Wine Arcana

Grape

Malagousia

Also known as Malagouzia

Malagousia is an aromatic white Greek Vitis vinifera grape whose renewed cultivation is an important part of modern Greek wine. It commonly combines floral, stone-fruit, and herbal impressions with a rounded palate. Most examples are dry, although later-picked fruit also supplies sweet wines.

Its perfume and breadth make it useful both as a varietal wine and in blends. A fragrant nose does not establish sweetness: the amount of residual sugar depends on fermentation, while the aromas can remain expressive in a fully dry wine.

Revival and regional spread

Wines of Greece associates the grape's origin with Aitoloakarnania in western central Greece and describes it as little known by the 1970s. Its recovery involved researchers and growers bringing surviving material back into cultivation and developing wines from it. This is a revival of a neglected variety, not a new breeding achievement.

Halkidiki and the area around Thessaloniki became important to that recovery. Vangelis Gerovassiliou's estate history records his work with Malagousia at Porto Carras, where he served as œnologist from 1976 to 1999, before and alongside developing his own estate at Epanomi.1. Ktima Gerovassiliou, “History,” first-party account of the founder's work at Porto Carras, accessed 17 September 2026. Wines of Greece describes the wider revival through researchers and growers. Accounts that present the revival as one sudden discovery compress a longer period of cultivation and winemaking.

Northern Greece remains a useful reference, but the grape's modern geography is wider. Attica's growers also foreground Malagousia, and plantings extend across mainland Greece and onto islands. In Attica it adds a more overtly aromatic expression alongside the region's established Savvatiano. Regional significance here comes from sustained adoption as well as historical origin.

Preserving perfume or building texture

Steel fermentation can keep attention on the grape's fruit and floral character. Wood and lees ageing can add breadth and change how that perfume sits within the wine.

Ktima Gerovassiliou's varietal Malagousia illustrates a combination of methods. The estate describes cold skin contact, fermentation mainly in steel with a portion in French oak, and several months on lees. Skin contact takes place before fermentation; it should not be assumed to mean the extended skin fermentation of an orange wine. The finished texture reflects those cellar decisions as well as ripe fruit.

Sweet versions begin with later-picked grapes. Greater sugar concentration provides the potential for sweetness, while retained acidity and the course of fermentation determine the resulting balance.

Sources