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Red Wine

HomeRed Wine

  I've mentioned my friend S. a few times here and there in my blog. A teacher here in Istanbul, she drives home to Austria every summer and returns with a car full of goodies. Tis not a short drive from Istanbul to Austria, nor do we share a border. As such, her trips take her through a number of other countries and she usually stops for a few days here and there (especially to sleep!) along the way.  Last year, her winding journey took her through the southern part of Romania where she stopped at several wineries. And because she is awesome, bought wine for me at all of

  It's World Malbec Day! This French grape is a global people pleaser.  While mostly known for the wines produced in Argentina, its popularity knows no bounds. According to Wine-Searcher.com, people happily grow Malbec Argentina and France of course, but also Chile, the US, Australia, South Africa, and "other".  I guess Turkey falls in "other". [easy-image-collage id=20154] Malbec has become very popular here over recent years and I've written about it any number of times, most recently, I think, in this piece. It appears in blends and varietals in quite a few regions including Thrace, Marmara, the Aegean, and the Mediterranean. But this Malbec World Day, it's all about the Marmara regions'

  Nihat Kutman, founder of Doluca Winery, was one of the first in Turkey to revive vineyards and winemaking after phylloxera destroyed many of the country's vineyards. Thanks in large part to that epidemic, many of Turkey's native grapes were lost. As a result, nascent wineries in Turkey's new Republic relied on grapes from Europe to restart vineyards and wine production. In the mid 1930s, Nihat bey returned from Europe with several grapes that would go on to become, if not wide-spread in the country, heritage grapes with which a small handful of wineries still work. One of those varieties was Cinsault. We don't see a lot of Cinsault here

  Surrounded by mountains and the verdant forests of the Black Sea region, the district of Amasya lays about 120 kilometers from the Black Sea. Although near the sea, Amasya sits high above the coast and has an inland, hot summer Mediterranean climate. While tea might be the most famous crop to come out of the region, Amasya is well-known for its apples which grow well here. And maybe soon

  Camilla from Culinary Cam has invited the Italian Food Wine Travel writing group to explore the vast world of indigenous Italian grapes this March. You can read her invitation here. Of all the major wine players in the world, Italy has almost* more indigenous varieties than anyone else with over 500 officially identified grapes so there's a lot to explore! [easy-image-collage id=20064] Join us for a live Threads chat on March 9 at 11 am EST/8 am PST where participating bloggers and others interested in the subject will connect and chat. You can definitely still join the blog event if you're not available for the chat. Despite my love of Italian

  We've still got a couple weeks until spring is official by the calendar, but it seems to have arrived in Istanbul early. Although if past winter/spring seasons are prologue, then we could well see snow in the city in March. I'm hoping that is not our future this month, but it's difficult to know what the universe has in store! Slightly less murky than our weather forecast is our drinking forecast! So, which wines will we all be hunting down this month? Read on to find out.  Aquarius (January 20 - February 18) Aquarius, this month brings a possibly unique opportunity to turn your creative ideas into passive income streams. We

  It's a little strange for me to post about wine today in Ash Wednesday. Today is a fast day which means I will not be drinking any wine at all. Sad for me. And yet, it is #WineWednesday so, here we are! I've flirted with some of Kastro Tireli's other low intervention / "natural" wines. My favorite still being the Hermos Bornova Misketi. I recently realized that I had not yet tried the Kalecik Karası though so I moved to immediately rectify that! Kalecik Karası hails from Central Anatolia, just outside the capitol Ankara, in Kalecik. Whence the grape's name. You can read more about the grape here! Kastro Tireli

  If you haven't checked your calendar yet, you might not have noticed that this year is a leap year! Hello, rarely seen February 29. Julius Caesar instituted leap year back in 45 BC. By adding a single day every four years, he created a more or less consistent solar calendar. Like any oddity, leap year has a number of its own traditions and superstitions, many of them related to relationships! For example, apparently not only was is considered acceptable for women to propose to men on a leap day, the men could not refuse! It's said that Queen Margaret even imposed a fine for men who would deny

  In the September 2023 Turkish Wine Horoscope post, I promised a review of this wine and here it finally is! Yaban Kolektif is a group of wine professionals and enthusiasts dedicated to reviving some of Turkey's rarer grapes. Not having a winery of their own, they cooperate with other wineries (mostly Vinolus lately) and winemakers to release their wines. From Yaban's Instagram: Yaban is a step taken to reunite viticulture and winemaking in Turkey with its past and forgotten values. We lost our rich viticulture culture, winemaking techniques, traditions, festivities and rituals in a short time after the natural disasters and forced population exchanges in the last century. It will perhaps