The Vedema at Santo Wines
The 2025 Vedema was held on Sunday 3 August at the Santo Wines winery in Pyrgos, Santorini — a harvest celebration organised by the Union of Santorini Cooperatives, with traditional dances, a theatrical performance of island life, live music by Vangelis Konitopoulos, and food and wine offered through the evening.
The Vedema at Santo Wines is the Union of Santorini Cooperatives’ annual harvest celebration, held at the Santo Wines winery in Pyrgos on the eve of the island’s vintage. The 2025 edition took place on Sunday 3 August, from half past eight in the evening. The programme followed the form the island keeps for its harvest feast: a re-enactment of the vintage, a theatrical performance drawn from everyday life in old Santorini, traditional dances from the island’s cultural associations, and live music by Vangelis Konitopoulos and his orchestra, with food and wine offered through the evening and the doors open to all.
The Union of Santorini Cooperatives was formed in 1911 as the Santorini Vine and Wine Protection Fund, re-constituted as a cooperative union in 1947, and is today the island’s largest grower organisation, counting 1,200 active member-cultivators. The event is held at the Union’s Wine Tourism Centre at the village of Pyrgos, on terraces above the caldera.
The celebration had returned on 3 September 2023 after a pause kept since 2019; the 2025 edition restored it to early August. Vedema is the Santorini word for the grape harvest.