Where viticultural potential meets inquisitive Cyprus winemaking
At this time of the year, one never knows how busy schedule of a winemaker can produce. Just finding a moment is a privilege, and if this wine hour spent leads to stimulating conversations over great wine, then it’s fulfilling and priceless.Tasting recently bottled Zambartas wines, full and vibrant, one will recognize the consistancy and the mark of the wines but also feel the winemaker’s desire to surpass himself from previous vintages.
The new quest for character sought out from the Zambartas wines, is a recognition of the need for differentiation but also it comes out from the potential both of viticultural opportunities that present themselves and no less the winemaker’s drive and desire to surpass himself from previous vintages. In his own words, Marcos described how, the opportunity arose of a possibility to create the new single vineyard wine from Xynisteri.
A vineyard that had been worked since 1989, was acquired 25 years later, epitomising sought out characteristics from its south-west orientation to organic cultivation of traditional goblet vine training and looking to naturally ferment with indigenous yeast to produce a wine of certain complexity with its citrus and floral aromas, and aged for six months in oak barrels for added body. An added feature to the new wine lines is the choice of closure selected, opting for the screwcap in a way to preserve the wine’s quality and aroma, reinforcing the winemaking commitment to excellence.
A late afternoon tasting with Marcos Zambartas under the watchful eyes of the elder, reminiscing of our first Zambartas evoinencounter with the late and esteemed Akis Zambartas in Ayios Amvrosios with 2010 and 2011 past vintages in Cyprus.