Traditional Village Of Megalochori With Wine Tasting -

Megalochori Village
Walking tour in the traditional village of Megalochori, the one of the most picturesque villages on the island. Home to historical mansions, old traditional houses, pirate hideaways and wine canavas, it has a history of merchants and wealthy land barons exporting Vinsanto wine that the island still produces.

Heart Rock
A rock formation that resembles a heart, hidden in the rocks of the caldera of Santorini. A spot perfect for unique romantic photos.

Arvanitis Canava
An authentic and traditional winery located in the area of Megalochori. The wines age in old French or Russian oak barrels and are known for their distinct taste. Traditional delicacies enrich the experience.
In this winery you can taste Nychteri, a wine produced in the old way. When you enter Antonis’ winery, you get a feeling of travelling back in time where there were no stainless steel tanks. Barrels stacked on barrels, ready to fill your glass, with the product name written on them with a chalk.
These barrels are filled with Nychteri, Roze, Brousko, Mezzo and Vinsanto, so you have many tasting options. But do not forget to ask for some Lemo-Santo tasting experience; a great sweet and sour liquor made from 100% original, natural, Santorinian lemons.

Gavalas Winery
A traditional winery located in Megalochori, with a long-standing history in Santorini’s viniculture since the end of the 19th century.
Up until the 1920s the family produced wines from grapes grown in their privately-owned vineyards and vinted in their winery (canava) in Megalochori.This production was mainly distributed to customers throughout the island of Santorini as well as being exported to the city of Alexandria, in Egypt. Later on in the 1930s they started shipping the wine to Athens and Piraeus. The shipping procedure could be well described as a feast. From Canaves, mule – drivers loaded the goat-skins, filled with wine on to their mules, and carried them to the port of Fira, where they were transferred into barrels of 600 kgs (called bombs).Then the barrels were loaded on to small boats (caiques) and were shipped to Piraeus. After the end of the 2nd World War and for the following 30 years, most of the Brusco wine was sold to the Kaloyannis distillery, where it was distilled into brandy and a lesser quantity was supplied to the Koniordos family and a number of taverns. In contrast, the Vinsanto wine was obtained by the churches and monasteries for Sacramental use.In 1973 the Gavalas family established its own wine store in Athens which handled exclusively the sales and distribution, throughout Greece, of the main wines of Santorini: Nyhteri, Brusco, Mezzo, Mandilaria and Vinsanto.At the beginning of the 1980s, when the Boutaris company established its own winery in the island, the Gavalas family became the sole supplier of Vinsanto wine to Boutaris for a period of 6 years. For the first time in 1998 the Gavalas family bottled their own production of Vinsanto at their small, but modern winery (canava) in Megalochori.Following the long-standing tradition and experience of three centuries, the Gavalas family has been carrying out the vinification of the island’s indigenous varieties aiming to introduce wines of superior quality and unique characteristics for the international market place.