ŞatoMet Bornova and Kara Miskets
MMG Winery, owned and operated by the Güner Atalay family began as a simple hobby. However, after friends and neighbors expressed how much they liked the wine, the family threw everything into creating a full-blown, professional winery.
The MMG Winery and accompanying restaurant, ŞatoInn clings to the side of a mountain overlooking the rest of the Urla Wine Route. I would highly recommend getting a car with more cylinders than the little Nissan Micro Istanbites and I rented. Our car did not want to make it up the steep, winding road! I probably was also not giving it enough gas since I was convinced that any burst of power would shoot the car, and us, off the mountain at the next curve!
When we arrived, family patriarch Prof. Dr. Meltem Güner Atalay, or Meltem Hoca (teacher) as locals call him was in the vineyards checking on his grapes. He soon joined us on the restaurant’s terrace admiring in the breathtaking views over the valley and MMG’s terraced vineyards. A doctor by training, Meltem Hoca is now a self-taught viticulturalist and winemaker. According to him, that, in a nutshell, is one the biggest problems facing the Turkish wine industry. There is little to no formal vineyard management or winemaking education in Turkey. For the wineries, like MMG Winery, that choose to eschew the use of consulting oenologists, hopeful winemakers are left to self education, trial and error, and reinventing the wheel.
Not everyone has had the same successful results that MMG Winery enjoys. Currently, the winery’s collection includes eight wines, all under the label ŞatoMet:
Bornova Misketi
Kara Misketi (rosé)
Merlot
Syrah
Yarımda (Cabernet Sauvignon-Syrah blend)
Double Oak Cabernet Sauvignon-Merlot
Syrah-Cabernet Sauvignon-Merlot
Mourvedre-Syrah-Merlot
I’ve had the privilege of trying all of them. In this post I will only address the white and rosé though and will circle back to the reds at a later date.
MMG Winery ŞatoMet Bornova Misketi 2017 Tasting Notes:
The ŞatoMet Bornova Misketi boasts an intensely aromatic nose. Like many wines made with this grape honeysuckle, orange blossom, and rose tangle in an alluring perfume but the ŞatoMet has an herbal underpinning not commonly found in Turkish Muscats. The slightly oily mouthfeel also separates this semi-sweet wine from other Turkish Muscats which tend towards a more viscous feeling. Candied orange peel and perfumed attar of roses glide into flavors of bay leaf for a lingering, herbal finish.
Semi-sweet while retaining a remarkable freshness and only 12.7% ABV, the ŞatoMet Bornova Misketi is a dangerously quaffable wine. Meltem Hoca himself unabashedly admitted that this is both his favorite wine and one of his proudest achievements.
MMG Winery ŞatoMet Kara Misket Rosé 2017 Tasting Notes:
If you’ve never heard of Kara Misket you are not alone. “Kara” is the Turkish word for “black” or “dark”. It hails from a village called Bornova Kara (Bornova being the village that gave birth to Turkey’s Muscat grape) and seems to be a cross between the Bornova 
Misketi and Merlot.
According to Meltem Hoca, the grape itself is not especially attractive with a brownish-pink color. It may carry the name “black” but the lightness of its skin would never allow for the creation of a red wine, regardless of how long it were left to macerate. The skin does provide enough color though for a fairly intense pink color; leading them to call this wine a Dark Rosé.
Initially the nose is a little difficult to reach. The wine gave off a bit of the stank I associate with quality amber wines. As with those, this needed some air before it became approachable. Rich lychee, red fruits, overripe peach, oregano, and rose combined in an extravagant array of aromas. Soft in the mouth with a burst of mid palate acid the wine has a weightiness that belies its low alcohol (11.5%). Flavors reminiscent of peach melba, rose garden, and fresh herbs were a nice departure from the usual summery red fruit flavors I often find in Turkish rosés.
The Bornova Misketi might be Meltem Hoca’s favorite but I think his talents are far more on display in his red wines. I’ll talk about those in a future post.