Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Morbi eu nulla vehicula, sagittis tortor id, fermentum nunc. Donec gravida mi a condimentum rutrum. Praesent aliquet pellentesque nisi.

Red Wine

HomeRed Wine (Page 5)

  Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. This past summer, I took a trip I've been wanting to make for a few years now: Sofia. Bulgaria may not be on the top of everyone's travel wish list (although it should be, it's beautiful!) but it's been on mine for a while now. Why? Wine, naturally! I've heard great things about Bulgarian wine and two years ago, Shoyu Sugar brought back an amazing Riesling pét-nat that cemented my desire to explore the country's wine scene.  [easy-image-collage id=20618] As I've only been to Bulgaria once before and wanted to do at least one non wine activity. In the end, I settled on a day

  For my birthday in August, my friend Malia of Shoyu Sugar made SPAM musubis for me!! I remember eating SPAM a bit when I was a kid. My mom mixed ground SPAM with American cheese and white onions and we made hot sandwiches with it. I actually really kind of liked it. But it wasn't until I had Malia's musubis that I understood what kind of magic you can make with this meat.  I won't go into the history of SPAM or how deeply embedded it is in Hawaiian culture. Suffice to say, SPAM musubis are a common snack food in Hawaii. When she can get the ingredients, Malia

  Disclaimer: This post includes wines received as a sample. All opinions are my own. Two years ago, I was privileged to try Paşaeli's experimental, super limited edition Karasakız Pét-Nat. Due to a supply chain problem, they were unable to make one for the 2022 vintage. Lucky for me though, everything came together for the 2023 vintage and I was again privileged to receive a bottle.  Karasakız has long been an underappreciated grapes here. Not unknown, not exactly rare. It has recently caught a lot more attention though with four wineries (since my last post about the Paşaeli pét-nat) making wine with it. Long overdue in my opinion! I'm so happy

  Chamlija winery is known to many in Turkey for its enthusiasm for planting grapes not native to Turkey. In addition to grapes that have become so common as to be passé (e.g. Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay), Chamlija likes to stretch things by planting uncommon grapes. It is, for example, one of the few wineries cultivating Riesling. It is the only winery growing Albariño, Assyrtiko, Mavrud, Kadarka, and Xinomavro.  All of these wine are good, because Chamlija undeniably makes good wines. Some of them are even interesting. But they wouldn't always jump out of a blind tasting lineup as what they are. Regardless, it is always exciting to

  Crete is an amazing place to visit, for so many reasons, but especially so if you're a wine enthusiast. The island is home to so many grape varieties, many not found elsewhere, not even the Greek mainland. One variety I learned about during my visit was the black grape, Kotsifali.  Kotsifali is a little tricky to work with in the vineyard. It is vigorous and highly productive and largely disease-resistant. All good things. But, it can be prone to downy mildew and botrytis. The main trick is to try to curb the grape’s naturally high alcohol tendency but still leave it on the vine long for sufficient time to

  The Urla district of İzmir in Turkey's Aegean region has become a hotbed of trendy wineries. Many belong to the Urla Bağ Yolu (the easiest, if not the most interesting wine route to navigate). But not all wineries in the area belong to the wine route. Personally, I find those few to be the more interesting wineries. Like Hus Şarapçılık. Founded in 2017 by Ceylan Ertörer Diaz Leon and Juan Pablo Diaz Leon, Hus Şarapçılık is a family venture that blends the Chilean wine background of Juan Pablo's family, and the agricultural history belong to Ceylan's family. Sadly, in 2021, Juan Pablo passed away. Ceylan has bravely continued the

  Used to be that Markogianni was not a winery with which I was familiar. A friend recommended their Vorias and Helios amber Assyrtiko to me some time ago. That one wine was all it took really to sell me on the whole winery. Subsequent trips have seen me tracking down more and more of their wines and I am dying to visit them.  Located to the far west of the country, near the Ionian sea and ancient Olympia,  Markogianni Winery is a family-run winery launched in 1982. They soon converted to organic cultivation and in 2001 were certified by DIO. Between their own vineyards and the growers with whom

  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

  Summer has arrived hard and fast in Turkey with temperatures already soaring into the 30s even in Istanbul. Air conditioning units work round the clock and electricity outages have increased apace of everyone running those units. While I love white wine (and am increasingly coming around to rosé), especially during this time of the year, not everyone does. Even if you do like white and rosé wines, the summer heat is no reason to give up your red wines entirely. “But no!” I can hear you exclaiming, “How can I drink red wine in this heat?” Chill them! Yes, you heard me, stick ‘em in the fridge. Before

  While neither new nor lost, Karasakız has long been underappreciated. For a long time, there was only Suvla (which still explores the most expressions of the grape, Paşaeli, and the producers on Bozcaada making wine under the grape's alternate name, Kuntra. Recently, something seems to have changed and love for Karasakız fills the air.  Also called 'Kuntra' the Karasakız (kar-ah-sah-kiz) grape is the oldest grape variety grown on the island of Bozcaada. Records show it growing here for at least 500 years. It likes a warmer climate and, in addition to Bozcaada, also grows on the southern part of the Gallipoli Peninsula, in the Bayramiç District of the Çanakkale

Cookie Preferences