A santorini winter wine tasting weekend is the version of this island almost nobody books: three days between November and March, with the estates open, the caldera empty, the light enormous and rooms at a third of the August rate. Most of the serious wineries stay open year-round, some by appointment; what closes is the beach infrastructure, most of Oia and a good share of the caldera hotels.
How to spend a winter tasting weekend in Santorini!
Santorini has officially “worn her winter clothes“. There are few tourists, but the island is never evacuated. Many hotels, restaurants, wineries and other Santorini businesses are still operating and serve visitors. Santorini Tours are also available to travel you to all the beauties Santorini has to offer apart from swimming at the most famous beaches. Winter is the best season to enjoy the special food tastes Santorini has to offer!
3 reasons why one should visit Santorini in winter
- It is really quiet. In the summer, Santorini becomes a crowded holiday spot filled up with tourists and everything a popular destination includes. However, there are people who also appreciate the calmness of winter. You can spend hours walking around undisturbed through the stoned roads or just watching the endless blue sea.
- It’s cheaper. From flights to accommodation… everything is much cheaper than full season.
- Due to the weather conditions photos are much more beautiful. Stormy skies, cloudy skies and a pinch of the sun can give you a photo for your memory book that stands out!
The weather generally in Santorini and all the other Greek islands is mild with a lot of sunshine. But it can also be rainy and windy.
Book a Santorini Private Tour and make the most of your winter experience!
A 5-hour tour that will allow you to discover the most prominent locations of the island. With a professional guide at your aid, travel in luxurious fully equipped private mini-buses through breathtaking landscape and explore scenic villages as well as ancient ruins, admire the local architecture and be impressed by the spectacular views and sunset.
Aided by our knowledgeable guide, embark on this unique journey through some of the most magical and alluring highlights of the island. Soak up the scenic villages and footpaths, traditional houses, blue-roofed churches, majestic landscapes and seascapes before sitting down to enjoy delicious traditional favourites of the island. You can take a tour of Santorini!
Our customized tours enable you to shape your experience of the island according to your individual preferences and desires. Our knowledgeable guide will be your assistant in determining the ideal Santorini island tour for you and there is no shortage of wonders to select from: idyllic villages, places of historical interest, majestic views, local cuisine and wine and many more.
Plus, during the winter, every first Sunday of the month offers free entrance to all the museums and archaeologic sites across Greece which can lead to some significant savings.
The tangerine sunset of Santorini is without a doubt the most celebrated one – a true inspiration and uplifting sight for so many… This tour captures the magic of the evening sky and makes sure your breath will be taken away by visiting locations with the most spectacular views. After a stop at a famous winery overlooking the caldera, we will visit the iconic Blue Dome Church in Firostefani, and finish our Santorini private tour with watching the sunset at the scenic village of Oia.
See more about Santorini Private Tours in winter:
- 5 reasons to go to Santorini in October
- Santorini Summer 2019
- Top 10 Restaurants in Santorini
- Santorini: A Great Gastronomic World
- Book a Santorini Private Tour to take the Most Memorable Photos in Instagram!
- Five magical shades of Santorini Tours
- The top Santorini Tours
- Santorini, the island that never rests
Santorini Winter Wine Tasting Weekend: The Short Answer
A santorini winter wine tasting weekend is the version of this island almost nobody books: three days between November and March, with the wineries open, the caldera empty, the light enormous, and rooms at a third of what they cost in August.
Most of the serious estates stay open year-round — Santo Wines, Venetsanos, Estate Argyros, Domaine Sigalas and Gavalas among them — some on reduced hours and some by appointment. What closes is the beach infrastructure, most of Oia’s shops and a good share of the caldera hotels.
You will not swim, and you may get a day of rain and a day of wind. In exchange you get an assyrtiko tasting on a terrace with nobody else on it, a table in any restaurant that is open, and a village you can actually walk through.
Why a Santorini Winter Wine Tasting Weekend Beats August
On a santorini winter wine tasting weekend nobody else is in the room. A tasting in August is twenty people at a counter. In February it is you, the host and as long as you want.
On a santorini winter wine tasting weekend the people pouring are the people who made it. In summer the estates run on seasonal staff. Out of season you frequently get the owner or the winemaker.
