Cyprus, eastern Mediterranean island less than 100 km/60 miles from Syria to the east and Turkey to the north. The majority of wine production is concentrated in the southern Greek part of the island. The few wineries that do exist in the northern Turkish-controlled zone are of little commercial significance. The medieval Cyprus wine industry was commercially the most important in the Middle East, but for most of the 20th century, Cyprus wine languished in terms of quality. Investment from the 1990s led to an improvement in production techniques and resulting wines, with eu membership in 2004 stimulating even greater changes and restructuring of the industry. The Greek financial crisis hit this small island particularly hard and in spring 2013 it became the fifth EU country to require a bail-out from European funds. The total vineyard area had dropped to about 9,000 ha/22,200 acres by 2013 but still represented about 8% of the island’s cultivated agricultural land.
