You already know the name of this one.
Vre. From the French vrai, true — and the most Greek word there is. A Greek wine, on a Cypriot table, in an Italian room.
- GrapeMalagouzia
- GrowerChatzivaritis
- PlaceGoumenissa, Macedonia · Greece
- Organic since1994
One word, two languages, no wine knowledge required.
Chloe called it Vre after the French vrai — true. She had just come back from making wine in France, and it is a winemaker’s joke about honesty in the bottle.
It is also βρε: the word every Greek and every Cypriot throws into a sentence without thinking. Come on. Hey. Listen. Depending entirely on the eyebrow.
So this is a bottle you can order without knowing anything about wine. You already say its name several times a week.
A family in Goumenissa, and a daughter who came home.
Goumenissa is in Central Macedonia, up in the north of Greece, and it is a small appellation most wine lists never get to. Chatzivaritis is a family estate there.
It began in 1981, when Vangelis Chatzivaritis met Olga Iakovidi. The first vineyard went in at Bintabla in 1994, farmed organically from the start — which in 1994 was an unusual thing to decide.
In 2017 their daughter Chloe came back. She had studied oenology in France and Portugal and made wine in France, New Zealand, Argentina and Chile, and she brought back a taste for doing less: native yeasts, minimal handling, and a push from organic towards biodynamic.
Malagouzia is a Greek white grape. This one is dry, floral and unusually gentle for something with that much perfume.
The bottle for a table that cannot agree.
Vre smells like more than it tastes — peach, citrus blossom, something like basil — and then arrives dry and quiet. That gap is why it works with almost everything.
A table of four ordering four different pizzas is the normal case here, not the exception. Most wines pick a side. This one does not have to.
If somebody at the table has ordered a Margherita and somebody else has gone for the one with sausage and friarielli, this is the bottle that survives both.
Greek wine, Cypriot island, Neapolitan oven.
Greece is the country next door in every sense that matters here, and yet a Greek natural wine is not something you trip over in Larnaca.
There is a Cypriot Xynisteri on the same shelf and a Sicilian volcano wine two bottles along. Daniele is from Naples. Nobody planned this as a concept — it is just what happens when you only buy bottles you actually want to drink.
Come and say it out loud.
Bring the table that never agrees on anything. This is the bottle that ends that particular argument. We stop at a hundred pizzas a day — the earlier you come, the better your chances.
The things people actually ask.
Q.What is Malagouzia?
Malagouzia is a Greek white grape variety that makes dry, aromatic white wine with peach, citrus blossom and herbal notes, usually with soft acidity. It is grown across northern and central Greece.
Q.What does the name Vre mean?
Vre is a play on two languages. It comes from the French word vrai, meaning true, chosen by winemaker Chloe Chatzivariti after she studied and worked in France. It is also βρε, a common Greek and Cypriot interjection used for emphasis in everyday speech.
Q.Who makes Vre Malagouzia?
Vre is made by Chatzivaritis Estate, a family winery in the Goumenissa appellation of Central Macedonia in northern Greece. The family planted its first vineyard at Bintabla in 1994 and has farmed organically since, with Chloe Chatzivariti leading low-intervention winemaking there since 2017.
Q.Where can I drink Greek natural wine in Cyprus?
Filomena Pizzeria Napoletana, at 1 Aristotelous in Larnaca, Cyprus, pours a short list of natural and organic wines from small growers, including organic Greek Malagouzia from Chatzivaritis Estate, alongside Neapolitan pizza. It is open Tuesday to Sunday, 6pm to 10pm.