Hello everyone and welcome to the #GreeceFromHome initiative
My name is Ted Lelekas, I am a wine communicator
and this is my home.
You know, for us Greeks
the notion of home has always been extremely important
It's part of our quality that, written into our DNA,
which is the quality of hospitality.
Or as we like to say in greek "filoxenia".
"Filoxenia" even the word comes from
two separate ancient greek words
"filos", which means friend,
and "xenos", which means stranger.
And that says a lot.
It says that for us
even the stranger is someone that
we need to make feel at home, when he's with us.
So, today,
I want to show you
something about greek wine.
We're gonna talk a lot about greek wine
over the next series of videos, but
today I thought I should start with a greek grape variety
called "Agiorgitiko".
"Agiorgitiko" is a red grape variety
and is actually one of our "ambassador grape varieties"
as we call them.
It has very very rich history.
it's well known all across Greece
and it's becoming very very famous abroad as well.
"Agiorgitiko" comes from the area of Nemea
in the Peloponnese.
Now even the name
I know, can be a bit of a mouthful,
"Agiorgitiko"
but you might want to call it "St. George's wine"
because effectively that's what it is.
Nemea, you see,
is a small town that has a patron saint
and that is St. George
So this, is St. George's wine
When we talk about "Agiorgitiko" to international audiences
we call it the crowd pleasure
Why? Because it's, it's exactly what it says.
It's wine that people will always like.
It's very very mellow,
it's round, it's extremely versatile
and very food friendly.
On the nose it's very gentle
it's quite refined
You might want to compare it with
an international grape variety
like Sangiovese from Italy, for instance,
or Merlot from France.
Exactly because they are equally elegant.
Now, on the palate
It's a wine that's so easy going
that you can have on its own
You can have it effectively any time of the day.
Any time you crave a nice glass of red wine,to,
you know, get you going, to get your appetite started.
Or to socialize with friends
Or you can have it with food and,
food wise it's extremely agile as to how we can pair it.
So you can have it with
a bit of cheese in its simplest form.
With everyday fare that we have here in Greece
like vegetarian dishes with allegretto sauce maybe
Or, obviously, with red meat dishes.
And if you are in Nemea
the locals there will probably serve it to you
with a very characteristic, typical, local dish like rooster,
young rooster slowly cooked with pasta.
Kind of like our own version of coq au vin.
Now for us Greeks, as I told you
the notion of sharing is very very important.
Because sharing is what brings people together.
Now, during poor times, during difficult times,
sharing wasn't very easy
because people had not much at their disposal.
So, they had to be very creative
and very imaginative,
but at the same time they needed to make sure
that people felt at home and comfortable at their house.
So, things like cheese
and especially mature cheese,
slowly dehydrated cheese
that would last a bit longer or rusks again,
something like deliberately olden stale bread.
Again, made so that it will last longer.
You see, poverty sometimes and hardship
makes people creative,
but at the same time
makes them even more needy
of other people's company.
And, let's be honest,
as Greeks had a fair share
of times like these.
Now, nowadays we live in
different, difficult times.
Strange times
times that we haven't experienced before.
But, I think we're going to get through it.
I'm positive. I'm optimistic.
I think we need to stay positive.
Initially, we have to stay home,
we have to stay safe,
we have to enjoy our wine
and hope for the future.
This was my first
GreeceFromHome video.
I hope you enjoyed it
and hopefully I'll be back for more.
For the time being,
stay safe! Bye!