Zitsa Wine Festival is one of the wine festivals that anchors the Epirus calendar, drawing both local visitors and international wine travellers each year. It is held at Monastery of Prophet Elias in Zitsa, in the heart of one of Greece's most distinctive wine areas. It is an annual event with an established local audience and a consistent place in the regional calendar.
Showcases the Debina grape and PDO Zitsa sparkling white wines. Wine festivals across Europe typically combine producer tastings with food pairings, live music, and a strong sense of place. Visitors can expect access to wines from a range of producers in the appellation, alongside food stalls offering regional specialities, masterclasses or vineyard walks for those who want to learn more, and an opportunity to buy directly from producers at cellar prices. Many events run across multiple days or weekends, allowing visitors to sample different parts of the programme according to interest, and combine well with the area's wider tourism offer. The event is organised by Municipality of Zitsa & Zoinos Winery / local cooperative, which sets the tone and direction of the programme each year.
Epirus in northwestern Greece is one of the country's smallest and least-known wine regions, but produces highly distinctive wines thanks to the region's mountainous terrain and continental climate. The Zitsa appellation north of Ioannina produces lightly sparkling and still whites from the indigenous Debina grape — naturally fresh, citrus-driven wines unlike anything else in Greek viticulture. Other Epirus appellations include Metsovo, where the local pioneer Katogi-Strofilia introduced Cabernet Sauvignon to Greece in the 1960s. Producers like Glinavos, Ktima Zoinos and Domaine Gerovassiliou's Epirus venture set the regional quality reference.
The 2026 edition is scheduled for Last week of August 2026 (TBC). Cost details are best confirmed directly with the organiser ahead of travel. Full programme, ticketing and updated information are published on the official site at zoinos.gr. Visitors are advised to check directly with the organiser for the latest schedule, as festival programmes are sometimes updated close to the event date.
Epirus is reached via Ioannina airport with connections to Athens, or by car from Thessaloniki (3 hours) or Athens (5 hours via the Egnatia and Ionian motorways). Ioannina, with its lakeside setting and Ottoman-era old town, is the regional base. The region pairs wine tourism with the Vikos Gorge (the world's deepest gorge by depth-to-width ratio), the Zagori traditional villages (UNESCO-listed cultural landscape), and the Ottoman heritage of the Pindos mountain area. Epirot cuisine is the most distinctive regional cuisine in Greece, with the area's strong pita (savoury pie) tradition, mountain trout, sheep's-milk cheeses (feta, manouri, anthotyros), and the wild greens and herbs of the mountains.
