Happy Halloween!! Not that I often (or maybe not ever) do Halloween posts
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The last few weeks, I've posted about wineries like Likya and Saranta growing Öküzgözü outside of it's traditional home. This week, I'm making an about-face to talk about a winery using Öküzgözü from Elazığ. Uçmakdere. With the Sea of Marmara lapping against the shore just a few steps from this family-run winery, the view here differs greatly from that in land-locked Elazığ. But the grapes were just as happy to be made into wine here after they arrived from their journey. In the winery they joined Syrah from Barbaros in Tekirdağ (which had a much shorter trip!). One of the first, if not the first vintage Uçmakdere produced, I don't
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Büyülübağ winery is located on the island Avşa in the Sea of Marmara. When the Istanbul-levelling earthquake people keep predicting finally comes, Avşa is where you want to be. The island's composition is pure granite down to the sea bed with decomposed granite soils. That island's going nowhere. While Büyülübağ does have Cabernet vineyards on the island, those grapes are used in the winery's wild ferment Cab. For the reserve line, the grapes come from Çeşme in the Aegean region. Çeşme has a much warmer climate and richer, more fertile soils resulting in bigger and bolder wines. I've been lucky enough to have a number of older vintage reserve
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This year for October, the month of #MerlotMe, I did not have a lot of new wines to try. For the #WinePW event I paired Akın Gürbüz's new Winemaker Series Merlot with merguez sausages. Uçmakdere's Roze Merlot went with baked rosemary honey chicken, while two Merlots from Arda went with an amazing burrata eggplant dish. For my final Merlot of the month, I opened Saranta's Chateau Murou Merlot and paired it with a plateful of nibbles. Saranta Saranta is located in Turkey’s Thrace, just a stone’s throw from several other wineries on the Trakya Bağ Rotası (Thracian Wine Route). The majority of the winery's vineyards spread out around the winery and
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While more and more new wineries pop up in Turkey, on an almost annual basis now! Assyrian wineries are still a minority. While a lot of families in Southeast Anatolia, where the majority of Turkey's Assyrian population lives, still make their own wine at home, a few commercial wineries also produce. Up to now, the most widely-recognized name belongs to Midyat-based Shiluh. But now, Shiluh has competition in Midin Şarapçılık. [caption id="attachment_16622" align="alignright" width="201"] 60+ yr old Bilbileki[/caption] Midin Şarapçılık Midin Şarapçılık sits closer to Şırnak than to Mardin. The family behind the winery, the Salibas, have inhabited the Midin village (or Öğündükköyü as it's known in Turkish) since the
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Last year for the #WinePW #MerlotMe event, I paired a late harvest, dry, Merlot by Arda and you can see that pairing here. Knowing that Arda makes several other Merlot wines, I got a couple to further explore for Merlober! Arda Arda Bağcılık is a boutique, family-run winery located near the historic town of Edirne. Established in 2007, the vineyards are overseen by family patriarch and winery founder Ilyas Saç. In true family business fashion everyone pitches in. Ilyas’ daughter Seniz is a trained oenologist and, along with Bulgarian expert Kamen Koev, serves as winemaker. His son Yavuz, a wine scholar, manages winery operations together with his wife Bahar. A
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Hasandede is one of those grapes that doesn't get a lot love. According to 'Wine Grapes', Hasandede makes "very basic-quality white wine." Maybe that was true when the book was copywritten in 2012. But it's far from true now. And while it may not be true (any longer) that the grape makes only basic-quality wines, what sadly is true is how little we know about the grape itself. Hasandede (has-an-de-day), literally the ‘grandfather Hasan’, likely originated in Kırıkkale near Turkey’s capital Ankara. The medium-sized berries have thin-skins. They start out bright green but reach a golden green-yellow color with brown freckles by full ripeness. Prior to Vinkara making the first
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It's Merlober! What else could the #WinePW group be exploring this month than that most divisive of grapes, Merlot? This month's host Jeff from Food Wine Click!, invitation post invited us all to join in the #MerlotMe celebration and sing the praises of this grape. You can read his invitation here. Join us on Saturday, October 9 at 8am PST / 11am EST / 6pm Istanbul time and join the discussion! Just follow the #WinePW hashtag on Twitter. The Bordeaux varieties are big in Turkey. While I do not know statistics on how much vineyard area is given over to any particular grape, I do know that they are some
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If you've seen the movie, Sideways, you'll remember the infamous line about Merlot. Some attribute the movie to the grape's loss of popularity in the US. Related or not, growers pulled up some 10,000 acres of Merlot in California alone following the film's unaccountable success. Sales of Merlot were already rebounding by 2013 when #MerlotMe got its start, but the hashtag and its devoted followers I'm sure helped! #MerlotMe takes place during all of October,
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Earlier sunsets, cooler temperatures, and slate grey, rain-threatening skies are heralding the waning of summer in Istanbul. While I completely plan to continue drinking rosé wines throughout the autumn (and likely winter!) now seems like a good time to go through my spring and summer Turkish rosé notes and post about those I haven't written up yet. Kayraklı Şarapçılık Asarcık Rosé, 2019 A new-ish winery, based in the Muğla district of the Aegean, Kayraklı Şarapçılık has just a few vintages under its belt. Although the lack of an established name/quality and limited distribution doesn't stop it from charging outrageous prices for its wine. This rosé, an Öküzgözü - Merlot blend, retails at
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