Named "red". Arrives pink.
Kokkinos is Greek for red — and three of the four grapes in it are. Organic, from the Troodos mountains, with a native Cypriot variety in the blend.
- GrapeGrenache · Shiraz · Vamvakada · Xynisteri
- GrowerTsiakkas
- PlacePelendri, Pitsilia · Cyprus
- Organic since1995
Nobody has to explain why they ordered rosé.
Rosé is the one wine that comes with a small justification attached. It is a holiday drink. It is what you have when you cannot decide. Somebody at the table will call it a compromise.
It is not a compromise, it is a method — red grapes with the skins taken away early, which is a deliberate decision and a difficult one to get right.
And on a thirty-degree evening in Larnaca it is straightforwardly the correct thing to be drinking. Order it without the preamble.
A blend with something in it you cannot get anywhere else.
It comes from Tsiakkas at Pelendri, high in Pitsilia — the same family that makes the Xynisteri and the Moukos on our shelf, organic since 1995.
The blend is Grenache and Shiraz, which you will recognise, plus Xynisteri, the island’s white grape. And then Vamvakada.
Vamvakada is also called Maratheftiko, and it is one of Cyprus’s own red varieties — difficult, low-yielding, and grown by very few people. It is the reason this is not simply a pleasant Mediterranean pink. There is something in the glass that only exists here.
The name is worth a second. Kokkinos is Greek for red, which is an odd label for a pink wine — until you count the grapes: three red, one white.
The bottle for a table of four that ordered four things.
Dry, red-berried, with enough grip to be interesting and enough freshness to disappear quickly on a hot night.
It sits between the white and the red, which sounds like a weakness and is in fact the reason to order it. Margherita at one end of the table, sausage and friarielli at the other, and one bottle that does not let either of them down.
It is also the right thing with anything grilled, if you are eating on the street side in summer.
A Cypriot grape in a pink bottle, in an Italian room.
Most rosé anyone drinks in Cyprus arrives from Provence, and there is nothing wrong with that.
This one is from ninety minutes up the mountain and contains a grape that grows almost nowhere else on earth. It is on a Neapolitan wine list because the man who buys the wine tasted it and did not particularly care which country it came from.
Come and order the pink one, out loud.
No explanation required. Get it cold, get whatever pizza you were going to get anyway, and sit outside. We stop at a hundred pizzas a day — the earlier you come, the better your chances.
The things people actually ask.
Q.What is Vamvakada?
Vamvakada, also known as Maratheftiko, is an indigenous red grape variety of Cyprus. It is difficult to grow and low-yielding, so it is planted by relatively few producers, and it is one of the varieties most associated with serious Cypriot red and rosé wine.
Q.What is in Kokkinos rosé?
Kokkinos is a dry rosé from the Tsiakkas winery in Cyprus, blending Grenache, Shiraz and the indigenous Cypriot red variety Vamvakada with the white grape Xynisteri. The estate has farmed organically since 1995.
Q.Why is a pink wine called Kokkinos?
Kokkinos is the Greek word for red. Three of the four grapes in the blend are red varieties — Grenache, Shiraz and Vamvakada — with only Xynisteri being white; the pink colour comes from limiting how long the juice stays in contact with the red skins.
Q.Where can I drink Cypriot rosé in Larnaca?
Filomena Pizzeria Napoletana, at 1 Aristotelous in Larnaca, Cyprus, pours Kokkinos, an organic Cypriot rosé from the Tsiakkas winery in the Troodos mountains, alongside Neapolitan pizza. It is open Tuesday to Sunday, 6pm to 10pm.