Turasan winery, based in Turkey's iconic Cappadocia, holds the spot as not only the largest winery in Cappadocia, but one of Turkey's most recognizable brands. Operating since the early 1940s, Turasan has built a reputation for consistent quality. Sometimes the quality is quite good. Other times
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I frequently lament the vast amount of Bordeaux-style blends we have in Turkey. Partially because it does get rather tedious to drink the same blends over and over. Mostly though because Turkey has a plethora (1240+ at last count) of its own grapes! Of which we see maybe 40 in wine. But since I do so often complain about the sea of wanna be Bordeaux here, I thought maybe I should talk about a few of them for once. But first
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While it has been some time since my birthday (August) I still vividly recall one of the wines we drank: the Chateau Kalpak Petit Verdot 2010. Every year for my birthday I haul a suitcase full of wine, cheeses, and other delicacies to spend a night or two at my friend Istanbites' home on Büyükada. Despite my birthday being in the height of Istanbul summer heat, I don't bring only white wines. I choose a selection of white, red, bubbles, and sweet that I've been saving up all year. One special wine I chose this year was this single varietal Petit Verdot. I've had it for a few years
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While 2010 is not really that old as far as aged wines go, it’s old for the Turkish market. Finding wine commercially (frankly sometimes even at the winery) that’s more than a handful of vintages old is unusual. A lot of wine enthusiasts in Turkey have started to wonder if Turkish wine ages well or not. I cannot speak for all the wines, but this one sure did. Pamukkale Meridies Boğazkere Cabernet Franc 2010 For the Meridies Boğazkere Cabernet Franc, Pamukkale blended Boğazkere from Diyarbakır with Cab Franc from the Güney Plateau in Denizli. The Boğazkere underwent carbonic maceration to help bring out more of the grape’s fruit characteristics and
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Today is International Xinomavro Day! This new grape holiday was established only last year. While I missed my chance to post about it in 2019, I'm very excited to talk about Xinomavro this year. I previously wrote about Kokkinos Xinomavro (which was lovely). And while several bottles languish in my wine room, I do not often drink Xinomavro. At least not as often as I'd like! Today is a good reason to bust out some tasking notes though. But first, let's talk about the grape itself. Xinomavro Xinomavro (ksi-NO-mav-row) grows mainly in Northern Greece. The PDO most famous for this grape is Naoussa but it grows well also in Amyndeo, Goumenissa,
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It's #Merlober! Earlier this month I participated in the #WinePW conversation about #Merlot which you can read about here. While my original intent was to have that as my sole #MerlotMe post this month, I felt so inspired by many of the pairings the group came up with so I decide to keep going with the theme! One of the wines I featured in my original post was the 2013 Merlot from Chateau Nuzun. I realized, looking back at my notes, that I've had several Merlots from Chateau Nuzun over the last year but never wrote about any of them (other than the 2013). So that's what I want
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This week I'm continuing my #Merlober celebrations with wine pairings for two Merlots from the same Turkish winery: Claros. Claros winery comes to us from the Yavaş family. Brainchild of the father with son, Canberk, serving as winemaker. Claros keeps things simple for us. They make Merlot. Only Merlot. Possibly they should act as the Turkish representative for #MerlotMe month! The winery takes its name from tClaros he nearby ruins of ancient Greek city, Klaros. Not only does it specialize in Merlot, but Claros also makes completely unfined, unfiltered, wild ferment Merlot. When other wineries here say they make unfined/unfiltered or "limited" filtered wines, I laugh. Maybe their wines have
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Öküzgözü Şarapçılık outside Izmir is one of those curious cases we see occasionally here. It is both a bulk and a boutique winery. The bulk wine generally gets shipped straight off to meyhanes and wedding halls. Rarely, if ever, can you find it commercially. Rarely, if ever, would you want to . A few years ago winery owner Rıfat Şekerdil turned his attention towards a more quality-driven approach to winemaking. With the bulk side of the winery generating enough profit to cover all the winery's operations, Şekerdil set aside his better vineyards to to grow better fruit. In the winery, he employed gentler methods and invested in oak barrels
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Recently I participated in the #WinePW group's #MerlotMe conversation. You can read all about that here. I thought that would be the end of #Merlober for me. However, reading about the food and wine pairings the rest of the group did inspired me to keep going! I immediately went into my wine room to see if I had any more Merlot wines and was excited to see that I did indeed! One wine I had came from Uçmakdere-based winery Firuze. If you're not familiar with Uçmakdere or Firuze I completely understand. But (if you're local) you really should look into getting some wine from Firuze! This family winery located
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Based in the coastal town of Alaçatı south of Izmir, Gemici Family Wines/Alaçatı Şarapçılık makes wine on a small scale. In this charming little city along the Aegean Sea, the equally charming Olçay Gemici carefully vinifies his grapes in older traditional ways. For him this means anything from spontaneous fermentation to blending in small measures of sakız in his wine. Olçay uses both native and international grapes for his wine. With Sultaniye and Öküzgözü to Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, Grenache, and Merlot to play with, he creates both varietals and blends. When I visited his shop in Alaçatı a couple years ago, one of the wines I purchased was the Aya Katrina
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