Mouchtaro: Discovering the Rock ‘n’ Roll Grape of the Greek Vineyard

By Yiannis Karakasis MW

''The Mouchtaro grape variety historically inhabited the wider area of Thebes, but due to its low yields, producers avoided growing it,'' says Stelios Zacharias from Muses Estate. Another reason for the decline in popularity was the prevalent preference for white wines. However, Muses Estate helped restore the grape's reputation by bottling the first Mouchtaro wine in 1998, which was originally called Biblinos (fun fact #1)and later renamed Mouchtaro in 2008. Today, Muses Estate cultivates 6 hectares of the variety) out of a total of 13.4 and produces two labels at an average of 10,000 bottles per year, the classic Mouchtaro and the expensive Unicorn. Stelios points out how pivotal the variety is for the Estate by saying that demand for these wines is so great that within months of releasing a new vintage, the winery receives double or triple the requests it can satisfy.