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Turkish Wine

HomeTurkish Wine (Page 46)

  Solera is my favorite wine bar in Istanbul. Frankly it's the only real wine bar in Istanbul. The staff here are friendly, largely knowledgeable about wine, and have wine service more or less down. Putting them head and shoulders above even many of the high-end restaurants and hotels whose staff have no clue. Owner Süleyman Er approaches wine differently than many restaurant owners. For him, wine isn’t a business, it’s his life. Süleyman doesn’t just own Solera, he also has his own vineyards in Tekirdağ. Twenty years ago while working in the restaurant business he fell in love with wine. After studying to become a sommelier he traveled extensively

  The Aegean island, Bozcaada - formerly Tenedos-has a long history of winemaking. So long in fact, it rated mention in The Iliad. Today this storied island, now in Turkish hands, produces far less wine than it did in history. Some of the wineries, like relatives Talay and Çamlıbağ, also have long histories. Not ancient Greece long, but beginning of the Turkish Republic long. Some, like Corvus and Amadeus MMX are new comers. Amadeus MMX, as its name might indicate, is owned by an Austrian family; one that came to Turkey in the 60s and stayed. The current head of the winery, Oliver Gareis, was born here. While the family

  The Zero Kilometer food trend that began a few years ago involves restaurants that source ingredients from their immediate area. In many cases this often means not only getting produce and other products from local farmers but growing and producing everything in an onsite restaurant garden. This trend gained popularity for a variety of reasons: it supports local agriculture, ingredients are always fresh and in season, and because the resulting food both expresses a sense of place and is appropriate for that place. It was this sense of locality that spoke to Türgay Gümüş when he founded his winery, Buradan, in the coastal village Çeşme outside Izmir. "Buradan" is

  I joke that my research into Turkish wine essentially involved drinking from the bottom of the shelf up. But honestly that's actually what I did. After being more than a year in Turkey I still was not convinced that the wine here was especially good. At that time I was still pretty near the bottom of the shelf and was only doing my "research" halfheartedly. One night, I paired a semi-sweet Bornova Misketi with a spicy Chinese dry pepper chicken. Apparently I thought I knew better how to cook than the person who made the recipe. Spoiler alert, I didn't. The recipe called for me to saute Chinese peppercorns

  In high school one of my favorite songs was Aerosmith's Pink. And while pink anything, let along wine, is not my obsession, I'm no longer so obsessed with hating it. In my previous post about Turkish rosé, I covered a handful of pink wines I've had here which have helped (slowly) change my mind about rosé. As winemakers respond to the global trend that has popularized rosé as serious wine so too has the quality increased. There's still more than enough plonk available. However, one can find a few gems out there ranging from the fruity and simple to more complex and savory. Maybe the next time you reach

  As it has elsewhere in the world; pink wine has caught on in Turkey. Some winemakers make it grudgingly to satisfy market demand while others do so for the joy. I have my own very decided opinions about pink wine which I hold forth openly and somewhat bombastically. But I have set myself the goal of trying all the wine Turkey produces. Which, given the relatively diminutive size of the industry is frustratingly difficult to do. My self-appointed mission also includes all the pink wines. While I think many might dismiss rosé as being "sweet", my main issue with Turkish rosé is that it often tastes like

  I've never been entirely sure how my parents became a couple. Of course I've heard the story of how they met. But do I understand how it went further? Not so much. My mother's family are almost all slightly hippy musicians and artists. She's a classically trained singer and some of my earliest memories are of sitting in the theatre while she rehearsed. For about 15 years every summer her family held their own version of Woodstock. An all day food and music fest featuring any band a family member was in, the house band (i.e. my mom, aunts, and uncles), and culminated in a display of illegal

  Despite a winemaking history that some scholars say extends back even further in history than the Republic of Georgia's (renown for claiming to have 8,000 vintages of history), modern day Turkey has little to no domestic wine culture. Under Ottoman rule, Muslims were prohibited from making and drinking of wine. Combine that with the loss of the Greek and Armenian populations (i.e. those who could make and drink wine) in the early Twentieth Century, it's no surprise that today's Turks are just at the beginning of their wine discovery. While a small handful of wineries have operated here since the 40s, the winemaking boom only really began around the turn

  Şen Vineyards is a little-known winery tucked away in Balıkesir in Turkey's Marmara region. Better known for its harbor Bandırma (second only to Istanbul in commercial importance), than it is its wine, Balıkesir nonetheless has a long history of viticulture. So when Feyzi Şen decided to establish a vineyard he felt drawn to the inland village of Ilica in Balıkesir. The winery here produces three wines. Its top tier Hiera Germa, a series of varietal reds called Assuva, and its entry wine, a red blend called Kybele. Şen Vineyards cultivates only international varieties Cabernet Sauvingon, Merlot, and Syrah. While each level wine features one or a combination of these

  Producing some 10 million liters of a wine a year, Kayra is not only one of the largest, but most recognized wine companies in Turkey. Between two production facilities, one in Turkey's Thrace in the European side of the country and the other in Elazığ deep in Anatolia, Kayra offers a wide diversity of flavors and price ranges across 11 labels: Kayra Imperial, Kayra Prestige, Kayra Versus, Kayra Vintage, Buzbağ Rezerv, Kayra, Terra, Allure, Leona, Buzbağ, and Tilsim. The Allure line includes simple whites and a rosé. Simple but quaffable, these food friendly wines also make great aperitifs. Kayra Allure "Beyaz" Kalecik Karası Rosé Kayra bills this particular wine as a