Discover the Unparalleled Quality of The Anama Concept

Everything begins at altitude. The fruit comes from a single vineyard at Zoopigi, roughly 1,150 metres up in the Commandaria region, planted with vines between eighty and a hundred and twenty years old. At that height the growing season is long and the nights are cool, and the old bush vines carry very little fruit, which concentrates what they do carry.

The grapes are then laid out to dry in the sun, the method that gives Cypriot sweet wine its character and its sugar without any fortification. What follows is deliberately modern: controlled vinification, then long ageing in oak, from twenty-six months for the earliest release to five years for later vintages. The result is dense, dark and slow, with a stated ageing potential in bottle of forty years and more.

What makes The Anama Concept special

  • A single old vineyard at Zoopigi, around 1,150 metres above sea level in the Commandaria region.
  • Vines between eighty and a hundred and twenty years old, worked and picked entirely by hand.
  • Indigenous Cypriot varieties only: Mavro for red and Xynisteri for white.
  • Grapes dried in the sun before pressing, so the sweetness is concentration rather than addition.
  • Every bottle hand-numbered, with the label redesigned for each vintage.

The Commandaria hills sit on the southern slopes of the Troodos massif, where parcels are small and the same varieties have been dried and pressed for a very long time. Zoopigi is one of the villages inside that historic zone, and the vineyard the house works there is the reason the wine tastes of somewhere specific rather than of a technique.

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The People Behind The Anama Concept

The People Behind The Anama Concept

Lefteris Mohianakis studied oenology and the technology of spirits in Athens and worked in wineries in Greece, Cyprus and New Zealand before returning to the island. He runs the vineyard and the production side, and he is explicit about keeping machinery out of the process wherever a pair of hands will do the work instead.

Kristina Apostolou took an honours degree in jewellery design at Central Saint Martins in London, worked as head designer for a British company and ran her own contemporary jewellery label before joining the venture. She is creative director, and she redesigns the bottle, the label and the packaging for every release, which is why the range looks like a collection of objects as much as a line of wines.

How The Anama Concept began

The two founded the house together in 2009 as a creative project rather than a conventional winery launch. The idea was to take the oldest thread in Cypriot winemaking and produce it at a very small scale, with contemporary oenology and contemporary design applied in equal measure.

That first vintage, 723 bottles, established the format. Later releases have stayed in the same territory: the 2014, released in November 2016, ran to 1,769 bottles. These are numbers a single vineyard and a hand harvest allow, and the house has not tried to grow past them.

Sun-drying, smoke and the copper pot

Sun-drying, smoke and the copper pot

The spirits carry the same signature. For the OUSIA range, Mavro and Xynisteri are picked late from mountain vineyards and dried in the sun for about a week, then gently smoked using vine branches saved from the winter pruning of the same vines. Nothing is brought in from outside the vineyard to do it.

Distillation is done twice in an old hand-forged copper pot, reconditioned by the house and fired with responsibly sourced pinewood. The oak-matured expression goes back into previously used barrels for sixty months and appears at around two hundred bottles a year.

Why this matters

  • One vineyard, named, rather than fruit assembled from several sources.
  • Hand cultivation and hand harvest throughout, on vines too old and too steep to machine.
  • Sun-drying and smoking done with material from the vineyard itself, including the prunings.
  • Ageing measured in years, not months, before anything is released.
  • Production stated in bottles, with each one numbered by hand.

“The Anama Concept takes the oldest sweet wine tradition in Cyprus, applies modern oenology and original design to it, and releases the result a few hundred bottles at a time.”

At the Table: How The Anama Concept Is Drunk in Cyprus

A wine like this is not poured casually. In Cyprus the sun-dried sweet wines belong to the end of a long meal, to a name day, or to the moment a bottle kept for years is finally opened in front of the people it was kept for.

  • Served at 12°C to 16°C, cool enough to hold the wine’s shape without closing the aromatics
  • Poured in small measures, in a glass with enough bowl to let it open
  • Brought out at the close of a meal rather than alongside it
  • Kept for years, since the bottle ageing potential runs to forty years and beyond
  • Given as a hand-numbered object, which is how a great deal of it travels

The OUSIA spirits sit at the same end of the evening, taken neat and at room temperature, in the way zivania has always been drunk on the island alongside something salty or a piece of fruit.

The Anama Concept: What Sets a Sun-Dried Cypriot Wine Apart

The vintage wine is built from a short list of decisions, each of which is verifiable: where the fruit grows, how old the vines are, what happens to the grapes before pressing, and how long the wine sits in wood.

QualityDescription
TerroirA single vineyard at Zoopigi, around 1,150 metres, on the southern slopes of the Troodos in the historic Commandaria region of Cyprus.
VarietyMavro and Xynisteri, the two indigenous Cypriot cultivars that have carried the island's sweet wine tradition, from vines eighty to a hundred and twenty years old.
VinificationGrapes sun-dried before pressing, then vinified with modern oenological control. The sweetness is concentration in the fruit, with no fortification.
AgeingOak barrel maturation running from twenty-six months on the 2007 to five years on later vintages, followed by a stated bottle ageing potential of forty years and more.
ReleaseSmall numbered runs, 723 bottles for the first vintage and 1,769 for the 2014, each hand-punched and each vintage given its own label design.

