Cyprus is an island in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, located 50 miles (80km) off the south coast of Turkey and slightly further from the west coast of Syria. The third-largest island in the Mediterranean, Cyprus measures 140 miles (225km) from east to west and about one-third of that north to south.
The Cypriot wine industry was at its zenith during the Middle Ages and has seen a consistent, gradual decline over the intervening centuries. The island's location once made it a useful port of call on voyages from Greece and Italy to Egypt and the Levant; in the same way that Madeira would prove useful to merchants and armies in the eastern Atlantic several hundred years later, so Cyprus was of great interest to medieval merchants and traders. Not only did the island's wine find markets abroad, most notably in southern Europe, but the ships which exported the wines provided a market in their own right.
The downside was that Cyprus was useful not just as a trading post, but also as a strategic military stronghold. Over the millennia Greeks, Romans, Assyrians, Egyptians, Persians and Venetians have ruled the island, and both the Ottoman and British empires added Cyprus to their conquered lands. When the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem arrived on Cyprus in the late 13th century, fleeing defeat in the Holy Lands, Cyprus's vinicultural history began in earnest. The knights arranged their land ownership according to strict social hierarchies, the top level of which were the commanderies. The Grand Commandery was the collective property of the knights themselves, and this was where the majority of medieval Cypriot vineyards were located. From this tranche of history, Commandaria dessert wine derives its name.
The arrival of Islamic rule with the Ottoman invaders in the late 16th century slowed Cyprus's wine production almost to a halt. This lasted until the British Empire took control of the island in the 1870s and began to replant the once-prolific vineyards to produce fortified wines known as Cyprus Sherry (sherry was not then a protected name of origin). The phylloxera louse which was decimating vineyards in mainland Europe at that time fortunately never made it to Cyprus, and even today the vines here grow on their own original rootstocks. The fear of inadvertently introducing phylloxera to the island delayed Cyprus's experimentation with the 'international' varieties as they swept around the globe. Cabernet Sauvignon, Grenache and Carignan, having proved their worth in the dry warmth of Spain and southern France, were first to be trialed here and proved successful. Chardonnay and Riesling held up the end for the island's white-wine hopes, although these are limited to the cooler vineyard sites at higher altitudes.
Prior to the introduction of the varieties mentioned above, most Cypriot vineyards were planted with bush vines of the indigenous Mavro variety. Mavro means 'black', and this seems to be a rather poor choice of name, given the weak pigmentation of the 'black'-skinned grapes. The wines Mavro makes are generally so light in color that the saignee process is used to increase the skin-to-juice ratio in the fermenting must. The juice removed is typically used to make fortified wines. Palomino and Malvasia (Grossa), two other varieties associated with fortified wines, are also used in Cyprus's fortified wines.
The modern face of Cypriot wine is similar to that found on Crete or Sardinia, with a ripe New World style creeping into the reds as the vintages go by. To capitalize on Cyprus's hot, dry conditions, the island's wine companies have brought in winemakers from Australia and South Africa who are used to making successful wines in this climate. Until the end of the 20th century, most local wine was made in the southern port cities of Paphos and Limassol, which meant the fruit had to travel long distances in the Mediterranean heat and often in comparatively primitive transportation. Things are now changing, however, with a new raft of Cyprus wineries growing their own grapes. As yet the island's modern table wines have no idiosyncratic style, but this will be established over time.
