Food And Drink in Cyprus

Cyprus has been making wine longer than any other country in the Mediterranean: traces of winemaking on the island are dated to roughly five and a half thousand years, and the dessert wine Commandaria is considered the oldest wine still produced under the same name. So almost every food programme here leads one way or another to a winery — most often in the Troodos mountains, where the vine retreated from the heat to six hundred or a thousand metres.

The routes are built around villages. Omodos and Lefkara are about stone streets, a monastery, lace and loukoumi; Kakopetria and Kykkos are about the mountain road and a monastery with golden mosaics. Along the way you are given halloumi to taste, made on Cyprus from a mix of goat and sheep milk and fried until it squeaks, and in autumn the country around Paphos is searched for truffle. A separate line is private tastings: a sommelier comes to the villa or hotel with a set of wine and cheese.

Points to note. Mountain excursions take a full day, the road is all hairpins, and it is seven or eight degrees cooler up top. Tastings almost always involve driving, so the option with a driver is the better one. Villages take cash more often than towns do. The grape harvest runs from late August through September, when the wineries are at their most interesting.