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Red Wine

HomeRed Wine (Page 50)

  I must preface this by saying that I actually drank this Turasan Syrah before the Emir I recently both reviewed and enjoyed. So…grain of salt. Since I’ve had a couple bad experiences with Turasan wines I was pleasantly surprised by one M bought a while ago. Like the previously reviewed Emir, the 2013 Turasan Syrah may have changed my mind. And at 38TL won’t break the bank. A pretty purple and a spicy, plummy nose lead to a soft wine and a mouth full of blackberries. I thought I also tasted sour cherries but either the wine was a little too yeasty or I don’t know what a red currant tastes like. According

  I am so far behind on these posts! Wine Wednesday needs to come around more often. Or, knowing that isn’t actually possible, I need to be better about writing up full posts when I drink new wines instead of scribbling often enigmatic notes. However even if I’ve forgotten everything else about the 2011 Chateau Nuzun Pinot Noir, I do at least remember my first impression of it. Hello, Gorgeous. There’s a verb in Turkish, uflamak which means “to say oof”. So first, just sit back and enjoy that Turkish has a verb that means that. Sure we say “oof” in English but (to my knowledge) we don’t have a specific verb for

  I have not had a great deal of Corvus wines. I think I had a cheaper one ages ago, didn’t like it, and wrote off the entire winery. Which was really pretty stupid. I recently found a few bottles of Corvus that I had not seen before and decided to give them a try, including the 2011 Aegea  Kuntra. I hadn’t heard of the Kuntra grape before but a little Googling later discovered that it is in fact the Greek name for the Karasakiz grape. Seeing as how Corvus’s home base is the island Bozcaada, which history knows better by its Greek name Tenedos; it makes sense that Corvus would use

  Urla is a new winery to me, I haven’t noticed this one before so when I saw the 2011 Urla Vourla at Comedus (59TL) I had to get it. I’m always on the lookout for a new wine maker here. A nice solid red color gave way to a truly lovely nose filled with dark fruits and berries. In the mouth this blend of Boğazkere, Merlot, Syrah, and Cabernet Sauvignon was pretty bold. The Vourla has a large, dense flavor supported by velvety tannins followed by a long finish. The one slightly off note to the body was that it was oddly thick. Which was really rather off-putting. On the attack the Urla Vourla

  Today was to have been the last of my 4AM Twitter sessions with VinoRai and Protocol Wine Studio during which we were to compare the Diren Öküzgözü and the Gali Blend. I bought both of the wines on which the discussion was focused and was all set to drink two glasses of red wine at 4 in the morning. Unfortunately dealing with Turkish bureaucracy this week has given me a few headaches, including one last night. When I woke up in pain at 2:30 AM I knew I wasn’t going to be able to participate in the session. Happily at least I can read what everyone Tweeted and, since my headache finally went away,

  I recently was able to entertain some family members here in Istanbul. Two of my double second cousins* were in town. I have a rather large family. Really rather large. My dad is one of eight and all but one of his siblings have children. My mom is one of 12 and nine of them have children. My siblings and I are all at the younger end of the cousins so we have several cousins (on daddy’s side) who are already grandparents themselves. So I have a hard enough time remembering all my first cousin’s…I’ve kind of given up on remembering my second cousins and their kids. I knew

  The problem with back log reviews is that they get really back logged! This has apparently been neglected as a draft for a rather embarrassing amount of months. And while a few wines may deserve that, the 2011 Suvla Sır is not one of them. There was a period a few months back during which I’d banned myself from drinking for a few weeks…and this Suvla Sır was the culprit. Once again I lost a bet that I could drink an entire bottle of red wine in one sitting and not regret it the next morning. Sadly I did regret it the next morning…but it was a bittersweet regret. The

  Procured at Comedus for a reasonable 43 TL, this 2011 Chateau Nuzu is a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Syrah, and Öküzgözü. We actually drank some time ago, when the January weather was nicer than our current April weather. Le sigh. Aside from the ruby red color, the tartness on the Chateau Nuzu palate was the first thing we all noticed. It was really acidic giving the wine a sour flavor. With the sour yeastiness dominating, I had a hard time tasting anything else but believe I did detect some plum and cherry flavors hiding in there. Rather extreme tartness wasn’t the Chataeu Nuzu 2011’s only surprise we discovered. Sediment-lots of it

  Tuesday morning I was sitting in the local tax office when the power wet out. I hoped it was just a flicker but we soon learned that it was all of our neighborhood. Then we heard that it was all of Istanbul…then 50 cities across Turkey. Dude. What could we do but drink wine? Earlier I’d stopped in Solera, the wine house just up the street from my apartment, where they offer 25% discount on bottles that you buy for take away, and picked up a couple new reds, including the Gordias Kalecik Karası. Country-wide power outage, candle light, and Turkish homework seemed a great excuse to break out one. I

  As I’ve had uneven luck with them in the past I don’t tend to buy a lot of wines from Duluca. Nor did I buy this one. It’s interesting having partners in wine tasting shenanigans as E&M often buy wines that I wouldn’t. Sometimes for very good reasons but they’re still new to the Turkish wine scene so we forgive them. I was intrigued by the Villa Duluca Klasik when I saw that, accompanying the Öküzgözü-Shiraz blend was Alicante. Alicante, being a region in (central I think) Spain known for producing Monastrell wines, is not a name I see here often and I eagerly opened the bottle to see how