Domaine Skouras Grande Cuvée Nemea 2004 Tasting Notes

While modern wines are made with modern means, historical continuity is more than mere fancy when dealing with Greece. Modern Greek wine laws, modeled on the French system and even using certain French terms, work with one eye on cultural continuity, even if the other eye is on modern wine science. Nemea in particular combines the old and the new. For all its history, it is the region of Greece that has best attracted investment, resulting in state-of-the art high-tech winemaking. The Agiorgitiko (St. George) grape thrives in Nemea and by law is the only grape used in the appellation. Colloquially the wine is called the “Blood of Hercules,” a reference to the blood shed by our hero when he killed the Nemean lion.

Agiorgitiko brings plenty of fruit and, when grown at higher elevations as in this $19 Skouras Grande Cuvée, some zippy acidity. “Wiry acidity” is the term used on the back label of this wine; my term is “playful” acidity. The wine is aged in used French oak for a year, then bottle-aged six months. My first aroma impression reads “brambly.” The nose gives cherry, black pepper, vanilla oak and licorice. On the palate, the brambly notes are reinforced by raspberry, concentrated cherry, citrus peel, the tang of apricot, black pepper, nutmeg and again vanilla.

As would befit a Grande Cuvée, this wine has elegance, but it also has raw power and plenty of character. After two hours of aeration, the wine had plenty of tannic grip; guests enjoyed the wine at the five-hour point, at which time the acidity and fruit took center stage. You notice, and enjoy, drying tannins on the finish, as they meld very well with that brambly fruit. The French oak is well used, but the ultimate key to this wine is its excellent fruit concentration, and the depth and variety of that fruit. It all adds up to plenty of genuine character.