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A note on Commandaria We have talked about dry wines, so now we shall see what happens with the sweet wines of our country. When we refer to sweet Cypriot wines, we mainly mean the historic Commandaria vinified for centuries now on the island. The history of Commandaria is fairly known as historians and travelers praised this sweet Cypriot wine throughout the centuries.
A wine merchant of abroad hears about the famous Cypriot Commandaria and comes to the island to taste and possibly invest in this wine. He asks to visit the wineries that produce this wine, to talk to the wine makers, taste their wines and see their vineyards just as he has recently done during his visit to the Douro valley and the Hungarian Tokaj. Where do we take him? What do we show him? To whom does he talk about the technical details of wine making? Who will reveal to him the culture, the depth, the quality, the succession and the rareness of this legendary wine?
I am occupied for years now with wine issues and Commandaria in specific, but I cannot give an answer. I am not in a position to suggest anything that could attract the attention of the interested party. The irony is that we are talking about the best by difference Cypriot wine with excellent prospective and the biggest exportation capacity.
We are left far behind. Time had scornfully surpassed us. In a time where our main competitors (Port, Tokaji, Vinsanto, and Sauternes) have managed to create thousands of worth visiting wineries that thousands of people visit every year, we are worried about other things.
I will never forget a visit I made around 7 years ago to the Commandaria villages. The president of the council of one of the 14 villages of Commandaria zone welcomed me. He showed me around a wretched estate that he considered a winery and to his full of plastic chairs office, where he gave me to try from a dusted half-full plastic bottle that laid at the top of his bookcase a big plastic glass of Commandaria in 30-35ºC ! It was the most shocking experience I had in the last 15 years I occupy myself with wine, the most humiliating, contemptible experience I had of an otherwise historic product.
It is a crucial time for Commandaria. There is no place for such lack of organization and amateurism. Time has come for all, state and wine producers, to start a crusade for the rescue of our country’s most valuable wine. The government, on the one, should do whatever possible to attract new investors in the zone, people that have the required expertise and capital to invest in Commandaria. It should facilitate these people in every way possible, to modify if necessary some of the obsolete provisions of the legislation about Commandaria. On the other, the wine producers should update both their vineyards and their vinification techniques, involving in the process people that have the necessary expertise and the relevant vision. |
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