1979WINES

In 1979, a Greek Presidential Decree gave retsina its own protected status as an Appellation by Tradition, recognizing a style with roots reaching back millennia. Four decades later, Eleni Kechri named her project after that milestone. A chemical engineer and oenologist, Eleni has spent some twenty years making wine at Kechris, her family's Thessaloniki winery and one of the houses behind retsina's modern revival. With 1979WINES she set out to answer a question few had asked: what does the pine forest itself bring to the glass?

The research began in 2020. Conventional resin tapping relies on a sulphuric acid paste to force the tree's flow, yielding a heavy, uniform resin. Eleni instead collects free-run resin from Aleppo pines tapped without any chemicals, making Kallos the first retsina in Greece produced from sustainable resin, a method she has since patented. Laboratory analysis showed this resin is richer in limonene and finer terpenes, and that each forest carries its own aromatic signature. She calls it the terroir of retsina.

The base wine is Assyrtiko from the family vineyard at Gerakona, in the Goumenissa area of Greek Macedonia, farmed for very low yields and fermented and aged on its lees in French oak. The 2020 Phos uses resin from several forests; the 2022 Ousia Stergiano from a single forest in the Gerania Mountains above Megara. Julia Harding MW's 18.5/20 for the 2022 is the highest score jancisrobinson.com has ever given a retsina.