Holidays and Wine

Trying to find the good stuff on a Greek island idyll

This year, I promised myself a holiday without wine.

Fear not, the temperance lobby hasn’t got me by the balls - I had every intention of enjoying a glass. But as someone who’s had more busman’s holidays than an Arriva employee, I wanted to change the focus.

Here’s the challenge: travel with a wine loving partner to a wine producing country, and it can be hard to resist the lure of vineyard visits. Before you know it, beach time has been compromised by endless tastings and time spent in dusty cellars far from the sun.

A good chunk of my professional life looks like this, so it was time to take a break. Ten days island-hopping in Greece sounded perfect. We chose the Dodecanese, shunning touristy Rhodes and Kos for peaceful Symi, Tilos and Leros.

We swam in sparsely populated or completely deserted beaches. Appetites were built during cliff-top hikes, then toppled by Greek salad and grilled seafood. Mythos beer and Ouzo kept us well lubricated.

Was I successful? Mostly - we didn’t visit a single winery. But we did seek out restaurants and bars where we could enjoy a glass of something tasty and local.

It’s not so easy to sniff out an authentic eatery when you’re on the tourist trail. The internet is full of breathless bullshit, along the lines of “The 25 restaurants you must visit in Rhodes” - which actually means “the first fucking places I stumbled across where they comped me and everyone else wrote about them too”. Influencers and bloggers have desecrated this space.

We mostly went with local recommendations or our instincts. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it catastrophically failed. There were places where ordering the house wine was the only viable option. There was the odd tourist trap. Then there were the surprises. And boy were they big.

Here are the memorable bits. The first one is free to read. To enjoy the rest you’ll need to be a paying subscriber.

1. Best and worst house wines 😀 🤮

2. Most enthusiastic wine service 😀

3. Most outrageously priced list 🤮

4. Best negroni ❤️

5. Most mindblowing meal ❤️

6. Most unexpected lunch ❤️

1. Best and worst house wines (Symi & Tilos)

In the Dodecanese, a half-litre carafe of something wine-ish costs €7-8. It can range from dilute and watery to very pleasant, and in the simpler tavernas it’s the only option if you want wine. Almost all of it is bag-in-box from Rhodes. If it’s white and it’s Athiri (and it usually is), you’re looking at the watery experience. Red tends to be international varieties - Cabernet, Merlot, Syrah.

Kali Strata, named after the 385 stone steps you climb to reach it, is a lovely terrace on the gorgeous island of Symi. Their Symi prawns - sweet red shrimps sautéd in olive oil - are recommended. The house white was a nicely mineral, lightweight Assyrtiko from Rhodes. The red (Cabernet Sauvignon, Rhodes again) was pale ruby and fruity with a little tannic grunt just to remind you about the variety.

Gorgona, in the port village of Livadia (Tilos), wins the award for the holiday’s worst house white - textbook Athiri: thin, acidic and devoid of any fruit, with an unattractive herbal bitterness. I turned mine into a spritzer. Even that sucked. They arguably serve the best food in Livadia though.