Greece's Rebel Farmers

Posted by John Clerides on Jun 13, 2019

I read this article on my Aljazeera new feed, it is nothing less than amazing. Kind of funny how organic, natural etc has taken hold, I kind of laugh at this, not that it’s a joke, it's not, but why it's taken so freaking long for us to clue in is mysterious to me.

My mum is from a small island in Greece called Skopelos it’s not as familiar as say Santorini but when I say it was the island Mama Mia was filmed on everyone goes oooh. My father was born on another small island called Cyprus, high up in the mountains in a tiny village called Agros.

They both had to live off of the land and in my mums case the sea too. We grew up eating smelts, bones and all, a Greek dish called la-ha-na essentially they are weeds, dandelions picked in a farm in Ladner, cleaned, boiled and served with olive oil, lemon and a sprinkling of sea salt mmmm. Everything was fresh, my dad used to make me poor boy sandwiches, called subs today, with fresh roast beef, tomatoes, and lettuce. I was the envy of every kid who had to eat wonder bread and cold cuts.

Moving into the wine business, I guess by osmosis, I adopted the same philosophy. When I imported these wines I would explain them to clients and the looks I would get would be as though I was imbibing in too much of my own product.

These conversations were reserved for geeky wine freaks in some cold cellar in Burgundy or small restaurant tucked away somewhere in the Languedoc, well not so much any more. Take a moment to read this article. Opa!