The House of Clauss has been making wine for almost 165 years, with a focus on dessert wine, sweet Mavrodaphne. I toured the barrel cellar and saw the oldest Greek wine in the world, a barrel of 1873 Mavro. This Version of Mavrodaphne is a fully dry wine of the same variety, black fruited and bold. It weighs in at 16% alcohol. This is partially due to the use of the appasimiento method of raisination – to dry, hydrate, and concentrate sugars – which results in a full-bodied complex and extracted red wine.
This is an exceptional wine, hand-produced, literally using no electricity. It’s emblematic of the long history of this winery and the importance of traditions dating back to its founding in 1861.
I like pairing Italian-style frittatas with deep, round, full-bodied, luscious red wines, and it worked very well with the 2017 Mavro.
You can read winemaker Sotiris’ Wine Characters interview here, and learn why he chose this wine as the flagship wine for the House of Clauss brand.