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Pontiglio


Pontiglio (meaning “stubborn” in Latin) was stubbornly built at a time of easy riches from tourism, even subsidized by the government. Babis and Athina took over their families’ 150-year-old ungrafted vineyards, planted with the island’s local varieties Kakotrygis (white) and Skopelitiko (red), and set out to preserve and revive the rich, local viticultural tradition.

The cultivation of the vine in Corfu is lost in the depths of the centuries. Homer mentions the wine and the cultivation of the vine in Corfu, when during the hospitality of Odysseus in the country of the Phaeacians, he was offered plenty of wine. An important reference to viticulture in Corfu is found in Xenophon’s Greek (6.2.6). In 373 BC the Spartan general Mnasippos landed at Corfu and his soldiers plundered “…the rural areas, which were beautifully cultivated and planted, as well as the magnificent mansions and wine cellars built on the farms; so much so that it was said that his soldiers to the point of not accepting to drink anything but aromatic wine.”
Around 200 AD, Athenaios in his Deipnosophistae mentions that Corfu wine is pleasant when it ages. During the handover of Corfu to the Venetians, wine was the most important product of the island (Mustoxidi, Delle Cose).

The vineyards are spread among 12 different plots, in and around the village of Lefkimmi, in southern Corfu.

  • Winery: Pontiglio
  • Focus: Revival of local Corfiot varieties
  • Region: Corfu (Ionian Islands)
  • Year founded: 2014
  • Size: 4.5 hectares
  • Grapes: Kakotrygis, Skopelitiko, Petrokoritho
  • Viticulture: Sustainable
  • Climate: Wet and mild Fall and Winter, hot and dry Summer.
  • Soil: Clay
  • Vine age: On average, planted in 1975
  • Altitude: 5-25m
  • Distance from coast: 5 miles
  • Percentage of estate owned grapes: 80%

Region

Corfu (Kerkyra in Greek), unlike the rest of Greece, never fell under the Ottoman oppression. Due to the successive dominations of the Venetians, the French and the British over the centuries, the island has primarily become part of the Western rather the Levantine world. Their culture wielded strong influence in the city: it was here that the first Greek University (the Ionian Academy), the first Philharmonic Orchestra and the First School of Fine Arts were founded.

In the beautifully preserved Old Town of Corfu, a UNESCO world heritage site, Renaissance, Baroque and Classical “repertoire” came to be successfully applied to local artistic traditions. Palaces, fortresses, austere public buildings of the Venetian rule uniquely blend with lines of drying washing in tiny alleyways and small secluded squares. Strolling through a complex of narrow cobbled streets with stairways and vaulted passages, the so-called “kantounia”, will make you feel as if you’ve travelled to Genoa or Naples.
(Source: https://www.visitgreece.gr/islands/ionian-islands/corfu/)