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A Greek specialty, retsina in strict terms is an aromatized wine, with links back to classical times when wine was transported in pottery amphorae that needed to be sealed. The seal, made with a mixture of plaster and resin, excluded air and enabled the wine to keep better. This seal lent a slight flavour to the wine and it came to be believed that this was the reason the wine lasted. This led to the practice of adding resin to "keep" wine.

Today retsina is made like any other dry white wine, but small pieces of resin from the Alep pine are added to the must, and are then left until the first racking of the young wine.