The inhabitants of Siatista have been involved in viticulture for a very long time. Its former arable land was 15,000 acres but today does not exceed 3,000 acres. The excellent quality of Siatistas wines is due to the rocky soil where the vine is grown.
The English traveler Lake visited Siatista in 1805 he notes that “Siatista make some sort of wine from the finest of Romania”. Wine was a marketable item from the old days. Winers keep their wines in the backyard for many years. Known for the famous “liasto” wine of Siatista, which comes from a variety of black musk. Also from Tsipoura is produced the very good raki (tsipouro) of Siatista.
Many travel impressions as well as folklore texts testify both viticulture and the connection of wine as an integral
element of people’s daily lives, in the wider study area (Eratiras Folklore, 1993- The wines of Greece, 1990).
For instance the impression of English traveler Lake who visited Siatista at 1805:
“From this product “Grapes” people of Siatista produce a kind of a wine which is the best of Roumelia (Balkan Peninsula), they sell it at Macedonia, Thessaly, Epirus and Europe.
Wine seperated in four types:
- Sun – dried a mixture of white and red grapes which are exposed to the sun for eight days and after that they are placed in a covered apparatus , the result is to have high quality sweet white wine.
- Dry white wine.
- Red wine.
- Absinthe wine (a type of Vermouth) , this wine is sweet and delicious . The locals in Siatista keeps the wine for three, four, five and sometimes more years at the barrels, tastefully and flavored as in civilized Europe. Excellent wine is produced in stony places.
Traveler Francois Pouqueville visited Siatista in 1806 wrotes in his book «Travelling to western Macedonia. Spring of 1806.» Siatista is a place of peace, her school a pure source of morality and her distinct population what an example of harmony. Across the Macedonia they are proud for their pastries and more specific for their pies, a kind of a Siatista leaf pie which they are sending throughout the empire. Wines are also famous and I believe that they are the best in whole Macedonia.
In the Encyclopedia of Lexicology, vol.3, by Bart and Hirs, January 1892, in the entry «wine» we read «… of the wines of the Greek slave named Naoussi, Gomentzas and Siatistis».
Unfortunatelly the appearance of “phylloxera” and the occupation of residents to other activities have resulted in a significant reduction in viticulture.
We must notice that only at Siatista area 15.000 hectares of vinellards were cultivated at the past, today it is reduced less than 2.000 hectares.