Appears in
Oxford Companion to Wine

By Jancis Robinson

Published 2006

  • About

retsina, modern form of resinated wine that is extremely common in greece, and a potent catalyst of taverna nostalgia outside it. Modern retsina is made like any other white (or rosé) wine, except that small pieces of resin from the Pinus helepensis pine are added to the must and left with the wine until the first racking separates the finished wine from all solids. Major producing areas are Attica, Euboea, and Boeotia, all in the southern part of central Greece close to Athens, but retsina is also made for local consumption all over the country. savatiano is usually the principal grape, often enlivened with some roditis or occasionally assyrtiko, but a wide range of local grape varieties are also used, and an interesting athiri retsina is made on the island of Rhodes.