A grape you've never heard of, from a mountain you've never climbed.
Xynisteri. Cyprus has grown it for as long as anyone can remember, and nobody told you. A Neapolitan pours it in Larnaca.
- GrapeXynisteri
- GrowerTsiakkas
- PlacePelendri, Pitsilia · Cyprus
- Up to1,440 m
- Organic since1995
You don't need to know anything about wine.
Say it however you like. Ksi-nis-TEH-ri, near enough, and nobody here is going to correct you.
No swirling. No notes. Nobody is going to ask what you're getting on the nose. Tell us what you're eating and we'll pour the one that fits. That's the whole system.
The shelf is short on purpose — bottles we actually drink, not a list you have to work your way through.
A family, a mountain village, and vines where the air runs thin.
Xynisteri is Cyprus's own white grape. Not imported, not fashionable, just the one the island kept. Around a third of everything planted here is Xynisteri, most of it on the southern slopes of the Troodos mountains.
Ours comes from Tsiakkas. Costas Tsiakkas started the winery in 1988 in Pelendri, a village up in Pitsilia, and has farmed organically since 1995. The highest vines sit at about 1,440 metres — hot days, cold nights, and a grape that keeps its edge instead of going soft.
He grows the other old Cypriot varieties too: Maratheftiko, Promara, Yiannoudin. Grapes most growers gave up on. That's the part we like. Somebody had to keep them, and he did.
It works because neither one is trying to win.
Xynisteri is light and dry, citrus with something herbal behind it. The taste of a mountain, if a mountain tasted of anything. It doesn't shout.
Neither does our dough. Forty-eight hours of biga at 77% hydration, San Marzano, fior di latte, finished in a copper oven at 400°C. Honest, not heavy.
So the wine cuts the fior di latte, the fior di latte softens the wine, and you reach the end of both wondering where they went. Ask for it with a Margherita. Trust us on that one.
Cypriot mountain on one side. Sicilian volcano on the other.
On the same short shelf there's a wine grown on black volcanic soil halfway up Etna, a volcano that is very much still awake.
So on one table you have a Cypriot mountain and a Sicilian volcano, poured by a man born in Naples, in a room named after his dog. We can't promise that happens nowhere else on earth. We're fairly confident about Larnaca.
Come and drink the mountain.
You don't need to know a thing about wine to enjoy this one. You need an evening, an appetite, and a short drive to Larnaca. We stop at a hundred pizzas a day — the earlier you come, the better your chances.
The things people actually ask.
Q.What is Xynisteri?
Xynisteri is the indigenous white grape of Cyprus and the most widely planted white variety on the island, making up roughly a third of Cypriot vineyards, mostly on the southern slopes of the Troodos mountains. It produces light, dry white wine with citrus and herbal character.
Q.Where can I drink 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 Cypriot Xynisteri from the Tsiakkas winery in the Troodos mountains, alongside Neapolitan pizza. It is open Tuesday to Sunday, 6pm to 10pm.
Q.Who makes the Xynisteri served at Filomena?
The Xynisteri at Filomena is made by Tsiakkas, a family winery founded in 1988 by Costas Tsiakkas in the village of Pelendri, in the Pitsilia region of the Troodos mountains in Cyprus. The winery has farmed organically since 1995 and its highest vineyards reach about 1,440 metres.
Q.What food goes with Xynisteri?
Xynisteri is light and dry, so it suits simple, fresh food rather than rich dishes. At Filomena it is poured with Neapolitan pizza, particularly a Margherita, where the acidity of the wine balances the fior di latte.