Wine Tours in Athens, Greece: A Private Tasting at Nikolou Winery in Koropi
Wine tours in Athens, Greece offer something that most visitors to the city don’t expect — a living, producing winery less than 40 minutes from the centre of Athens, with a family history stretching back to 1875 and a wine tradition rooted in one of the oldest wine-growing regions in the world. The Mesogeia plain of Attica, where Athens’ vineyards have been cultivated since antiquity, is home to Nikolou Winery in Koropi, and a private wine tour here is one of the most distinctive half-day experiences available from Athens.
The Mesogeia — Athens’ Own Wine Region
Most visitors to Athens don’t realise that the city sits at the edge of one of Greece’s most historic wine-producing regions. The Mesogeia plain — the fertile land southeast of Athens stretching toward the airport — has supplied the city with wine since ancient times. The indigenous Savatiano grape, which has been grown here for centuries, is the backbone of the region’s wine identity and the grape from which traditional Retsina is made.
Retsina — white wine sealed with pine resin, a practice dating back to antiquity when resin was used to preserve wine in amphorae — is one of the most misunderstood wines in Greece. In its traditional form, made from quality Savatiano grapes with carefully controlled resin addition, it is a genuinely interesting and complex wine. Most tourists encounter cheap, industrial Retsina at taverna tables. The Nikolou Winery makes something completely different.
Nikolou Winery — 150 Years of Family Winemaking
Nikolou Winery was founded in 1875 when Vassilios Anastasios Nikolou was granted the Savatiano vineyards of Koropi under a contract bearing the handwritten signature of Charilaos Trikoupis, Prime Minister of Greece. The original stone-built Mesogeian house and winery still stand — stone walls, large arched doorways, the kind of traditional architecture that appears in scenes from classic Greek cinema that visitors occasionally recognise during tastings.
The winery survived the phylloxera epidemic that devastated European vineyards in the late 19th century, replanting with resistant rootstocks and continuing uninterrupted for five generations. Today it is run by Vassilis Nikolou — a food technologist, chemist, and oenologist who studied at the University of Athens and completed postgraduate studies in oenology — and is one of the few remaining traditional wineries in southeastern Attica.
In 2018, Nikolou Winery was named one of the best wineries in Europe at the CEUCO Gastronomy and Wine Congress in Athens. The same year, they produced the Botanic Sparkling — the first and only sparkling Retsina made using the méthode traditionnelle in Attica, combining the Greek Retsina tradition with the Champagne method. The Gold Award at the TEXSOM wine awards followed. It is a wine that has no equivalent anywhere in the world.
Wine Tours in Athens, Greece — What to Expect
The private Athens wine tour departs from your hotel in central Athens and reaches Nikolou Winery in approximately 40 minutes, travelling through the Mesogeia plain with the vineyards of the Attica wine region visible on either side of the road.
At the winery, the tour begins with a visit to the production facilities — the stone-walled cellar, the fermentation tanks, the aging areas — with a guided explanation of the winemaking process from harvest to bottle. The sparkling wine production line, where the méthode traditionnelle process takes place, is a particular highlight for anyone interested in how sparkling wine is actually made.
The tasting covers four distinct indigenous Greek grape varieties, each with its own character and regional identity:
Savatiano — the indigenous white grape of Attica, the most widely planted variety in Greece. At Nikolou, it is produced as a single-varietal wine of genuine quality — clean, mineral, with a freshness that challenges the Savatiano’s undeserved reputation as a blending grape.
Retsina — made from Savatiano with pine resin addition using the traditional Mesogeian method. Understanding the difference between industrial Retsina and a properly made traditional Retsina is one of the most educational moments of the tasting.
Agiorgitiko — the noble red grape of Nemea in the Peloponnese, sometimes called the “blood of Hercules.” Deep, velvety, with dark fruit and a characteristic softness that makes it one of the most approachable great Greek reds.
Moschofilero — the aromatic pink-skinned grape of Mantinia in the Peloponnese. Pale in colour, intensely fragrant, with rose petal and citrus notes that make it one of the most distinctive white wines in Greece.
Each wine is paired with homemade food prepared by the family — traditional pies, local cheese, olives, bread, and seasonal accompaniments that reflect the genuine hospitality of a family that has been welcoming guests to its table for generations.
The full tour and tasting lasts approximately 5 hours, including the return journey to Athens.
Why This Wine Tour is Different
Most wine experiences marketed to tourists in Athens involve urban wine bars or generic tasting menus with no connection to where the wine is actually made. This tour goes to a working winery with 150 years of documented history, where the person explaining the wine is the same person who made it, and where the food on the table was prepared the same morning.
The Mesogeia wine region is 15 minutes from Athens International Airport, which makes the winery a natural stop on the way to or from a flight for those with time to spare. It is also 15km from Vouliagmeni and 42km from Cape Sounion, making it a natural addition to a Cape Sounion day trip or a Lake Vouliagmeni visit for those wanting to extend their time on the Athenian Riviera.
Book your Athens wine tour and spend half a day in a winery that has been producing wine in the same place since the Kingdom of Greece was established.
