Discover the Unparalleled Quality of Idaia Winery

The vineyards sit on calcareous clay in the hills around Venerato and Dafnes, between roughly 300 and 500 metres, dry-farmed and cropped at low yields. Summers here are cooled by Aegean breezes that pull the temperature down overnight, which matters for white varieties: it keeps acidity intact in fruit that would otherwise ripen fast under a Cretan sun.

The winemaking is unshowy and consistent. Whites are picked in the first half of September, pressed for free-run juice and fermented cool at around 15°C, with the aromatic wines held in tank for a few months and the barrel selections given a year in oak. Reds are fermented classically and aged twelve months in barrel.

What makes Idaia Winery special

  • Founded and still run by two working oenologists, with both of their sons now involved.
  • Vineyards on calcareous clay soils in the PDO Dafnes zone, dry-farmed at low yields.
  • A range built on indigenous Cretan varieties: Vidiano, Thrapsathiri, Vilana, Malvazia di Candia, Liatiko, Kotsifali and Mandilaria.
  • Cool fermentation at around 15°C for the whites, protecting the aromatics of early-picked fruit.
  • Around 130,000 bottles a year, with about 35% exported to over ten countries.

Malevizi has been making wine since Roman times and gave its name, through the Venetians, to Malvasia. Dafnes is one of the four historic appellations of Crete, alongside Peza, Archanes and Sitia, and the villages around Venerato sit inside it.

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The People Behind Idaia Winery

The People Behind Idaia Winery

Vasilis Laderos and Kalliopi Volitaki are both oenologists, active in the profession since the 1990s. They met as students in Athens and settled in Kalliopi’s home village of Venerato, where her father had grown grapes. Vasilis makes the wine; Kalliopi runs the operation.

Their two sons have taken up the two halves of the work. Tasos is studying oenology and viticulture at the Agricultural University of Athens and works on the vineyard side. Stelios is reading economics at the University of Crete, holds WSET Level 2, and looks after visitors and hospitality at the winery.

How Idaia Winery began

There was no estate to inherit and no capital behind it. The couple started in a warehouse with three small stainless tanks and five oak barrels, made a small quantity of wine, sold it, and put the proceeds back into tanks, barrels and equipment. The first bottling came in 2002.

The second thing they built was a network of local growers. Venerato and the villages around it are made up of small parcels held by families rather than large single holdings, so a winery of this size grows some of its own fruit and buys the rest from neighbours it knows. Those relationships, rather than any single vineyard, are the reason the volume has grown steadily without the style changing.

How Idaia Winery began

Working with indigenous varieties

Crete has one of the deepest collections of native grapes in the Mediterranean, and for much of the twentieth century most of it went into anonymous bulk wine. Idaia’s stated purpose is to highlight those varieties and the many faces of the Cretan vineyard, which in practice means bottling grapes such as Vidiano and Thrapsathiri on their own rather than hiding them in a blend.

That is harder than it sounds. Each variety wants a different picking date and a different handling in the cellar, and a range this size means managing all of them inside the same three-week window.

Why this matters

  • Both founders are trained oenologists, so the decisions in the vineyard and the cellar are made by the same people.
  • Indigenous Cretan varieties are bottled as single varietals, not used as filler in blends.
  • Dry-farmed, low-yield vineyards on calcareous clay concentrate flavour without irrigation.
  • Cool overnight air off the Aegean preserves acidity in whites grown at a southern latitude.
  • The next generation is being trained in viticulture and oenology rather than brought in to sell.

“Idaia is a small Cretan winery run by the two oenologists who founded it, bottling Vidiano, Thrapsathiri and Liatiko from dry-farmed calcareous clay in the Dafnes hills.”

At the Table: How Idaia Is Drunk in Crete

Cretan wine is a table wine in the literal sense. It arrives with food, usually several dishes at once, and it is poured for a long meal rather than assessed in isolation. The whites are drunk young and cold with fish and vegetables; the reds come out with lamb, goat and the harder cheeses.

  • Whites served at 10°C to 12.5°C, cold enough to sharpen the aromatics but not so cold that the texture disappears
  • Thrapsathiri and Vidiano with grilled fish, octopus and anything that has just come out of olive oil
  • Malvazia di Candia with fresh cheeses, melon and stone fruit at the end of a meal
  • Liatiko with slow-cooked lamb, wild greens and dakos, the barley rusk that anchors a Cretan table
  • Mandilaria and Syrah with grilled red meat, game and aged graviera

Nothing in the range needs a special occasion or a cellar. The Ocean whites are made to be opened within two to four years of the vintage, and the barrel-aged wines will hold longer without ever becoming the point of the meal.

Idaia Winery: What Sets Cretan Terroir Apart

Altitude and sea air are doing most of the work in these wines, alongside soils that hold very little water and a set of grapes that evolved here.

QualityDescription
TerroirCalcareous clay soils in the hills around Venerato and Dafnes, between roughly 300 and 500 metres, on the eastern foothills of Mount Psiloritis.
ClimateMild winters and warm, dry summers moderated by cool Aegean breezes, which slow ripening and hold acidity in the white varieties.
VarietiesIndigenous Cretan grapes: Vidiano, Thrapsathiri, Vilana and Malvazia Aromatica di Candia in white, Liatiko, Kotsifali and Mandilaria in red, with Syrah and Grenache used in blends.
VinificationFree-run juice, cool fermentation at around 15°C with selected yeasts for the whites, classic fermentation for the reds, from dry-farmed vineyards cropped at low yields.
AgeingFour months in tank for the fresh whites, twelve months in oak barrel for the Hesperis Vidiano, the Potamida Liatiko and the Ocean Red.
AppellationThe winery lies in the PDO Dafnes zone, where the appellation is reserved for Liatiko. The wider range is bottled under PGI Crete.

