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White Wine

HomeWhite Wine (Page 25)

  I begin this post with a little bit of a rant. One of my recent wine pet peeves concerns the hype around small production wineries. I'm all for small production and understand the allure of it over large format wineries. If the wine is good. However, sometimes these wineries have more cachet than quality. Wineries shouldn't be lauded simply because they make under a certain number of bottles annually. If the wine isn't good, it doesn't matter if it comes from a small "boutique" winery or a large factory winery. But if the wine is good, should it matter who produces it? Turkey has its fair share of factory

  Uçmakdere Winery, based in the village of the same name along the Sea of Marmara, is one of the most exciting wineries for me right now. Entirely because of the winemaker, Işıl Bulutsuz. Işıl Bulutsuz is not only the daughter of one of Firuze’s founding families, she is also the winemaker. Prior to becoming Firuze’s winemaker Işıl studied at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris where she received a diploma in Wine and Management and graduated from the Professional Culinary Arts Program from Turkey's Mutfak Sanatları Akademisi (MSA) Culinary Arts Academy. She sat down with me (virtually of course!) this week to talk about her work in wine. Don't forget to

  This month Camilla of Culinary Adventures with Camilla has invited the #Winophiles group to explore French grown around the world. You can view her original invite here. France is home to what are probably the world's most famous and widespread grape varieties. Grapes like Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, and Chardonnay can be found in almost every winemaking country from France to the Italy, the UK, the US, Argentina, Australia, China, and Tunisia. And pretty much everywhere in between! Turkey likewise is not immune to the charms of French grapes. They enjoy an overwhelming popularity here. Few wineries (in fact only four or five come to mind) do not feature a

  Foça Karası has slowly and quietly snuck its way into the Turkish wine scene. This Aegean grape, like many in Turkey, takes its name from its local place of origin. In this case, the Foça district of İzmir. However, it goes by another name too. This is one of the few grapes Turkey shares with Greece where it is known as Fokiano and planted mostly on Ilkaria, an island near Turkey.  We don't see a lot of this grape in Turkey. While championed by Can Ortabaş of Urla Şarapçılık, he himself doesn't use it. The winery really putting Foça Karası through its paces is Öküzgözü Şarapçılık. Urla-based winery Urlice

  For our February #WorldWineTravel event, Susannah Gold of Avvinare has invited us to explore Catalunya - Emporda, Alella, Pla de Bages, Penedès, Conca de Barbera, Priorat, Montsant and More. You can view her invitation here. As you can tell from the event title, there is a lot going on with wine in Catalunya! [caption id="attachment_15621" align="alignright" width="498"] Image from https://cava.wine.com[/caption] D.O. Penedès and Cava Penedès is in northeastern Spain in Catalunya. Within the D.O. Penedès lies the D.O. Cava. Cava is one of those interesting regions that is actually larger than the demarcated D.O. It's like the Tardis. While it originated in San Sadurní de Noya in Catalunya, Cava can be made

  I am so excited to share a guest piece that Moshé Cohen of In The Vineyard With kindly invited me to write! Reviving the Lost Grapes of Turkey Turkey. The mention of this country evokes thoughts of sultans and harems, sticky sweet Turkish delights, thick coffee, and hot air balloon rides over the fantastical ‘fairy chimney’ cave homes of Cappadocia. Wine is not the first thing to come to mind. Nor is it usually the fourth or the tenth. And yet, Turkey is, and for thousands of years has been, a wine producing country. Six grapes make up the backbone of wine production (with native vs international grapes): Boğazkere, Bornova Misketi,

  Yanık‌ ‌Ülke‌ Bağları translates as “vineyards of the burnt land.” Located at 924 meters above sea level on the rocky‌ ‌volcanic‌ ‌slopes‌ ‌of‌ ‌the‌ dormant ‌Divlit‌ ‌Volcano, the winery prides itself on its black volcanic soil. It likes to compare itself to the vineyards and wines of Mount Etna, Sicily. To further this association, the winery cultivates several Sicilian grape varieties including Cataratto, Nerello‌ ‌Cappuccio,‌ ‌‌and Nerello‌ ‌Mascalese.  I've never had the Nerello Cappuccio. It's not something I see often on the shelf. The other two though are generally much easier to find. Yanık Ülke Nerello Mascalese, 2018 Bright ruby in the glass with aromas of mulberry, black raspberry, cherry, vanilla, and

  We spent Valentine's Day in Istanbul under both our regular weekend lockdown and a blanket of snow this year. Since we couldn't go out for Valentine's, I invited a couple people from my pandemic bubble over on Monday for a Galentine's Day wine tasting. The wines: four wines based in the Çalkarası grape from Paşaeli Wines. I've had all four wines individually but have really been wanting to open them together. Since even I have my limits I knew I needed help to open them all at once! I recently wrote conducted an interview with Paşaeli Wines owner Seyit Karagözoğlu for the Vintner Project. There are a lot of

  Friday heralded the Year of the Ox in the Chinese calendar. The day before happened to be a good friend's birthday. She usually holds a huge Chinese New Year pop up restaurant feast. However, COVID etc, that got canceled this year. Instead she hosted our small bubble for a Singaporean-Chinese new year-birthday feast. I decided to use the opportunity to see how I could pair Turkish wine with Chinese food. I brought a number of wines to the feast to cover as wide a spectrum as I could: whites, semi-sweet, rosé, amber, red

  In Georgian white wine, Rkatsiteli reigns supreme. If you've had Georgian white (or amber) wine you've likely had this grape. Or maybe a Mtsvane. But, while the most common, these are not the only white grapes in Georgia's winemaking arsenal. While I do like Mtsvane wines, Rkatsiteli has never been my favorite. I tend to seek out wines from some of the less well-known grapes when I'm in Georgia. In particular I've long been a fan of Kisi. Because I do hunt them down, my last trip netted me wines made from not only the Kisi I like so well but also Tsitska, Tsolikouri, and Krakhuna. Lagvinari Tsitska, 2015 After a