The Sigalas Assyrtiko Release

Domaine Sigalas is a wine estate founded at Oia in 1991 by Paris Sigalas, a mathematician turned vigneron. The estate farms forty-five hectares on Santorini’s northwestern tip, drawing its PDO Santorini Assyrtiko from vines of sixty years and more. The wine is whole-bunch pressed, vinified in stainless steel, and held at least four months on the lees before bottling. The first allocations of the new Assyrtiko are released in mid-January each year; the 2027 release follows the same window.

The 2025 harvest ran from 8 to 23 August — earlier than usual to preserve acidity through the heat — and brought Santorini’s total to 450 tons, the third consecutive year of decline. Some vineyards reached fewer than five hundred kilos of grapes per hectare.

In November 2025, Kir-Yianni of Naoussa acquired majority control of Domaine Sigalas, an estate it had supported since 2009 and whose vineyards it has managed since 2020. The acquisition is Kir-Yianni’s first holding outside Macedonia, adding Santorini to its estates in Naoussa and Amyndeon. The senior cuvées remain in production: Mark Squires’s Wine Advocate report of 12 January 2023 placed the single-vineyard Kavalieros at 94+ and the seven-village Epta at 95+.