The Gavalas Winery is a traditional family winery located in Megalochori, Santorini, with a tradition in winemaking for more than 300 hundred years. George Gavalas, who is the winemaker, is the 4^th generation that continues this long history.

Up until the 1920 the production was mainly distributed throughout the island of Santorini as well as being exported to the city of Alexandria, Egypt. In 1930 the winery started to ship wine to Athens and Piraeus. For the first time in 1998 the Gavalas family bottled their own production at the winery in Megalochori. The beginning was with two labels: Santorini and Vinsanto, which are two of the most recognizable wines of the island, and at this time the winery produces 10 different labels using a lot of the native varietals of Santorini’s vineyard.

In 2004 the winery formed so to be accessible for wine tours and tastings. Nowadays it is available almost all year round ( April – December ), so people can visit it and have an extended tour at the winery, seeing and learning about the history of winemaking in Santorini through the years, as the tour is being held both at the old part of the winery ( old cellars and patitiria ) and the modern as well.  People that visit the winery in late August have the chance to take part in the traditional foot-stomping of the grapes for the wine Vinsanto.

Winery Philosophy

With the legacy and experience of 300 years, Gavalas family produces high quality wines with unique characteristics in international market, always with respect to indigenous varieties. There has been an effort from the winery for winemaking from rare, unknown varieties such as Katsano, Gaidouria and Voudomato. Santorini’s vineyard has more than 30 grape varieties that are under extinction as they are not used. We want to show another potential of the wines of Santorini.

Vineyard

Santorini has approximately 40 different indigenous varieties which grow at the 14.000 acres of the island’s vineyard. The most known are Assyrtiko, Athiri, Aidani, Mavrotragano and Mantilaria. Santorini’s climate is characterized by a reduced rate of rainfall, strong winds and hot summer. Characteristic is also the big difference in temperature between day and night which increases the level of acidity.

The vineyards of the winery as well as the vineyards of the people that we cooperate with, are located at the south part of the island, mainly at Akrotiri and Megalochori.