The vines are legible. Pruned back to the bare kouloura baskets, the shape of Santorini viticulture is visible in a way the summer canopy hides.
The wines are showing properly. A tasting room at eighteen degrees does things for an assyrtiko that a terrace at thirty-four does not.
Prices. Rooms at a third of the summer rate, no minimum-stay rules, and tasting fees unchanged.
The caldera in winter light. Low sun, cloud, and a cliff that looks bigger and stranger than it does in July.
Availability. A santorini winter wine tasting weekend can be booked ten days ahead. Nothing else about this island can.
What Is Open on a Santorini Winter Wine Tasting Weekend
Open all year for a santorini winter wine tasting weekend. Santo Wines at Pyrgos, Venetsanos above the port, Estate Argyros at Episkopi, Domaine Sigalas at Baxedes, Gavalas at Megalochori, and the Wine Museum at Vothonas.
By appointment. Several of the smaller estates take winter visits with a phone call rather than an online booking. Call two or three days ahead.
Fira, the base for a santorini winter wine tasting weekend. Open, functioning and inhabited: supermarkets, bakeries, banks, a dozen restaurants and the museums.
Oia. Largely shut. A handful of restaurants and hotels, empty streets and no crowd at the castle.
The beaches. Perissa and Kamari are closed for business — no sunbeds, most tavernas shuttered, and a black beach in the rain that is worth seeing once.
Akrotiri and Ancient Thera. Open with winter hours, and Akrotiri is a better visit in February than in July.
The boats. The volcano trips mostly stop. Ferries and flights run all year, with weather cancellations.
The Santorini Winter Wine Tasting Weekend, Hour by Hour
Friday, 16:00. Land, drop the bags inland at Megalochori or Pyrgos, and walk the village while the light goes. Nothing is booked.
Friday, 20:00. Dinner somewhere open and local, with a bottle of assyrtiko and a plate of fava.
Saturday, 10:30. The first estate. Take the structured tasting rather than the quick one; there is no queue behind you.
Saturday, 13:00. Lunch inland, slowly, out of the weather.
Saturday, 15:30. The second estate, ideally one with a caldera terrace, and stay for the light.
Saturday, 18:00. The rim at Imerovigli or Fira with a coat on, and the caldera to yourself.
Sunday, 10:00. Akrotiri, roofed and warm, then the Wine Museum at Vothonas or a third estate before the flight.
That is a santorini winter wine tasting weekend done properly: two estates a day, no rushing, and everything within twenty minutes of everything else.
What You Taste on a Santorini Winter Wine Tasting Weekend
Assyrtiko, the point of a santorini winter wine tasting weekend. The island’s white: bone dry, high acid, saline, and grown on ungrafted vines in volcanic ash with no irrigation. It is the reason anybody comes.
Nykteri. Assyrtiko harvested riper and fermented in barrel, traditionally overnight — the name means “working through the night”. Fuller, rounder and more serious.
Athiri and Aidani. The other two local whites, softer and more aromatic, usually blended with assyrtiko.
Vinsanto, the santorini winter wine tasting weekend souvenir. Sun-dried grapes, years in barrel, sweet without being cloying, and the bottle most visitors carry home.
Mavrotragano. The island’s red, nearly extinct thirty years ago and revived by a handful of growers. Dark, structured and worth asking for by name.
Mandilaria. The other red, tannic and rustic, usually blended.
What winter adds. On a santorini winter wine tasting weekend the estates will open older vintages and library bottles that never come out in August, because they have the time and you are the only person asking.
Santorini Winter Wine Tasting Weekend Weather, Honestly
December to February on Santorini runs at ten to fifteen degrees in the day and six to ten at night, which is mild by northern European standards and colder than most visitors expect from a Greek island. Rain arrives in systems rather than showers: several wet days in a row and then a week of clear, still, extraordinarily bright weather. Total annual rainfall is around 350 millimetres and almost all of it falls between November and March.
The wind is the real variable on a santorini winter wine tasting weekend. Winter storms in the Aegean are serious, and they close ferries for a day or two at a time and occasionally divert flights. If your weekend is built around a Sunday afternoon flight, that is usually fine; if it is built around a ferry connection, build in a spare day.
