Wine History of Nemea

Key eras

Phliasia and the wine of the sanctuary

Local tradition gives this plain to Phlias, a son of Dionysos, who founded the city of Phliasia and, in one version, first planted the vine here. The wine that came off it, the Phliasian wine, was the cup passed at the sanctuary of Nemean Zeus. Both the producers association and the growers cooperative date winegrowing in the zone from that ground.

The ancient Nemean Games, from 573 BC

Panhellenic athletic contests were held at the sanctuary every two years from 573 BC, on the same circuit as Olympia, Delphi and Isthmia. The stadium still stands beside the temple of Nemean Zeus five kilometres from the modern town, and the site museum shows finds from Phlious and from the Mycenaean tombs at Aidonia.

Agios Georgios names the grape

In the 13th century the village of Agios Georgios took the place of the ancient city of Phlious, and the grape took the saint's name from the small church that still stands on the road to Leontio. Growers also called the wine Mavro Nemeas, Mavroudi, and the blood of Herakles, the last of those for the depth of its colour.

Ottoman records of the variety

Ottoman administrative archives carry written references to the cultivation of Agiorgitiko around Nemea from the 16th century. That puts documentary evidence for the variety in this zone some four hundred years before the appellation rules that now protect it were written.

The town becomes Nemea

The settlement was known first as Phliasia Chora and then as Ai Giorgis. In 1840 it took the name Nemea, after one of the daughters of the river Asopos. The Asopos still runs through the Phliasian and Nemean vineyards and marks the low ground of the zone.

American rootstock and the nursery trade

Georgios Raptis of Leontio, a member of the Panhellenic Association for Phylloxera Resistant Vines, brought American grafting material into the zone and set up a vine nursery that his family still runs beside the winery. Replanting on resistant rootstock is what carried Agiorgitiko through the twentieth century here.

The growers cooperative, 1937

The Nemea winemaking cooperative was founded on 11 May 1937 with seventy members. In 1959, working with the Wine Institute, it made the first experimental bottling of Agiorgitiko. It now counts more than five hundred grower members, can take up to 7,000 tonnes of fruit a year, and ages wine in an underground cellar of 427 French oak barrels.

Appellation status, 1971

In 1971 the zone was recognised as an appellation of origin of superior quality, the designation now written as PDO Nemea, with Agiorgitiko as the only variety allowed in the red wines that carry the name. That single rule is what pushed planting towards one grape, which today fills about 25,000 of the zone's 32,000 stremmata.

The estate era

Bottling moved from the cooperative out to the estates across three decades. Semeli was founded in 1979, Strofilia in 1980, Nikolaou in 1984, Lantides in 1993, Gaia in 1994, Sellas in 2000, Barafakas in 2002, Halkia in 2003, Anagennisi in 2006 and Athanasiou in 2007. About three dozen cellars now belong to the producers association.

Organic conversion, from 1998

Certified organic farming arrived parcel by parcel. The Koutsi holding behind Sofia tis Fysis was converted in 1998, Halkia had all of its vineyards certified by 2007, and Nemeion Estate farms its Koutsi, Petri and Asprokampos parcels under DIO certification. Papaioannou works its 630 stremmata by organic methods.

The Nemea Lions standard

The producers association runs a voluntary certification scheme called Nemea Lions, built with technical support from the Institute of Ecological Agriculture, INSTECO. It sets tighter production rules than the PDO itself for wines made inside the zone, and certified bottles carry a lion mark on the label.

The modern Nemean Games, since 1996

The Society for the Revival of the Nemean Games, formed in December 1994, brought the contests back to the ancient stadium in 1996 and runs them every four years. Competitors race barefoot in tunics on the ancient track, no times are recorded and no medals are given. The eighth modern Nemead ran from 28 to 30 June 2024.

Influences

• The grower cooperative: More than five hundred members deliver Agiorgitiko from across the seventeen villages, which is why one cellar can blend plain and hill fruit in the same vintage.
• The Wine Institute: Its 1959 work with the cooperative produced the first experimental Agiorgitiko bottling and set the pattern for varietal labelling in the zone.
• French oenology schools: Panikos Lantides took his oenology diploma at Montpellier and spent two further years in Bordeaux before building his own cellar at Nemea in 2000.
• The Greek diaspora: Anna Arapoglou Halkia came back from Australia in 1985, married into a grower family at Nemea and turned their fruit into the zone's natural wine label.
• INSTECO: The Institute of Ecological Agriculture gave the producers association the technical backing for the Nemea Lions certification scheme.

Signature innovations

• First experimental bottling of Agiorgitiko, made with the Wine Institute in 1959
• Nemea Lions, a voluntary certification with tighter rules than the PDO itself
• An underground cooperative cellar holding 427 French oak barrels
• Nemeion Estate's five level cellar, lit to the barrel floor by two open atria
• Amphora matured Agiorgitiko bottled by Sellas Winery at Archaies Kleones
• Unfined and unfiltered Agiorgitiko at Halkia, with 30 mg per litre of sulfites at bottling
• A vine nursery at Leontio supplying American resistant rootstock to the zone