Harvesting Maratheftiko in Kannaviou

Ezousa Winery | 6 October 2025 | Harvest

A vine that needs a neighbour

Maratheftiko does not pollinate itself. Its flowers are functionally female, so the pollen has to come from somewhere else, which means planting it among a variety that flowers at the same moment — Xynisteri, or Spourtiko. Get that wrong and you are rewarded with a magnificent canopy and almost no fruit.

That single fact explains most of what is unusual about the grape, including how little of it exists. Maratheftiko covers something like one per cent of the vineyard area of Cyprus.

Bunches that ripen at different speeds

Even when the pollination works, the set is uneven: berries of several sizes on the same stem, some fully coloured and ripe, others small and behind. Growers call it millerandage. It means the block does not arrive at a single ripeness on a single day, and it makes yields swing from one year to the next in a way that is very hard to plan around.

Why we pick by hand

Because the decision is not when is this block ready, it is which of these bunches is ready. A machine takes what it is given. A person can leave a stem for another week. Picking runs from the last days of September into October, in passes rather than in one sweep, and it takes as long as it takes.

Vamvakada

The grape has other names. The most common is Vamvakada, from the cotton-like down on the underside of its leaves. It was first written down in 1893, by Mouillefert, as Marathophiko. For most of the century that followed it was a blending grape, valued for the colour and structure it lent to lighter reds, and it was not until the 1980s that anyone in Cyprus was seriously bottling it on its own.

What it gives back

Deep colour, violets on the nose, dark cherry, firm tannins and an acidity that stays fresh in a hot country. In our own bottling it comes through as black cherry, mint and thyme.

It is a great deal of trouble for a small crop. We have not yet found the argument for stopping.

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