A Santorini food tour is a tasting trip through the farm produce, dishes and wines of Santorini, the volcanic island of the southern Cyclades. Its crops grow in ash and pumice with almost no rain in summer. The tour is one of the Greece Tours on Greece Ville.
This post covers what a Santorini food tour includes, how the volcanic soil shapes the crops and what makes Santorini fava special. It also covers the cherry tomatoes, the wines and the local dishes. Sweets and drinks, the farming year and common questions come last.
The sections include Santorini food tours and related wine and cooking tours that can be booked online.
What is a Santorini food tour?
A Santorini food tour is a tasting tour of the island’s local produce, dishes and wine. Santorini is a farming island at heart. Its crops grow in volcanic ground, and farming shaped the food visitors taste on the island.
Until the middle of the 20th century, farmland took up more than 70% of the island’s area. Vineyards form the main part of the farmland. A terrace is a flat step cut into a slope. They sit on wide terraces with dry-stone walls.
The land of Santorini has never suited livestock, so its farms grew field crops. Small grain fields met home needs, and farms grew tomatoes and beans above all. A Santorini food tour tastes what these farms grew.
Small plots grow vegetables and fruit for the farmers’ own use. Ash and rock from eruptions, lava and Theran earth form fertile ground. It has long supported vines, cereals and legumes.
In the inventory records of 1850, fava ranked fourth in importance among the island’s crops. Fava Santorinis is farmed on about 150 hectares today, mainly on small-scale farms. A Santorini food tour meets this old crop.
- Island: Land cover maps show that farmland shrank by 25% over three decades.
- North: Farmland shrank by more than 40% in the north and on Therasia.
- Idle land: A large share of the farmland that remains is left uncultivated.
Primary-sector jobs, which include farming, fell from 5.52% of all jobs in 2001 to 3.67% in 2021. Researchers call the pressure of overtourism on farming “quite alarming”. A Santorini food tour meets a farming island under pressure.
What does volcanic soil give a Santorini food tour?
A Santorini food tour tastes crops grown in volcanic soil. The ground holds pumice, a light rock full of tiny holes, and lava. It lacks organic matter. Dew and mist bring the water, and vines stay low to the soil.
About 70% of the main island, Thira, lies under layers of pumice that are very thick in places. Lava and a rough volcanic rock called scoria cover 15% of the island. Older base rock covers another 15%.
The soil in the island’s vineyards is mostly sandy and rocky. It is made of pumice, lava and ash and rock from eruptions. A Santorini food tour tastes what grows here.
The dry and cool meltemi wind and evaporation over the surrounding sea make dew form. At midday, light mist drifts up the higher slopes, especially on Profitis Ilias, and can settle as dew. Stone terraces protect the soil from erosion, hold back the limited rainwater and slow the wind.
Phylloxera, a vine pest, spreads between roots through cracks in the soil. Areas with sandy or schist soils were spared. Santorini’s vines are pre-phylloxera plantings, which are rare in Europe. A Santorini food tour tastes this old land.
- Basket: A kouloura vine is shaped like a basket tied 10 to 20 cm above the soil.
- Trunk: Kladeftiko vines, which are bush-like, have trunks only 20 to 30 cm tall.
- Density: Kouloura plots hold 1,800 to 2,200 vines per hectare.
Volcanic ash covers large areas and plays an important role in the fertility of the soils. Builders and farmers on the island also use pumice. A Santorini food tour tastes food from this working ground.
What is Santorini fava on a Santorini food tour?
A Santorini food tour meets Santorini fava, which has the protected name Fava Santorinis. The protection covers the name but not the plant itself. The fava is made from the seeds of Lathyrus clymenum, a flowering plant grown in the Cyclades.
Lathyrus clymenum is a twining plant with crimson petals that have touches of violet or lilac. The Santorini plant is an annual that grows 25 to 53 cm tall. Its green pods end in a curved tip. A pod is the case that holds the seeds.
After the volcano erupted, returning islanders took up the crop again. It was one of a short list of crops that grew well in the volcanic soil. The plant takes up water from humid sea air through osmosis. This gives it high sugar content.
The name fava first appears in fragments of a lost tragedy by Aeschylus from the 6th-5th century BC. In the 2nd century AD, Dioskourides gave fava as the Latin word for broad beans. A Santorini food tour tastes food with a long past.
In Greece, fava products come from three plants: the pea (Pisum sativum), Lathyrus sativus and Lathyrus clymenum. The sugars in the plant give Fava Santorinis a sweetish taste, unlike similar products that taste slightly bitter. A Santorini food tour tastes that difference.
- File number: Fava Santorinis carries the EU file number EL-PDO-0005-0520-09.01.2006.
- Processing: After harvest, the seeds dry in the Aegean sun, and stone grinding mills take off the husks.