The house style is recognisable across colours: fruit first, texture rather than weight, and acidity that stays present to the end of the glass. Even the barrel wines are built around the grape rather than the wood.

Daily Use in the Cretan Kitchen: Pairing Idaia Wines

These are food wines, and the Cretan kitchen they come from is built on olive oil, wild greens, pulses, barley rusk, sheep and goat cheese, fish from two coasts and slow-cooked meat. The pairings below follow that logic.

PairingWhy it works
Ocean Thrapsathiri with grilled fish and seafoodStone and exotic fruit over a mineral, citrus core, with a creamy texture and a spicy finish. Serve at 10°C to 12°C. Best within two to four years of the vintage.
Hesperis Barrel Vidiano with poultry and roast vegetablesTwelve months in oak gives ripe stone fruit, citrus and honey on a full-bodied, well-structured palate. It also takes the aromatic spicing of Thai and Indian cooking without being flattened by it.
Malva de Grete with fresh cheeses and fruitJasmine, night flower, melon and nectarine from Malvazia Aromatica di Candia, with a creamy palate and a cool finish. Serve at around 12.5°C.
Potamida Liatiko with lamb and aged cheeseBlack fruit, spice and herbs after a year in barrel, finishing with vanilla and toast. It suits slow-cooked lamb with wild greens, game and hard Cretan cheeses.
Ocean Red with grilled meatMandilaria 70% with Syrah 30%, aged a year in oak, giving blueberry, forest fruit and spice with a vanilla edge. The Mandilaria tannin wants fat and char.

Serving temperature does more for these wines than decanting. Whites want a proper chill; the barrel-aged reds are better a degree or two below room temperature than at it.

Sustainable and Ethical Practices at Idaia Winery

Sustainable and Ethical Practices at Idaia Winery

At Idaia Winery the vineyards are dry-farmed and cropped at low yields, which is the traditional practice on this part of Crete and also the least resource-intensive one. No irrigation is used on the unirrigated parcels that supply the Ocean wines, and the low yields are a deliberate choice made for concentration rather than volume.

The winery is not certified organic, and does not claim to be. What it does claim is careful selection of fruit and controlled vinification, with growth in production kept gradual so that quality is not traded for scale. Ancient stone winepresses on the property have been restored and are part of what visitors are shown.

Their approach

A family winery of this size in Malevizi survives by knowing its neighbours: Idaia grows part of its own fruit around Venerato and buys the rest from local growers in a district of small family parcels, which is why the range can cover Vidiano, Thrapsathiri, Vilana, Malvazia di Candia, Liatiko, Kotsifali and Mandilaria without any single vineyard being stretched to do it. Vasilis Laderos and Kalliopi Volitaki have kept the winemaking in their own hands since 2002, expanded from three tanks and five barrels only as sales allowed, restored the old winepresses on the site, and opened the cellar door for tastings in Greek and English. Their sons Tasos and Stelios are now working through the viticulture and hospitality sides respectively.

Learn more about Idaia Winery

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Vidiano, Thrapsathiri and Liatiko: Three Cretan Varieties Worth Knowing

Vidiano is the variety most often named as the rising star of Cretan white wine. It is grown on a small scale, mainly in Rethymno and secondarily around Heraklion, and it is genetically close to both Thrapsathiri and Vilana. Thick skins, early ripening and sensitivity to powdery mildew make it demanding to grow, which is why it remains a small-production grape despite giving whites with peach, apricot, melon, honey and herb aromatics and enough substance to take a barrel. Thrapsathiri, long assumed to be a clone of Athiri until DNA work established it as its own variety, is highly drought resistant, ripens late and gives aromatic wines with soft acidity; it was traditionally blended with Vilana and is increasingly bottled alone. Liatiko is the oldest of Crete’s red varieties, ripening unusually early, giving pale, medium-bodied reds with red cherry and rose petal aromatics and soft tannins, and it is the sole permitted grape of PDO Dafnes.

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Frequently Asked Questions About Idaia Winery

  • What is Idaia Winery?

    Idaia is a family winery in Venerato, in the Malevizi district south of Heraklion, Crete, founded by the oenologists Vasilis Laderos and Kalliopi Volitaki, who bottled their first wine in 2002. It produces around 130,000 bottles a year and exports roughly 35% of that to more than ten countries.

  • Where does the name Idaia come from?

    From Mount Ida, or Psiloritis, the mountain above the winery, and from the earliest layer of Cretan myth associated with it. The winery’s mark is a daisy motif taken from the Phaistos Disc, understood as a symbol of the star Sirius.

  • Which grape varieties does Idaia use?

    Indigenous Cretan varieties above all: Vidiano, Thrapsathiri, Vilana and Malvazia Aromatica di Candia in white, and Liatiko, Kotsifali and Mandilaria in red. Syrah, Grenache and Sauvignon are also grown and used in blends, as in the Mandilaria and Syrah Ocean Red.

  • What appellation are the wines bottled under?

    The winery lies within the PDO Dafnes zone, an appellation reserved for Liatiko in dry, fortified sweet and sun-dried sweet styles. Most of the range, including the Ocean wines and Malva de Grete, is bottled under PGI Crete, which allows the wider set of varieties.

  • How should the wines be served?

    The fresh whites at 10°C to 12.5°C, with fish, seafood, vegetables and lighter cheeses, and best drunk within two to four years of the vintage. The barrel-aged reds are better slightly below room temperature, with lamb, game and aged cheese.

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