Chamlija Köpek Gülderen – Dog Killer
A few months ago I held a big Chamlija tasting for a group of friends on E&M’s terrace. After our visit to Chamlija we made a huge order of wines and I basically ordered one of everything. One that I was particularly looking forward to trying was the Chamlija Köpek Gülderen.
Dog killer?!
Why was I so excited to try this particular Pinot Noir? There’s a Turkish phrase: “köpek öldüren” which means ‘dog killer’. This expression describes the worst of the worst wines. As in, it’s so bad it could kill a dog. Chamlija has cleverly capitalized on this very 
common phrase with a very clever play on words.
Their wine, ‘Köpek Gülderen’ is Turkish for ‘dog amuser’ . However when you say the phrase, because of the glottal stop of the ‘k’ “köpek gülderen” and “köpek öldüren” sound nearly the same. Especially to my amateur ear!
Chamlija Köpek Gülderen 2014 Tasting Notes
The 2014 Chamlija Köpek Gülderen won’t kill any dogs but you might want to be careful with it anyway; at 14% abv it’s not messing around. The nose was full of black fruits, baking spice, jammy plums, and, frankly. alcohol. It was quite a lot lighter on the palate though than any of us expected. We still got a lot of the fruits and sweeter spices but also a little dried fig.
Not my favorite wine ever but I admire the marketing strategy!