The largest private vineyards in Santorini

Estate Argyros is the largest private owner of vineyards in Santorini.

The current landholdings exceed 120 ha, a vast, four-generations-long investment. The magnitude of this commitment can only be understood only when someone takes into account the fact that, in Santorini, there are numerous, far more lucrative uses of land readily available, and, sadly, more frequently preferred.

Estate Argyros vineyards are old, even by Santorini standards. The average vine age exceeds 70 years, while the oldest parcels of the estate are more than two centuries old. The average yields, on a plentiful vintage, rarely gets higher than 21 hl/ha, an impressively, if not catastrophically, low number, matched by very few wines around the world.

The vineyards of Santorini are famous for the basked shaped vines, a highly specific training system found nowhere else, called Kouloura. Nevertheless, there are more peculiar training systems on the island, like the Koulouri (not Kouloura) or Klada. Koulouri is a low bush vine training system, where the canes are woven into small bracelet-like shapes hanging vertical to the ground.

Although Kouloura is the only choice for vineyards that are extremely exposed to winds, in areas like Akrotiri, Estate Argyros is a great believer in the quality potential of Koulouri, in all vineyards where this method is an option. The vast majority of the estate vines is trained in Koulouri, since its architecture allows for better control over the canopy, a finer balance between fruit and vegetation, given the Santorinian constrains, and, finally, better fruit quality.