The "Wine Festival" was first organized in 1961 and has since been established as an annual event of festive joy not only for the town of Lemesos (Limassol) but for the whole of Cyprus. Its reputation has gone beyond the boundaries of our island. Thousands of foreign tourists are attracted every year to Lemesos (Limassol), in its Municipal Garden, to participate in the "Wine Festival", to become, together with local people, protagonists in a feast of human euphoria - protagonists because the Festival does not have "spectators" but only active participants - to banish every care of life and, free from social conventions and formalities, to feel innermost comfort and freedom in an atmosphere of unreserved fraternization created by the charismatic influence of wine. When you drink the Cypriot wine you infuse into your being the rays of the sun, the breath of the breeze, the lucidity of the atmosphere, the fascination of the land and the sky of Cyprus.

Since ancient times there have been similar feasts in Cyprus connected with wine. The "Wine Festival" in Lemesos (Limassol) can be regarded as a variant, in some way, as a revival of ancient festive manifestations of worship in honor of Dionysus, the god of vine and wine, and Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty and love. In those feasts our forefathers worshipped the gods but primarily enjoyed themselves. In the sacrifices, for example, the gods received the smell - this alone was offered them - while the men ate the meat. Wine accompanied and crowned the feast. The gods on Olympus, too, enjoyed the nectar, the quintessence of wine. Thus, in the ancient Greek world wine became the drink of gods and men.

Cyprus is renowned for its good wine. Geographer Strabo in ancient times calls its "evoinos" (producer of good wine). In the early Christian years a Bishop of Amathus, Saint Tychon, performed his greatest miracle with vine and wine. He planted a vine which "immediately took root... Immediately put forth shoots, immediately blossomed, immediately produced fruits, a bunch of ripe and sweet grapes".

In Byzantine times wine was drank by eminent, famous people. In medieval times Cyprus continued to be renowned for its wine, which, according to an Italian traveler of the 16th century, "has the qualities of medicine and is like a balm for the body". Two centuries earlier German priest-traveler L. von Suchen wrote that in Cyprus there was the vineyard of Engedi "about which we read in the Song of Songs of Solomon, where the bride describes her bridegroom as a bunch of grapes of Cyprus from the Engedi vineyard".

This tradition concerning the reputation of Cyprus wine has survived until the present and led to the establishment of the "Wine Festival" in Lemesos (Limassol), the town of gaiety and joy. Lemesos (Limassol) is also the center of the biggest grape-producing region of Cyprus. Here one finds the factories of KEO, SODAP, LOEL and ETKO which participate in the organization of the "Wine Festival". Wine is accompanied by and accompanies local Cyprus dishes, while the atmosphere is enlivened by the performance of folk dances, songs and customs through theatrical and other productions.
In this way the "Wine Festival" has become an important tourist event and a significant cultural manifestation. In addition to its gay and jovial character, it contributes to the projection and further consumption of Cyprus wines which have been praised by poets and novelists throughout the centuries.

The Cyprus wine is sweet like the muses lyre and shines like the eyes of Goddess of Paphos, never shined before. Light as the walk of the Goddess her self. The bees of Hymettus make their honey sweet but is not so sweet as the wine of Cyprus.