22 months of lees aging in stainless steel, and then two months in Austrian Stockinger barrels.
Vineyards in the capital, Firá, and the neighboring Imerovigli are also highly prized. Imerovigli is home to Kavalieros, the site from which Domaine Sigalas produced Santorini’s first single-vineyard wine, in 2009. The vines here are a century old, planted at 350 meters (1,150 feet), and the wine is aged for 18 months on fine lees.
Karakasis says, “The discussion around village wines is still very new, and we’re only beginning to understand their potential and the styles they can express. Focusing on a balance between quality and quantity, the three most important villages are Pyrgos, Megalochori, and Akrotiri. Pyrgos tends to yield more aromatic and phenolic wines; Megalochori produces broader, more herbal, and richer expressions; while Akrotiri shows sweeter fruit, fuller body, and often a distinctly salty finish.”
Locals rarely miss the chance to show their red wines, made from the island’s indigenous varieties Mavrotragano and Mandilaria. Mavrotragano—whose name roughly translates as “black and crisp”—shows a texture to match its meaning. Expect delicate aromas of cherry cola, blackberry, and freshly tilled earth, with velvety tannins. Benchmark examples include Sigalas Mavrotragano 2022 and Santo Wines Mavrotragano 2022. When Mavrotragano is blended with Mandilaria, the resulting wines are fresher and more approachable, with bold red-fruit flavors, bright acidity, and supple tannins. Red plantings and production volumes are minuscule. There is no separate appellation for these wines; producers bottle them under the broader Cyclades IGP.
A tasting on Santorini usually ends with a sweet wine made from Assyrtiko, a style that dominated the island until the 1980s and was gradually displaced by dry styles. Vinsanto (short for vino di Santorini, not to be confused with Tuscany’s vin santo, which emerged much later) gained renown in the late 18th century, when it began to be exported to the Russian Empire, where it was used by the church for Communion. At one point, Vinsanto was traded in exchange for Russian oak barrels, which were later used for its aging. The wine is produced from sun-dried grapes, with slow fermentation and prolonged oxidative maturation. Under the Santorini PDO regulations, grapes must reach at least 260 grams of sugar per liter before drying and 370 grams per liter after raisining, after which Vinsanto is aged oxidatively in oak barrels for a minimum of 24 months on Santorini and Thirasía. Residual sugar levels are very high, but they are balanced by Assyrtiko’s naturally high acidity.
Estate Argyros holds the island’s largest Vinsanto library, dating back to the 1947 vintage. Its current release, 2016, stands out: leather, tobacco, rosehip, and a combination of high acidity, vivid salinity, and fruit concentration—the qualities that define the style at its best. Also notable is Karamolegos Vinsanto 2010, with notes of sun-dried fig, caramelized sugar, and roasted chestnut; its dense, almost syrupy texture is lifted by its acidity.
Around 800 cruise ships visit Santorini each year, bringing some 3.4 million tourists to a place of barely 16,000 residents. Overtourism strains every aspect of Santorini’s agricultural system and places unbearable pressure on its infrastructure. The boom began in the 1980s and has only intensified since.
As a result, the vineyard surface is steadily shrinking. Tourism and real estate compete for land, and farmers sometimes give up: vineyard work is grueling, mechanization is impossible, and younger generations, lured by quick earnings from tourism, have little interest in tending kouloura vines under the scorching sun.
Those who do keep their parcels, often with very old vines, don’t always maintain them properly. Renewal pruning, replanting, and long-term care are often postponed or abandoned altogether. Karakasis notes, “A walk through the island’s southern vineyards toward Akrotiri reveals a discouraging sight: old basket-trained vines left for decades without proper care, without renewal pruning, and without any real investment.”
Climate change has amplified this long-standing structural weakness. Santorini has always been an arid environment, but, over the past decade, conditions have become markedly more extreme, with higher average temperatures, lower humidity, and reduced rainfall. These trends have increasingly pushed vines to their physiological limits. In recent seasons, three consecutive years of severe drought, followed by damaging hail, have proven particularly destructive, and many historic vines have been unable to recover.
Karakasis believes the response must be holistic, beginning with renewed vineyard care and extending to the protection of vineyard land through clearly defined viticultural zones. He also identifies the need for targeted replanting programs in areas such as Thirasía and Akrotiri, alongside investment in recycled water to meet supplementary irrigation needs.
Santorini Winemakers Association—formed in 2023 and currently bringing together 10 of the island’s 19 producers—is working to prevent further misuse of vineyard land. The group has brought to the final stage of approval a law that would formally define viticultural zones and prohibit construction within them. Further, in 2018, Santorini’s 3,500-year-old winemaking tradition was inscribed in Greece’s National Register of Intangible Cultural Heritage, and the island has since taken its first steps toward UNESCO recognition.
Santorini’s growers and winemakers face significant challenges, but Santorini also has a long winegrowing history and singular terroir. Now more than ever, Santorini’s wines need to be poured and talked about so that the future of the island’s wine industry remains bright.
European Commission. “Publication of an Application for Approval of an Amendment, Not Minor, to a Product Specification – ‘Vinsanto’ (PDO).” Official Journal of the European Union C 141 (March 31, 2022). https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:52022XC0331(03).
Karakasis, Yiannis. The Wines of Santorini. Wine Style Publications, 2023.
Robinson, Jancis, and Julia Harding, eds. “Santorini.” In The Oxford Companion to Wine. 5th ed. Oxford University Press, 2023.
Xyrafis, Efstratios Guillaume, Helder Fraga, Christos T. Nakas, and Stefanos Koundouras. “A Study on the Effects of Climate Change on Viticulture on Santorini Island.” OENO One 56, no. 1 (2022). https://doi.org/10.20870/oeno-one.2022.56.1.4843.