Heating is the other santorini winter wine tasting weekend problem nobody mentions. Many caldera properties are built for summer and heated by a single air-conditioning unit, and a cave room cut into rock holds cold as efficiently as it holds cool. Ask specifically about heating when booking a santorini winter wine tasting weekend, and prefer the inland villages, where the houses are built for a winter that the rim properties treat as an afterthought.
What you get in exchange is the light. Low winter sun across the caldera, cloud shadows moving over Thirasia, and a cliff face that shows its layers better in January than in any other month of the year. Photographers who come here repeatedly come in winter.
Santorini Winter Wine Tasting Weekend Month by Month
November. The season has just ended and the island exhales. Temperatures of sixteen to twenty degrees, the first rain systems, and a large share of the summer businesses closing in the first fortnight. The vineyards have been harvested and the leaves are turning. Of the winter months this is the mildest and the one with the most still open, and a santorini winter wine tasting weekend in the second half of November is the gentlest introduction to the off-season.
December. Cool and increasingly wet, with sunset at around twenty past five and a genuinely Greek Christmas in the villages: bakeries selling melomakarona and kourabiedes, church services, and decorations in Fira that are for the residents rather than for anybody’s photographs. The estates are quiet and welcoming. Flights thin out to Athens connections.
January. The coldest month for a santorini winter wine tasting weekend, ten to fourteen degrees by day, and the clearest air of the year between the storm systems. This is when the caldera cliff shows its layers best, when the island is greenest, and when you will have entire villages to yourself. It is also the month with the highest chance of a ferry cancellation and the lowest room rates.
February. Similar to January with the first hint of the turn: almond blossom in the inland fields, longer afternoons, and the pruning under way in the vineyards. Apokries — the Greek carnival — falls in February or early March and is celebrated properly in the villages.
March. The santorini winter wine tasting weekend season ends as the island wakes up. Temperatures climbing to sixteen or eighteen, wild flowers across the terraces, more businesses reopening every week, and the first cruise ships appearing at the end of the month. For a santorini winter wine tasting weekend that wants some warmth with the emptiness, the second half of March is the sweet spot.
The one to avoid. Early to mid-January, when a number of estates and restaurants close entirely for two or three weeks after the Greek holidays. Check before booking rather than after.
The Vineyard Year a Santorini Winter Wine Tasting Weekend Walks Into
Coming out of season means arriving in the middle of the working year rather than the display year, and it is worth knowing what stage the vines are at because the estates will talk about it if you ask.
November. The leaves fall. The kouloura baskets — the woven circular vines unique to this island — are visible as bare structures for the first time since spring, and this is the clearest month for actually understanding how they are built.
December and January. Dormancy. In the cellar this is when the previous harvest is settling, when the barrels are topped up, and when the winemaker actually has time to talk to visitors, which is precisely why a santorini winter wine tasting weekend gets a different quality of attention from an August one.
February. Pruning, and the best santorini winter wine tasting weekend to watch it. Each basket is cut back and rewoven by hand, a skilled job done by people who have been doing it since childhood, and if your visit coincides with it you can watch a two-hundred-year-old vine being maintained the way it has been for generations.
March. Bud break, weather permitting. Small green shoots appear on what looked like dead wood a fortnight earlier.
What is in the bottle. The previous September’s assyrtiko is released from around February onwards, so a late-winter visit often catches the new vintage at the estate before it reaches any shop.
Vinsanto. Ageing in barrel through all of this, for anything from four to twenty years, which is why the estates always have some to pour whatever the month.
Why any of it matters. Because tasting a wine in the place it was made, from the person who made it, standing next to the bare vine it came off, is a different experience from drinking it on a terrace in July, and it is available for four months of the year to almost nobody.
The Villages on a Santorini Winter Wine Tasting Weekend
The thing that changes most between August and January is not the weather; it is who the villages are for. In summer Fira, Oia and Imerovigli are a service industry with a residential population hidden behind it. In winter that inverts, and what is left is a working island of about fifteen thousand people going about a normal year.
Fira. Fully alive all winter. The supermarkets, the bakeries, the banks, the schools and a dozen restaurants that serve locals rather than visitors. The museums are open on winter hours. The cable car runs a reduced service and the main square has people in it who live here.
Pyrgos. The best village on a santorini winter wine tasting weekend. The castle at the top is open ground, the lanes are steep and empty, several tavernas stay open all year, and on a clear January day you can see both coasts from the summit with nobody else on it.
