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Wine Reviews

HomeWine Reviews (Page 89)

By 0Sweet Wine, Turkish Wine, White Wine, Wine Reviews

  I am making it my mission this summer to try all the Misket wines produced in Turkey! And so far all of them are winners. Doluca’s Safir semi-sweet Misket is no exception. Before I wax poetical about its orange blossom and honeysuckle flavors, a little technical information about the Misket grape is needed, I think. Misket (or Muscat for us Westerners) grapes come from Izmir along the Aegean. The wines they produce run the gambit between “dry” to dessert. I say “dry” though as my personal experience, with any Muscat, not just Turkish, is that a so-called “dry” Muscat leans a little closer to semi-dry than straight up dry. Doluca

By 0Red Wine, Turkish Wine, Wine Reviews

  I was at The Cave, my local alcohol shop the other week looking for a selection of Turkish wines to try out on visiting friends. The guy who was helping was friendly but unfortunately useless as far as personal recommendations went as he doesn’t drink alcohol. Insert blank face here. So I ended up with two bottles, an expensive bottle of one of the Suvlas on my list and a cheap bottle of a wine I’ve never heard of-the 2013 Arya Kalecik Karası Boğazkere. That’s the one we’re reviewing today. Right off the bat I wanted to like the Arya Kalecik Karası Boğazkere. I enjoy a butterfly so if

By 0Turkish Wine, White Wine, Wine Reviews

  The Diren Narince was a pretty decent Narince. I haven’t had many wines from this maker yet but this boded well for the rest. In any case I found it nicer than the Barudi Narince from a few weeks ago as that one was too oaky for me. The 2010 Diren Narince was a nice light straw color. It was floral and mildly oaky on the nose. I guess I would describe this as Chardonnay adjacent which makes sense as Narince is often equated with Chardonnay. There was definitely some oak happening here but it tasted, to me, more like it was treated with oak versus actually having been oak

By 0Red Wine, Turkish Wine, Wine Reviews

  Tursan is possibly the leading winemaker in the Cappadocia region. It’s a tough region with high elevation, grasslands, harsh, cold winters, and not a lot of lush greenery. Like many wineries in Turkey, Turasan produces several labels under its name including: Seneler, Classic, and blends. While I was in Cappadocia with a visiting friend we picked up the Turasan red blend. Not gonna lie-not my favorite. Turasan Red Blend Tasting Notes The Turasan red blend seemed to have been on a mission to include any and every possible grape including: Syrah, Boğazkere, Kalecik Karası, and Öküzgözü. In the glass this Turasan red blend was a deep purple-red color. In the nose I detected hints

By 0Red Wine, Turkish Wine, Wine Reviews

  Such a week and it’s only Wednesday. First I got a job, then I got sick, then I had an Istanbuli police officer show up at my door. But also there was wine! Last week I got a new consulting contract. Yay money! Means I can afford to keep myself in wine a bit longer. To celebrate we had dinner at Otto in Cihangir (which was great) and we ordered a bottle of the Ancyra Boğazkere. Like the Terra, the Ancyra had many of the hallmarks inherit in the Boğazkere grape varietal: spicy, (dried) red fruits, dark dark red color with blue hues etc. We both enjoyed it, but for me the

By 0Red Wine, Turkish Wine, Wine Reviews

  The 2010 Gali Evreshe is the most expensive wine I’ve bought so far running around 50TL a bottle. Was it worth it…eh. It wasn’t bad! Quite the contrary. With an intense, dark plum color, light tannins, a soft feel, and a smooth flavor the this Bordeaux blend was quite drinkable. Price is not always an indicator of a good wine in the states or Western Europe. One of my favorite wines when I lived in DC was an $8 bottle of Zinfandel.* However here the opposite is usually true in that the higher priced the wine is, the better the quality, as with the 100TL bottle of Prodom I plan

By 0Sweet Wine, Turkish Wine, White Wine, Wine Reviews

  In an effort to start drinking more white wines to match the warming weather I picked up a bottle of the 2012 Ancyra Muscat at Carrefour and fell in love! Muscat grapes are of course more widely known for being made into dessert wines but you can find the occasional “dry” Muscat. Although semi-sweet is really far more accurate a descriptor. With a pale straw color with a delicate, floral nose, a muscat’s flavor profile includes: orange blossoms, honey, honeysuckle, basil, roses, mint, bergamont, lemon balm, daisies, grapefruit, and melon. Daises, that’s a new one. To me this is a really interesting flavor profile and I would have liked to been

By 0Red Wine, Turkish Wine, Wine Reviews

  It seems the one consistent thing about my wine drinking is that I drink far more red than I do white. In college I’d have told you that I was a white wine drinker but the more I explored wines and learned about grape profiles the more I realized I preferred reds. Which also means that I now gravitate towards them more often simply because I know more about them and feel more confident choosing a red wine. I really must start picking up more whites and rectify this. Before we get there though…lets discuss the Terra Boğazkere. I’ve already reviewed an Öküzgözü and the Öküzgözü-Boğazkere blend but this is the

By 0Red Wine, Turkish Wine, Wine Reviews

  I have found it!! I have found my hands down favorite vintner for Kalecik Karası. This is the second winner from Terra, the first being the Narince I reviewed some weeks ago. I’m not entirely surprised how good this was though. While price is not always a sign of quality, as anyone who has ever bought wine at Trader Joe’s knows, it’s not not a factor. The Terra Kalecik Karası is a little bit on the “pricier” side running about 35TL ($17-ish) a bottle. It’s worth it. I’ve been fooled by a nice nose before so the overwhelming (in a good way) berry/cherry that I was smelling in the Terra

By 0Red Wine, Turkish Wine, Wine Reviews

  And we’re on another Vinkara wine this week; this time the Vinkara Kalecik Karası. I’m going to say that by and large there isn’t (or I haven’t found it yet) a bad Kalecik Karası, but this would be close. I begin to suspect that Vinkara just isn’t producing a lot of winners. Since I don’t have a great deal to say about the Vinkara Kalecik Karası I looked up the grape on my new favorite website, Wines of Turkey, to get a little bit more information about it. Apparently we must all pretend to be British when we talk about this wine and add an -er at the end of it: Kah-le-djic-car-ah-ser.