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Tendre is the third chapter of Kantharos Gatherings, a project born from our longstanding creative collaboration with Dexamenes. First launched in 2019, during the hotel’s inaugural year, Kantharos Gatherings is a series of artistic wine tastings inspired by the history and identity of Dexamenes, an old wine factory transformed into a dynamic platform for hospitality and culture.
The concept of Tendre revolves around memory. In a wine tasting, when we try to identify what we smell or taste, what we are actually doing is uncovering memories, because everything we recognize has, by default, been experienced before at least once.
“We look at the world once, in childhood. The rest is memory.”
Louise Glück
During Tendre, guests are invited to identify different aromas and recall the personal memories they evoke. Each guest is given a bespoke platter designed specifically for this project, which doubles as a wine aroma wheel. (Τι είναι το wine aroma wheel) The platter is marked with embossed and debossed words describing aromas found in wine, alongside more abstract words like home or kiss that connect to memory and lived experience. Its form is conceived as a landscape, with curves, pockets, and protrusions that make exploring pairings playful and allegorical.
The title of this iteration of Kantharos Gatherings is drawn from the Carte de Tendre (Map of Tenderness), a social game and imaginary map of emotional geography created by Madeleine de Scudéry. The map charts different paths of romantic attachment and emotional refinement. In 17th-century salons, women used this map as a conversational exercise to playfully trace different paths of romantic relationships.
Meaning “tender,” “gentle,” “affectionate,” or “loving” in French, the word carries a sense of intimacy, softness, and emotional openness, the very atmosphere the project seeks to create, standing in deliberate contrast to the hard, polished materiality of the aluminum platter itself.
Conceived for an intimate group, it is also the first chapter in the series designed to travel beyond the borders of the hotel, adapting to different contexts, venues, and audiences while carrying the essence of Dexamenes beyond its site.
