The Aria Hotels The small family chain of boutique hotels in private destinations in Greece - and Trip2Key - the award-winning company for the promotion of quality Greek gastronomy founded by Marina Boutari - joined forces to offer a special winter cultural wine-gastronomic escape to Katogi Averoff Hotel & Winery on Metsovo.

 

The Katogi Averoff Hotel & Winery - the standard wine tourism unit that perfectly combines the world of wine, quality local gastronomy and warm hospitality - welcomed us the first PSK of December (2-4 / 12/2016).

The hotel - winery Katogi Averoff was recently built by Sotiris Ioannou, wife of Tatiana Averoff (daughter of Evangelos Averoff) and started operating in 2008. The 15 rooms of the hotel overlook the winery, Metsovo and Pindos and their decoration is a composition of the colors of the wines of the Metsovite vineyard (white, rosé and red), the traditional style of the area and the modern aesthetic quests, while they are equipped with all the modern comforts and decorated with works of art.

The main program of the three days started with a walk in the city of Metsovo accompanied by Marina Boutari of trip2taste and Daphne Kosmidou of Aria Hotels and Katogi-Averoff Hotel.

First station o Averofio Garden, created by Averoff to gather all kinds of trees that grow in the wider area of ​​Pindos, while in its center is the church of St. Georgiou.

Metsovo from the 19th century is identified with the Averoff family, which is one of the biggest benefactors of the country - Polytechnic (1873), Battleship Averoff (1911) etc. - and of course its Epirus after funding more than 100 schools. Evangelos Averoff after a ten-year effort by correspondence (!) Managed to convince the ruthless Baron Michael Tositsa who lived in Lausanne, Switzerland, and shortly before the latter passed away, to leave all his untold fortune in his homeland and Metsovo (and not the Swiss, as originally intended). The only condition put by the Baron was Evangelos Averoff to add the name Tositsas to his surname. Thus, the Tositsa Foundation the 1948.

Ο Evangelos Averof-Tositsas with the resources of the Foundation completely changed the image of Metsovo which in the 1950s was heartbreaking. He planted hundreds of thousands of firs - then the place was treeless - he built a new dairy, a exemplary cheese factory even sending the cheesemakers to learn cheese-making in Italy, he planted the first Cabernet Sauvignon in Greece and built a winery, a sawmill, a unique workshop and station for selling traditional weavers, a ski resort with a cable car (in Karagoli), , the Averofio Garden, the conference center "Diaselo", sewerage network, lighting in the main streets, a student dormitory in Athens and the E. Averoff Gallery.

After the history lesson we were led to Folklore Museum of Metsovo for a visit and tour that put us directly in the heart of this place. Because from the first steps inside the Museum we entered the heart of its culture, the "living" witness of an era and a way of life, which today seems distant and forgotten. The Folklore Museum of Metsovo is housed in the three-storey Tositsa Mansion and is exactly one “museum of himself".

The Tositsa Mansion dates from the 17th century, while with additions and repairs it was maintained until 1950, when it was completely rebuilt thanks to the funding of the Baron Michael Tositsa Foundation and the initiatives of Evangelos Averof, who took over its management.

The modern way of touring modern museums is usually done with a device where you listen to the relevant narration through headphones.

Here at the Museum, the tour was fortunately traditional! A young Metsovite guide, Theodoros, was our traveler. For two hours we hung from his lips, every sentence he said hid scales of knowledge behind him and he answered our every question.

On the ground floor, the tour started from the stable where the family horses were housed. The main exhibits were the ornate saddles of horses and a multitude of bells, samples of the art of bell-making. Bells with special sounds to identify the animals of the herds depending on their species and in what phase they were (if they were in danger, if they were running, etc.). Then we visited the food warehouse and next to the kitchen with the large built-in oven.

From the family lounges (which were divided into summer and winter, with the second ones without windows to keep warm) to the large second floor lounges for the holidays, one can understand the magnitude of the wealth and glamor that the family enjoyed Tositsa. Impressive is the room of social gatherings (living room) where the guests depending on their social position sat near the fireplace to warm themselves (from here emerged "he is from the fireplace").

On the third floor of the mansion were the personal spaces of Evangelos Averof-Tositsa (office, dining room, living room, bedroom) and here are exhibited some of his personal belongings (his passports, his revolver but also his characteristic slip and tsarouchia), such as and photos from his long political career.

Throughout the museum there are traditional wood-carved furniture, textiles and embroidery, gold-embroidered costumes, decorative and useful objects, weapons, swords, coins, agricultural utensils, icons, and excellent specimens of the continental silversmith, etc. .

The cultural tour continued in E. Averoff Gallery, inaugurated in 1988 and includes 200 works by important Greek painters of the 19th and 20th century. Here the visitor can admire representative works of all our great creators of the last two centuries such as Lytra, Gyzi, Volanaki, Prosalenti, Altamoura, Hatzi, Lembesi, Iakovidi, Savvidi, Roilou, Partheni, Maleou, Veliou, Oikounou, Oikoumou , Kontopoulos, Nikolaou, Chatzikyriakou Gika, but also works by contemporary Greek artists such as Costa Malamou, Botsoglou, Paniara, Paris Preka, Soroga, Fasianou. Finally, the exhibition was recently enriched with photographs by the great Greek rural photographer Costas Balafas.

