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Sweet Wine

HomeSweet Wine

  My adventures with Turkish wine importer, Fine Turkish Wine, continue! Well at least the writing of them does, the adventures themselves ended in November. And it's taking ever so much longer to write about these visits than it took to make them! After two days in Trakya (aka Thrace), visiting first Arcadia, then Arda and Gürbüz Winery we headed for the Aegean.  First stop, Kuzubağ! Kuzubağ  Kuzubağ Şaraphane is one of the new generation wineries working to raise the profile of the Çal region. More than just a member of the Çal Bağ Yolu, Kuzubağ is (in my considerable opinion), the best of them. A family-run affair, the Kuzu family

  Iranian food meets Turkish wine? How often does this happen? Hopefully more and more often now if this Bitter & Sweet pairing inspires anyone! My friend Lorraine introduced me to The Caspian Chef some time ago. She tangentially knows him through a cousin and thought I would appreciate his style. I immediately fell in love with his recipes and way of cooking. So, when his cookbook, Bitter & Sweet came out, she got it for me. Apparently, The Caspian Chef - otherwise known as Omid Roustaei - and Lorraine's cousin 'do enjoy a wine of an evening' (imagine you're hearing this delivered in my friend's plummy British accent). So,

  Since shifting some of its focus to quality wines, Selçuk area-based Akberg Winery has sourced grapes from around the country.  Narince from its home in Tokat, Emir from Cappadocia, Papazkarası from Thrace, Çalkarası from Çal, and so on. The winery's decision to do so stems from its belief that a grape naturally grows in certain terroir for a reason. While a grape might happily grow elsewhere (Narince being a great example), not all react well to that (Emir). The winery then views the entirely of Turkey as one giant vineyard, ergo its label, Büyükbağ (large vineyard).  [caption id="" align="alignleft" width="300"] Osmanca - photo from Wayana Wine Bar[/caption] But not all of Akberg's

  The Budapest airport forever confuses me, regardless of how many times I've been through. Duty free is before immigration which I continuously forget meaning I'm always almost going to miss my flight by the time I've browsed the couple shops I like then get in the loooong, slow line for immigration. It was on one of these "I forgot passport control was yet to come" trips that I found this Oremus Tokaji Aszú in Duty Free. Selling me a Tokaji Aszú is probably the easiest thing anyone could do. I did hesitate over the price, it was I think the single most expensive bottle of wine I'd ever bought.

  This month, I am hosting the #WinePW group's exploration of heritage and traditional grapes. I will attempt to host a chat on Threads tomorrow, Saturday, November 11 at 8am PST / 11 am EST / 7 pm Istanbul. Well, I mean, I will be hosting one. How successfully I shall do so remains to be seen! Heritage grapes in Turkey Heritage, or traditional grape varieties are those that have been grown not in their native land for a long time. Think Zinfandel in America (or really any vitis vinifera in America!), Shiraz in Australia, Pinot Noir in Germany, etc. How long is a long time? Well

  This month, the #ItalianFWT group is exploring the wines of Piemonte and/or Valle d'Aosta. Culinary Cam will be hosting a Twitter (I refuse to call it X), on Saturday, November 4 at 8am Pacific/11am EST/6pm Istanbul. You can read her invitation to the event here.  Lacking any wine from the Valle d'Aosta, I chose a wine from Piemonte. I have several on hand at the moment but my overwhelming love for anything bubbly trumped all the other wines, and so I had to choose a Brachetto. Brachetto the grape and the wine Brachetto is both a grape and a wine, both of which hail from Piemonte. The berries are dense and firm

  Some years ago, when I visited Ma'Adra, they told me that they were growing Bornova Misketi. It would not be until a few years later that they were able to release their first wine with it. Bornova Misketi went though something of a dry revolution. While sweet wines did not completely disappear, they certainly lost ground as many wineries switched to or make exclusively dry wines with the grape. Now, however, we're seeing sweet Bornova Misketi, mostly semi-sweet and off-dry wines, slowly creep back in. Personally, I love a sweet wine at any sweetness level. But, for people who are cautious about whether or not they'll like sweet wines,

  Several months ago, Midin Şarapçılık sent me a selection of wines from their new 2020 vintage. A friend introduced me to Midin last year. Since then, I visited them in May of 2021, got try try most of their 2019 wines, and wrote about them for last summer's Jancis Robinson writing competition. The winery is only on its second commercial vintage but, comparing the new wines they sent me to my 2019 notes, I can already see an improvement. Now I look forward to 2021 which they predict will be their best year yet. They admit they've made a few mistakes and stumbles along the way, but who doesn't

  What do you get when a popular wine bar and a great winery form a partnership? A whole mess of new wines, that's what! New wines like the Arda Kuşlu Solera Misket. Arda and Solera Solera is one of the longest-lived and successful wine bars in Istanbul. It also happens to be my local! So I have a soft spot for it and for owner Süleyman Er. Imagine my delight to learn that that for some years now he's been cultivating his own vineyards. Süleyman has made some progress towards renovating a 100 year winery on the shores of the Sea of Marmara as well. But for the time being,