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Panorama: The winepresses of Stironas

In the rural location called Krousamos, where residents of Alagni, Stironas and neighboring villages, such as Patsideros and Panorama, own properties, there is an impressive installation of covered winepresses. Perhaps it is the only one of this kind that we find in the wider area. Its total length reaches 13.7 meters while its width is 4.5 meters. Part of the building still retains its roof, while two winepresses stand on the ground, one of them with a spout. As the researcher-geologist Stelios Manolioudis reports, it seems that people stored the grapes in two of the rooms of the facility and pressed them in the other two, right next to them. In fact, there is good ventilation in the northern storage room, while small openings can be seen, possibly for moving the grapes to the adjacent room where they were pressed. The southernmost part, with a depth of at least 1.80 meters, also seems to have been a storage room. Absolute dating for the construction of this particular facility has not yet been determined, but one could assume that it dates from the period of the Venetian occupation, like most of the presses in Crete. Today, the area of ​​the covered winepresses of Krusamos is overgrown with olive trees. In the past, however, the picture must have been quite different, since the soil is fertile and the cultivation of vines would have been favored. After all, only the existence of vines could justify the presence of covered winepresses.