“Beauty, purity, racy acidity, refreshing: they really show island living,” Laura said. She forgot to mention moderately priced: All the wines on our list were $14 to $24.

Our top three wines reflected the best and most consistent Santorini producers, not necessarily in any particular order. In fact, each of these producers had two wines on the list. No. 1 was the 2011 assyrtiko from Argyros, which has made wine on Santorini for more than a century. It’s entirely assyrtiko, and vinified in steel tanks to maximize its clean zestiness. Yet this is not a fruity wine. The flavors are savory and textural. This was also our best value at $19.

The second Argyros wine was No. 9, the 2011 Atlantis. This was 90 percent assyrtiko, with the remainder made up of two even more obscure grapes, aidani and athiri. That appears to be the only difference between the two wines, yet this one was altogether simpler, though nonetheless pleasant.

The next pair of wines came from Domaine Sigalas, which has been in business a mere 20 years but is perhaps the most intriguing of the Santorini producers. In contrast with Argyros, we preferred Sigalas’s 2011 blend of 75 percent assyrtiko and 25 percent athiri (our No. 2 wine) over its 2012 100 percent assyrtiko, our No. 8. The blend was earthy and briny, with a wonderfully inviting texture, while the 2012 was tangy and pleasing, and likewise savory.

Levi suggested the different vintages might have been a factor, and speculated that 2011 was probably better. Both of these wines were fermented in steel tanks. But Sigalas also makes a fascinating assyrtiko fermented in oak barrels, which very much affects the texture and character of the wine. Sadly, we did not have a bottle in our tasting.

The third pair came from Gaia, another winery about 20 years old. These two wines were both 100 percent assyrtiko, fermented in different ways. Our No. 3 wine, the 2012 Wild Ferment, uses, as its name suggests, ambient yeast rather than specific yeast selected by the winery, as with the 2012 Gaia Thalassitis, our No. 7.

The choice of yeast is a prime area of disagreement among winemakers: some opt for the measure of control offered by the more predictable selected yeast, and others assert that the more capricious ambient yeast produces a clearer sense of place in the wine.