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Lemon, oregano, olive oil and feta. The Greeks solved this themselves centuries ago.
Assyrtiko for anything lemony or grilled; Agiorgitiko for lamb and tomato. The local wines suit the local food, as they usually do.
Greek cooking runs on lemon, olive oil, oregano and salt, with feta or yoghurt somewhere nearby. Two of those — lemon and salty cheese — set a high acidity bar, and Greek white wine happens to have the highest acidity of almost anywhere in the Mediterranean. That is not a coincidence.
Lemon is in the marinade, in the dressing, squeezed over the grill and stirred into the avgolemono. Acidity in food raises the level a wine must reach: below it, the wine tastes flabby and hollow. Above it, the pairing sings.
Feta compounds this. It is brined and sharply acidic itself, and salty enough to soften whatever you open — which is helpful, because it means a very high-acid wine will not taste austere beside it.
Assyrtiko. Grown on the volcanic soil of Santorini, and remarkable for keeping ferocious acidity in extreme heat, which most grapes lose as they ripen. Bone dry, citrus-driven and faintly saline — it handles lemon, grilled fish, feta and olive oil without effort. The single best answer on this page.
Agiorgitiko from Nemea for moussaka, lamb and anything tomato-led. Soft tannin, ripe red fruit and gentle spice.
Xinomavro if you want something more serious. The name means "acid-black" — very high acidity, firm tannin and a savoury, tomato-leaf character often compared to Nebbiolo.
A meze table is the dim sum problem in Greek: many small dishes at once, nothing dominant, everything different. Assyrtiko covers most of it, and a dry rosé covers the rest. Do not try to pair with any single plate.
Retsina — white wine flavoured with pine resin — is worth trying once with grilled sardines or a strongly herbed dish, where its pine note stops being odd and starts making sense. Modern examples are far better than the reputation. It is not an everyday wine, but it is not the joke it was.
Avoid oak throughout. Lemon plus oak turns bitter, and the cuisine has almost nothing rich enough to need it.
Moussaka. Lamb, aubergine, tomato and béchamel: Agiorgitiko from Nemea, soft enough for the white sauce. More on the moussaka page.
Souvlaki and gyros. Grilled pork or chicken with tzatziki and pitta. A dry rosé, or a light Agiorgitiko served cool. See gyros.
Kleftiko and slow-roast lamb. Long-cooked, garlicky and rich enough for Xinomavro from Naoussa, whose firm tannin and acidity cut the fat. See also wine with lamb.
Grilled octopus, sardines and whole fish. Assyrtiko, and ideally one from Santorini. See octopus.
Spanakopita, dolmades and dips. Moschofilero from Mantinia in the Peloponnese is pink-skinned, floral and crisp, and made for spinach, dill, vine leaves and tzatziki.
Horiatiki and avgolemono. Tomato and feta, or lemon and egg. Assyrtiko again; nothing else on the list handles lemon quite as well.
Greek labels increasingly lead with the grape, which makes shopping easier: Assyrtiko from Santorini, Agiorgitiko from Nemea, Xinomavro from Naoussa and Moschofilero from Mantinia cover almost every dish on this page. Malagousia, an aromatic white that was close to extinction before growers revived it, is worth trying with herby meze.
If there is no Greek wine to hand: Albariño stands in for Assyrtiko, a soft Grenache for Agiorgitiko, and Nebbiolo for Xinomavro, which is often compared to it.
Assyrtiko for anything lemony, grilled or with feta; Agiorgitiko for lamb, moussaka and tomato dishes.
It keeps ferocious acidity even in Santorini’s heat, where most grapes lose theirs. Greek cooking runs on lemon and brined cheese, both of which demand a wine sharper than the plate.
Assyrtiko or a dry rosé. With many small dishes at once, pick a wine that is good with all of them rather than perfect with one.
Modern retsina is far better than its reputation, and with grilled sardines or a heavily herbed dish the pine note makes sense. Worth trying once; not an everyday bottle.
Agiorgitiko from Nemea is the classic Greek answer: ripe red fruit and soft tannin that sit well with lamb, tomato and the béchamel topping. Outside Greece, a soft Grenache or a Côtes du Rhône does a similar job.
Albariño instead of Assyrtiko for lemony and grilled dishes, a soft Grenache instead of Agiorgitiko for lamb and moussaka, and Nebbiolo instead of Xinomavro for slow-roast meat. Any dry rosé works across a meze table.
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