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Turkish Wine

HomeTurkish Wine (Page 22)

  Summer red-wine drinkers meet your new best friend, Fersun! Fersun (fehr-soon) is a recently rescued from extinction native Turkish grape. Grown exclusively by Likya Şarapları, (who also did the rescuing), not a great deal is known yet about Fersun’s ampelographic background. But it does seem to be native to Turkey’s Mediterranean province of Antalya. This pale, purple-red grape creates light to medium bodied wines redolent of pomegranate, blackberry, strawberry, black currant leaf, tomato leaf, bay leaf, black tea, black pepper, and violet. Low in tannin and with medium acidity, its wines are perfect to drink lightly chilled. Food Pairing For as much as we don’t know about the origins of this wine,

  If you've never visited my site or seen me on social media, you may not know that I spent four + years writing a book. But I did. And The Essential Guide to Turkish Wine is finally finished, printed, and available for sale!* But that's not entirely what this post is about. I recently met Lisa Morrow. If you don't know who she is but you're at all intrigued by Turkey, you need to know her. She's been here for ages now and has written several books about seeing Turkey through an expat's eyes as well as maintaining her own blog: Inside Out In Istanbul. Meeting her has opened

  I realized some time ago that I'd not reviewed the Sevilen Plato Öküzgözü, nor in fact any of Sevilen's Plato wines. Now, with Sevilen debuting a new Plato Narince (cannot wait to get a bottle!) I thought it's about time I got around to doing it. In the spring I opened two different wines from this series, the Kalecik Karası and Öküzgözü. Going to tackle the Öküzgözü here since I seem to be on an Öküzgözü roll lately!  While Öküzgözü originates in Elazığ in Turkey's north east, Sevilen's vineyards are located in Denizli in the inner Aegean. While much of Denizli sits at pretty high elevations, the overall climate

  Located a little over an hour's flight from Istanbul, Cappadocia is the jewel of central Turkey. Its surreal "fairy chimney" rock formations, hot air balloon tourism, and network of underground cities and cave churches has made it one of the country's top attractions—for good reason. Just as impressive but far less known, however, is the region’s history as an important wine center that predates Christianity and where some of the world’s first viticultural legislation was introduced. Today, Cappadocian producers draw on this rich history to produce interesting, complex wines that spotlight ancient native (and foreign) grapes. In Cappadocia, evidence of grape and wine production dates back to at least

  From Çalkarası to Fersun, these emerging grapes should be on your radar. An hour and a half drive from Antalya along Turkey’s Mediterranean coast, Likya Şarapları sits in the Taurus Mountains high above Antalya’s Elmalı district. The winery has made a name for itself with wine made from popular grapes both domestic and international. But what really excites the Özkan family, owners of the winery, is Acıkara. Knowing that their region has a very old wine history, the Özkans reasoned that there must have been native grapes there before. They began to research the area and learned, through local shepherds, of a large grapevine growing wild where they grazed their

  Cabernet Franc doesn't get a whole month of celebration the way Merlot does. And while #CabFranc day has passed (you can read my post about that here!) I've still got Cab Franc on the brain! How convenient then that I have some unwritten up tasting notes lying around. Chamlija has been flirting with Cabernet Franc for years now. In fact, it was their original Cabernet Franc that really made me start paying attention to this grape here. I don't ever see that on the market anymore (sad) as the winery has moved into higher-end wines. With matching higher-end prices

  It's December and Christmas is around the corner!! Is your tree up? Mine is and this year it's covered with a new selection of wine label ornaments! So far not even naughty Dr. Watson has attempted to climb it. Perhaps she'll received more than a lump of coal in her stocking this! What does your horoscope say you should try drinking in December? Read on and find out! Aquarius (January 20 - February 18) Take this month to stop and check in with yourself. How has the past year affected you? Often we blow off a lot of the external things in our life and don't pay attention to how much

  In 2005, the Erdem Yılmaze and his wife were lured by friends to the Çömelek village near Mersin on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast. Enchanted by the quality of the local grapes and lingering evidence, in the form of ancient grape processing areas carved into the rocks and grape and goblet motif reliefs on ancient, nearby tombs, they took up the challenge to stay and make wine here. In 2010, with many trials and learning experiences behind them, they officially established Tasheli Şarap. Since then, they've done a lot of work to bring Turkey’s attention to the local Patkara grape. Tasheli features it in varietal red and rosé wines as well as

  While for reasons beyond my ken Karasakız is not more popular in Turkey, it is certainly one of the country's most facile grapes. 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 and the Sea of Marmara island, Avşa. On Bozcaada, the grape is known exclusively as Kuntra. Here, where high winds can severely damage grapes and grape leaves, vines grow in head-trained, goblet bushes to protect the grapes. Elsewhere where

  Visitors to volcanic regions often have little doubt about where they are. Volcanic mountains and hills (active or not) make up places like Mount Etna, Santorini, Somló, and the Canary Islands. Wherever you happen to be, you know you’re on land created by violent, fiery, eruptions. But not all volcanic regions are so obvious. In Turkey’s Central Anatolia, Cappadocia, famous for its hot air balloons, hidden cave churches, and strange fairy chimneys, does not have a towering volcano. There are no craters or deep piles of lava rocks. But this land too was created by fire, ash, and lava. While volcanoes have not been active here in a very