Μέσα στο Ιούλιο του 2022, αναρτήθηκε στο site της Jancis Robinson, JancisRobinson.com, η αξιολόγηση για τρία κρασιά του οινοποιείου ΙΩΑΝΝΗ ΧΑΤΖΗ στο Αμύνταιο, τα οποία έχουν γίνει ΜΟΝΟ από ξινόμαυρο της ζώνης Αμυνταίου.
Η αξιολόγηση έγινε από την υπεύθυνη συνεργάτη της, Tamlin Currin και ήταν πάρα πολύ καλή κοντά στο άριστο.
Πιο συγκεκριμένα:
Η Pemptousia, Ροζε από Ξινόμαυρο (ΠΟΠ) , βαθμολογήθηκε με 17.5/20, η υψηλότερη βαθμολογία για ελληνικό ροζέ. Σημειωτέον ότι μέσα στο 2022 μόνο άλλα 4 ροζέ έχουν αξιολογηθεί το ίδιο παγκοσμίως. Με 18-19/20 έχουν βαθμολογηθεί μόνο παλαιωμένες ροζέ γαλλικές σαμπάνιες
Ο Dodekatos (XII ), λευκό από Ξινόμαυρο (blanc de noirs), βαθμολογήθηκε με 18/20, η υψηλότερη βαθμολογία επίσης για λευκό ελληνικό κρασί ανεξαρτήτως ποικιλίας.
Τέλος, ο ερυθρός Αμύνταιο 2000 βαθμολογήθηκε με 18,5/20, που είναι η υψηλότερη βαθμολογία για ερυθρό ελληνικό κρασί, μαζί με το Ξινόμαυρο του Κτήματος Άλφα (2008) και τον T-Oinos του Clos Segasta στην Τήνο. Το εντυπωσιακο είναι ότι ο ερυθρός του 2000, τώρα εισήλθε στην ωριμότητα και θα διαρκέσει για πολλά χρόνια ακόμα, όπως όλα τα μεγάλα κρασιά παγκοσμίως.
Η Jancis Robinson είναι μακράν η σημαντικότερη κριτικός Οίνου στην Ευρώπη.
Για τους ανθρώπους του κρασιού στην Ευρώπη η γνώμη της έχει πολύ μεγάλη βαρύτητα.
Η πρωτιά κρασιών, που έχουν γίνει από Ξινόμαυρο, και στις τρεις βασικές κατηγορίες, αποδεικνύει τις δυνατότητες του , ειδικά στο Αμύνταιο.
WINERY WINE STATUS TASTED DRINK UNTILL
Ioannis Hatzis 5 Ousia Pemptousia Quintessence Rosé 2021 Amyndeo 2022-05-23 2022 – 2024 17.5
Full bottle 1,280 g. 100% Xinomavro. Pre-fermentation maceration. Spontaneous fermentation at 15 °C. Aged in barriques on lees for 12 months. Ioannis Hatzis is a chemical engineer who decided to revive his family’s history as wine exporters and wine producers before the Second World War. In 2000 he started making wine again from an old family vineyard. TA 6 g/l, RS < 2 g/l.
It’s the colour of disco lipstick, and it’s a wine that made me want to throw my head back and laugh, deep to my belly and all the way back, with joy. This, ladies and gentlemen, is what rosé should taste like. This is real wine. It’s grippy, smart (street smart, sartorial smart, preppy-educated smart, been-around-long-enough smart), loud in a way that reminds me of a free-spirited soul belting out tunes while cleaning the house. But the structure has so much strength and integrity, the acidity and texture somehow holding together all that bursting-out fruit and energy and reckless appeal into a superbly balanced wine. This is seriously exciting. It’s complex, interesting, but, as I said, an absolute joy to drink. (Tamlin Currin)
WINERY WINE STATUS TASTED DRINK UNTILL
Ioannis Hatzis X!! Dodecatos Blanc de Noir 2020 PGI Florina 2022-07-04 2022 – 2028 18
Full bottle 1,285 g. 100% Xinomavro. Picked 15 October 2020. Free-run juice, very carefully handled. Spontaneous fermentation at 15 °C. 12 months on lees in barriques. TA 6 g/l, RS <2 g/l. Label designed by Stelios Psegtogas. Ioannis Hatzis is a chemical engineer who decided to revive his family’s history as wine exporters and wine producers before the Second World War. In 2000 he started making wine again from an old family vineyard.
Now that’s an interesting nose… Lemongrass, quince, lemons just on the ripe edge of decay, ash, cordite, pine bark. Quite a deep gold. And, like the Hatzis rosé, absolutely extraordinary… Fiercely complex. I’m sitting here, slightly stunned at the lightning-rod acidity, the electricity of this wine. Stark, shocking prismic purity and precision. But not remotely monastic. There is the thrillingly, wildly intricate complexity of its salty, brash, white-gold, iridescent, orthogonal fruit… There are spices which taste like crushed rocks, and crushed-rock minerality that turns spicy. Yuzu and wild herbs, the whip of sea winds and hot sun baking a cairn of stones. A wine that defies words. The wine slams into you, tumbles you, draws you down and into itself like cold, powerful ocean wave. It’s a commanding, startling beauty, a masterpiece of a wine. (TC)
WINERY WINE STATUS TASTED DRINK UNTILL
Ιoannis Hatzis Xinomavro 2000 Amyndeo 2022-07-04 2015– 2035 18.5
Full bottle 1,500 g. Aged in French oak. Winemaker John Hatzis says that he thinks this is only just coming into its own but will age another 30 years.
Transparent garnet with brown tones. Amazingly, for a 22-year-old wine that, Hatzis tells me, ‘was not aged in proper temperature conditions’, the wine has a remarkably fruit-led bouquet. Strawberries, cinnamon and rosehip jelly. Dust on ancient flagstones. A prayerbook, sepia with aged, wrinkled with time and generations of fingers finding forgiveness and hope. The smell of orange blossom and the taste of stone ruins. Terracotta in the rain; a cello played late into a hot, still night with the scent of a coming storm in the air; an old lady peeling an orange, with her wrinkled skinny fingers, on a stone bench behind the church. Redcurrants; tang; tart; slipping into sweetness. Jasmine tea, bruised shadows, brown ink bleeding forgotten, fading words into a letter left at the bottom of a draw. I find myself holding this glass to my nose with reverence. I thought the white and rosé were stunning. This is on another plane. A 22-year-old Xinomavro that has not been stored properly? It is stunningly alive. It is fragile and fragrant with the past yet so soaringly present and tenacious in the now. What an extraordinary privilege to taste a wine like this… (TC)
