Twenty years in the Greek Navy as a helicopter pilot. Then Yiannis Karakasis decided to try something bigger. The Master of Wine institute became the new mountain, and in 2015 the MW title was his. Ten years later he runs Great Greek Wines, the most distinctive quality platform Greek wine currently has.
For Sparks episode 20 Yiannis joined to explain why he buys what most wine competitions get for free, and what makes today’s Greek winemaking generation so unusual.
Who is Yiannis Karakasis MW
In the 1990s Yiannis joined the Greek Navy as an officer. Warships first, then he trained as a helicopter pilot, flying mostly over the Aegean. He promised his mother he would not ride a motorcycle, but said nothing about helicopters. Between flights he started taking WSET courses.
After roughly 21 years in the Navy he resigned to commit to the MW journey. No mentor, his own road. He earned the title in 2015. From day one he held one rule strict: no involvement with Greek wine importers. No payroll, no hidden interest. Free to talk about every wine he wants to talk about.
What is Great Greek Wines
Great Greek Wines started as 50 Great Greek Wines: Yiannis and his partner Grigoris Michailos pick a closed list of 50 wines per edition. Not 85 or 90 percent of the entries the way most competitions roll. Roughly 8.5 percent. The competition is now in its fourth edition, and the best Greek wineries take part regardless of whether they win.
The project is more than a prize ceremony. Masterclasses in Amsterdam (twice), Antwerp, Warsaw, Paris, London, Girona, Italy and Belgrade. A free 140-page digital report with depth. A Greek-language podcast, with an English version in the works.
The three quirks that set it apart
The wines are bought. No samples, no submissions. Grigoris buys the bottles each year through Greek importers and wine shops, which means the wines are also commercially available to consumers. No submitted bottles that have not been released. Logistics get harder every year, especially when wineries bottle late after a cool harvest or slow market.
No sticker sales. A standard wine competition makes money by selling award stickers to bottle on cuvées that win. Yiannis refuses. He leaves money on the table on purpose, so the result keeps being the message.
International jury, no Greek commercial ties. The panel consists of Masters of Wine, Master Sommeliers and group wine directors with no skin in the Greek wine game. The 2025 edition had seven jurors: Marc Andrew (Noble Green), Lenka Sedivakova, Christoph Heylen, Wojciech Bońkowski, Stefan Newman MS, Paz Levinson and Peter Richards MW. Julia Harding MW handed out earlier prize editions.
Special sub-awards
Beyond the 50 main awards, three newer categories:
- Hall of Fame: wines that have won three editions in a row. Six wines in 2025
- Great Value Wines: wines under 17 euros on the Greek domestic market that combine value with top quality
- Sustainability Award: new this year, three criteria. Grapes from certified organic vineyards, bottle weight under 420 grams, and a winery that covers a large share of its energy needs from renewables. One winner this year: Santo Wines Santameriana Skin Contact, a rare Peloponnese variety
For extra transparency the bottle weight is now listed next to every wine on greatgreekwines.com.
Yiannis on Assyrtico: “RoboCop”
A few years ago Yiannis compared the Assyrtico grape to RoboCop. He stands by it in this conversation. He knows no other white grape that hits 15 percent alcohol with 7 grams of tartaric acid and a pH below 3. Next to a mediocre Chardonnay, a top Assyrtico flattens the glass beside it.
The grape needs time to reveal its layers. Young in bottle it is present, after a few years it almost behaves like a red wine: high phenolic content, long salty finish, extract that just keeps going.
At the same time he steers the spotlight away from Assyrtico monoculture. In Greek Wine Explained 2025 there is no Assyrtico chapter and no Santorini chapter. Instead Nemea, Attica, Limniona, Macedonian wines. The mission is wider than one Aegean island.
The business model
Yiannis is direct about how Great Greek Wines stays funded:
- Participating wineries pay a fee
- Sponsors fund the wider platform and the masterclasses
- No sticker income
- Yiannis also consults for major hotel and restaurant groups, which is where the largest share of his time goes
The project itself runs on passion first, healthy business second. As he puts it: a great prize ceremony matters more to him than putting a few extra euros in his pocket.
Why Greek wine, now
Yiannis closes the conversation with a personal claim about the moment. For drinkers who want to look beyond the classic regions, this is an unusual time for Greece:
- Best indigenous grape varieties, from rare ones to Assyrtico
- Terroirs reaching above 1,000 meters
- Islands with their own winemaking traditions
- Many growers have farmed without herbicides or pesticides for generations, so organic and biodynamic are practice, not posture
- Spontaneous fermentation, less oak on reds, more elegant styles
- A new era of Retsina (Julia Harding MW scored a Thalassitis from 1979 Wines an 18.5)
Frequently asked questions
How do you become a Master of Wine? The MW institute runs in stages: enter the institute, stage 2, theory exam, practical (blind tasting), research paper. From start to title typically several years of intensive study. Yiannis Karakasis earned his MW in 2015.
Why does Great Greek Wines buy its own bottles? To make sure only commercially available wines are judged. At many other competitions Yiannis sees sample bottles that have not yet been released. At Great Greek Wines you must also be able to find the wine in a Greek wine shop or with an importer.
What is the Greek Wine Explained report? A digital report now at 140 pages, free to download via greatgreekwines.com. Yiannis writes it together with Evmofia Kostaki, a second-year MW student. Different regions and themes each year, not a yearly repeat.
What are the criteria for the Sustainability Award? Three: certified organic grapes, bottle weight under 420 grams, and a large share of the winery’s energy supplied by renewables.
More about Great Greek Wines
Visit greatgreekwines.com for the full award list, the Greek Wine Explained report, and upcoming masterclasses. Yiannis is also active on LinkedIn and Instagram.
For more Greek wine to discover in the Netherlands, see Sparks episode 22 with Lodewijk of Daily Creta and Sparks episode 23 with Drakos Garakis.
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