The earliest evidence that Greece produced wine dates back 6,500 years. With all of that heritage, why is it not a cherished and reputable wine region today?
When researching this topic, I surprisingly discovered that there's a Greek wine region map, that the Greek wine industry has a Wikipedia page, and that Food & Wine wrote a review nearly 10 years ago about seven Greek varietals. I've been fortunate to travel quite a bit, and am a wine fan, so why have I never heard of Roditis?
Puzzled by this gap, I researched how to find imported Greek wine by calling Arlequin Wine Market in San Francisco. They didn't carry Greek wine. I called BevMo on Geary Street in San Francisco, and ran into the same issue. Equipped with only two regional data points, I found a few importers online that can ship to me, but there is still a gap for the consumer who wants a special bottle of Greek wine tonight.
In a time where Greece's economy has collapsed harder than a Kardashian in a spelling bee, I am curious: WHY hasn't Greece made a larger effort to export the product one of it's oldest traditions, wine? Was there a decline for demand of Greek products (demand), or did Greek winemakers close up shop in recent economic riff (supply)?
I can't find an answer or a conclusion, which makes me feel like I've written a terrible blog, but perhaps a reader will have a firm answer.
According to further research, the root cause of Greek wine industry's lack of impact can be traced back to the conquest of Greece by the Ottoman turks. The Ottoman Turks imposed taxes and strictures during their 400 years reign that it effectively prevented Greece from developing the industry. Exacerbating the situation were 1) the insect phylloxera, 2) the 2 world wars, 3) Greece's civil war. All these led to the destruction of the wine industry. Late 1980s, there was a revival and Greece ranks eleventh among the wine producing countries.
ReplyDeleteGreat finds Andy. I still think Greece is missing the boat on the opportunity here...
DeleteHi Sunny! I wanted to help out a bit here too. Over the summer, I was one of the leaders of the Greece Global Seminar; we studied the financial crisis specifically, and visited one winery. I dug up my notes and am excited to get to share with you -- I think this stuff is fascinating.
ReplyDeleteIn the 80s and 90s, the EU gave a lot of help to Greece -- this caused structural inefficiency to begin with.
At some point, there was a Greek law that stated that winery profits (maybe agriculture more broadly) would not be taxed if they were reinvested. In those days, owners who had financial discipline were able to build strong, solid wine businesses. This is why the winery we visited was able to create something that has withstood today's financial crisis. However, many owners did not take this same approach; one of the key learnings from this trip was that Greece culturally has had low levels of financial discipline; not the fault of the people of Greece, but just in general, there has been very low education.
That law expired at some point; today's tax rate is 70% (not sure if that's the base rate or the effective rate, but know that Greece has an insane amount of tax evasion, which drives higher rates, which drives further tax evasion). While being hit with that incredibly high tax rate, wineries were also pressed on the revenue side: lower quality wineries lost 70-80% of sales in the crisis. It's less that people are drinking less, and more that they are careful in choosing the best price: quality ratio.
The current government is not supporting or incentivizing reinvestment of earnings (see: 70% tax rate). Taxes are starting to come down because they understand it's not working, but that doesn't change the fact that the consumer base is still struggling and many wineries are crippled by the ten years of financial crisis.
With all this in mind, why hasn't the government spurred investment or exports? Well, there could be a few causes, but what I would offer is the government is grasping at straws to survive. They need tax revenue desperately, and already have sacrificed all tax revenues from the shipping industry. They've essentially allotted their investment bandwidth here. And in a culture that is still very low on financial discipline, and where wineries are barely struggling forward, there's very low capability on wineries' part to revive their own businesses to support an export business. I'm not sure where production is these days, but the crisis may have crippled volumes as well.
I hope this helps!
Terrific response, Rebecca.
DeleteGreat post and comments from other class members! I was stationed in Crete for about 6 months in the Air Force and came to know Greek wines there. They weren't typically made for export and were often just served in jugs or carafes at the table (no labels). I think part of this is the informal approach to wine that we discussed in other parts of Europe, but also the tax issue was likely another factor (as discussed above). Most of the producers of wine, honey, and olive oil in the town I lived in were local monasteries, who likely didn't have to pay taxes on their items sold.
ReplyDeleteAs far as finding Greek wines in SF, they're on the menu at Souvla, which has a few locations in the city. They'll let you buy a bottle or 500 ml carafe and hang out for a bit.
Thanks for the post and for supporting Greek wineries! Enjoy!
The only addition I have to this excellent post and comment set is that Wines of Greece is an EU-funded marketing arm for Greek Wines and it has made some major headway in marketing the wine in the US. (Major headway being defined as helping the top Greek brands get further distribution/drive sales in the US market.)
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