The walk in Metsovo continued on its cobbled streets, between the stone mansions, samples of a prosperous culture of the 18th-19th century, but also in the village square where old men and women wearing the typical costumes enjoyed the sun and others took their walks. , confirming our impression that Metsovo is at the same time the most picturesque and liveliest settlement in Greece.

Built at an altitude of 1200 meters, in an impressive landscape full of greenery, right where the North divides Pindos from the South, where the two largest rivers of Greece, the Pinios and the Acheloos and two smaller but equally known Aoos and the Arachthos, the Metsovo awakens forgotten senses.

In our walk we did not resist, to take a quick look at the taverns and grills around the main square, to confirm, at least visually, the fame of Metsovit cuisine and indeed we saw the pies, the kontosouvlia, kokoretsia and the trahanades, and that a day later we returned to enjoy them deliciously.

On the way back to the hotel a series of events were waiting for us. The visit to his basements Katogi Averof winery it really is an impressive experience. The whole path inside the cellars between the rows with the oak barrels, the artistic lighting interventions, the visual effects, the path over a glass corridor where one can see hundreds of bottles lying beneath them, create an atmospheric tour of the charming world. of wine, in the history of the winery and in the process of wine production.

The experience ended with taste samples of wines under the masterful guidance of Maria Dimou (winemaker and marketing director of the winery), where, among other things, various wines were tasted, including:

Belowy Averoff (Roditis, Chardonnay)

Katogi Averoff (Cabernet Sauvignon - the first vines of foreign variety grown in Greece-, Merlot and Agiorgitiko) the first premium wine in Greece produced since 1963.

INIMA Xinomavro, INIMA Negoska, INIMA Assyrtiko, Athens.

Fiery Merlot Averoff with 12 months maturation in oak barrels,

and the Rossiu di Munte Vlach limited breed range

The next gastronomic experience was more complicated, for difficult solvers. Creator of the Marina Boutari. An interactive game combining selected wines from the Katogi Averoff Collection with 5 excellent cheeses from the Tositsa Foundation cheese factory and handmade chutneys from Chefstories.

Cheeses were his products cheese factory of the Tositsa Foundation which annually produces 170.000 kg of cheese from sheep, goat and cow milk and which stand out for their quality: the smoked Metsovone , the semi-hard Metsovella, the sweet Γραβιέρα type "Gruyères", the hard to find Grana or Parmesan and the pipερατο Μετσοβίσιο or Gidisio or Maisio or Batsisio type "Chevre".

The wines were: white Averoff Traminer Estate, INIMA Assyrtiko-Athiri, the rose Katogi Averoff Rose, and reds Estate Averoff Cabernet, Rossiu di Munte Vlach.

The chatneys were: onion, red paper with ginger, apple with cayenne pepper, tomato with thyme from Chefstories, the creation of two brothers - Eleni Koumentaki, a biologist with a love for cooking, and Sylvia, an advertising executive - from Thessaloniki.

The gastronomic test that did not have thought and concerns for the success of the combinations was the reassuring dinner on Katogi Averoff Hotel which was also the choice of Marina Boutari:

Pumpkin soup with ginger and potato accompanied by white wine Ktima Averof Traminer 2015,

Mixed salad with lettuce, valerian, arugula with dried helmets, sauce with lemon, mustard and honey, accompanied by Katogi Averoff Rose 2015,

Saganaki with a variety of Metsovo cheeses and raspberry sauce, and conflit lamb simmered in Metsovo butter with celery and baked potatoes accompanied by the excellent Rossiu di Munte Ginets.

At gastronomic experiences we should not neglect the extraordinary Greek breakfast of the hotel, starring pies (cashew pie, macaroni pie, milk pie, vegetable pie, prasopita with sausage etc), the local butter and cheese of the Cheese Factory of the Foundation, the rice milk, the trachanades and the jams. The unique breakfast and dinner were prepared with her own hands by the cook of the hotel Epirotissa Athena Chita!

From this three days, which was rich in intense gastronomic, learning, but also relaxing moments (the participants in the group joined in beautiful groups participating with fun in the program and in the interesting experiences that unfolded) with the stamp of giving, courtesy and warm hospitality of the organizers, Marina Boutari from trip2taste and Daphne Kosmidou from Aria Hotels, one could export some conclusions:

A. In the Greece of crisis and frustration one can taste experiences and get to know places and their culture through a holistic approach (history-wine gastronomy-modern business creation).

B. In this country there are young creators and young entrepreneurs who are building their future.

C. These creators through synergies create new collective products and help each other.

D. The environment, the primary sector, agri-food processing, gastronomy, culture and tourism, when they create a complementary chain, can make a decisive contribution to the development of any place.

E. The promotion of Metsovo, but also of any place, can be done, when it systematically utilizes all its values, something that was successfully achieved in this three-day trip.