The name translates, bluntly, as "acid-black", and the grape keeps the promise. Xinomavro is indigenous to Greek Macedonia, at home on the slopes of Mount Vermio around Naoussa, whose appellation — created in 1971 — remains its definitive expression. The wine is pale, the tannin ferocious, the acidity unyielding, and over it all floats an uncanny perfume of sun-dried tomato, olive and rose.
The comparison every taster reaches for is Nebbiolo, and it is earned: the same deceptive pallor, the same austere youth, the same slow unfolding over decades into something ethereal. Old Naoussa has been mistaken for old Barolo by drinkers who should have known better — a peril, and a compliment, the grape has learned to enjoy.