Photo credit: Ed Comstock.

When I told people I was going to Greece this summer, I received my share of odd looks. Didn’t I know that there was a financial crisis going on there? But I was going to Greek islands, well trodden on the tourist route, not even mainland Greece where, perhaps, maybe, I’d be more likely to experience problems.

Still, my interlocutors imagined mass strikes, poverty, violent protests, and worse. They seemed sure that — given their essentially “flawed” society, given that the chickens of European socialism had come home to roost — everybody in Greece must be miserable.

I saw none of that, nor, frankly, any sign at all of the economic downturn.

This is not to say, by any means, that there aren’t real problems that have befell the wonderful people of Greece, nor that many are not suffering from some very real difficulties. Rather, I’m saying that to imagine an economic collapse, or localized violence, as somehow essential to the fabric of such a great society — as indiscriminately and totally crashing across every place and every institution like a tsunami — is akin to imagining that Manhattan or Seattle are dangerous places to visit because there is violence in Flint, Michigan.

So here’s the point: if you have wanted to go to Greece, go. There is no better time. Don’t let anything stop you. Its land is still as eternal, its blue skies are still holy, and its people are still as authentically kind, unpretentious, and generous as when Henry Miller was there.

But when you do go, I suggest you be very careful in selecting your wines. For the most part, they are not good.

In fact, I’ve never experienced more science-project wines in my life.

Admittedly, I was asking for it. I could not resist trying as many of the ridiculously cheap barrel wines — usually contained in recycled plastic water bottles, not barrels — served up everywhere, from restaurants to grocery stores to beach markets targeted at locals and tourists alike.

After all, when you read on the back of a restaurant menu that the house wine has been made by the family that has owned the restaurant for 100 years from the same vineyard, how can you resist? These are grapes grown on mountain top vineyards, constantly caressed by the cool, scentless Mediterranean air, situated between 2000-year-old olive trees with trunks as wide as Corinthian columns, between small apparitional Byzantine churches and the gentle remains of temples to Demeter that are as much a part of the earth as the rocks and fruit orchards.

You want to try that wine.

But you have come to Greece to “walk where they walked,” not to “drink like they drank.” The amphora was so prevalent to ancient Greek society that in some places, like Naxos and Delos, there are seemingly endless ochre-colored terra-cotta fragments littering the beach. Romantic, yes, but if you’ve ever had an UNESCO-protected Georgian kvevri-based wine, you know that amphora wines were oxidized and often funky — even the whites (and yes, whites too can be Brett-infected).

Scholarship shows that the point of the symposia attended by Socrates, Plato, and the rest was precisely to become intoxicated (but not too drunk) — and to therefore publicly confirm oneself as a person of refinement and self-care. Judging from the taste of the Greek wines I had, drinking enough to get drunk must have been difficult indeed — and this might just explain why the Greeks added various drugs to their wine. I, for one, wouldn’t have minded a dosing.

Nor could you resist ordering the wine marketed at a good restaurant as organic and biodynamic. Perhaps, after all, you will be the next Joe Dressner, discovering cool, fascinating wines from among the world’s most interesting terroirs and traditions. But what you find is that the wine tastes bacterial and worse, reeking of festering wounds and medicine cabinet — a wounded Civil War patient.

But lo’ wary tourist! After dozens of disappointing wines, you’ve arrived at Santorini, an island that is not an island but a semi-circle of dramatic caldera walls, the aftermath of the volcanic explosion that sunk — most believe — the fabled city of Atlantis. Depending on the direction of the substantial wind, the lava rocks work to either accumulate or store the water necessary for vines to grow on this island — an elemental and infertile island of rock and sky. You know a wind is serious when it has its own name — in the Cyclades islands, it’s called the Meltemi.

Siglas Winery. (Credit: Ed Comstock.)

The wind howled down from the roof of the caldera as we, my wife and I, sat at Sigalas winery to enjoy a thorough tasting of their many offerings, each constantly in danger of being pushed over by the wind. Sigalas, situated down near the water, and just outside of the postcard-perfect town of Oia, represents the cutting-edge of Greek vision for fine wine. The winery itself is nevertheless rather rustic, with fermentation tanks sitting outside, largely exposed to the elements. Never mind. These are wines of elegance and class, made out of Santorini’s native Assyrtiko as well as the Aidani, Athiri, Mandilaria, and Mavrotragano grapes.

The Assyrtiko shines. Pure and sleek, these wines reminded my wife and I of the finest of the excellent French Muscadets we had enjoyed the previous summer in the Loire, although perhaps with a touch more of the richness of a Chablis. Categorically, we greatly preferred the whites. And of these, we both greatly preferred the un-oaked offerings. A few offerings see various levels of oak, but we found the oak flavors to largely overwhelm the delicate but delightful character of the grape and the terroir.

Unsurprisingly, the price rises with the amount of oak the wine sees. But more is not necessarily better, and we were more than happy to walk away with bottles of the un-oaked Assyrtiko.

Like other great places in the world, the Greek islands have an endless array of local specialties to discover. But unlike most of those places, it also has a peerless, sedimented history that delights at every turn — Santorini alone, an island with the telltale luxury offerings of the world’s most decadent and perhaps unadventurous vacationers, also has the profoundly intact remains of a Bronze Age Minoan town, Akrotiri, allowing you to walk the street of Atlantis’ neighbor. And perhaps most of all, despite what some might tell you, the Greek people are there and happy to help you enjoy these many splendors.