Saturday, May 15, 2010

Dourakis Winery

This weekend was "Open House" at many of the wineries on Crete. Debra Papanioff of the CIC tipped me off to this via a page suggestion for Dourakis Winery on Facebook, and I thank her for doing so because Luella, Koula and I had another excuse to get together and drink nice wine.

We were impressed not only with the wines (we tasted about 9 of them), but with the knowledge and enthusiasm of Adonis and Evie, the son and daughter of the founder of the winery.

I didn't take detailed notes on each of the wines, but they were all of high quality and I chose to buy two bottles of their organic Vilana (one for my sister's visit, one to take back to the US) and one of their Carignan (also for consumption while my sister is here, hopefully with a nice hunk of red meat, because the tannins are formidable at this point).

The grounds were beautiful, the cellar enchanting and I even came across some very well-fed looking cats in a room containing some production equipment, while I was searching for the restroom.

Finally, I had one of those "small world" experiences (which can be pretty common here in Crete) when a friendly older gentleman chatted us up and offered us a business card for the Kassimatis family shops in Chania. I've been dealing with his son Michalis since I arrived last summer, purchasing some skin care products that I like from him whenever I need them. I've always enjoyed dealing with Michalis because of his outgoing, friendly nature, and I see now that it runs in the family.

Around the winery.

The gentleman to my left is Kurios Kassimatis, and the couple in the bottom right photo are Evie and Adonis.

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