Cyprus' Karseras Winery highlighted in Forbes

Karseras Winery, situated in the Limassol district village of Doros, has been featured in the prestigious US business news outlet Forbes.

The article noted that a new wave of winemakers is reviving Commandaria and that Karseras Winery is one of the first independent family producers of the sweet dessert wine that is a traditional product of Cyprus.

Two grape varieties are used to make the beverage, both of which are indigenous to Cyprus, the red mavro and the white xynisteri.

As Forbes reported, Commandaria is likely the oldest recognised wine denomination still in use, getting its name from an estate conquered during one of the crusades up to 800 years ago.

After decades of being produced by large local producers, Forbes said that now, smaller, family enterprises had begun what the publication described as “new-wave commandaria.”

Forbes journalists spoke to Filippos and Panayiotis Karseras of the Karseras Winery.

Karseras Winery was established as a commandaria-producing winery in 1998, but the family had been growing grapes long before that, Forbes reported.

The winery was founded by Panayiotis Karseras and his wife Lenia. One of their four sons, also named Panayiotis Karseras, and the grandson Filippos Karseras, now run the winery.

Forbes’ reporters asked Filippos how long his family had been making wine, and he responded, “The University has told us that the first Karseras in our area were mentioned in the 11th century.”

The Karseras Winery is in one of the 14 villages on the southern slopes of the Troodos mountain range making Commandaria. They have around 15 hectares of vines. The vineyards are spread across six of the 14 commandaria villages.

There appears to have been a family production from the vineyards they own for many of the years since, but this was not commercially sold until more recently.

Karseras Winerry is entirely focused on producing Commandaria, not making any table wine on a commercial scale.

Today, there are two different types of commandaria: fortified and non-fortified. Both are made from very sweet sun-dried grapes. Traditionally, fortified was the only method used commercially, but now it is also allowed to produce non-fortified commandaria,

Filippos is a firm believer in the non-fortified approach, telling Forbes, “When you put spirit in it, you kill everything.”

Karseras Winery use stainless steel for vinification, then let the wine age in barrels, and finally in bottles.

The “Family Edition” of their commandaria has spent two years in barrel and undergoes a light filtering before bottling. For this wine, they use 90-95% mavro and the rest is xynisteri. It is sold in bottle with an original label with an old man with wispy hair and a long beard, a portrait of the founder of the winery, who was also a priest in the village for 60 years, Father Panayiotis Karseras.

For their more expensive prestige wine, called 'Platinum,' they don’t do any filtering; instead, they let it age for twenty years. The current vintage is 2005, Forbes said in its report.