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July 2021

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  While Turkish wine is my raison d'etre, over the last few years I have developed deep love, enthusiasm, and respect for wines from other counties as well. I prefer white wine to red and find that I gravitate towards white wines with tightly strung energy. Their verve is electric and exciting. I've been very lucky to experience a lot of Greek wine over the last few years. Two of my best friends live in Athens, always have a couch for me, and indulge my need to explore the wine scene. Given my zeal for zesty, racy wines, it's little wonder that in Greece I lean towards wines from Santorini.

  When I'm in Athens, my friend M and I play a game. We stand in front of the wine shelves at his local grocery and pick out a few bottles with grape names unfamiliar to us. We've had some massive failures doing this. Once we got a wine that tasted like liquid perfume soap. That bottle went straight down the sink. Even though it may well be just an enormously bad example of that particular grape, we're now terrified of it. On the flip side, we have discovered a number of new (to us) varieties we like quite a lot. While I typically veer towards Greece's white grapes, I've

  The bulk of Öküzgözü in Turkey grows in the grape's homeland of Elazığ in Eastern Anatolia. The most widely-planted Turkish black grape sometimes gets trucked hundreds of kilometers from Elazığ to other parts of the country for production. However, it's not the most widely-planted grape for nothing.  Öküzgözü now grows in, I dare saw, all eight wine regions. It has proven to be adaptable to a variety of soil types and climates. I have enjoyed trying Öküzgözü from different regions to see how these adaptations reflect in wine.  Likya Şarapları is one of Turkey's Mediterranean wineries. Although you wouldn't know it when you visit! Located in Elmalı, it sits quite

  Given my recent complain about the current trend for blanc de noir Papazkarası and the lack of good red wines made with it, I thought it was time to take a look at Chamlija's newest blend, PaPiKa.  Chamlija is one of the few wineries really paying attention to this grape. The winery produces a handful of wines with Papazkarası (or Papaskarası as it's sometimes spelled) including varietals like the Kara Sevda and blends. Chamlija also produces the grape in all colors possible. This new wine takes its name directly from the blend: PA for Papazkarası (35%) PI for Pinot Noir (35%) KA for Kalecik Karası (30%) Chamlija PaPiKa, 2019 The blend aged

  The Urla district of İzmir in Turkey's Aegean region has become a hotbed of trendy wineries. Many belong to the Urla Bağ Yolu (the easiest wine route to navigate). Even those that do not though are not so far off the path. The newest winery to open its doors is Hus Şarapçılık. Founded in 2017 by Juan Pablo Diaz Leon and Ceylan Ertörer Diaz Leon, Hus Şarapçılık is a family venture that blends the Chilean wine background of Juan Pablo's family, and the agricultural history belong to Ceylan's family. When I talk about the Turkish-Greek population exchange of the 1920s, it's usually about the Greeks leaving Turkey (as that directly

  For this month's #ItalianFWT, Camilla from Culinary Adventures with Camilla has invited us all to explore the world of Ramato wines. You can read her invitation post here. You can join us too! Even if you haven't written a post about it, join our live Twitter discussion on Saturday July 3 at 8 am CST / 11 am EST / 6 pm GMT +3 (aka Istanbul). What is Ramato exactly? While researching ramato wines I ran across an article from Decanter that starts with this brilliant sentence: Ramato is for the wine lover who wants more from their Pinot Grigio, but don't go thinking it's just another rosé or orange wine. This

  In the game of 'follow the leader', the current fashion for Thracian wineries is to have a blanc de noir Papazkarası. This is one of the few native Thracian grapes that wineries actively work with. A black grape, Papazkarası can produce really beautiful red wines redolent with dark fruits, black olives,  purple flowers, spice, and sometimes even a hint of salinity. Very few wineries make red wines (or make good red wines) with this grape. In fact, only two spring to mind. And yet, at least four wineries make one, sometimes two, blanc de noir. At least once of which doesn't even have it on their books as

  To kick off summer, I recently hosted an online wine tasting of some of Turkey's island wines. Turkey has several islands which boast great seafood, nice beaches, old forts, beautiful scenery, and yes, wine! Many of the grapes grown on these island grow only on these islands. Happily for those of us in Turkey, we needn't trek to the islands for the wines as they're widely available on the mainland. For the tasting, I selected five wines from four different wineries. Four grapes are native Turkish but one is a Croatian transplant. Yes. Croatian. You'll have to read on to find out which grape! Çamlıbağ AyaPetro Erken Hasat, 2020 We began

  Pošip was a new to me grape when I got this bottle. I'd heard of it but hadn't ever had it. Luckily for me, I managed to source a bottle during one of my last trips back to the states. And no, the irony of buying a bottle of Croatian wine imported to the US then bringing it back to Turkey-geographically so much closer to Croatia than is Las Vegas-is not lost on me! Native to Croatia, Pošip grows mainly on the island of Korčula in the middle of the Adriatic Sea. A number of grapes grow on Korčula, including  Plavac Mali, Plavac Sivi, Maraština, etc., but the island

  Yapıncak (ya-pin-juck) is one of Turkey's great, underappreciated grapes. Capable of producing a wide range of wine styles, from simple and refreshing to traditional method sparkling, I for one really don't understand why so few wineries use it. Especially for all those wineries located in the Marmara region that told me "well there really are no native grapes here;" ahem. Yapıncak. Granted, the Yapıncak grape can be tricky to work with. In the vineyard it's prone to low yields even in good years however, while the grapes are very thin-skinned they have good disease resistance. Grown in the Marmara and Aegean regions around the Gallipoli Peninsula, Yapıncak grapes are