Canaves Epitome just topped Travel + Leisure’s World’s Best Awards. The ranking is the least interesting thing in the announcement. What the Chaidemenos family built instead — a fourth-generation potter.

The press release reached me partly in Portuguese, from a PR firm in Brazil, about a hotel in Greece. Travel marketing has its own geography.

Travel + Leisure’s World’s Best Awards named Canaves Epitome the number one hotel in Greece and the fifth in Europe, with a sister property, Canaves Oia Suites, close behind at number two and number eleven. Congratulations to all involved. I have opinions about awards lists — chiefly that they are how the internet keeps routing everyone to the same ten hotels, and that a ranking mostly tells you the infinity pool photographs well from a drone.

The actual news was further down the email, past the fifth pool photo, and it is the reason I’m writing this up instead of filing it with the morning’s other seventy-plus supplier blasts.

The hotel is no longer just selling the view.

For 2026, Canaves has launched a program called Harvest & Heritage. The short version: the best-ranked hotel in Greece has decided to sell you access to the people who make the island work.

The roster, because the names are the point:

Andreas Makaris is a fourth-generation potter who will have you at the wheel in his private studio, working the same volcanic clay the Cyclades have been shaping for about as long as anyone has been shaping anything.

Kostas Papalexopoulos is a seafarer who has spent his whole life on this water. He runs a private passage along the cliffs below Oia that ends in lunch at Armeni, the fish taverna on the old port where the morning’s catch goes more or less straight from the boat to the grill. You reach Armeni by a few hundred steps or by water. Take the water.

Eugenia Liodaki, born on the island, walks you through the ruins and the quiet inland villages by way of her own childhood, which is a form of context no concierge desk can print on an itinerary.

At Artemis Karamolegos Winery, Margarita Karamolegou teaches a cooking class set right in the vineyards, where growers coil each Assyrtiko vine into its own low, circular basket, or kouloura, a technique found almost nowhere else in the wine world, born of necessity on an island with fierce winds, near-constant sun, and almost no rainfall, since the tight wreath shields the grapes inside its own shade while the vine’s low crawl along the volcanic ash keeps roots cool and moisture trapped, proof that Santorini never found the easy way of doing anything and made an art of the hard one instead.

For the hidden caldera viewpoints and the black-sand shores, photographer Machos Kapetanakis skips the cliché, the oversized ballgown trailing dramatically in the wind that every visitor to Santorini Instagram feed seems to demand. Instead, he captures images that go beyond the typical overexposed shot, with a pun very much intended to create unique and beautiful memories.

But the potter is the tell.

Programs like this can certainly feel staged. Like a hotel dressing up local color for guests who’ll never know the difference. This one doesn’t. Any hotel with enough money can arrange a pottery class.

What Canaves is doing runs on something money doesn’t buy directly: forty years of the Chaidemenos family showing up on this island year-round, earning the trust of which fisherman, which winemaker, which grandmother of the village will actually let guests in.

In Oia in July, the sunset crowd and cruisers arrive by the coachload, and the island can feel like a backdrop rented by the hour.

The rarest luxury on offer is Santorini with the people still in it. And deeply amid it.

I’ve stayed at Epitome and walked every corridor of Oia Suites, and I can tell you whether the number-one-in-Greece crown actually fits and which of the two you should be booking. That’s a separate piece, and it’s coming.

Do the obvious things. Keep the caldera-view suite, keep the dinner reservation you fought for. And add the potter.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Harvest & Heritage at Canaves Epitome?
It’s a 2026 program at Canaves Epitome in Santorini that connects guests directly with the people who shape the island’s daily life — a fourth-generation potter, a local seafarer, a village historian, a winery cook, and a photographer — rather than the usual concierge-arranged excursions.

Is Canaves Epitome really the number one hotel in Greece?
Travel + Leisure’s World’s Best Awards ranked it number one in Greece and fifth in Europe, with sister property Canaves Oia Suites at number two in Greece and eleventh in Europe. Awards lists reflect one methodology among many, and are worth reading alongside firsthand accounts.

What’s the difference between Canaves Epitome and Canaves Oia Suites?
Both are Chaidemenos family properties in Oia, Santorini, and both ranked in this year’s World’s Best Awards. A full comparison of the two, including which one to actually book, is coming in a separate piece.

When is the best time to visit Santorini to avoid the crowds?
July brings heavy cruise and sunset-crowd traffic to Oia in particular. Programs like Harvest & Heritage that put you with local craftspeople and small operators are one way to find the island’s quieter, more personal side even during peak season.

What is kouloura winemaking?
Kouloura is a Santorini winemaking technique in which each Assyrtiko vine is coiled into a low, basket-shaped wreath close to the ground. The shape shields the grapes with their own shade and helps the vine’s roots stay cool and retain moisture, adapting to the island’s wind, sun, and near-total lack of rainfall.