Dafni

Dafni is one of the most distinctive white grapes in Greece, and one of the very few whose name is literally its tasting note. Dafni is the Greek word for laurel, or bay, and the wine smells unmistakably of fresh bay leaf, with rosemary, thyme and oregano over a citrus and quince background. It is a savoury, herbal white unlike almost any international variety, and it barely exists today.

Saved by one family

By the late twentieth century Dafni was all but extinct, down to a handful of vines. It survives commercially because the Lyrarakis family replanted it in the early 1990s in their Psarades vineyard in central Crete, alongside the equally rare Plyto. That rescue is the documented history. The far more romantic claim, that Dafni traces back to the Bronze Age and the palace of Knossos on the strength of jars inscribed dafnitos oinos, is best treated as evocative tradition rather than fact: that inscription may refer to the town of Dafnes or to laurel-flavoured wine rather than to this grape. No parentage has been published for it.

In the glass and at the table

Dafni defies Cretan heat by giving low-alcohol wines, rarely above twelve and a half percent, that keep their freshness. It is almost always made dry and as a single variety, occasionally barrel-fermented, with soft acidity but real body and power. It is best drunk young, within about three years, while the herbal aromatics are vivid. The bay-leaf and citrus profile suits intense but light summer dishes, grilled fish and chicken with lemon and thyme. The reference wine for the whole variety is Lyrarakis's Psarades Vineyard Dafni.