Megalochori. Quiet, handsome and inhabited, with a shaded square, a bakery, and the kind of restaurant that has the same six tables occupied by the same people every Sunday.
Emporio. The medieval kasteli is a residential warren rather than a curiosity in winter, with washing on the lines and cats on the steps and doors that are open because people live behind them.
Oia on a santorini winter wine tasting weekend. Largely shuttered and worth one visit for exactly that reason. Walking the main street in February with four other people on it, in the place that holds four hundred at sunset in August, reorganises your sense of the island permanently.
Kamari and Perissa. Closed. A boarded promenade, a black beach in the rain and a couple of tavernas serving the year-round residents.
What this adds to a santorini winter wine tasting weekend. The wine is the reason to come and the villages are what you remember, because you have seen the island rather than the performance of it.
Eating on a Santorini Winter Wine Tasting Weekend
Fewer places are open and the ones that are, are better, which is a trade almost everybody takes once they have made it. The restaurants that close in November are the ones with a view and a summer clientele; the ones that stay open are the ones the island itself eats in.
What changes on the plate during a santorini winter wine tasting weekend is seasonality. Summer menus here are built around tomatoes, aubergine, capers and grilled fish. Winter menus are built around what the island actually has in the cold months: pulses, wild greens, slow-cooked meat, and preserved things. Fava — the yellow split-pea purée made from Santorini’s own legume — is a winter dish that has been colonised by summer menus, and it is at its best served hot in February with raw onion and a spoonful of new oil.
Look for horta, the wild greens gathered from the terraces after the first rains and boiled with lemon and oil; for chickpea stews baked overnight in a wood oven, which is a Cycladic Sunday tradition rather than a restaurant invention; for slow-cooked goat and rabbit; and for the island’s fresh chloro cheese, which is made year-round. Fish depends entirely on the weather — a week of storms means no boats and no fish, and any honest kitchen will tell you so rather than serving you something frozen.
The practical points for a santorini winter wine tasting weekend are straightforward. Book, or at least call — a village taverna with eight tables in January will not necessarily be expecting anybody. Eat earlier than you would in August, because kitchens close earlier when the island is quiet. And ask what is on rather than reading the menu, because the printed one is the summer menu and the real one is whatever came in that morning.
Prices are the same as summer at the local places, which is to say about half of what the caldera terraces charge in season. Twenty-five to forty-five euros a head with wine is a proper dinner.
Getting to a Santorini Winter Wine Tasting Weekend
Flights. Every santorini winter wine tasting weekend routes through Athens, because the direct European charters stop at the end of October. What runs all winter is Athens to Santorini, several times a day, forty-five minutes, at 50 to 120 euros return. Fly into Athens, connect, and you are on the island the same afternoon.
Ferries. The conventional ferries from Piraeus run year-round, eight to nine hours, cheap and steady. The fast catamarans reduce drastically or stop. Winter storms cancel sailings, so a ferry-based santorini winter wine tasting weekend needs a spare day at the end.
The airport. Open all year with a much shorter queue than in summer, and a five-minute walk from the door to the car park rather than a crowd.
Buses. A skeleton winter timetable connecting Fira with the main villages, and effectively nothing on Sundays. Do not plan around it.
Taxis. The same thirty vehicles as in summer, serving a fraction of the demand, so they are actually available — but not at seven in the morning in a storm.
Car hire. 25 to 40 euros a day, no queue, no parking problem, and roads that are wet, unlit and edged with drops. Winter driving here needs more care than the summer version, not less.
A driver. The sensible answer for a santorini winter wine tasting weekend, because two estates a day and a bottle at dinner does not combine with a mountain road at ten at night.
What to Pack for a Santorini Winter Wine Tasting Weekend
A proper jacket. Windproof and waterproof. This is not a fleece island in January; the wind off the caldera at fifteen degrees feels like eight.
Layers. The temperature swing between a sunny terrace at two o’clock and the rim at six is larger than the numbers suggest.
Shoes with grip. Village lanes are polished stone and they are slippery wet. This is the single most common winter injury here.
An umbrella that survives wind. Or, more realistically, a hood, because a normal umbrella lasts about ninety seconds on the rim.
