Commandaria is an amber-coloured sweet dessert wine

Dessert wine

Dessert wines are sweet wines typically served with dessert.There is no simple definition of a dessert wine. In the UK, a dessert wine is considered to be any sweet wine drunk with a meal, as opposed to the white fortified wines drunk before the meal, and the red fortified wines drunk after it...

 made in the Commandaria region of Cyprus

Cyprus

Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...

 on the foothills of the Troödos mountains

Troodos Mountains

Troodos is the biggest mountain range of Cyprus, located in the center of the island. Troodos' highest peak is Mount Olympus at 1,952 metres.The Troodos mountain range stretches across most of the western side of Cyprus...

. Commandaria is made from sun-dried grapes of the varieties Xynisteri

Xynisteri

Xynisteri is an indigenous white grape grown on Cyprus. 13% of Cyprus vineyards, or 500 hectares on the south slopes of the Troodos mountain range are planted with this grape variety. It is used in the production of several local wines...

 and Mavro

Mavro

Mavro is an indigenous red grape cultivated on the island of Cyprus. The grape takes its name from its dark colour. The Italian ampelographer, Count Giuseppe di Rovasenda refers to it in 1877 as Cipro Nero ....

. While often a fortified wine

Fortified wine

Fortified wine is wine to which a distilled beverage has been added. Fortified wine is distinguished from spirits made from wine in that spirits are produced by means of distillation, while fortified wine is simply wine that has had a spirit added to it...

, through its production method it often reaches high alcohol levels, around 15%, already before fortification. It represents an ancient wine style documented in Cyprus back to 800 BC and has the distinction of being the world's oldest named wine still in production, with the name Commandaria dating back to the crusades

Crusades

The Crusades were a series of religious wars, blessed by the Pope and the Catholic Church with the main goal of restoring Christian access to the holy places in and near Jerusalem...

 in the 12th century.
The wine has a rich history, said to date back to the time of the ancient Greeks

Ancient Greece

Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...

, where it was a popular drink at festival

Festival

A festival or gala is an event, usually and ordinarily staged by a local community, which centers on and celebrates some unique aspect of that community and the Festival....

s.