Diogenis Daskalou, The Musician

You enjoy watching him satirize current events in the performances of "Monie & Monie Conniente" and lift the mood of the audience with his saxophone. You listen to his radio show, while you have certainly heard him play songs with his tenor saxophone in the Philharmonic Orchestra of the Municipality of Thessaloniki. The route from Serres, his hometown, to Thessaloniki may not have had rose petals, but glasses with retsina, it had enough...

"Retsina for me is not a drink: it's food. Everything that comes from the vine is food. A food that from the third glass onwards becomes the ship of Elytis".

THE MASTER PROFESSOR.

If you could choose any four or five people to share a table of fine food and retsina with, one of them would have to be DiogenisDaskalou. Not only because he is what we call "the soul of the group" and you will spend three or four enjoyable hours with great conversations and lots of laughter, but also because he has done a "doctorate" in retsina. And he can tell you everything about it - and even with... rhythm.
"'My retsina, my retsina, I will die with you, I will not take all the good things of the world before you' said the song of Hatziapostolos in the 'Apachides of Athens'" DiogenisDaskalou reminds us. "Since then, a lot of this wine has flowed into the glass. From the Serres top retsina of 'Pouliou' to 'Malamatina' ('Toumba libre') and from the 'everyday celebration' of Kurtakis to Regina (Retsina), the well-known Vasiliki, kilometers of delicacy pleasure accompanied the tasters like a cool caress that covered us as an accompaniment to leather, meat and fish dishes, as well as Greek and exotic fruits. Retsina, you know, to me is not a drink: it is food. Everything that comes from the vine is food. A food that from the third glass onwards becomes the ship of Elytis, to travel you to the olive groves of Greece".

*THE PHOTOGRAPHY WAS TAKEN ON THE PREMISES OF THE FOLKLORE AND ETHNOLOGICAL MUSEUM OF MACEDONIA-THRACE.*

"SHE'S A QUEEN."

Retsina is one of the most typical Greek wines. However, throughout its history its image has been distorted for several reasons. For DiogenisDaskalou, however, he exudes an air of aristocracy: "Retsina is a queen. That's why I don't address her as 'retsina' but as 'regina'. There were many years of bad processing by many criminal producers, who put in the bucket all the vine and all the pine - with their soil together and with everything that passed by. Hence the 'bruise' that accompanied it. However, the new wine producers - thank God - have succeeded for some time and expelled this 'retsinia' from our retsina. Many times, now, with these new, 'diamond' retsina as an occasion, I have changed course in my cooking, choosing, instead of an improbable rosé from Provence, a 'jewel' from Drama or Mesogeia. However, the biodynamic 'Orange' from Goumenissa is also amazing. Many, now – I will do some injustice if I don't remember them. And let's not forget that for retsina only the 'months that don't have ro get water in wine' does not apply: it is drunk all year round and is the only one compatible with the meal plan of a diet, but also with the diet of diabetics. Besides, what is this wine? 'It is sunlight dissolved in water' (Galileo Galileo)".

THESSALONIKI, TAVERNOUPOLIS.

For Diogenis Daskalou, the history of Thessaloniki is inextricably linked with the history of the retsina, even if it found greater resonance in the economically weaker classes: "For a number of years, Thessaloniki was a tavern town. So: Is itthe Castles? Karaburnou? Kalamaria? Western districts? Evangelistria? So as not to talk about 'Lechrites'... After all, retsina has been 'the poor man's champagne'. Students, workers, luben, rebetes, tavladori and sports fans had it more than beer. Karbouniarika together with retsinadika were the 'heart' of the market - and, in fact, port and Ladadika. I have drunk a lot of retsina from 'Jojo' in the Castles to 'Aristo' in the port, looking for that 'poetry in a bottle', as Clifton Fadiman says about wine. Retsina and cod were, after all, the break for the port workers. But the tissue changed, retsina also changed."
Having overcome its "sinful" past, retsina has found its place in today's Greece. And this role, according to DiogenisDaskalou, has nothing to fear from the past eras of obsolescence: "Our retsina has now become dazzling and sparkling. It is our 'Rioja', our national product! Retsina is the quintessence of imaginative drunkenness – or, as an old friend of mine, the Testament, said, 'wine gladdens the heart'".

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