Something warm for the room. Heating in older properties is inconsistent, and a cave room holds cold as well as it holds cool.
Sunglasses. Low winter sun off whitewash is genuinely blinding, and nobody packs them for a February trip.
Space in the bag. A santorini winter wine tasting weekend that does not come home with four bottles in it has not been done properly.
Taking the Wine Home From a Santorini Winter Wine Tasting Weekend
Buy at the estate. Prices are the same or better than the shops, the range is wider, and library vintages are only available at the door.
What travels. Vinsanto is essentially indestructible and will still be improving in ten years. Assyrtiko travels perfectly well and is best drunk within two to four years, longer for a good Nykteri.
Hold luggage only. Wine is a liquid. Six bottles is roughly eight kilos, which matters on the low-cost baggage allowances most people fly Athens on.
Packing. Wine skins or bubble wrap and clothes around them. Most estates sell padded shipping boxes and several will pack a case properly for you.
Shipping. Several of the larger estates ship within the EU, which for more than six bottles is cheaper than paying excess baggage twice.
Duty. Within the EU there is no practical limit for personal use. Outside it, your own allowances apply and they are lower than you think.
What to buy. One Vinsanto, two assyrtiko from different estates so you can taste the difference at home, and a Mavrotragano if you found one — which is the whole argument for a santorini winter wine tasting weekend in one sentence, because in August they will have sold out of it.
The Greek Calendar Around a Santorini Winter Wine Tasting Weekend
Coming out of season means arriving inside a calendar that has nothing to do with tourism, and it is the part of a santorini winter wine tasting weekend that visitors consistently describe as the reason they came back.
Christmas and New Year. Greek Christmas is quieter than the northern European version and the emphasis falls on New Year and on Epiphany rather than on the 25th. Children sing kalanda — carols — door to door on Christmas Eve, New Year’s Eve and Epiphany Eve, and are given coins for it. Bakeries fill with melomakarona, honey-soaked and spiced, and kourabiedes buried in icing sugar. On New Year’s Day families cut the vasilopita, a cake with a coin baked into it, and whoever finds the coin has a good year.
Epiphany, the best santorini winter wine tasting weekend date. The Blessing of the Waters. A priest throws a cross into the sea at the old port or at Ammoudi and young men dive for it in ten-degree water. It is the most photographed local event of the winter and there are no photographers there.
Apokries. The three weeks of carnival before Lent, falling in February or early March depending on when Orthodox Easter is. Costumes, village parties and a general suspension of seriousness, ending with Clean Monday — Kathara Deftera — when the island eats lent food outdoors and flies kites, and the whole thing looks exactly like a nineteenth-century painting.
Lent. Forty days of nistisima food — no meat, no dairy, and on many days no oil — which sounds austere and produces some of the best cooking of the Greek year: pulses, greens, seafood, and a lot of very good bread.
Easter. The largest event in the Greek calendar by a distance, usually in April and sometimes late enough to be outside the winter window. Fireworks at midnight on Holy Saturday, the whole island in church, and a lamb on every spit on the Sunday.
What this means for the weekend. Check the date of Orthodox Easter before you book, because it moves by up to five weeks, and if your santorini winter wine tasting weekend can be arranged to overlap with Apokries or Epiphany, it should be.
Photographing the Island on a Santorini Winter Wine Tasting Weekend
Every serious photograph of Santorini that is not a sunset was taken in winter, and there are specific reasons why.
The first reason to photograph a santorini winter wine tasting weekend is light. Summer here delivers a high, hard overhead sun and a haze that sits over the caldera from June to September, flattening the cliff and washing the colour out of everything between ten and five. Winter delivers a low sun that rakes across the layers of the cliff face, cloud that gives the sky something to do, and air scrubbed clean by rain. On a clear January afternoon you can see the mountains of Crete from Profitis Ilias, which is a hundred and ten kilometres away and invisible for most of the year.
The second is emptiness. The Oia castle at sunset in August holds several hundred people and every frame contains other cameras. In January it holds nobody. The blue-domed churches that appear on every postcard are photographed in summer from a queue on a narrow path; in winter you can stand there for twenty minutes and take your time.
