Philia Winery: The Art of the Invisible – How Anthony Duchêne "Stripped" the Terroir of Samos

Wine stays silent until you pull the cork. That moment, when the wine meets air and glass, is when it reveals itself. But before that, as the bottle sits quietly on a shelf in Paris, New York, or Athens, how can it share its story? How can it show its origins, its hidden pain and joy, before you taste it?

This silence is powerful. Instead of trying to give it a voice, we wanted to give wine lovers a hint of what lies inside. We chose not to follow the usual path. We didn’t want a label that just sells. We wanted an image that deeply connects. That’s why we turned to an artist we admired from the moment we met him in Marseille.

Anthony Duchêne.

The Sculptor of Taste and the Raw Element

Duchêne is not a typical visual artist. He avoids conventions and simple beauty. His work is rooted in sculpture, but he draws inspiration from food and hunting. He blends tastes and smells with the rawness of nature.

He creates hybrid figures, mixing plants, bones, and tools, as if they came straight from the earth. This matches our philosophy on Natural Wine. We look for the raw, pure truth of the grape, without interference. Duchêne looks for the same truth in his materials. For us, as winemakers and cooks, he was the perfect artistic partner.

Anthony Duchêne avoids convention, developing a work inspired by gastronomy, based on sculpture. Merging the world of gustative and olfactory sensations with that of hunting and nature, evoke hybrid figures and mutations of plant species that inspire him to create new combinations.

A Journey in Samos: Smelling the Volcanic Soil

Anthony didn’t design the labels from afar or stay locked in a studio. As a true wine lover, he needed to experience our land firsthand. He had to understand what Samos, Greece, really means.

He came to the island, and together we explored, not just toured. We walked along

the steep dry stone terraces, where people have shaped the mountain slopes

for centuries. We climbed to high places where the Aegean wind beats the vines.

We smelled the soil and touched the stones. Anthony needed to feel the energy

of the volcanic soil and the schist. He had to see that in Samos, wine is born not just from the sun, but from deep within the earth. Only by experiencing this journey together through the island’s rugged land could he find the inspiration to show what taste looks like.

Science as Art: The Legacy of Galileo

His inspiration is based on the history of science. The images he created are similar to Galileo Galilei’s first drawings of the Moon in 1609. Before then, people thought the Moon was smooth and perfect. Galileo, using his telescope, showed it as it really was: full of craters, mountains, shadows, and flaws.

In the same way, Duchêne wanted to show the roughness, the stones, and the real nature of Samian soil, which you can’t see under the green surface. Our island looks lush, but it can fool you. Under the greenery is the rock that shapes the wine’s character.

Sous le Végétal: The Revelation

Because the greenery is so strong, the main idea was to strip away the surface plants and reveal the bare terroir underneath. This idea inspired the project name

"Sous le Végétal" (Beneath the Plant).

With this vision, and aiming to make some of the world’s best natural Muscat wines,

we named our two main cuvées:

• Octave (Muscat): This name stands for harmony. Like a musical octave that needs precision, this wine blends grapes from eight different parts of the island into one symphony. It’s the many voices of Samos in a glass.

• Auguste (AvgAuguste (Avgoustiatis): This is our rare red grape. The name honours the harvest month, August, and the grape itself. Though not widely known, it produces a world-class red wine. The labels are far from being simple drawings. They are maps of the subsoil. They are a promise that what you are about to taste is authentic, it is Samos, it is Raw, it is Art.