Keep on Swimming! The Paşaeli Merman
Çalkarası is what I like to call Turkey's 'Cinderella' grape. For a long time, winery's have used this grape as a work horse to make up table wines and cheap red and rosé blends. And yet, the grape has great capacity to make high-quality wines. How do we know that? To begin, because we know that we share this grape with Greece where it does make high-quality wines. In Greece, Liatiko (as they call it) is the 5th most planted grape and the star of Crete's robust wine industry. How did it get from Crete to the inner Aegean in Turkey (or vice versa)? Dunno. Nor do I
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