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Chrysorroyiatissa The historic monastery of the Holy Virgin of Chrysorroyiatissa has been producing wine for many years. The monastery was founded in 1152 A.D. by the monk Ignatius who found the Holy Virgin's icon and was guided by an angel to build the monastery. There is ample evidence of the existence of a winery within the monastery premises, part of which dates back to 1751 A.D. The wine was produced in large earthenware jars (known as pitharia) some of which have survived to this day, and are one of the reasons why the winery is visited by thousands of people every year.
The history of the venerable monastery has gone through several significant stages as has the course of its wine history. In 1928 the winery upgraded its methods by buying a special manually operated machine for crushing the grapes. But it was in September 1984 that winemaking at the monastery was really modernized, when the present Abbot Dionysios decided to start operating the winery again. This was the first attempt to set up a regional winery that would restrict its activities to producing limited quantities of wine, in contrast to the large wine factories that dominated wine-production in Cyprus at the time. Today, Chrysorroyiatissa winery turns out around one hundred and fifty thousand bottles of wine annually, produced from grapes grown on some 25 hectares of its own vineyards planted with both local (Xynisteri, Mavro, Maratheftiko, Ofthalmo) as well as imported (Mataro, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Riesling) grape varieties. The winery plans to treble its acreage of vineyards in the next few years.
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