Alcohol sits at 13% to 14% by volume depending on the vintage, which is low for a sweet wine of this intensity and is a direct consequence of drying the fruit rather than fortifying the wine.

Pairing The Anama Concept at the End of a Meal

Sweet, oak-aged and concentrated, this is a wine with enough structure to stand next to strong flavours rather than be flattened by them. The pairings below follow Cypriot practice more than they follow convention.

PairingWhy it works
Aged hard cheeseSalt and crystalline texture against dried fruit sweetness. A mature Cypriot or Greek hard cheese is the classic partner for the island's sweet wines.
Blue cheeseThe sharp, saline edge of a blue is met by concentration rather than overwhelmed by it, and the oak gives the wine enough grip to answer back.
Dried figs, walnuts and almondsThe same flavours the wine already carries from the drying and the barrel, echoed on the plate rather than contrasted with it.
Dark chocolateBitterness balances the residual sugar. Keep the chocolate high in cocoa so the pairing stays in tension.
On its own, after dinnerServed at 12°C to 16°C in a small glass, which is how most Cypriot households treat a bottle of this kind.

Store the bottle on its side, away from light and temperature swings. Given the ageing potential stated for these vintages, a bottle bought now is as much a decision about the next decade as about this evening.

Sustainable and Ethical Practices at The Anama Concept

Sustainable and Ethical Practices at The Anama Concept

At The Anama Concept the scale is the policy. A single old vineyard worked entirely by hand, a few hundred to a few thousand bottles a year, and a release schedule set by how long the wine needs in barrel rather than by demand, all impose limits that no separate sustainability programme has to enforce.

Rather than planting new vineyards around the cellar, the house takes on older established parcels elsewhere on the island and matches variety to site, keeping chemical input low and old vines in production. The prunings that would otherwise be waste are used to smoke the grapes destined for distillation, and the copper pot is fired with responsibly sourced pinewood.

Their approach

A winemaker and a designer founded the house in 2009 to work old vines at Zoopigi, and every subsequent decision has followed from that starting point: hands instead of machines through cultivation, harvest and drying; a copper pot reconditioned rather than replaced; older vineyards taken on rather than new ones planted; vine prunings returned to the process as smoke; ageing measured in years; and each bottle numbered by hand, so the total production of a vintage is a matter of record rather than an estimate. The cellar itself, a contemporary building drawing on Cypriot provincial architecture, sits in a pine forest above Lythrodontas, about thirty minutes from Nicosia or Larnaca, and opens only by private reservation for tours led by the owners.

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Award-Winning Cypriot Wine and Spirits

The Anama Concept has been recognised well beyond Cyprus. The vintage wine took a Silver award at the Decanter Asia Wine Awards in September 2016, and in 2023 the house was named a Gold winner in the Luxury Lifestyle Awards Top 100 Premium Wine and Spirits Brands. For a producer releasing a few hundred to a few thousand bottles of its flagship wine at a time, that is unusual company to keep.

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Frequently Asked Questions About The Anama Concept

  • What is The Anama Concept?

    A small Cypriot producer of wines and spirits, founded in 2009 by oenologist Lefteris Mohianakis and jewellery designer Kristina Apostolou. It is best known for a naturally sweet wine made from sun-dried Mavro and Xynisteri grapes, released in hand-numbered vintages.

  • Is the Anama Vintage a Commandaria?

    It draws on the same tradition and the same varieties, and the vineyard sits at Zoopigi inside the historic Commandaria region, but the wine is released under the house’s own name as ‘Anama Vintage rather than under the Commandaria designation.

  • Why is the wine sweet?

    Because the grapes are dried in the sun before pressing. Drying removes water and concentrates the sugar in the fruit itself, so the sweetness is achieved without fortification. Alcohol stays at 13% to 14% by volume.

  • How long does it age?

    The 2007 spent twenty-six months in oak barrels; later vintages such as the 2014 spent five years. After release, the house states a further bottle ageing potential of forty years and more.

  • What is OUSIA?

    The house spirits range. The zivania is clear and luminous, with dried grape skin, soft smoke and warm vine wood on the nose, and a palate of sun-dried fruit, mineral freshness and a long, balanced finish. An oak-matured expression is also made.

  • Why is every bottle numbered?

    Because production is small enough to count. Each release is finished by hand, and the label and packaging are redesigned for every vintage by the house’s creative director, which makes each year a distinct object as well as a distinct wine.

  • Can the winery be visited?

    Yes, by private reservation only. The cellar stands in a pine forest above Lythrodontas, roughly thirty minutes from Nicosia or Larnaca, and tours are led by the owners and followed by a tasting. Visits are for adults only.

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