On 17 January 2025 the shares of Semeli Winery passed from Lyktos Holding to Hellenic Wineries, and the ground beneath them to Premia Properties, for a total consideration of €10.6 million including part of the assumed liabilities. The estate — the winery at Koutsi, 232,000 square metres of vineyard in Nemea and Arcadia, and a guest house of nine suites — leaves the Sallas family for the group that already holds Boutari.
What was agreed
The transaction separates the property from the trade. Premia Properties took buildings of 6,850 square metres in all: a winery in Nemea, in Corinthia, of 5,512 square metres including its storage, and 1,338 square metres of suites alongside a multi-purpose room. With them went land plots of 278,000 square metres, of which 232,000 are under vine in Nemea and Arcadia — 23.2 hectares. Every one of those assets is leased back to the existing Semeli company on a long-term lease.
The shares themselves went elsewhere. Semeli passed to Hellenic Wineries, the parent of Boutari Wineries and IOLI Spring, carrying the winemaking and commercial activity with them: the brands, the production equipment, the inventory, the receivables and the liabilities. Premia’s own announcement notes what a property company rarely bothers to note — that the Nemea winery is known for its architectural design and construction, and holds development potential in wine tourism.
‘SEMELI has completed its journey as a family-owned business,’ said Michalis Sallas, chief executive of Lyktos Holding. ‘We pass on the stewardship of a company with a rich history and strong industry presence to Elias Georgiadis.’ Georgiadis, chairman of Premia and chief executive of Sterner Stenhus Holding, called the estate a distinguished asset in Greek winemaking and wine tourism, and thanked Sallas for entrusting its legacy to the new owners.
The winery at Koutsi
Semeli was founded in 1979. The building that carries its name was raised much later: in 2003, a 4,000-square-metre winery set among company-owned vines at Koutsi, in Corinthia, on a vineyard-covered hillslope with a long reputation for vintage grapes. The whole of it works downhill. From pressing to barrelling and on to bottling, the estate relies on the force of gravity rather than on mechanical methods that might damage the fruit, and the grapes are brought down to 7 to 8 degrees before crushing, so that oxidation is held off and fermentation begins under the conditions the winemaker chose rather than the ones the day supplied.
The vineyards sit at 600 metres on the slopes of Koutsi, which the estate counts as one of Nemea’s most celebrated crus. Crop levels there are low and the fruit and its natural acids stand in balance. Beyond its own hillsides, Semeli draws on growers working under long-term agreements at Asprokampos, Kastraki and Ancient Nemea, advised on their cultivation and paid a price that rewards quality.
The rest of the estate is quieter and easily missed in a property schedule. The winery at Nemea is carbon neutral. 20 per cent of the company’s revenue comes from exports, chiefly to the United States and the United Kingdom. And the nine suites stand in the middle of the vineyards, given over to occasions rather than to nightly stays — taken as a group, and not by the room.
The valley it stands in
Nemea is an upland valley midway between Corinth and Argos, ringed by mountains and planted in vines among cypress and olive. Its name reaches back a long way: it was in a cave in these mountains that Hercules performed his first feat, and the region later became known for its sanctuary of Zeus, for the biennial games held in his honour, and for a Phliasian wine famous throughout ancient Greece.
What it is known for now is Agiorgitiko — Nemea’s red grape, named for the village of Agios Georgios, carrying a Protected Designation of Origin and a tradition 2,500 years old. Nemea is spoken of as the country’s most important appellation, and Semeli has been one of the names holding that line.
What it changes
Hellenic Wineries was founded in 2022 and has been assembling Greek wine ever since: Boutari Wineries, Scalarea Estate in Crete, Navarino Vineyards in Messinia, the Cambas brand under its management, and IOLI natural mineral water. Semeli Estate now sits among them, which puts one of Nemea’s benchmark cellars inside a group that already owns a great deal of the country’s wine history.
The structure is the part worth reading twice. Ownership of the ground moved to a property company; the wine did not move at all. The vines, the cellar and the gravity that runs through it stay with the company that has worked them, on a long lease, under a group whose business is wine rather than land. For a valley where the temptation has long been to value the hillside above the harvest, that is the more durable arrangement of the two.
For the client who keeps a cellar, the practical consequence is narrow and worth knowing: the Agiorgitiko of Koutsi is now made inside a group that also holds Boutari, Scalarea and Navarino, and neither the hillside nor the gravity running through the cellar has moved an inch. The house makes the introduction, for those who ask.
