Archaeologists inform us that ancient Anaphlystos (modern-day Anavyssos) was a busy trading centre during the Archaic, Classical and Roman periods whose commercial activities included the sale of wine.
In the modern era, the Anavyssos region provided a new home for refugees fleeing Asia Minor in the wake of the catastrophic events that followed World War One. A first wave of Greeks from Smyrna, Cappadocia and the Propontis settled in the area in 1922 having fled from Turkish persecution, a second in 1924 as part of the population exchanges imposed by the Treaty of Sevres (1923).
The refugees from Fokaia brought a wine-making tradition with them; having secured rudimentary accommodation and a means of making a living, their thoughts turned to wine once more. Until then, the local vineyards had belonged to villagers from Kalyvia, to Areti Maltezos and to the area’s old estate-owners, who had mostly grown Savatiano grapes with a little Roditis and Mavroudia on the side, chiefly for their colour. The people of Kalyvia were suspicious of the newcomers and refused to give them vines to plant. However, Areti Maltezos stepped forward to provide the refugees with their first Savatiano and Fileri vines.
Fileri, a variety native to Asia Minor, makes a pleasant dessert fruit when picked early and a table wine when harvested later in the season. However, the newcomers did not bring the vines with them from Fokaia; they actually found the grapes growing alongside the track to Lavrio, near Kamariza (Agios Konstantinos). It turned out that the vines had been brought there by a resident of Fokaia who had settled in Attica in the previous century. There were local wine presses belonging to people from Kalyvia (whose ruins stand to this day) and to the Maltezos family, which usually pressed the estate’s own production. When the new vineyards reached maturity, Damases, Psyloglou, Tzitziras and others refugees built their own wine presses, most of which were open-air.
The refugees trod their grapes and waited for merchants and tavern owners to come from Athens to buy their wine. Because the land allotted to the refugees was generally poor and sandy and their vines yielded very little, the people of Fokaia, at least, could never earn a living from their winemaking. Rather, they made a little wine for domestic use and earned a little extra selling the remainder on a strictly casual basis to tavernas, passers-by and—later—visitors and holidaymakers.
For its part, the Maltezos family wine press—which was well-organized and whose capacity was extended in 1930, when it began to buy in grapes from third parties, to 400 cart loads or 240 tonnes of grape must a year, all trodden in the traditional manner—concerned itself exclusively with the production of grape must. Here, too, any wine produced was for the estate’s own private consumption.
The vineyards were replanted in 1955 with vines resistant to Phylloxera: mainly Savatiano, but also a little Roditis and Fileri. In recent years, increased building activity and the spread of tourism to the area has spelled the end for Fokaia's vineyards which, cultivated by villagers from Anavyssos and Kalyvia, are now restricted to the area around Anavyssos.
