Why it matters
The producer
Andreas Evangelou founded the winery in 2018 on the southern slopes of the Troodos Mountains, inside the Commandaria PDO zone. He trained at the Faculty of Agriculture at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, one of the oldest agriculture schools in the eastern Mediterranean, and returned to Cyprus with a working knowledge of soil science and crop physiology. Most producers in the appellation have relied on traditional field observation passed between generations. Evangelou brought sensors and maps.
The estate is small. It grows both Commandaria varieties, Xynisteri and Mavro, and farms them organically since 2021. The winery sells domestically and through Systembolaget in Sweden.
Place and vineyards
Where the wines begin
Commandaria is among the oldest named appellations in the world. It covers fourteen villages on the lower southern slopes of the Troodos Mountains, broadly between 500 and 1,500 metres altitude, where the summers are long, the air is dry, and the soils shift from red clay to limestone as elevation rises. The PDO designation is for a single style: sweet wine made from Xynisteri and Mavro grapes harvested ripe and then left in the sun to dry, concentrating their sugars before pressing and fermentation.
The appellation name appears on labels and in wine history books long before most European classifications existed. The Crusaders traded it; the Venetians taxed it. Today it sits in a category of its own, neither a dessert wine added with sugar nor a fortified wine strengthened with spirit, but a naturally concentrated sweet wine from two indigenous grapes grown on one specific ridge of one specific island.
In the cellar
Vineyards and cellar
The vineyards are farmed organically. No synthetic herbicides, fungicides, or fertilisers have been used since 2021. On the Troodos slopes, where rainfall is seasonal and the growing season is reliably dry and warm, organic viticulture is demanding in the early transition years but achieves lower intervention fruit once the soil biology stabilises.
The drone-based NDVI system divides the vineyard into management zones. Where the index shows lower canopy vigour, Evangelou adjusts irrigation or nutrition. Where it shows irregular stress, the maps help locate the cause before it becomes a yield loss. Experimental zones within the vineyard serve as testing areas where new methods are trialled before being applied across the full estate.
Wines to know
The range in view
Evangelou makes Commandaria PDO wine from estate-grown Xynisteri and Mavro. Xynisteri is a white grape with moderate natural acidity and stone fruit character; Mavro is the local red grape, giving body, colour depth, and dried fruit weight when the berries are concentrated through sun-drying. The two varieties are blended after drying and fermentation in proportions that vary by vintage conditions.
The wine is amber-brown, sweet, and built for ageing. The sugar concentration reached through sun-drying is higher than table wine by a large margin, and the fermentation is arrested or allowed to run slowly to a natural stop before the wine reaches dryness. The resulting wine carries dried fruit, honey, and oxidative character from oak contact, with a body thick enough to coat the glass but enough residual acidity from the altitude to keep the finish from collapsing.