The third is weather. Storms in the Aegean produce cloud structure and light that the summer sky simply does not have — squalls crossing the caldera, sun breaking through onto Thirasia, and a sea that goes slate grey and then turquoise within an hour. Photographers who come back repeatedly come for that and not for the postcard.
The practical notes. Sunset is early, around 17:20 in December and 18:20 by mid-March, which means golden hour happens while you are still awake and functioning rather than at the end of a long day. Bring a lens cloth and expect spray on the rim. Nothing is closed that you would photograph from the outside. And a santorini winter wine tasting weekend gives you an entirely legitimate reason to be standing on a clifftop in a gale at half past five in the afternoon in February, which is when the best pictures of this island are made.
Who a Santorini Winter Wine Tasting Weekend Suits
A santorini winter wine tasting weekend suits people who came here before in summer. The second visit is where a santorini winter wine tasting weekend lands hardest, because you already know what the island looks like full and the contrast does the work.
It suits anybody who actually cares about wine. The attention you get from an estate in January is not available in August at any price.
It suits photographers. For all the reasons above.
It suits couples looking for quiet. There is no quieter beautiful place in Europe in February than a caldera village with nobody in it.
It suits a short break. Three nights is exactly right, and Athens is forty-five minutes away if you want to bolt a city weekend onto it.
It does not suit a first visit with limited time. If you have never been and have one shot at it, come in May or September and see the island working.
It does not suit families with small children. No beach, no boats, shorter days and a lot of driving between the things that are open.
Combining a Santorini Winter Wine Tasting Weekend With Athens
The Athens connection is the obvious santorini winter wine tasting weekend extension and the one that makes the arithmetic work. Flights run several times a day all winter, the hop is forty-five minutes, and Athens in January is an excellent city: the Acropolis Museum with nobody in it, the National Archaeological Museum, and a food scene that is at its best when the tourists have gone. Two nights in Athens and three on Santorini is a genuinely good week and it costs less in February than three nights on Santorini alone does in August.
The archaeological argument for that pairing is strong. The frescoes excavated at Akrotiri — the Fleet Procession, the Fisherman, the Boxing Boys, the Spring Fresco — are mostly in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens rather than on the island, with an excellent selection at the Museum of Prehistoric Thera in Fira. Seeing the town in the morning on Santorini and the paintings from its walls two days later in Athens is the correct order and almost nobody does it.
Island hopping in winter is a different proposition and mostly not advisable. The fast ferries reduce or stop, the conventional ones run but are subject to cancellation in storms, and the smaller islands close far more comprehensively than Santorini does. Naxos and Paros both keep a year-round population and some winter life; Ios, Milos and the smaller Cyclades largely shut. If you want two islands in winter, allow spare days and accept that the sea decides.
Crete is the exception worth considering. Heraklion and Chania are cities rather than resorts, they function all year, and the ferry from Santorini takes two hours when it runs. A santorini winter wine tasting weekend followed by three days in Crete gives you two wine cultures, two archaeological sites of the first rank, and a plausible reason to be in Greece in February that nobody at home will understand until you show them the photographs.
Why Almost Nobody Books a Santorini Winter Wine Tasting Weekend
Santorini receives something in the order of two million visitors a year and the overwhelming majority of them arrive between June and September. The winter share is tiny, and the reasons are worth stating because most of them are assumptions rather than facts.
The first assumption about a santorini winter wine tasting weekend is that everything is shut. Substantially true of Oia and the beach resorts, substantially false of Fira, the inland villages and the estates. The island has a permanent population of around fifteen thousand people who need bakeries, supermarkets, restaurants and schools in January, and all of that continues.
The second is that the weather is bad. It is mild and changeable rather than bad — ten to fifteen degrees, sunshine between systems, and rain that arrives in clusters. Anybody from northern Europe will find a Santorini January warmer than the place they left.
The third is that there is nothing to do. There is no swimming and no boat to the volcano, and there is the entire archaeological and wine half of the island, which is the half that survives contact with a second visit. A santorini winter wine tasting weekend exists precisely because those things are indoors, open and better without a crowd.
The fourth is that it is not worth the flight. That one depends entirely on what you came for. If it is a beach, they are right. If it is the caldera, the wine, the villages and the light, then February on this island is one of the best-value short breaks in Europe, and the reason it stays that way is that almost nobody has worked it out.
