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July 2025

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  Hello, heatwave! July has cannonballed into the pool of your life with flip-flops, sunscreen, and power outages due to everyone turning on their air conditioning. Whether you're road-tripping with your ride-or-dies, firing up the mangal, or just trying to keep your houseplants alive, this month promises surprises that are as spicy as a sidewalk taco stand. I don't understand summer people. Although, to be fair, I don't understand winter  people either. It's just too hot. If only the universe had air conditioning in store for me. Let's see what wine it has in store! Aries (March 21 - April 19) Today in overly bold decisions and caffeine-fueled confidence

  There's so much advice, so many opinions and stories about pairing wine and chocolate floating around. The dos and don'ts of pairing the two can be a little complicated. On the one hand, even dark chocolate is sweet which makes pairing it with dry wine tricky. On the other hand, milk or dark chocolate are really wrong with sweet (white) wines. If you want to be on the safe side, chocolate with sweet red wine is usually a winner. But why limit yourself? A few years ago, an Instagram algorithm introduced me to a local chocolate maker and I felt inspired to pair wine with her chocolates. The pairing

  This post contains affiliate links Last June I visited Sofia for the first time. What a charming little city! Which maybe sounds slightly condescending but a) I don't mean it that way at all and b) almost anywhere is little when you live in Istanbul. I had a marvelous time exploring the Bulgarian wine scene there. For people like me who don't like to drive, the city offers quite a few opportunities to learn about and experience the wine. One of the places where I got a great crash course was Tempus Vini.  Tempus Vini Kalin Kushev's passion for wine went from hobby to business when he opened Tempus Vini in

  Except for my weird friend, Roy, I don't know anyone who doesn't at least like sparkling wine. For me, it's hands down my favorite wine category. I'm fascinated by the different processes by which it is made, how each creates a different style of wine, and offers different aromas and flavors. You could take the same grape from the same vineyard and make three very different sparkling wines with the traditional, charmat, and ancestral methods. Little surprise then, that I love exploring sparkling wine anytime I travel. For sure I like Prosecco, Champagne, and Cava

  *this post contains affiliate links A couple weeks ago, I flew to Izmir to give a wine tasting for a group from Roots Adventure Travel. It's been years since I last visited the 7Bilgeler winery, so I felt pretty psyched about going for the tasting. Over the years, 7Bilgeler has slowly added native grape wines to its portfolio, which reminded me that I'd recently opened a bottle of one of its newer wines: the 7Bilgeler Vindemia Rüzgar Karasakız Rosé. Karasakız While there are many grapes in Turkey I like, some of which I like quite a lot, my favorite Turkish black grape is undoubtedly Karasakız.  More well-known as Karasakız ("black gum"), the

  Congratulations, you’ve made it to June — the halfway point of the year, where to-do lists meet beach days, and productivity wrestles with balcony lounging. This is the season of long evenings, spontaneous road trips, and discovering that yes, sunscreen should have been applied 20 minutes ago. June is that magical time when the mangal is always hot, your calendar is suddenly full, and everyone starts pretending they’ve always liked rosé Whether you’re chasing big dreams, weekend naps, or just the ice cream truck, this month brings the perfect blend of chaos and charm. So grab your wine glasses and get ready — June’s here, and it has some new wine recommendations

  How do you pair fine Turkish wine with one of the country's iconic staples, börek? That's a question I found myself asking recently.  For ages, my friend, Başak, has been telling me that she wants me to try this 'amazing' börekci in her mother's neighborhood.  Not that I dislike börek, far from it, but my börek experiences in Istanbul have always left me a little cold. She finally wore me down, but I thought, let's turn this into a wine pairing exercise. We were for sure going to be drinking wine anyway so, wine not? Börek Börek is a traditional food found throughout Turkey, the Balkans, arguably Greece with its

  Riesling is one of my absolute favorite grapes in the whole wide world. I have a three-way tie going for 'favorite grape' title and Riesling is one of the trifecta. Bone dry, lusciously sweet and every variable between, I love it. But, Riesling in Turkey? Riesling in Turkey Quite interesting, Riesling was one of the first foreign grapes to come to Turkey during the start of the modern wine industry. Back in the 1930s, Nihat A. Kutman, founder of Doluca Şarapları, made exploratory visits to France and Germany looking for grapes that might do well in his Mürefte vineyards. One of those grapes was Riesling. Very few are planting Riesling anymore.

  When Ardıç Gürsel founded her Vinkara winery in 2003, she did it with one main goal: introduce the world to native Turkish grapes. It seems rather unbelievable that as little as 20 to 25 years ago, Turkish grapes were relatively unknown, even in Turkey! Dr. Şeyla Ergenekon's Book Türk Şarapları published in 2002, addresses only 14 native grapes. Sure, people were making wine with native grapes, I mean, obviously. But any commercial reach was limited, which makes Ardıç's goal (and all those who still share it) so very important.  Having founded her winery in Kalecik, the initial focus was on the region's very own grape: Kalecik Karası. Vinkara has

  Have you ever wondered what kind of wine Homer drank? It seems that he was a fan of Limnio, (one of) the oldest grape variety in Greece.  This month, Susannah of Avvinare invited the #WorldWineTravel group to explore the lesser-known wine regions of the world. Greek wine has seen a major increase in popularity over the last few years, especially in America. However, mostly what people know is Santorini and Assyrtiko. Or, maybe you've heard of the Peloponnese and Agiorgitiko. But not many people have heard of or had wine from the Slopes of Meliton in Macedonia. PDO Slopes of Meliton/ΠΟΠ Πλαγιές Μελίτωνα Situated in the southern part of