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Wine Reviews

HomeWine Reviews (Page 77)

By 0European Wines, Red Wine, Rest of the World, Wine Reviews

  I’ve been terribly neglectful about both having and writing about the Hauteville Grand Vinde. This was a gift from a colleague last summer and we just opened it a few weeks ago. Gozo is one of the islands that make up Malta and is apparently known for being the most fertile climate in Malta and some of the best Maltese vineyards are located on this island. My colleagues lived in Malta for a while and told me that what she learned there is that, when speaking about wine, that you can’t just say ‘Maltese’ wine, you have to identify with the specific island. So this Hauteville Grande Vinde

By 0Turkish Wine, White Wine, Wine Reviews

  I found the Kayra Versus Viognier, a real gem, originally at Eleos on Istiklal. Aside from a truly respectable wine list, Eleos is worth a visit if you’re a fan of fish, awesome views, and ridiculous amounts of free mezzes and desserts. Not paying for those leaves you free to pay the rather high ticket price of the Kayra Versus Viognier. Luckily if you buy it in a shop it’s significantly less expensive (76 at Macro Center and 67 at La Cave-seriously). Regardless of what you pay though this wine is totally worth it, it’s one of the most gorgeous wines I’ve had in a while. In the glass the 2012 Kayra

By 1Sweet Wine, Turkish Wine, White Wine, Wine Reviews

  Recently I discovered that a new friend owns a yacht. And while I would love to be friends with the idle rich O is not idle, she and her husband have a travel agency here in Istanbul and the yacht is one of the services they offer. She kindly offered to take a bunch of us out a couple weeks ago for a Sunday Bosphorus cruise, and what goes better with a cruise than a nice, sweet wine like the Turasan Misket? So on a gorgeous, sunny afternoon we all met at the Kabatas dock to board the Zoe in what was going to be a three hour tour

By 0Turkish Wine, White Wine, Wine Reviews

  My second foray into the land of Mr. Jesus wines was the 2013 Isa Bey Narince (35 TL at Carrefour). Isa Bey is a “concept” wine from Sevilen produced with the principle of tek bağ tek üzüm (one vineyard, one grape). As such they produce a smaller number of bottles each year than wineries that take grapes from other vineyards. Narince is often compared to Chardonnay but other than sometimes sharing pineapple flavors I personally find them to be quite different. While it can be used to create dömisek wines, more often than not Narince is a dry wine with a sweet nose. The Isa Bey Narince follows this pattern with

By 0Turkish Wine, White Wine, Wine Reviews

  While I have discovered that Solera, my favorite wine bar in Istanbul, does not always have the lowest prices on bottles, they still win for service. I was in there not too long ago looking for more white wines for summer drinking and I fell into conversation with one of the guys about the variety of flavors found in Sauvignon Blanc wines. He suggested the Isa Bey but Isa Bey’s leans a little green and I like a riper Sauvignon Blanc. He kind of squints at me, tells me “I know what you want” then proceeds to open an 85TL bottle of Umurbey Sauvignon Blanc so I can

By 0Turkish Wine, White Wine, Wine Reviews

  Turkish wine post on not #WineWednesday…what is happening?! It turns out that I already discovered the 2014 Chamlija Albarino last summer and then somehow forgot about it. While that means I went a year without enjoying it, I had the pleasure of discovering it all over again! And since I did not realize that I’d already posted about this Albarino until after I wrote this post I decided to publish this anyway to compare my impressions. That and anything from Chamlija is worth a second look! The Chamlija Albarino seemed to have the typical flavor profile of a warm climate Albarino: tropical nose with peach, apricot, orange marmalade, white

By 0Turkish Wine, White Wine, Wine Reviews

  Last fall while in Cappadocia with my brother we stumbled upon the Kocabağ winery. I don’t recall ever seeing this wine in Istanbul so I took advantage of being there and picked up several of the winery's Emir wines. Previously the only Emir varietal I’d seen was Turasan’s so I was excited to see how many Kocabağ had. One of the things I continue to like about Emir wines is that it does not match well with oak so in all likelihood your Emir has been steel-aged. This Kocabağ Emir (40-something TL I think) was pale and brilliant in the glass with a lot of pineapple in the nose.

By 1Turkish Wine, White Wine, Wine Reviews

  It’s no secret how I feel about Chardonnay-basically I hate it. I enjoy a steel-aged Chardonnay but those are difficult to find in the US, finding one in Turkey is like finding a unicorn standing in a field of four-leaf clovers. However a friend of mine is a huge fan of Sevilen’s Isa Bey Chardonnay and at her prompting I tried a bottle. Before we talk about the wine itself (35 TL from Carrefour, 69 from Solera) let’s talk about this particular line of Sevilen wines. Isa Bey means Mr. Jesus. Naming your wine after the guy famous for turning water into wine (if I but had a superpower!)

By 0Turkish Wine, White Wine, Wine Reviews

  “‘The time has come,’ the walrus said, ‘to talk of other things’.” For me that means it’s time to switch from my beloved red wines to the whites I try to drink during the warmer months. Now that summer is upon us I will try to drink more whites, like the Arcadia Sauvignon Gris and may even face off with a few Chardonnays. To kick this off I went to a white wine tasting with some of my girlfriends. Organized by Istanbul-based British pub, Pubness, we were to taste our way through four different Turkish wines with French sommelier Jean Luc. Forty to sixty people were expected at this event but

By 0Red Wine, Turkish Wine, Wine Reviews

  I had the Paşaeli K2 last summer at my birthday dinner at Ali Ocakbaşı and it was fantastic. Unfortunately Paşaeli is not really a pocketbook friendly wine although buying at Solera does help. The shelf price for the K2 is 90 TL but if you get it to go at Solera you pay %25 less making it a far more reasonably priced bottle. I drank this bottle with some friends and colleagues in what I know call the inadvisable night of five bottles. Five bottles shared among four people should not be a problem. Unfortunately it was. I am too old to be having red wine-induced hangovers on a