Estate Argyros was founded in 1903 in Episkopi Gonia, on the southeastern slope of Santorini, though the family had been growing vines and selling wine on the island for generations before that. Each generation added land: Matthew Argyros tripled the vineyard after 1950, and his son Yiannis, who took over in 1974, expanded it again while proving that dry assyrtiko could age and that Vinsanto belonged among the great sweet wines of the world. Today Yiannis's son Matthew, the fourth generation, runs the estate from a gravity-fed winery completed in 2015 and farms more than 120 hectares, the largest private vineyard holding on the island. The vines are ungrafted, since phylloxera has never survived in Santorini's clay-free volcanic ash, and they are trained low in the traditional kouloura basket that shields the fruit from the Aegean wind. Average vine age exceeds 70 years, and the oldest parcels pass 200.
Cuvée Palatia is the newest wine in the estate's single-vineyard series and the 2023 is its first vintage. The full name is "The Palaces of Monsignori," after the district where the Monsignori vineyard sits, and the wine is a mosaic of seven historic parcels the family has farmed for decades: Louros, Kavalieros, Ftelos, Vassalia, Agios Ioannis, Kastana, and Kamarades. The vines are between 120 and 180 years old. Matthew Argyros studied these parcels separately for more than ten years before deciding they belonged together. Fermentation is in stainless steel, followed by nine months on the fine lees in tank with bâtonnage. The 2023 growing season was shaped by persistent Meltemi winds, the dry northerlies that sweep the Aegean each summer, which kept acidity high through a warm year.
Lemon custard and allspice open the nose, with chamomile, honeysuckle, and lime pith behind them and a thread of thyme and caper leaf running through. The palate is fuller and rounder than the vineyard's altitude might suggest, with a long saline finish. The Wine Advocate gave the 2023 95 points, calling it a standout of the tasting. Drink from 2024 through 2031.
