Another quirky quest

On Steely Dan's 1977 album--I'm old enough that they'll always be "albums" and not "CDs"--Aja are two songs that you probably never heard on the radio. One is the Homeric hat-tip "Home at Last," which includes the line "She serves the smooth retsina."

"Retsina"? Mind you, this was not the first time that the Dyspeptic Duo has sent me to the dictionary. Which, coming from the sequipedialian who sent at least two college profs. to the dictionary, is saying something.

So after about thirty seconds and two tasteless banner ads on Dictionary.com, I had my answer. Retsina, it seems, is a Greek wine flavored with pine resin. (The story is that wine was transported in amphorae sealed with pine pitch which helped to preserve the wine as well as flavor it.) The Mediterranean restaurant downtown (which has gone sadly and ironically downhill since relocating from its hole in the wall to grander surroundings) serves it. And I find that I like the astringency because it's not part of the wine itself.

So the question for this inveterate take-it-apart-to-see-how-it-works maven is: How can I approximate that with the wine kits that are currently on the market? I'm not an accomplished enough oenophile to be able to take a sip of retsina and think, "Oh, this tastes rather like a Gewurtztraminner." (And, in a way, I hope that I never become that much of a wine snob. ) In the quick search that I did, I came up with a list of Greek wine grape varieties (http://www.greekwinemakers.com/czone/varieties/redvar.shtml). So the next step in the process is more research to find a grape that will approximate one of those. (And if I can find Aleppan pine pitch, which allegedly was the original barrel-sealant, so much the better.)