- Moisture: The product holds a maximum of 13% moisture.
A Santorini food tour meets a plant with a long record. Neurolathyrism is a disease caused by eating large amounts of Lathyrus grain with the toxin ODAP. It is linked mainly with grass pea and, to a lesser degree, with Lathyrus clymenum.
Why do cherry tomatoes matter on a Santorini food tour?
A Santorini food tour tastes the island’s own cherry tomato. This landrace, or old local farm variety, is grown for sale only in its home area. Its fruit holds 7 to 10 degrees Brix of soluble solids. That measures sugar and other dissolved matter.
Farmers save seed from their own plants for the next crop. Growers chose an early landrace for dry farming. It grows fully from March to late spring. Those months bring the least wind and a little rain.
Every Santorini food tour tomato grows from a seed sown straight into the soil. That keeps the plant’s deep taproot, or main root. Normal tomato farming moves young plants and cuts their root.
Soluble solids fill just 73% to 87% of the fruit’s dry matter. Classic tomatoes reach 95% to 98%. That leaves more solid matter in the fruit. Strongly alkaline soil also gives the ripe fruit more sugar.
Studies of the tomato explain its place on a Santorini food tour. Researchers compared two picks of the tomato with seven other varieties on 38 plant properties. They found a clear genetic difference.
- Area: The protected growing area covers Thira, Thirasia, Palea Kameni, Nea Kameni, Aspronisi, Christiani and Askania.
- Packing: Packing must happen on the islands, since sea trips risk moisture and pests.
- Diseases: The tomato resists black mould, powdery mildew, fusariosis and verticillium, all plant diseases.
In 1899, the first official farm report gave no money figures, so the crop was small. Around 1928, the island made about 1,300 tonnes of tomato puree. A Santorini food tour tastes that history.
Which wines meet a Santorini food tour?
A Santorini food tour meets wines made under strict PDO rules, a legal label of origin. The wine zone was set up in 1971 and covers Santorini and Thirasia. A tasting panel checks every vintage. A wine that fails cannot be sold as PDO Santorini.
The rules cap yields at 6,500 kg of fresh grapes per hectare, or 50 hectolitres of wine. A hectolitre is 100 litres. Dry white wine must hold at least 12% alcohol. Wines marked Nykteri, a dry white style, must hold at least 13.5% alcohol.
A Santorini food tour also meets Vinsanto, the sweet wine of the island. Sun-dried grapes must give juice with at least 370 grams of sugar per litre. The natural sweet kind gets no concentrated juice or added alcohol.
Vinsanto ageing happens only on Thira and Thirasia. That rule holds however long the wine rests in oak barrels. Labels can also show ageing of 4, 8, 12 or more years.
Soil explains the sharp wines of a Santorini food tour. Sand makes up 93 to 97% of the vineyard soil, and clay is almost absent. Vines take up too little of the soil’s potassium to cancel the tartaric acid.
- Akrotiri: Diggers found vine-wood charcoal, grape seeds and a wine press with a vat.
- Jar: One jar rim carried a sign read as the word for wine.
- Amphorae: Thira gave at least 50% of the early false-necked amphorae found in the Aegean, jars for liquids.
Vine training also leaves its mark in a Santorini food tour glass. A study by a Greek farm university found Santorini wines rich in polyphenols. It linked this to the basket-shaped kouloura training.
Which local dishes fill a Santorini food tour?
A Santorini food tour tastes dishes built on capers, white aubergine, cucumber, cheese and fish. Capers are the flower buds of a plant, not its fruit. Katsouni is a dry-farmed cucumber variety. Chlorotyri is the local cheese of the island.
Capers were a common appetiser in Byzantine cooking. They still matter in Aegean island cooking and on a Santorini food tour. Growers pick the buds before they open. Leaves, shoots and seed pods, which look like tiny cucumbers, are edible too.
Cooks cure capers in brine because every part of the plant tastes bitter when picked. Curing starts with one week of soaking in water that is changed regularly. Then the buds go into jars with coarse salt, brine or vinegar.
A Santorini food tour meets a local twist on that method. On Santorini and Sifnos, cooks dry capers in strong sun until they turn hard and slightly blonde. They soak the dried buds again before use.
In botany, aubergine is a berry. It is a nightshade, related to the tomato, chili pepper and potato. Its spongy flesh soaks up oils and flavours. Santorini cooks use the sweet white kind in a local moussaka.
- Katsouni: This cucumber goes into salads with cherry tomatoes and chloro cheese.
- Chlorotyri: This creamy, slightly sour cheese uses goat milk or mixed sheep and goat milk.
- Fish: Brandada is cod in batter with an aubergine garlic dip, and savori is small fried fish.
The Aegean caper is a subspecies called rupestris, found on the Cyclades, Rhodes and Crete. Cooks stew capers in tomato sauce with pulses, fish or seafood. A Santorini food tour meets that Cycladic caper.
