Everyone Takes Photos of Santorini. Take the Island Home With You Instead
Over the years, I’ve experimented with ways to remember my travels beyond the tchotchkes sold at airports. In my twenties, I collected woven bracelets on my trips until my wrist displayed a messy collection of weathered strands, their once bright colors reduced to brown and grey. I’d look down at a bracelet I had purchased beneath the peeling yellow archways of Cartagena’s Old City, trying to step back into my memories and remember the smell of arepas sizzling from nearby street vendors or the hot pink bougainvillea flowers spilling over the white balconies. But, much like those tattered strands, the bracelets eventually fell off, and the memories lost their vibrancy.
I briefly tried collecting paintings sold by street artists in Italy and France, hoping that the painted scenes of Parisian cafes or colorful buildings in Burano would emotionally transport me back across the Atlantic. I started buying holiday ornaments on every trip, turning my Christmas tree into an annual homage to my travels. I created a gallery wall to decorate my living room with a dizzying display of travel photos I’d taken. But as lovely as these traditions proved, I wanted more than a visual token of a country I’d once visited; I was looking for a visceral reminder of what it felt like to be in a destination I had loved.
Before arriving in Santorini, I had already seen the island filtered through the lens of millions of other travelers. Its white-washed buildings and blue domes elegantly draped across the volcanic cliffs, contrasting with the shimmering blue waters of the Aegean below, have become so ubiquitous on social media that it can be hard to separate my memories from those of others. We think photos might be the best way to remember our trips, but science tells us it’s actually the worst.
The Science of Remembering Our Travels
Santorini is the sort of destination that I wanted to truly remember. Drawing over 2 million viewers annually, Santorini lives up to all the expectations that precede it: it’s stunning, it has the best sunsets, it has the freshest seafood, and yes, it has crowds that can rival that of Times Square.
I wanted to remember Santorini in a way that transcended a Christmas tree bauble I’d see once a year or an Instagram photo that would mirror the millions of other Santorini images out there. To be standing in a place that had long held top billing on my bucket list felt entirely too special a memory to let fade in vibrancy. The question of how I’d hold on to the feeling of being in Santorini after I’d returned home came to me during a wine tasting at Santo Mine.
Courtesy of Santo Mine
Santo Mine is the newest addition to the Santo Collection—a trio of resorts comprised of Santo Mine, Santo Pure, and The Villas, all connected to Oia by a 10-minute walking trail. Santo Mine boasts 37 luxury suites, each with a private plunge pool and uninterrupted views of Ammoudi Bay and the Aegean Sea beyond. The suites are new and airy, boasting Cycladic minimalism and an eco-conscious approach reflected throughout its architectural design and details.
“When people rely on technology to remember something for them, they’re essentially outsourcing their memory,” explained Linda Henkel in an interview with NPR. Henkel is a psychology professor at Fairfield University. “[People] know their camera is capturing that moment for them, so they don’t pay full attention to it in a way that might help them remember.”
“When people rely on technology to remember something for them, they’re essentially outsourcing their memory.”
Known as the “photo-taking impairment effect,” this phenomenon can be likened to jotting down a phone number. The moment we write those digits down, we give our brain permission to stop trying to remember them. The same goes for our travel photos. When we whip out our cameras and snap a picture, our brains stop trying to capture the moment. In other words, we’re “off-loading” memories to our cameras.
As I watched the tourists vying for their sunset shots, I realized that the challenge of genuinely remembering a place as unique as Santorini is that this Greek Island has become an Instagram darling. Santorini is the sort of destination whose beauty has been etched in our minds long before we set foot on its volcanic soil. To hold onto the feeling of being in Santorini, it turns out I needed to rely on my other senses.
Bottling up Santorini and Bringing It Home
The first thing I smell is the sea. Assyrtiko (pronounced like “a-seer-tee-ko”) smells like Santorini after a storm when the first rays of sunlight begin to warm the caldera, and the Aegean gives off a calming breeze marked by hints of salt. The first thing I taste is that same salinity one experiences when a wave catches them off guard, filling their mouth unexpectedly with seawater. Except here, the mineral flavor is tinged with a welcome acidity like lemons squeezed over a fresh Greek salad.
andreyandreevphotography/Shutterstock
One smell, one sip, and I close my eyes. As if by magic, my surroundings seem to shift. I am no longer sitting in a one-bedroom apartment in New York City, seeking a respite from the sweltering heatwave. Instead, I feel as if I am back in Oia, watching the sunset over Ammoudi Bay, the fishing boats rocking lazily against one another. Assyrtiko is more than just a crisp white wine. For me, it’s a portal back to Santorini.
