Nostos

Theodoros (Ted) Manousakis is a Greek immigrant who lives the American dream. His father, a shepherd in a mountain village on Crete, died when he was 5 years old. His mother moved to New York with Ted and his two older sisters. The women worked. Ted went to school, eventually earning an MBA. His first job was for a small D.C. firm providing security guards. When the owner retired, Ted bought him out and built it into a national business. He sold it in 1996 and retired.

Retirement didn't suit Ted. He loved hospitality, food and wine, so he opened several restaurants and then a bakery. A few years later he realized that he now owned 15 bakeries, and he was bored. He turned the bakeries over to his wife. From his earliest working days, Ted was involved in commercial Real Estate. This continued through his bakery years and now became his full time business. At the same time his elderly mother wanted to return to her native village. Ted had the small house in which he was born enlarged and renovated.

For the first time in two decades he began to visit Greece regularly. He saw opportunities for development and a need for jobs in his home village. He opened a coastal resort hotel, planned with great environmental sensitivity. And he planted an organic vineyard in the mountains.

‘Nostos' is an ancient Greek word. ‘Nostalgia' (same root) is as close as we can get in English. It is not only longing for, but love of things past. Ted planted his vineyard in 1993. He loved wine and read wine books voraciously. Besides a taste for Lafite and Petrus, Syrah and Châteauneuf-du-Pape were favorites. He found Lucie Morton of Broad Run, Virginia. She is one of the world's top viticultural consultants (her customers include Domaine Chandon, Chateau Margaux and Stags Leap).

What did he plant? Châteauneuf-du-Pape was the model, so for the reds, it was Syrah, Grenache and Mourvèdre, and, for whites, Roussanne. The first harvest was 1997. The Roussanne was so ripe and soft that it wasn't safe to bottle on its own. It became, in Châteauneuf tradition, part of the red wine. The 1997 Nostos was 35% Syrah, 25% each Grenache and Mourvèdre and 15% Roussanne! The Roussanne added tremendous aromatics and a wild, savage note to the wine without detracting from color or body. This was a beautiful first effort.

Successive vintages only got better, and the wines are now considered among the finest of Greece. Ted's goal is for them to be considered among the finest in the world.