June 2022 / Baxedes

I first heard Dante's lines about wine from a friend on the ship that brought us to Santorini, it must have been in the summer of 1987. We were coming to the island for the harvest, where we would trample the grapes in my grandfather's canava (cellar) in Baxes, in front of the sea, and make our own wine. Domaine Sigalas didn’t exist yet; it was founded in 1991.

The lines were from the Purgatorio, the second part of the Divine Comedy, and they deeply impressed me:

That what I say may leave you less perplexed,

consider the sun’s heat that, when combined

with sap that flows from vines, is then made wine.

 In a disarmingly simple and poetic way Dante talks to us about the birth of wine, explaining the "miracle" – a miracle that he masterfully connects in the same canto XXV with the then inexplicable mystery of human reproduction.

The lines were written around 1315–16. The centuries that have passed haven’t altered in any way their liveliness, immediacy and wisdom. It is a fact that nowadays scientific research and the technologies it generates have significantly improved the quality of wine. Yet something escapes science’s grasp. Science cannot distinguish a great wine from an average one. It was this elusive element, this potential miracle, that was the trigger for me to create Domaine Sigalas 30 years ago. And it is still the inspiration for my new adventure, oeno P, with Dante's lyrics ringing with all the freshness of a good omen for what will follow. 

Paris Sigalas