As it turns out, our strongest tie to memory is not auditory or visual but instead is rooted in our sense of smell and taste. Smell, especially, has the strongest connection to our memories, largely because we process scent in our limbic system, one of the most primitive parts of our brains where memories, moods, and emotions are stored.
As the Harvard Gazette explains, when we eat, molecules in the food work their way back “retro-nasally to our nasal epithelium,” so flavor and odor intertwine, and we come to consider flavor to be closely connected to smell. This is what makes Assyrtiko, in particular, such an effective way to remember Santorini.
Guided by an on-staff sommelier, I was poured my first taste of Assyrtiko during a 90-minute wine tasting organized by the team at Santo Mine. The tasting, which paired cheese, fruit, and charcuterie boards with Greek wines produced locally and throughout the islands, gave our palettes a tour of Greece and its wine varieties. Of the many wines we tried, Assyrtiko proved my favorite, a crisp white wine indigenous to Santorini that I found myself seeking out on every wine list thereafter.
It can be argued that Assyrtiko is becoming to Greece what Riesling has become for Germany or Champagne has become for France: a wine both unique to and emblematic of the land from which it hails. In large part, this could be because Assyrtiko—more than any other Greek wine—has made its way onto wine lists at top restaurants worldwide. But I think it is because, in its flavor and aroma, Assyrtiko uniquely embodies the very essence of Santorini.
“Santorini is the Jurassic Park of vineyards,” explains Stefano Georgas to Wine Enthusiast. Georgas is a winemaker at Estate Argyros, one of the top Assyrtiko producers on the island. Established in the early 1900s, Estate Argyros has produced wine for over two centuries. The vineyards of Santorini are ancient, almost prehistoric in their simplicity, hence “the Jurassic Park of vineyards.”
“[They’re] born from the earth, wind, sea, and fire. It’s unique because you have an exact reflection of what’s in the soil in the wine, with its pumice and sulfur from the volcano, among other elements,” continues Georgas. “It’s a true terroir wine.”
Nataliya Nazarova/Shutterstock
To truly appreciate Assyrtiko, one needs to understand the resilience of its grapes. The challenge of producing wine on Santorini has always been how best to protect grapes from the high winds coming off the Aegean Sea, the intense sun exposure focused on the volcanic island, and the porous volcanic rock shaped by explosive eruptions. The ingenious solution is what is known as “koulouri,” the historical practice of twisting vines into wreaths, giving them the appearance of handmade artisan baskets. These little nests rest atop the volcanic soil and create a protective barrier for the grapes, which can grow amidst Santorini’s harsher conditions, withstanding wind and heat.
When I returned to New York, I was surprised by how difficult it was to find a bottle of Assyrtiko. I had assumed the wine would be as widely available as a bottle of Italian Pinot Grigio or French Burgundy. While Assyrtiko has worked its way onto restaurant wine lists, it is having a relatively new moment, so it may not have yet worked its way onto the shelves of your local wine store.
A bit of research led me to New York’s Astor Wine & Spirits, where I put myself on the waiting list for a bottle of Kavalieros, a wine produced by Domaine Sigalas. The Kavalieros Vineyard is the first winery to produce a single vineyard, Assyrtiko. It sits in the village of Imerovigl, overlooking Santorini’s caldera, producing grapes from one of the highest altitudes on the island. Kavalieros also happened to be the wine I was served at my tasting at Santo Mine, making it my first introduction to Assyrtiko.
Courtesy of Santo Mine
When I finally got my hands on the bottle, I rushed back to my apartment and poured myself a taste. I was eager to see if the Assyrtiko would, in fact, bring Santorini to my doorstep in a visceral way that no photo, video, or souvenir could replicate. One sniff of the wine and I could vividly remember the feeling of walking through Oia and how the salt-tinged air wafted through its narrow streets, ruffling my hair as I made my way through the maze of whitewashed buildings. Like holding a conch seashell up to your ear and hearing that whoosh noise mimicking the ocean’s waves, I swore I could smell the Aegean Sea coming from my glass.
One taste transported me back to Santo Mine. I remembered how it felt to be sitting on the terrace, sipping a glass of Assyrtiko in the late evening hours, watching the setting sun paint the sky hues of pink and purple. I remembered my last night and how I’d sipped Assyrtiko at the famed Ammoudi Fish Tavern, sitting at a corner table that overlooked the bay, which was reflecting the sparkling lights of Oia above. Spurred by taste and aroma, all my trip memories washed over me as I poured myself another glass of Assyrtiko, eager to drink up more of Santorini.
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