The Vedema at Santo Wines
The Vedema at Santo Wines is an annual harvest celebration held at the Union of Santorini Cooperatives' winery in Pyrgos in early August — the island's harvest feast, with traditional dances, a theatrical performance of old Santorini life, live music, and food and wine offered to all.
The Vedema at Santo Wines is the Union of Santorini Cooperatives’ annual harvest celebration, held each summer at the Santo Wines winery in Pyrgos on the eve of the island’s vintage. The 2026 edition is expected in early August; the winery announces the exact evening closer to the season. Vedema is the Santorini word for the grape harvest.
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 evening is held at the Union’s Wine Tourism Centre at the village of Pyrgos, on terraces that look over the caldera; the Union bottles its PDO Santorini wines from the same site.
The 2025 edition fell on Sunday 3 August. Its programme followed the evening’s established form: 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.