The island of Lesvos has been famous from antiquity and the middle ages for its wine, which was the most expensive in the markets of ancient Athens, Rome and Constantinople.During Ottoman rule, it was the only wine consumed in Turkish harems.

Eventually however,  in the course of the island's turbulent history, including the many changes in rulers, the viticulture tradition was lost on the island;the grapes were killed by the lethal disease Philloxera and, since Lesvos by then had specialized in the production of ouzo, vineyards on the island were abandoned.

Recently , a couple of quality labels, Methymnaeos and Daphnis & Chloë have put the name Lesvos back on the wine map.Methymnaeos wine was launched by the Lambros family following their discovery of the last remaining vines of the traditional red grape of Lesvos in the surroundings of the village Chidira.

 
The grape, named after the village Chidiriotiko, was replanted in 1985 in the family estate, inside the crater of the extinct volcano which, millennia ago, had created the Petrified Forest of Lesvos. Daphnis & Chloë, red and white, is produced at the vineyard Oenophoros, at Megalochori with rare indigenous varieties.