Get to Know the Grape: Foça Karası
Foça Karası, a nearly extinct grape from Izmir’s Foça district, is currently championed by only a few wineries, namely Öküzgözü Şarapçılık. Foça Karası (foe-cha ka-ra-sih) berries are small to medium in size and slightly elongated with thick skin. They grow in kind of loose, single-lobed, medium-sized bunches. It’s a mid-ripening grape that makes aromatic wines full of sour cherry, strawberry, prune, clove, black pepper, dill, black currant leaf, and licorice. While in Turkey this grape follows the "black of" naming pattern, this grape also goes by another name: Fokiano. While we know it as Foça Karası in Turkey, in Greece Fokiano (Φωκιανό) grows mainly on the Aegean islands (and a
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