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Turkish Wine

HomeTurkish Wine (Page 60)

  Christmas is almost here! You know what that means? It’s mulled wine season.  My former roommate and I used to make mulled wine together regularly in the run up to Christmas and I continue that tradition even here in Istanbul where Christmas is sadly not so much a thing. There are so many recipes and traditions out there for mulled wine but we’ve always preferred the German Glühwein. On our shared blog, ParMieux Adventures she explains the tradition of Glühwein and what the name means.I’m going to let you wander over there and check it out while I stay here and drink it. There’s something about a pomander that I just love. They’re kind of

  My first encounter with the Chamlija Felix Culpa happened in the same way I discovered many of Chamlija’s wines…there was one bottle, just the one, sitting on the shelf at La Cave. Anytime that happens with a wine maker I really like I get the bottle and I was so glad I did that with the Felix Cupla. A happy mistake Which was another thing that attracted me to this one. Felix Culpa / Mutlu Hata (happy mistake)…why that name? The grape is a Pinot Noir but this isn’t Chaamlija’s Pinot Noir wine. Chamlija has two Felix Culpa wines-one this Pinot Noir and the other a Chardonnay and while I

  It has been a busy few days full of wine. On the one hand, my two best friends moved out of Turkey but on the other I seem to have joined-however accidentally-the Turkish wine tasting community! Last Thursday was E&M’s impromptu going away party. They left Turkey on Saturday for their next adventure so Thursday Em, J, and I went over to theirs to drink their remaining wine. The next day marked my December Turkish wine tasting. At a suggestion from a friend, this wine tasting focused all on wines from the Aegean region. nitially I only had plans to do four wine: the Paşaeli K2, the 7Bilgiler Phytagoras (review coming

  Everything you need to know about the 2009 Barbare Elegance is right in the name: elegant. Barbare is a top-shelf, organic wine producer here in Turkey; I’ve only had two of their wines so far but they were both amazing. Of the two, the Barbare Elegance is my favorite. A blend of Syrah, Grenache, and Mourvédre, this gorgeous red wine will set you back a pretty penny; about 89 TL at Macro Center, 140 TL at Solera, and somewhere in between at La Cave. I brought this over to M’s a while back and we both swooned over it. The nose, reflective of the Barbare Elegance ‘s color is very dark. I got

  This was another case of letting the guys at La Cave talk me into something. I figured for 40 TL I wasn’t taking that big of a risk with the Süryanı Şarabı Levy Matiat. I am so glad it wasn’t a larger investment. Assyrian wine Süryanı Şarabı is a traditional Assyrian wine maker from Mardin, Turkey. There are very very few Assyrians left in Turkey, many have fled due to the Kurdish conflict which has hit Mardin particularly hard. The tiny population that remains has been trying to revive the wine industry which is both a fantastic and difficult undertaking. Not only do they have to replant vineyards torn out

  While Sherlock seemed utterly unmoved by this wine; I was not. I’m not usually a huge fan of Cabernet Franc but when Mustafa Çamlica, the owner of the Chamlija winery, suggested I try the 2014 Chamlija Cabernet Franc I wasn’t going to argue. I am so glad I took his advice. This slightly opaque, bright, garnet red Chamlija Cabernet Franc (found at La Cave for 95 TL) has a nose redolent of dried strawberries, mint, green peppercorn, jalepeno, and green bell pepper. The palate is smooth tannins, mouth-watering acid, and a long finish with lots of spicy and pepper flavors backed up with raspberry and blackberry fruits. My notes have ‘so nice’

  A couple weeks ago I drank two of Chateau Kalpak wines with some friends and it turns out that my friend AJ knows the owner of the vineyard! Immediately Operation Wine began and we coordinated our schedules to find a weekend we might all be available to go visit Chateau Kalpak. Unfortunately, no one told Bulent Bey, the owner, our plans! When AJ contacted him and we discovered that he would not in fact be at the chateau during our planned visit we had half a day of scrambling and constant back and forth WhatsApp messaging while we figured out if we were all available to make the several hour

  I have two favorite Turkish wines-and one is the 2011 Chateau Kalpak Twin. Chateau Kalpak is a semi newish winery, located in Şarköy on the Marmara Sea. I say semi newish in that I’ve only noticed the wines here in Istanbul for about the last 18 months or so but I believe their vines have been cultivated since the early 2000’s. Getting a bottle of Chateau Kalpak Twin is not for the faint of heart though. Suvla has the best price at 100 TL, Savoy Tobacco and La Cave are both around 115 TL, and at Solera it will set you back 140 TL (-25% if you buy it to go). Is

  I’ve been eyeing this 2014 Urla Tempus wine for a while but it’s 195 TL at Solera and I have a hard time coughing up that much for anything. However I have found it both at the Savoy tobacco shop in Cihangir and at Macro Center for 125 TL – far more reasonable in my opinion! The Urla Tempus is a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Syrah, Petit Verdot, and Cabernet Franc and has a fairly whopping 15% APV. It’s a double gold winner in the US and fully deserves to be. In the glass the dark ruby red wine smelled velvety and deep. The nose was all black

  I have only recently started exploring Kayra wines so they’re not wines that jump out at me when I’m shopping but when I saw this Kayra Versus Syrah Viognier blend I had to have it. A red-white grape blend? What?! I did some Googling and discovered that this particular blend is not all that unusual. It’s not all that usual either so I suppose it’s more accurate to say that this blend is not unheard of. The tradition of blending Viognier into Syrah has its roots (haha, see what I did there?) in France where the grapes are grown side-by-side in the  Côte-Rôtie region of the Northern Rhône Valley.