RENO, Nevada – Shaji Mathew is a Reno doctor, a pediatrician, but his approach to wine doesn’t reflect the old saying, the stereotypical pairing of doctor and grape.

One of his passions is the wine of Greece, Reno Gazette-Journal reports.

In fact, Mathew and his wife, Vijna, founded their Sierra Nevada Imports in 2013 to introduce people to wines from medium-size Greek producers.

“If you really dig deeper, you find hundreds of grapes, and young wine makers that learned proper classical wine making and brought it back to Greece. They want to show the world that Greece is a serious wine making country,” Shaji Mathew said.

Greece ranks among the world’s oldest wine making cultures, with its vinicultural origins dating back at least 5,000 years.

“For many people, the first thing that comes to mind about Greek wine is retsina (the resinated Greek wine) or that it tastes like paint thinner, “ Shaji Mathew said. The truth is, “Greek wine is very diverse. Right now, Greece is in ferment.”

In 2015, Shaji Mathew took a wine trip to Greece, “furiously tasting and taking notes,” he said, across the mainland and the archipelago. The other day, the couple presented some of the fruits of this trip at an afternoon tasting in Reno.

In the last couple of decades, Greek wine makers have experimented with grapes from beyond Greece. The tasting included an unfiltered blend of sauvignon blanc and assyrtiko, an acidic white varietal, from Papargyriou Winery in Corinthia, about 75 miles west of Athens.

Read the full story at Reno Gazette-Journal.