The story
Commandaria Festival in Commandaria villages
The Commandaria Festival, held annually in the village of Lania, celebrates Commandaria, a sweet wine documented since antiquity and recognised by Guinness World Records as the oldest continuously produced named wine, legally producible only in fourteen Troodos-slope villages. The evening combines wine tastings, traditional food, folklore music and dance, and 3D projections on the village castle's walls.
A sweet wine that Richard the Lionheart is recorded as calling the wine of kings and the king of wines, first perfected by the Knights of St John in 1192 and traceable in written references to Hesiod's eighth-century BCE descriptions of Cypriot nama wine, gives the Commandaria Festival a documented pedigree few wine festivals anywhere can match, and Guinness World Records recognises Commandaria as the oldest continuously produced named wine in the world.