The Estates on a Santorini Winter Wine Tasting Weekend
Two a day is the right number and the choice matters more in winter than in summer, because opening patterns vary and because with time on your hands the differences between the estates become the interesting part rather than a blur.
Santo Wines, Pyrgos: the standard santorini winter wine tasting weekend stop. The growers’ cooperative, founded in 1947, representing most of the island’s farmers, and by a distance the largest operation here. The terrace above the caldera is the most visited tasting room on Santorini and in winter it is nearly empty. Ask about the difference between their single-vineyard bottlings and the standard range, and ask to taste the Nykteri next to the standard assyrtiko — the cooperative structure means they can show you fruit from a dozen different parts of the island in one flight, which no single estate can.
Venetsanos, the best-sited santorini winter wine tasting weekend terrace. The oldest industrial winery on the island, built into the cliff in 1947 so that gravity moved the wine down through the building and out to ships at the port below. Ask them to explain the building itself: the gravity flow, the loading chute to the harbour, and why a winery was sited on a cliff rather than next to its vineyards. The view from the terrace is the best of any estate and in January you will have it entirely.
Estate Argyros, Episkopi. Four generations, some of the oldest vines on the island, and the estate serious drinkers name first. Ask about vine age and about Vinsanto — their aged bottlings go back decades, and in a quiet season they will open things that never appear on a summer flight.
Domaine Sigalas, Baxedes. Inland at the northern end, no caldera view, and consistently the tasting that people who work in wine rate highest. Ask about single-vineyard assyrtiko and about their work with Mavrotragano, the red that was almost extinct and that a handful of producers here brought back.
Gavalas, Megalochori. Small, family-run, in a village rather than on a viewpoint, and the estate that will most likely have the owner behind the counter in February. Ask about Katsano and Voudomato, the rare local varieties almost nobody else bottles.
Koutsogiannopoulos and the Wine Museum, Vothonas. An underground museum in a natural cave, eight metres down and three hundred metres long, showing the island’s wine history with a walk-through model. Unfashionable, open all year, and the right stop on a wet afternoon.
Two practical notes for a santorini winter wine tasting weekend. Call ahead rather than booking online, because winter hours are often decided week by week and a phone call gets a straight answer. And ask, at every estate, what they are drinking themselves at this time of year — in August nobody has time to answer that question, and in January it is how you end up tasting the thing that is not on the list.
Why a Santorini Winter Wine Tasting Weekend Needs Three Nights
The temptation with a short santorini winter wine tasting weekend is to fly in on Saturday and out on Sunday evening, and it does not work here for a reason that has nothing to do with the wine. Winter weather on this island arrives in systems. A two-night trip that catches a storm has lost its entire outdoor half; a three-night trip almost never does, because the pattern is rarely three consecutive days of rain and wind.
The second reason is the flight. Almost every winter arrival routes through Athens, which means the outbound day is largely consumed by the connection and the return day starts with an airport. Two nights leaves you with one usable day. Three leaves you with two, which is exactly the number a santorini winter wine tasting weekend needs: two estates on each of them, with an archaeological site or a village walk in between.
The third is that the island is cheap enough out of season for the extra night to be trivial. A room that costs 300 euros in August costs 90 in February, and adding a night to the trip costs less than the taxi from the airport at the other end.
And the fourth is the one nobody plans for: the weather turns and you get a January day of the kind this island produces two or three times a winter — utterly clear, no wind, fifteen degrees, Crete visible on the horizon and the caldera looking like something out of a geology textbook. If your trip is two nights long, you have a fifty per cent chance of missing it entirely.
What a Santorini Winter Wine Tasting Weekend Costs
Accommodation on a santorini winter wine tasting weekend. 45 to 110 euros a night for good inland or Fira rooms, against 150 to 400 for the same properties in August.
Caldera-view rooms. Where they stay open, 90 to 200 rather than 350 and upwards.
Tastings. 20 to 45 euros a head, unchanged year-round, and with far more of the winemaker’s time in it.
Dinner. 25 to 45 a head at the places that stay open, which are the local ones rather than the view ones.
Car hire. 25 to 40 a day, against 60 to 90 in season, with no parking problem anywhere.
Flights. Athens to Santorini runs all year at 50 to 120 return, and the direct European routes largely stop.
