A Tyrnavos wine tasting takes you to the main wine and tsipouro town of Thessaly, a farming town on the edge of the great plain north of Larissa. See more food and wine trips around the country with Greece Tours.
You will find the bookable trips, the cooperative and family estates, the grapes, the tsipouro, the festival dates, the way there and common questions.
What is a Tyrnavos wine tasting?
A Tyrnavos wine tasting is a visit to a winery or distillery in Tyrnavos, the wine town of Thessaly, 18 km from Larissa. You tour the cellars, learn how wine and tsipouro are made, and taste Moschato of Tyrnavos, local reds and the town’s famous tsipouro.
Tyrnavos is a town and municipality in the Larissa regional unit. It sits at the northern edge of the Thessalian plain, where the flat land gives way to the slopes of Melouna, with views to Olympus and Kissavos. The river Titarisios, also called Xerias, runs through the town.
Wine shapes the town and every Tyrnavos wine tasting. Visit Thessaly counts 25,000 stremmas of vineyards in a small area around the town, about half of all the vineyard land in Thessaly. WineTourismGreece calls Tyrnavos the biggest wine centre of the region.
Locals still raise their glasses with the toast “Everything vineyards!”, a wish to turn every field into vines. A Tyrnavos wine tasting shows how close they have come. Our Larissa tours page covers the rest of the plain and the city nearby.
Which Tyrnavos wine tasting tours can you book?
GetYourGuide sells two day trips from Larissa: a winery, tsipouro and pottery experience lasting 6 hours, and a Larissa history tour with a Tyrnavos winery visit lasting 6.5 hours. Gastronomy Tours sells a tour and tasting at the Tirnavos Cooperative.
The first trip is called “Tyrnavos Winery, Tsipouro & Pottery Experience”. It combines a winery visit, a wine and tsipouro tasting and local flavours with a traditional pottery workshop in Ampelonas. Pickup is available, it is wheelchair accessible, and bookings close 10 hours before the start.
The second trip starts with the ancient history of Larissa and then continues to Tyrnavos. There it adds a winery visit, a tasting of local wine and tsipouro, and Thessalian food. This 6.5-hour Tyrnavos wine tasting tour also offers pickup and can be booked as little as 10 minutes ahead.
Both GetYourGuide Tyrnavos wine tasting trips allow free cancellation. Gastronomy Tours sells its cooperative visit from November to June. It covers the clay soils, the warm Thessalian climate and the local grape varieties before the glasses come out.
Independent travellers can also book a Tyrnavos wine tasting direct. The cooperative opens its winery to visitors all year, and family estates such as Migas and Zafeirakis take guests by appointment.
What do you taste at the Tyrnavos Cooperative winery?
The Tyrnavos Cooperative Winery and Distillery pours wines, tsipouro and ouzo from about 60 labels. Visitors tour the production halls, learn how wine is made and distilled, and then taste a selection of the cooperative’s products. The winery opens to visitors all year.
The cooperative dates back to 1961 and is one of the oldest in Greece. Today it counts around 500 members, all vine growers from the Tyrnavos area. Gastronomy Tours puts the exact figure at 466 growers.
The scale of this Tyrnavos wine tasting venue is large. The members farm around 9,000 stremmas, about 40% of the Tyrnavos vineyard, and bring in 10,000 to 13,000 tons of grapes a year. The facilities cover 50,000 square metres and can store 130,000 hectolitres.
Each year the cooperative ships 6,000 tons of wine and more than 400 tons of tsipouro and ouzo across Greece and abroad. A large share goes overseas, mainly to Australia. Its labels have won awards at international competitions.
Moschato of Tyrnavos sits at the centre of a Tyrnavos wine tasting here. The cooperative also grows Roditis, Batiki, Limniona and Debina, plus Syrah, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay and other international grapes. The winery stands at the 1st km of the Tyrnavos to Larissa road.
Which private estates offer a Tyrnavos wine tasting?
Domaine D. Migas, Domaine Zafeirakis and the Kardasis distillery all take visitors. Migas runs 45 to 60-minute guided tours by appointment, Zafeirakis pours its organic Limniona in a tasting hall above the vines, and Kardasis shows how tsipouro is distilled.
Domaine D. Migas continues a family tradition that began in the early 20th century. Its modern winery stands in Palaios Ampelos, at the 3rd km of the road to Kozani. A wine guide leads guests through 150 stremmas of vineyard, the production area, the bottling room and the ageing cellar. Visits run Monday to Friday, 10:00 to 16:00.
Domaine Zafeirakis is known for bringing back the Limniona grape, which it has grown since 2008. It works with organic and biodynamic methods and also makes Malagousia and Chardonnay. Its 250-square-metre hall for a Tyrnavos wine tasting seats up to 60 people and looks over vineyards and orchards, and a meal can be arranged on request.
The Kardasis family bought its first still in 1924 and founded its distillery in 1991. The site lies at the 5th km of the Tyrnavos to Larissa road, beside the family’s own vineyard.
A Tyrnavos wine tasting here shows the stills up close, and the range runs from tsipouro with and without anise to an aged tsipouro and a dry ouzo with 16 herbs and seeds.
Which grapes define a Tyrnavos wine tasting?
