Gustav Klaus is a Bavarian merchant who comes to Patras and establishes the winery "Achaia". Known today as "Achaia Clauss", it shines with its wines in the wine fun of the 20th century and continues into the 21st century with "Castro Clauss". Francesco Mallia, an immigrant from Malta, is Gustav's right-hand man, the first settler in Colonie.

Colonie is the multinational community of workers at the winery, along with their families (Germans, Greeks, Italians, Maltese), which Klaus organizes in an upland area of Patras, naming it Gutland. Jacob Klippfel, a German, is the first oenologist, perhaps the creator of the sweet Mavrodafni.

Athanasios Rousopoulos, a professor of Archaeology at the University of Athens, introduces Athenae Thomais Karpouni to Gustav. Julius Karl Wilhelm Philip Mencher is a German wine merchant, a deputy in the Reichstag, the first importer of Greek wines in Germany, and the author of the first guide to Greek wine. Vasilis Kaspiris is Klaus's fustanella-clad bodyguard and the bell-ringer of Gutland.

Amalia von Perfal, daughter of Gustav and Thomais, married to a baron in Munich, is his only heir. Empress Elisabeth of Austria ‒ the Sissi of the cinematic technicolor ‒ is the first famous visitor to the winery.

Vlasios Antonopoulos, a liberal raisin merchant and a deputy of Venizelos, is the heir to "Achaia" and its wines after World War I, when the winery founded by Gustav came under the guardianship of the Greek state as "enemy property." The tobacco industrialist from Egypt, Theodoros Vafeiadis, represents "Achaia"'s wines in Bombay; and the weightlifter Dimitris Tofalos, in New York.

Lampirni Kakou, an Eponite, visits "Achaia" and raises a glass in memory of her hanged brother during the last days of World War II. These are some of the heroes who inhabit Gutland, a grand narrative, novelistic in style but fully documented, covering more than a century, from 1833 to 1949.

The author reconstructs microcosms, unknown and unexpected, even reconstructs the natural landscape, adding color and depth to everyday life, social interactions, human relationships, and feelings, transcending stereotypes and shedding light on unseen areas, where great history never reaches. Wine and the vine are, of course, the omnipresent protagonists.