Pilot: Fikardou


Wine

Small scale viticulture was the main occupation of the inhabitants of Fikardou. The cultivators were at the same time the producers of wine. Red wine was the defining product of the local economy and an integral part of everyday life in Fikardou.

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Fikardou village had the large Wine Press (Linos) for the production of wine from all the inhabitants of the village. The building was once owned by eight different people. When it was time to press the grapes from the harvest, the villagers helped each other. The grapes were thrown directly into the linos from a hole in the roof called louros. Then the villagers started pressing the grapes with their bare feet, whose juice (moustos) flowed from the floor of the linos (jiathi) into a jar, called podosi. The remnants were placed in the varella and the grapes were pressed to extract more juice. The leftovers were spread again on the jiathi where they were beaten with a rod, the matsouka, to extract whatever juice remained in them. The juice was put into pithari jars together with the stems (zivana). They covered the jars with cloth which allowed the necessary oxygen to enter.This process is not so different from that described by Hesiod, 2,000 years before the Crusaders arrived.