What sweets and drinks end a Santorini food tour?
A Santorini food tour can end with spoon sweets, a sesame bar, Greek coffee or a local drink. Each one comes from a Greek habit of welcome. The island adds its own beer, and other Greek islands add spirits and liqueurs.
Spoon sweets are sweet fruit preserves served on a spoon as a gesture of hospitality in Greece. A preserve is fruit cooked slowly in sugar syrup. Hosts serve them together with Greek coffee and a glass of cold water.
On a Santorini food tour, pasteli is a flat, oblong bar of sesame seeds and honey. The Byzantine writer John Choumnos says people ate a sesame sweet at weddings for fertility and good offspring.
Greek coffee is the Greek name for Turkish coffee. It comes with a glass of water, which is sipped first to cleanse the mouth. Greece and Malta are especially famous for wild thyme honey.
Tsikoudia is a fragrant brandy of Cretan origin, made from what remains of grapes pressed in winemaking. It is served chilled and can come as a free drink after a meal, with fruit and sweets.
- Rakomelo: Two grape brandies, raki and tsipouro, are mixed with honey and spices such as cinnamon.
- Kitron: Naxos makes this liqueur from the fruit and leaves of the citron, a tree like the lemon.
- Koufeto: This spoon sweet comes from Milos, a neighbouring island of the Cyclades.
A Santorini food tour can finish with the island’s own beer. Four brewers opened the island’s first brewery in 2011. It stands in the Mesa Gonia region, the traditional home of its wine industry.
Which months suit a Santorini food tour?
A Santorini food tour follows the farm year, so each season shows a different side of the island. Spring belongs to the tomato plants, Easter to church customs and summer to the crowds. January is quiet at the airport.
Spring suits a Santorini food tour, since the island’s farm crops are then growing. The EU file for the tomato records a yearly average of 17.5 °C. It also records virtually no frost.
In June the airport counted 360,029 passengers. Of them, 208,291 flew on international routes. A Santorini food tour in early summer shares the island with that growing crowd.
In the Cyclades, neighbours helped each other with the grain harvest and the grape harvest, called ventema. Even the poorest farmer gave the helpers the wine and food they needed.
Under Ottoman rule, island life moved from closed castle villages to open dance floors on threshing floors. Megalochori holds a church feast, or panigyri, on 1 July at Agioi Anargyroi.
- Pyrgos: The main Good Friday procession is held at a castle church built in 1660 and 1661.
- Magiritsa: Families eat this lamb soup after the midnight church service to break the fast of Great Lent.
- Lampropsomo: This braided Greek Easter bread holds whole dyed eggs pressed into the dough.
In January the airport counted 22,218 passengers, all on domestic flights. March counted 51,864 passengers and August 471,663, with 3,570 flights. A Santorini food tour in January meets far fewer passengers than one in August.
What do travelers want to know about a Santorini food tour?
A Santorini food tour brings up questions about EU food labels, island products, ancient Akrotiri, water and capers. These topics explain how law, history and nature shape the plate. Each one ties a taste to a rule, a place or a plant.
What do PDO and PGI mean on a Santorini food tour?
PDO means protected designation of origin, and PGI means protected geographical indication. A PDO product gets its qualities mainly from its region and is made entirely there. A PGI needs only a good reputation and one production step in the region.
How does a food name win EU protection on a Santorini food tour?
An application goes first to the member state, which sends it to the European Commission. Third parties can object, and a generic name cannot be registered. The Fava Santorinis notice of 11 February 2010 gave objectors six months. Regulation (EU) No 901/2010 then entered the name.
Which products on a Santorini food tour hold PDO status?
The Greek farm ministry lists Fava Santorinis and Tomataki Santorinis as PDO names. EU protection of food names first came into force in 1992. Fava Santorinis must be packed right after the husks come off. That stops the fragile product from taking in humidity.
What does Akrotiri tell a Santorini food tour about ancient food?
Pots at Akrotiri included vessels for preparing and cooking food and for eating and drinking. The pottery also included bee-hives. A study of ground remains found processed barley, wheat and possible legume flour. Stored seeds from the late Bronze Age West House were Lathyrus clymenum.
Where does fresh water come from on a Santorini food tour?
The Oia desalination plant has six units and a capacity of 2,800 cubic metres per day. The Aghia Paraskevi plant holds 5,000 cubic metres per day. A municipal company founded in 2011 runs the plants and pumping wells of Santorini and Therasia.
What is the caper bush on a Santorini food tour?
The caper bush, Capparis spinosa, is a perennial plant with rounded, fleshy leaves. Its large flowers are white to pinkish white. Each flower has four sepals, four petals, long violet stamens and one stigma. People eat the caper berry salted or pickled.