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Kamanterena SODAP, the co-operative winery of Cyprus, is one of the two largest winemaking units on the island (the other being KEO), turning out every year some 3 million bottles of wine. SODAP has had its ups and downs in the recent past and has felt the dire necessity for modernization and a change of course. It has therefore taken a great, daring and expensive step forward that has cost several million euros.
It has now abandoned its huge but old-fashioned winemaking complex at Lemesos and moved house, so to speak, setting up business at Stroumbi, one of the traditional wine villages in Paphos district where large areas of vineyards have been planted with new grape varieties that have been imported into Cyprus over the last few decades. At Stroumbi, one can still find quite a number of young men employed in viticulture – an occupation that is rather looked down upon and considered completely unfashionable among the majority of the population of this much-afflicted island. In this village SODAP bought, in 1997, four-and-ahalf hectares of land on which, 7 years later, rose SODAP's new winery which was given the name of the region where it was built – Kamanterena. A few kilometres further down – in the village of Kathikas, another wine village in the region known for the excellent quality of its grapes – a second SODAP winery is going to be built. SODAP's new unblemished image rises against the immaculate sky of a landscape brimming with vineyards. Its new wines that have recently appeared on the market, bearing the winery's name, exhibit an unprecedented fresh dynamism, in the context of Cypriot wines, for they – particularly the whites – are characterized by a modern and qualitative profile. The newly-built winery has a long – and certainly difficult – way to go, but those at the helm appear to be determined to win. Let unerring time prove them right.
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