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Red Wine

HomeRed Wine (Page 9)

  Finding Hungarian sparkling wine in Budapest is as easy as hopping in a cab! Located along the Danube on the Buda side of the river lies the neighborhood of Budafolk, an historic center of wine production and cellars. In 1880,  a union of wine producing and bottling industries created a cellar network hollowed out of the limestone beneath the neighborhood. The cellar system, 25 kilometers in length and the largest in all of Europe, still exists earning the area the name “Cellar Town.” Today a number of wineries still have production facilities here, especially those focusing on sparkling wine production like Törley, Sauska, and Garamvári. While I was in

  June has been just a crazy month for me! I hope yours has been calmer. I've barely been able to enjoy any wine at all. Eek! So, I'm looking forward to a quiet July. Now that I have time to enjoy wine again, what will I be drinking? What will you be drinking in July? Read on and find out what your horoscope suggests! Aquarius (January 20 - February 18) Feeling stuck? At work, in your relationships, at life in general? Feeling like you're not making progress in your life can be frustrating. And the more frustrated you feel, the more stuck you become. At times like this, don't stubbornly wave your

  Nearly extinct until the 1970s, Kalecik Karası has become of of Turkey's most popular and widely planted grapes. While red wines remain the most common, the grape shows great flexibility and makes blanc de noir, rosé, and traditional method sparkling wines. Below are my picks for top Turkish Kalecik Karası wines (well the red ones anyway!). It originates in the Central Anatolian region, near Ankara, in Kalecik. Fairly adaptable, the grape grows across the country now and very often gives nuances of terroir. Known for its distinctive cotton candy aroma, Kalecik Karası at its worst is a simple fresh and fruity wine without complexity but with enjoyable fruit and

  Most of my May seedlings have perished due to neglect. I'm afraid this is not going to be my year for plants! I'm travelling too much during these sensitive, early weeks. Despite the likelihood that my balcony won't be quite as picturesque as it was last year, I am looking forward to sitting out there with some wine! What will I be drinking? What will you be drinking in June? Read on and find out what your horoscope suggests! Aquarius (January 20 - February 18) Things are heating up this month, Aquarius, and I don't mean just the weather! Get your flirt on this month! Don't be afraid to make the first

  Several months back I met a lovely new wine friend. Here in Turkey on vacation with her (equally lovely) mother, she got in touch with me on Instagram. I love wine Instagram! We got together so I could show her some of my favorite Turkish wines. In turn, she, from Argentina where she's an up and coming winemaker, brought me three beautiful Argentinean Malbecs. I have had and enjoyed not a few Argentinean Malbecs in my life. But this was the first time I was able to compare three wines from three regions and three completely different elevations. Such fun. Zuccardi Q Malbec, 2019 Perhaps one of the most famous Argentinean

  Recently I wrote a post about (some of) the best Turkish Pinot Noirs. I left out two wines on purpose, the Ayda Bağları Pinot Noir and Rosé. These two deserved to be tackled separately. Ayda Bağları  After a few years of hobby winemaking, Ayda Kargılı Kalelioğlu and her husband Uğur Kalelioğlu decided to go commercial. Ayda, a dentist by training, had been making wine with the trial and error method. But when the pair decided to ramp up their operations, she pursued an oenology certification in France which she received in 2008. Now, Ayda and Uğur are proud to be a boutique winery. Their capacity is roughly 14,400 bottles a

  Another new-ish winery to emerge in Turkey over the last few years is Taneanda. This Thrace-based winery has put out three vintages thus far, all based on Caladoc. According to the winery's website, founder Metin İlhan based the name on the local Thracian dialect meaning something along the lines of "there?" or "what's there?". An expression that would also be accompanied by pointing the index finger to indicate a specific place. He chose this as the winery's name because he vines, which surround the winery, sit on a hilltop and are visible from afar. Caladoc is not a grape we hear about a lot in Turkey. Probably it's not really

  I don't know about you, but I have been thrilled with our weather the last week or two of April! I'm not ready yet for summer so I hope it holds steady. My seeds are all planted (some are even sprouting, huzzah!) and I look forward to chilling on the balcony with my plants, my cats, and some nice wine. What will you be drinking in May? Read on and find out what your horoscope suggests! Aquarius (January 20 - February 18) Along with the flowers I planted on my balcony, your growth and maturity are blossoming. The last few years have thrown more than a few challenges your way but

  While for reasons beyond my ken Karasakız is not more popular in Turkey, it is certainly one of the country's most facile grapes. One of my favorite iterations of this grape is the Paşaeli 6N Karasakız. This wine encapsulates so many things about Paşaeli. Under-utilized grape - check. Old vines - check. Wild ferment - check. Paşaeli almost always allows its wines to undergo spontaneous fermentation on natives yeasts. It just doesn't always advertise the fact. Even on this bottle it appears only in small print. The vineyards lie at 500 meters above sea level in the Aegean, in the Kaz Dağları. They average 35 years old, giving them

  For several years Ma'Adra's Öküzgözü rosé has been one of my go-to rosés. But I've always wondered why they don't make a red. I don't have to wonder anymore because now they do! At November's Sommeliers Selection event in Istanbul, Ma'Adra debuted its new carbonic maceration Öküzgözü.  We don't talk about carbonic maceration a lot in Turkey. While Ma'Adra may not be the first winery here to use the technique, it is the first to proudly put it on the label. But, what is it? Carbonic Maceration, the Internal Combustion of Winemaking Carbonic maceration is probably how early wine got made