Magoutes

Magoutes

GRAPE WRANGLER/S:
Dimitris Diamantis
LOCATED IN:
Siatista, Kozani, Macedonia
LAND HELD:
120 stremmata
HOW HIGH:
745m - 900m
TERROIR TYPE:
rocky limestone
GRAPES GROWN:
xinomavro, moschomavro, nigrikiotiko and local varieties of Siatista
PRACTICE IS:
low-intervention
YEARLY BOTTLES:
50000

High in the windswept mountains of Western Macedonia, between 700 and 900 metres above sea level, Dimitris Magoutes farms rocky limestone and clay slopes that feel a world away from the Greece of summer postcards. The story begins with the Diamantis family, whose grandfather hand-grafted a vineyard of old Xinomavro vines alongside the rare local varieties Moschomavro and Nigrikiotiko, a vineyard that is now more than a century old. In the 1990s, Dimitris Diamantis and George Papageorgiou set out to rescue what was left of Siatista’s once-celebrated winemaking heritage. They saved vine material from abandoned old parcels, replanted the Magoutes slopes, and released their first bottling, a Xinomavro–Moschomavro blend, in 2002.

Today the winery works on a small scale, with organic farming, spontaneous fermentations and minimal intervention in the cellar. The result is a range of honest, mineral, high-altitude wines with striking freshness and purity, from the structured Xinomavro to the delicate rosé and the distinctive Moschomavro, which Magoutes makes as a single-variety wine when almost no one else does. Each bottle carries the Siatista PGI and reflects a place that nearly lost its wine culture altogether.

visit Magoutes here

THEIR WINES