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Celebrating the Year of the Ox with a Chinese Turkish Feast

 

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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… I opened them all at once, plunked them on the table, and tried to try as many with as many dishes. The result was that I ended up a wee tipsy by course three. Professional drinker that I am I pushed on! Maybe I should have had lunch. And while I remembered to keep taking notes I did rather forget to take pictures halfway through.

The menu included:

-Starters: potato and cheese momos, vegetarian spring rolls, and daikon cakes with garlic and pickled radish relish, all served with sweet chili sauce

-Soup: hot and sour

-Mains: char kway teow (noodles with Chinese sausage and fishcakes), crispy pork belly, baked sea bream in black bean with Chinese cabbage in oyster sauce, sweet and sour chicken, and a lo hei salad we all tossed together per tradition

-Dessert: mini pineapple clove tarts

Edrine Papazbeyazı, 2018

We started with this white as an aperitif wine. An odd choice for an aperitif wine at 14% abv but the generally light flavors balance that. This wine is a blanc de noir from the Papazkarası grape, a traditional grape of upper Thrace. Pale lemon on the pour with a shy but pretty nose. Blossom, pomelo, and white nectarine with light whiffs of jasmine. On the palate it was round with medium acidity and a medium body. The wine had some weight on the palate and a feeling of richness that was sadly lacking in the flavor. 

The Chinese food would have destroyed this so I’m happy we started with it!

Sevilen Turkuaz, 2017

A semi-sweet wine from the Aegean Bornova Misketi grape, I could have stopped here. This was overall the best pairing.

The wine poured deep lemon with aromatic white rose, orange blossom, and bergamot jam aromas. Lightly sweet and a bit weighty on the palate with 13% abv. Bornova Misketi often does not give a lot of acidity but this Turkuaz found a nice balance with the sweetness nonetheless. Pronounced flavors of English garden on the palate echoed the nose with the addition of a lemon curd richness.

This paired so well with just about every dish on the table including the hot and sour soup which was a surprise match! The real dynamite pairings here though were the Turkuaz with the crispy pork belly and the pineapple clove tarts. Wow.

Vinkara Hasandede, 2019

Hasandede still falls into the underappreciated grape category here with only three wineries working with it. Vinkara was the first to pluck this grape out of obscurity from its home around Ankara.

Pale lemon in the glass with light, silvery highlights. The nose is initially reminiscent of a Misket; delicately perfumed with florals and citrus aromas. The development on the palate shows so much more than the nose. Flavors of blossom and pear open up to a smoky minerality and cream. Dry and medium-bodied with 13% abv and a round acidity.

This did not pair as well with the dishes as I’d hoped. That said, it tasted quite nice with all three starters (although sans the sweet chili sauce) and wasn’t bad with the pineapple tart.

Gürbüz Orange Sauvignon Blanc, 2020

A new wine this year from Akın Gürbüz, his Sauvignon Blanc spent 13 days on the skins and developed a lovely deep amber color. Shockingly low in alcohol at only 10.8% abv. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a Turkish wine with such a low alcohol level! Aromas of peach skin, honey, apple, and boza on the nose. Dry on the palate with medium tannins and juicy acidity. Popcorn and tarragon flavors joined the peach and apple fruit. 

This went really well with all the appetizers and surprisingly also the sweet chili sauce! It also matched the Chinese sausage noodle sha quai tiao dish.

Paşaeli Kabuğunda Çakal Üzümü, 2018

If the Hasandede grape above is underappreciated, Çakal Üzümü gets almost no love. (Re)Discovered by Paşaeli winery, this Aegean grape has properly purple skin, it’s not a pink grape. However, it has such a low level of anthocyanins that even extended skin contact results in only a dark pink color. Paşaeli makes two wines with this, a very very pale rosé and this one, the Kabuğunda (meaning on the skins) which spent seven days on the skins.

After all that skin contact, this purple-skinned grape resulted in a deep, orange-tinged, peony pink. Semi-dried strawberries, dried cherries, black olives, and bay leaf aromas on the nose. Not intense but pleasant. The palate was dry, light-bodied, with round acidity. More savory than sweet on the palate with bay leaf, olive leaf, and black olive fruit flavors.

This was a huge yes with the potato cheese momos! It did well with the other starters as well as the soup but was a big no with the noodles and other main dishes.

Kuzeybağ Öküzgözü, 2019

I’ve had an enjoyed Kuzeybağ’s Öküzgözü a couple few times. Grown at 1000 meter elevation in clayey limestone soils, Kuzeybağ’s vineyards sit in the heart of Öküzgözü territory. I knew I needed a red wine for my pairing experiment and what other red grape could I use for the Year of the Ox than a grape called “bull’s eye”?! Not to mention, the label. Come on. 

Deep purple on the pour with rich aromas. Not oak rich, in fact I think the wine received no oak ageing. Fruit rich with deep, sun-warmed fruit aromas of mulberry and blackberry and a thread of white pepper. A velvety texture on the palate with low tannins, medium acidity, and high alcohol at 14.5% abv. Flavors reflected the nose with equal richness and intensity. I think this is their best Öküzgözü yet. 

So how did the bull ox wine pair with the Year of the Ox feast? It was a revelation with the vegetarian spring roll (the cabbage). Not bad with the daikon, soup, and baked fish and cabbage but very nice with the noodles.

What a feast! Thank you to my friend K for hosting our small bubble and stuffing us with her amazing food. 新年快樂 everyone! I wish you all health, joy, and much excellent wine for this year.