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Giorgos Floudas

Columnist: Logbook, Wine Reviews, Topics

I was born at the end of the previous century (in 50 years time, it will sound more realistic, but it's true) and my occupation with wine came rather by chance. It was rather wine that picked me. My decision to study enology was a suggestion of a high school teacher of mine whom I haven't seen since. It was only last year that we became friends on facebook and I promised him that would share a bottle of wine -he must have misunderstood me, because we haven't got together.

Then I went to Bordeaux where I felt like an amateur footballer from an adjacent 5Χ5 field who plays in Barcelona's Camp Nou with the top team. It is a great chance for anyone who enters the wine world and a "window" to a different world. I returned for my practice as enologist in Domaine Hatzimichalis. It was then that I realised that I was not interested in win production, so I started looking for other fields of interest. So, I became sommelier at ASPRO WINE STUDIO, the best wine bistrot of Athens at the time, and then at ARISTERADEXIA. I personally think that it was the most accomplished restaurant venture and I was very lucky to have worked for it. Modern, unpretentious, equally focusing on food and wine -quite rare even currently ten years later. Then, I found myself in Elounda Beach hotel initially for three months but ended up staying for 5 years. A creative period dealing mostly with foreign guests and high demands. A great school and a filed ablaze with glory in a very specific tourist part of Greece. However, things -no matter how good or bad- go in circles.

Coming back Athens, I undertook the duties of Sales Support at

L.D. Hatzimichalis S.A. We created the company name. Wine imports and exports, wine exhibitions, wine presentations, wine dinners and may wine trips.

After five most interesting years, another circle came to a close. Meanwhile, I wrote articles in various magazines: Enochoos in Kathimerini newspaper,  Eu,  Wine Plus, Ta Nea tou Enea, Gourmet in Kyriakatiki Eleftherotypia newspaper hosted some of my articles.

I have also been a judge in numerous international contests, acquiring large experience and broad knowledge of wines of the world.

Wine for me is a means of socialising and a catalyst of human relations. I never saw it as anything more serious than this and from this point of view I've been a lover of wine over the past fifteen years. My wine column in F&L aims at giving guidance to wine amateurs, afficionados or absolute beginners on how to choose new, interesting wines and have a good time; feel, flirt, fall in love, deliberate and discover new experience.

I aspire at an interactive relationship. For me, the best school and most complete encyclopaedia have been the people whom I should suggest a wine to or teach them about wine.

The more you give the more you get.