Peloponnese Field Trip (Day 5): Have you heard...? Daphne is Dead!!

Peloponnese Field Trip (Day 5): Have you heard...? Daphne is Dead!! :O

Today was the final day of our Peloponnese field trip. The only activity on the list for the day was one that everyone had been looking forward to: wine-tasting!

View from the balcony of the winery ft. Brendan!

We visited the Achaia Clauss Winery in Patras, the first winery in Greece founded in 1861 by the Bavarian Gustav Clauss. As soon as we got there, we were invited to walk around take in the view, and offered their most famous red wine, Mavrodaphne (Black Daphne). I’m not a wine connoisseur so all I can tell you is that it tasted really sweet!

Our guide pouring us glasses of Mavrodaphe to try!

Barrel with a carving of Hephaestus

We went on a tour of the winery where we got to see the process of winemaking and the hundreds of barrels they have! The barrels holding the ~important~ wine were richly carved, each one was a work of art. Some also had important dates and people engraved on it. We saw a barrel depicting the myth of Dionysus turning pirates in dolphins, a barrel showing Hephaestus drinking wine, and even one dedicated to Vladimir Putin!

While our guide was showing us around the winery, she was also explaining the history of the place. Most importantly, how the Mavrodaphne came to be. According to the story, when Gustav Clauss settled down in Patras, he fell in love with a young girl named Daphne who had black hair and black eyes (hence mavro, black in Greek). Unfortunately, she fell ill and died while she was young, and the heartbroken Gustave dedicated his most famous wine to the memory of her. Our guide emphasized “black hair black eyes!” and the fact that “Daphne is dead!!!!” so many times that by the end of the tour, we were saying it with her.

My friend Danielle and I with our professor Dimitri!

This field trip was truly a once in a lifetime experience. All the sites that we visited were truly amazing. Not only did they highlight the history and culture of Greece but were also so helpful in providing context for everything I had learned and connecting it together. My favorite aspect, however, was getting to experience Greek culture and explore the Peloponnese with my classmates in a way that I wouldn’t have been able to do on my own. <3

My friends and I at Achaia Clauss Winery!