Mavrodafni
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Mavrodafni (also spelled Mavrodaphne, Greek: Μαυροδάφνη, Maurodaphnē) is both a black wine grape indigenous to the Achaia region in Northern Peloponnese, Greece, and the sweet, fortified wine produced from it.
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[edit] History
The principal producer of Mavrodafni wine is Achaia-Clauss, a winery founded by the Bavarian Gustav Clauss. Clauss came to Patras in 1854 as a black currant merchant. Enamoured by the beauty of the surrounding mountain landscape, he bought a small plot and embarked on viticulture as a hobby. Soon he focused on a local variety, Mavrodafni, which he started vinifying using the solera method. Pleased with the results, he formed his wine company in 1861. At the same time, Clauss expanded the vineyard and built the winery, which is still used today.
The origin of the grape's name is unclear: it translates as "Black Laurel", but legend has it that Clauss named it after his wife Daphne, as the color of the wine resembled the color of her "dark" eyes.
[edit] Winemaking process
Mavrodafni is initially vinified in large vats exposed to the sun. Once the wine reaches a certain level of maturity, fermentation is stopped by adding distillate prepared from previous vintages. Then the Mavrodafni distillate and the wine, still containing residual sugar, is transferred to the underground cellars to complete its maturation. There it is "educated" by contact with older wine using the solera method of serial transfusions. Once aged, the wine is bottled and sold as a dessert wine under the "Mavrodafni OPAP" designation.
[edit] Wine characteristics
Mavrodafni is a dark, almost opaque wine with a dark purple reflected color and a purple-brown transmitted color. It presents aromas and flavors of caramel, chocolate, coffee, raisins and plums, and is one of very few wines that can accompany chocolate-based desserts.
[edit] Reserve bottlings
Batches of superior quality are bottled, less than once a decade on average, and sold as Mavrodafni Reserve. A certain quantity of these top "vintages" (a misnomer as solera wines do not have vintages as such) is retained by the winery and transferred to two room-sized, elaborately-carved 1882 casks named the "George I" and the "Count von Bismark" (after two illustrious visitors to the winery that year). Wine from these casks is only bottled a few times a century, as Mavrodafni Grande Reserve. The majority of these few hundred Grande Reserve bottlings are bought by the Greek government, to be used on state occasions. The remaining few bottles are released to commercial sale at premium price.
[edit] Winery
The castle-like Achaia-Clauss winery is a popular tourist attraction, hosting about 200,000 visitors a year. Its guestbook includes, among others, celebrities such as Franz Liszt, Eugene O'Neill, Field Marshal Montgomery, Neil Armstrong, Margaret Thatcher, and Valéry Giscard d'Estaing.
[edit] Use in Holy Communion
Mavrodafni is the preferred wine used in the Greek Orthodox Church in Holy Communion.
[edit] Trivia
- Mavrodaphne is the alcoholic beverage, mostly enjoyed by thousands of revelers and visitors in the Carnival of Patras, the most exciting celebration of its kind in Greece.
- Achaia Clauss claims that the heavenly taste of Mavrodaphne was the reason why the austere Prussian Field Marshal, von Moltke, laughed for a third time in his life right after he was offered a glass of it, the other two being when he was told that a French fortress was impregnable and when he was notified that his mother-in-law was dead. To honor this alleged incident, but perhaps because of patriotic sympathy, Clauss dedicated one of his barrels, still used today, to the Field Marshal.
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