The whole weekend. Two people, three nights, two estates a day, eating well: 600 to 900 euros excluding flights. A santorini winter wine tasting weekend is the cheapest serious wine trip in Greece.
Beyond the Wine on a Santorini Winter Wine Tasting Weekend
Akrotiri, the indoor half of a santorini winter wine tasting weekend. Roofed, heated by its own thermal mass, and empty. The best time of year to see it.
The Museum of Prehistoric Thera. The frescoes, with nobody in front of them.
The rim path. Fira to Oia in ten degrees with a jacket, green underfoot, and perhaps four other walkers on the whole route.
Pyrgos and Emporio. Medieval villages that are inhabited rather than performed in winter, with shops that serve locals.
Profitis Ilias. The monastery and the highest point on the island, often above the cloud in January.
The caper and the fava fields. Bare, terraced and legible, which they are not under a summer canopy.
Greek Christmas and Easter. Both spectacular here and both entirely local, with no visitors and every church full.
Santorini Winter Wine Tasting Weekend: Frequently Asked Questions
Are the wineries open in winter? The major estates are, some on reduced hours and some by appointment. Call two or three days ahead.
What does a santorini winter wine tasting weekend cost? 600 to 900 euros for two people over three nights, excluding flights.
How cold is it? Ten to fifteen degrees by day, six to ten at night, with rain in systems rather than showers.
Is Oia open? Largely not. A handful of restaurants and hotels, and streets you can walk without a crowd.
Can you still see the sunset? Yes, and earlier — around 17:20 in December — with the caldera to yourself.
Are the beaches worth visiting? Closed for business and worth one walk. The black sand in winter light is a different thing entirely.
Do the volcano boats run? Mostly not between November and March. Ferries and flights do, with weather cancellations.
Which wines should you ask for? Assyrtiko and Nykteri, a Vinsanto to take home, and Mavrotragano if the estate has any.
How many estates a day? Two. Three is a drinking session rather than a tasting.
Do you need a car? The estates are spread across the inland plain and there is almost no bus service in winter, so yes — or a driver.
Is heating a problem? It can be. Ask specifically, and prefer inland properties built for a winter rather than caldera cave rooms.
How far ahead should you book? Ten days is enough, which is the whole point of coming out of season.
We Will Drive the Whole Weekend
We are a local operator running private tours and transfers in our own vehicles, and a santorini winter wine tasting weekend is the one trip where a driver stops being a convenience and becomes the thing that makes it possible: the buses barely run, the estates are spread across the plain, and nobody should be driving between three tastings on a wet island road at eight in the evening.
Tell us your dates and we will call ahead to the estates that are open, book the slots, and drive the two days: Pyrgos and Megalochori on the Saturday, the caldera terrace for the light, Akrotiri on the Sunday, and the airport when it is time.
Prices are per vehicle rather than per person, hotel pickup anywhere on the island is included, we guide in twelve languages, and an 80 EUR deposit confirms a date.
See the private wine tours, the personalised tour, or contact us.
Every Village and Site on the Island
Any of these can be built into a private day. Each has its own page with what to see and how long to allow.
Caldera villages: Fira · Firostefani · Imerovigli · Oia · Finikia · Baxedes
Inland villages: Pyrgos · Megalochori · Emporio · Mesaria · Karterados · Vothonas · Vourvoulos · Exo Gonia · Mesa Gonia · Pigadia
Beaches: Perissa · Perivolos · Kamari · Vlychada · Monolithos · Red Beach · White Beach · Agios Georgios · Agia Paraskevi
Sites and landmarks: Akrotiri · Ancient Thira · Akrotiri Lighthouse · Nea Kameni · Palia Kameni · Thirasia · Athinios Port
All our tours: All Santorini tours · Full day tour · Sightseeing tour · Personalised tour · North part tour · Horse riding · South part tour · Sunset tour · Shore excursion · Caldera tour · Food experience · Wine tour · Historical tour · Small group tour
Planning and services: Famous sights tour · Private transfers · Transfers to Oia and Finikia · Transfers to other villages · Villages of Santorini · History of Santorini · Tours near you · Languages we guide in · Food and fun tours · Gay friendly tours · Our tour buses · Daily tours · Day tours · FAQ · Gallery · Tour photo gallery · About us · Contact · Blog
