One of the great things about Cyprus is that it has a variety of different wineries making a wide selection of different wines to suit all palettes. One of the smaller wineries that has been receiving an increasing amount of publicity and praise is run by wine enthusiast, John Christoudias.

John has long been interested in Cyprus wines, but over the past few years, this interest has increased tremendously. John and his wife Alexia, own several vineyards near her home village of Mesana that is situated on the wine-making ridge between the Dhiarizos and Xeros valleys in the Paphos District. John began making his own wine nine years ago, but as he knew little himself he relied on the help and knowledge of his neighbours. In the first year he made just 150 litres for his family and friends to enjoy, and he was so pleased with the results, he vowed two things ? firstly to make more the next year and secondly, to learn as much as he could about wine-making so that he could experiment with, and improve his wine.

Since then John has enthusiastically kept his wine-making as a very time-consuming hobby, as by day he works as he works as an Inland Revenue inspector. In his spare time he went on one of the oenology corses run by the Department of Agriculture, and enjoyed it so much that he has since completed two more courses! He explains that the reason for this is that his fellow students are always very interesting people, and that the question and answer sessions at the end of each lesson always give him plenty of ?food for thought?.

After his first year of wine-making, he decided that it would be best to use a selection of grapes from growers in various parts of the Paphos District so that he could make several different wines. He spent a great deal of time meeting the growers and discussing his ideas with them, and today buys his grapes from ten regular growers, as long, he says, as their grapes each harvest are of high enough quality.

He soon found that he needed to establish his new winery in spacious premises and he found a suitable building on the Dhali industrial estate on the southern outskirts of Nicosia. He has named the winery ?Krelan?, which is a mixture of syllables taken from the names of his three children, and has chosen ?Tihikos? as the name for his wine, which is in fact, the name of the church in his wife?s village. John has bought the latest equipment for his wine production, which includes special temperature- controlled tanks and crushing machines and pumps from Italy. These contrast quite sharply with John?s bottling machine, which he confesses is quite ?elderly? as it is only semi -automatic and needs three people to help work it efficiently!

Production has increased steadily and will be about 30,000 bottles this year. There are four different wines in the current range of Tihikos wines ? a Cabernet Sauvignon, a red Bordeaux-style, a Muscato and a dry white. John has also been experimenting with a new Chardonnay, but although his close friends enjoyed the results, John who is always a perfectionist, feels that the first bottles are not quite good enough as he wants the wine to be memorably good!

He has recently introduced a new range of labels, designed by the graphic designer, Christos Charalambous. The new labels have the same classically modern design for each wine, but the descriptive passage and background colour are different for each.

Although he does not grow most of his grapes, he takes a very close interest in them, and spends every available minute with his growers, checking the quality of the growing grapes, which involves plenty of driving as he has growers as far afield as Panayia.

Life gets very busy about a fortnight before the grapes are harvested as John checks the sugar content of the different grapes daily. He and his wife join the growers to help gather the grapes as quickly as possible and they are then transported to the winery so that the winemaking can begin in earnest ? something that involves everyone in his family! Once the wine is under way, everyone can relax, and John, is just about able to manage on his own ? although he must spend all of his spare time spent at Dhali.

At present Tihikos wines are not available in the local supermarkets, but they are available in selected restaurants in Nicosia, Larnaca and Ayia Napa, and last Autumn, John was delighted to win the Officers? Mess contract for RAF Akrotiri. The wines are available from John directly, or from one outlet in Limassol, where the range can also be sampled! Prices range from £2.25 - £2.50 for the white, red and Muscato and £5.50 - £6.00 for the Cabernet Sauvignon. Bottles are available in cases of a dozen bottles either of one variety of wine, or mixed!