Moschato of Tyrnavos is the star grape, a muscat known officially by that name since 2013. Roditis is the other main variety, and the local reds Limniona and the white Batiki are rising names. International grapes such as Syrah and Chardonnay also grow here.
Moschato of Tyrnavos is the same variety as Hamburg Muscat. Visit Thessaly calls it the absolute protagonist of the vineyard, and it forms the basis of a large part of the cooperative’s range. Kardasis also uses a black muscat of Tyrnavos for its tsipouro without anise.
Two Greek grapes stand out on a Tyrnavos wine tasting. WineTourismGreece describes Batiki as a grape for elegant white wines with medium body and acidity. Limniona gives aromatic red wines with smooth tannins and balanced acidity, and it ranks among the up-and-coming red grapes of Greece.
The town has its own wine label in law. PGI Tyrnavos is one of the protected geographical indications of Thessaly, alongside PGI Thessalia, PGI Meteora and others. Wines poured on a Tyrnavos wine tasting can carry this name on the label.
Soil and climate shape the glass on a Tyrnavos wine tasting. Gastronomy Tours points to the clay soils of the area and the warm climate of the Thessalian plain as the two keys to the local style.
Why is tsipouro part of every Tyrnavos wine tasting?
Tyrnavos is even more famous for tsipouro than for wine. Tsipouro of Tyrnavos has been a Protected Geographical Indication since 1989, and the cooperative alone makes 700 tons a year. It comes with or without anise.
Tsipouro is a grape spirit of 40 to 45% alcohol, made from the grape pomace left after pressing or from wine itself. Producers keep only the middle cut of the distillation, called the heart, and the standard method distils it twice. Barrel-aged versions also exist.
Autumn is distilling season and a busy time for a Tyrnavos wine tasting. From mid-autumn, for about two months, hundreds of stills called kazanis start work, and the smell of moschato fills the town. Private distillers, nicknamed “two-day” after their special licence, hold small parties around their stills.
The town also claims the name of ouzo. Visit Thessaly tells how a military doctor, Stavrak-bey, suggested a new ingredient for the local re-boiled raki in the 19th century. A merchant who tasted it cried out that it was “Ouzo Massalias”, after the “Uso Marsiglia” stamp on top-quality silk sent to Marseille.
Serve tsipouro chilled, straight from the fridge, or with water or ice. It comes in small glasses with meze such as nuts, cheese, olives and rusks. The Museum of Vine, Wine and the House of Man, in the Karassos mansion, tells the full story of the local spirits after a Tyrnavos wine tasting.
Which season suits a Tyrnavos wine tasting?
Mid-autumn brings the tsipouro stills to life for about two months. September brings the wine festival in Ampelonas, and Clean Monday brings the Bourani, the town’s wild carnival custom. The cooperative winery opens to visitors all year.
The September festival takes place in the park of Agios Georgios in Ampelonas, the second largest settlement of the municipality. It is a multi-day event, with cultural events alongside the wine. A Tyrnavos wine tasting that week adds music and crowds to the cellar visit.
The carnival season is the other big date for a Tyrnavos wine tasting. The Tyrnavos Carnival, one of the four or five largest in Greece, fills the streets with floats on the last Sunday of the carnival season. The next morning, Clean Monday, the Bourani begins on the hill of Prophet Elias.
The Bourani is not for the prudish. Locals boil a spinach soup over open fires, dance, trade bawdy jokes and carry phallic symbols in a custom with roots in the worship of Dionysus. Local tsipouro flows from morning until the next dawn.
How do you reach Tyrnavos, and what else is nearby?
Tyrnavos lies 18 km north-west of Larissa on a straight road, beside National Road 3 to Elassona and Kozani. Both GetYourGuide trips include pickup. In town, the stone bridge over the Xerias, an Ottoman bath house and the church of Panagia Faneromeni round off the day.
The town keeps traces of its old wealth. The multi-arched bridge over the Xerias stands next to the 19th-century Ottoman hammam. The church of Panagia Faneromeni dates from the 17th century, and the Monastery of Prophet Elias stands on the hill north of town.
Silk once rivalled wine. From the 18th century, local workshops dyed yarn and produced silk, and their printed silks, called stambota, sold across Thessaly until the craft faded around the 1960s.
Nature lies close by. Just north of the town lie the twin lakes of Vrysi and Mati. Vrysi is a popular recreation area, and Mati is a small wetland with plane trees, reeds, birds and even otters. A walk there makes a calm break after a Tyrnavos wine tasting.
What do travellers ask about a Tyrnavos wine tasting?
How long is a Tyrnavos wine tasting tour?
The GetYourGuide trips from Larissa last 6 and 6.5 hours. A guided visit at Domaine D. Migas lasts 45 to 60 minutes.
Do you need to book a winery visit in Tyrnavos?
Yes, for the private estates. Migas and Zafeirakis receive visitors by appointment, while the cooperative winery opens all year.
Is tsipouro included in a Tyrnavos wine tasting?
Yes. Both GetYourGuide trips include a tsipouro tasting, and the cooperative and Kardasis pour their own tsipouro.
Can you buy wine to take home?
Yes. The cooperative alone bottles about 60 labels of wine, tsipouro and ouzo.