Artemis Karamolegos took Assyrtiko from Santorini to 700 metres in Amyndeo

On 24 February 2025, the Santorini winemaker Artemis Karamolegos announced Arktos Elevation Vineyards, a winery on ground he had never worked. It stands at 700 metres above sea level at Amyndeo, in the Florina region of western Macedonia. That is the length of Greece away from his own winery, which has stood since 2003 on the volcanic terraces of Exo Gonia, a village on Santorini. It is just as far from the canava, a traditional island wine cellar, that his grandfather built in 1952. He has taken Assyrtiko, Santorini’s white grape, north with him and planted it beside Xinomavro, the red grape of the north. With the announcement came a renewed and wider distribution agreement with Trinity Wines, which now sells the wines of both estates.

The ground

Florina is among the coldest parts of Greece. Winter temperatures fall to minus 15°C, and summers stay mild and cool. For Assyrtiko, a grape that ripens slowly, that climate is the reason to be here. Four lakes lie near the vines and temper the air around them: Vegoritida, Petron, Cheimaditida and Zazari. They shape the plateau’s microclimate, the local pattern of temperature and moisture. The soils are layers of sand and sandy clay over limestone, and they drain freely. The estate has invested in vineyards at Xino Nero and Agios Panteleimonas, and it continues to do so.

Almost everything here differs from the island. On Santorini, volcanic soil and sea air give Assyrtiko its mineral, salty character. At this altitude, in a continental climate, the same grape shows more fruit and a fuller body. Karamolegos came north to find out what else the grape can do.

The winemaker

The family’s winemaking began in 1952, when Karamolegos’s grandfather built his canava to make wine for the household. The winery in its present form was founded at Exo Gonia in 2003. Since then it has worked on Assyrtiko in several styles, among them a skin-contact white, made by leaving the juice on the grape skins. It is a narrow and deep specialisation.

The altitude drew him to Amyndeo, and with it a question: could Assyrtiko show its character in so cool and unusual a climate? Xinomavro answered a second interest. It is a grape of intensity and character, and in the estate’s view its potential is far from exhausted. The winery takes its name from arktos, the Greek word for bear, the animal of the northern mountains. The estate takes the bear as a sign of wisdom, strength and resilience.

The first wines

The first harvest came in 2024. Three wines came from it at first: a rosé made entirely from Xinomavro, a Sauvignon Blanc, and Pnoé, a white blend of 80 per cent Assyrtiko with Xinomavro and Sauvignon Blanc. The Assyrtiko from that first vintage, grown on vines between 650 and 700 metres, ran to 4,000 bottles.

Four more wines have joined them since. They are that Assyrtiko, a Xinomavro red, a Fumé Blanc, and Cuvée Malou, made from Malagousia with a little Malvasia. The estate now works Assyrtiko, Xinomavro, Sauvignon Blanc, Malagousia, Malvasia. Trinity Wines sells the wines in Greece, starting in Athens and moving outward. England and the United States are the planned export markets. The wines will be scarce for some years.

What it changes

Amyndeo is an appellation, a wine region with protected rules, and Xinomavro is its defining grape. Xinomavro is structured and slow, and it does not forgive a heavy hand in the winery. Karamolegos made his name on Santorini and has now arrived here with Assyrtiko. His move makes a case that the island’s grape can do well beyond the island, and that the high, cold plateau of western Macedonia can make a serious white wine as well as a serious red.

He has said as much himself. He wants to make his mark on Amyndeo’s Xinomavro and to show a northern version of the Assyrtiko he knows so well from the south. The first vintage will give early signs of both aims, though it cannot settle either.

Who is this for

Arktos suits a wine lover who knows Assyrtiko from Santorini and wants to taste the same grape grown on cold, high ground in the north. It also suits a collector who likes to follow a new estate from its earliest bottles. The vineyards lie on a broad farmed plateau of green and gold plots, with reed-fringed lakes and low bare mountains around them. The vines run in long rows over reddish-brown earth, with wooded hills behind.