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November 2021

Home2021 (Page 3)

By 0Turkish Wine, White Wine, Wine Reviews

  Akın Gürbüz has made several Sauvignon Blanc wines over the last few years. Sometimes single vineyard, sometimes blends. I have enjoyed all of them. And then. The 2020 vintage arrived. And my mind exploded.  Sauvignon Blanc is pretty ubiquitous in Turkey. Even in Tekirdağ whence came the grapes for Gürbüz's newest vintage. We have ripe Sauvignon Blancs full of stone fruit, lean Sauvignon Blancs that showcase minerality and acidity, oaked fumé blancs (some well done some clumsy)

By 0Articles, Red Wine, Rose Wine, Sparkling Wine, Sweet Wine, Turkish Wine, White Wine

  It's November and we're fully into Autumn. For some people, cooler weather means a switch to red wine. But much like I will happily eat ice cream no matter how cold it is out, I would also still prefer to drink white wine! Is that what my horoscope holds for me this month? What does your horoscope say you should try drinking in November? Read on and find out! Aquarius (January 20 - February 18) This is going to be a good month for you if you've been struggling to achieve a goal or move forward in your career. Breakthroughs are on the horizon but don't get distracted by some communication

By 1Red Wine, Turkish Wine, Wine Reviews

  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

By 2Red Wine, Turkish Wine, Wine Reviews

  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

By 0Red Wine, Turkish Wine, Wine Reviews

  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

By 0Turkish Wine, White Wine, Wine Reviews

  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

By 0Red Wine, Turkish Wine, Wine Reviews

  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

By 0Amber Wine, Amphora, Articles, Orange Wine, Turkish Wine, White Wine

  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

By 1Red Wine, Turkish Wine, Wine Reviews

  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