Karafiloglou Wines and Liquor

To secure a livelihood in the places where they resettled, many refugees utilised the experience and skills acquired through working at their family business back in Asia Minor, Pontus or Thrace, though under different circumstances. Petros Karafiloglou, born in 1921 in Odemisio (Ödemiş) near Smyrna, is one example of this practice. Petros was the son of Nikolaos Karafiloglou, a landowner and wine producer, and Vasko Chariloglou from Lygda (Ovakent). He arrived in Nea Ionia when he was just two years old. He dropped out of school at an early age and started working while also playing football for Niki Volou FC as a centre- back from 1935 to 1948. He was arrested by the Germans on Eleftherias Square in 1944 and sent first to the Pavlos Melas camp in Thessaloniki and then to forced labour camps in Moosburg, Austria and Augsburg, Bavaria. He survived the camps and, against all odds, managed to reach the Greek-Yugoslavian border after the end of the war.

In 1948, Petros Karafiloglou started working at the Rigaki Brothers’ liquor and wine distillery. During the Greek civil war, his brother, Lefteris, was exiled, while Petros himself was arrested twice and detained in a former tobacco warehouse known as the Yellow Warehouse. In 1954, he married Evangelia Kesmetzi and the couple had two children, Nikos and Vaso.

In 1964, Petros Karafiloglou and Mitsos Tsiloglou opened a distillery on Nea Ionia’s thoroughfare, known as ‘Fardys’, and a few years later, he was able to operate his own liquor store on Magnisias Street selling tsipouro, wine, cognac, and liqueur. He delivered his orders using first a bike, then a tricycle and later a van. He supplied taverns in Nea Ionia and Volos and was a wine maker and tsipouro distiller. He died in 2002.

Ever since 1975, his son, Nikos, had taken over the Karafiloglou liquor store, diversifying it by introducing beverages, beer and bottled wines. He also expanded its activities beyond the city of Volos by delivering to Pelion villages and the Thessalian plain, while still operating as a tsipouro distillery. Nikos Karafiloglou served as the president of the Union of Wine and Liquor Merchants and Distributors. He was married to Eleni Kotzagioti with whom he had two children. In 1991, he moved his store to the area of Germanika, on Effraimidou Street. Today, Petros and Stelios Karafiloglou, the sons of Nikos Karafiloglou, still operate the family business under the name ‘Wine – Liquor – Beverages Store’.