The Afentakis Protogeros is the undisputed king of wine, the bard of retsina. A glutton for pleasure, he opens his mansion to feasts and boundless, until the final fall, wine-induced ecstasies. To quench his insatiable hedonistic thirst, he transforms his estate into a peculiar harem, where young maids circulate, supposedly brought in to help his wife with household chores.
The omnipotence of Afentakis and retsina is brought crashing down by his son Andreas. Scents, laughter, wedding songs and celebrations, the lascivious sound of kisses behind the foliage, the hissing of must in the barrels merge within him, and he creates his personal wine under the name “Ampelefourgos.” And when Castalia enters his life, the moon-woman, the vision-woman, he creates the second wine named after her.
Next comes “Imeros,” the wine of love and passion, and lastly “Poem,” the most overwhelming, which encapsulates the entirety of life, even death itself and what lies beyond it.
From the author of the novel As I Wanted to Live (Readers' Award EKebi 2010).
