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Francly Turkish! Turkish Cab Franc & Lamb Chops #WinePW

 

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We celebrated #CabFrancDay on December 4. To keep the Cab Franc love going the December #WinePW theme explores Cabernet Franc Around the World! You can read the invitation post by host Wendy Klick from A Day In The Life on The Farm here. It will surprise no one that I am featuring Cabernet Franc from Turkey!

Join us tomorrow, December 12 at 7pm IST/ 11am EST / 10am CST / 8am PST by following along with the #WinePW hashtag on Twitter as we talk all things Cab Franc!

Cabernet Franc 

Most probably know Cab Franc as a blending grape. In Bordeaux-style wines, Cab Franc may get blended with two of its offspring: Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. However, the grape has quite come into its own. Not only are plantings found around the world but more varietal Cab Franc wines have reached the market. Lori Budd at Dracaena Wines and founder of #CabFrancDay tells us that the grape is one of the twenty most widely planted varieties! And that it can be found in many wine regions such as California, Bordeaux, Southwest France, Washington, Oregon, New York, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Canada, Chile, Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Brazil, Italy, Hungary, Croatia, and Romania.

I, of course, would add Turkey to that list! Bordeaux-style blends having a great popularity in Turkey, Cab Franc is no stranger to Turkish vineyards. Over the last three years especially though we’re seeing more and more varietal wines. In Turkey, Cab Franc plantings exist in a number of growing regions including Thrace, Marmara, the Aegean, and the Mediterranean.

For this theme, I paired three Turkish Cab Francs from three different regions in Turkey. On the menu was a starter plate with leek börek, dried cranberry and rosemary sourdough bread, mint pesto, lemon balm pesto, muhammara, and tangy tomato bruschetta. Instead of a cheese plate we used a mini raclette machine and melted raclette over green peppers, mushrooms, sweet potatoes, and sucuk (a Turkish fermented beef sausage). For the main we had garlic and rosemary crusted lamb chops, tabbouleh, and an arugula salad.

Garova Vineyards Cabernet Franc, 2018

Garova Vineyards is nestled in the verdant, rolling hills of Turkey’s south Aegean resort area, Bodrum. Here winery owner Mehmet Vuran makes wines from a blend of Turkish and international grapes. He ferments all his wines, including the Cabernet Franc, with the ambient “wild” yeasts on the grapes and bottles with no oak ageing.

Medium intense ruby on the pour, this was a rather cheeky Cab Franc with a nose full of the wild “tang” I’ve come to expect from Garova wines. Black mulberry syrup, freshly chopped green bell pepper, violets, pink peppercorn, and tar made up the rest of the the rather shouty bouquet here. Medium-bodied despite the 15% abv and high tannins. The acidity was medium to medium plus. Definitely mouthwatering but it took some time for it to break though the mouthful of sinewy tannins. Flavors of black currant and clay pot joined the fruit and perfume from the nose along with the sensation if not flavor of spice.

This wine paired well with the muhammara, dried cranberry and rosemary sourdough, and went really well with the arugula salad. I did not particularly care for it with the chops though as it really exaggerated the lambyness of the meat.

Gordias Cabernet Franc, 2017

The second wine (and our collective favorite) came from Gordias Bağcılık ve Şarapçılık. Based in the Polatlı village outside Ankara, Gordias is run by the one-woman army Canan Gerimli. While she grows a number of grapes in her onsite vineyards, the grapes for her Cabernet Franc come from Denizli in the Aegean region. While not generally a huge fan of oak, she did age this wine (well 90% of it) for eight months in American barrels. 

In the glass the Gordias Cabernet Franc appeared as broody as the aromas rising from it. Black cherry, black mulberry, and prune followed chili pepper, dirty tar-tobacco, and a dusting of bitter cocoa powder. Powdery tannins greeted the first sip but quickly dissipated leaving behind flavors of cocoa powder, black pepper, and date syrup. Nicely balanced with medium acidity, high alcohol (14% abv), and a medium-long finish.

This one paired remarkably well with lemon balm pesto, curry cinnamon almonds, and rosemary dried cranberry bread from the starter plate. It wasn’t so bad with the raclette but really sang with the lamb.

Chateau Kalpak Cabernet Franc, 2013

The third wine in the line up was a rare single varietal Cabernet Franc from Chateau Kalpak-which otherwise makes almost exclusively Bordeaux blends. I’ve had this one for a couple years now and was waiting for the right moment to open it! Chateau Kalpak sits on the European side of Turkey, overlooking the Sea of Marmara. He uses largely neutral, Hungarian oak for ageing and the Cabernet Franc aged for 36 months.

I generally look skeptically on a lot of wines here that say “limited filtration” as they end up looking crystal clear. Not so this one. I’ve never seen such a muddy, dense wine before. Muddy in appearance but not bouquet! This was vividly perfumed with black and chili peppers, candied violets, lavender, red plum, and clove. In fact my friend said she really wants a candle that smells like this! Mildly medicinal and herbal flavors of hibiscus root and anise expressed themselves along with the black pepper and lavender-violet perfume from the nose. Soft tannins present throughout, medium acidity, and high alcohol (14.8% abv) created an overall medium-bodied wine.

The Chateau Kalpak Cabernet Franc paired well with the leek börek, dried cranberry rosemary bread, muhammara, tomato vinegar bruschetta, and mint as well as with the tabbouleh and lamb.

Around the World with Cabernet Franc

Don’t forget to check out from where the rest of the #WinePW crew found Cabernet Franc and with what they paired it!

• Culinary Adventures with Camilla: Honey-Lemon-Sesame Drizzled Plancha’d Veggies + Garzón 2018 Reserva Cabernet Franc
• A Day in the Life on the Farm: Hungarian Short Ribs Paired with Dracaena Cab Franc
• The Quirky Cork: Francly Turkish! Turkish Cab Franc & Lamb Chops
• Grape Experiences: “Crush On Cabernet Franc!”
• Crushed Grape Chronicles: “Cab Franc – Sailing the Loire with a Pirate Princess”
• Exploring the Wine Glass: Championing for Cabernet Franc; The True Underdog
• Cooking Chat: Easy Bibimbap Recipe with Cab Franc Wine Pairing
• The Swirling Dervish: Biodynamic Bourgueil from Laurent Herlin for #WinePW
• My Full Wine Glass: “Old World vs New World Cab Franc: Game On!”
• Always Ravenous: “Cabernet Franc Paired with Flavors of Persian Cuisine”
• Enofylz:“Domaine Bousquet Gaia Cabernet Franc Paired with Sausage and Potato Pan Roast”
• Wine Predator: Cab Franc Thrives in California: Examples from Santa Ynez, Sonoma, El Dorado, Paso Robles #WinePW and St-Nicolas-de-Bourgueil’s Amirault “Le Vau Renou” 2016 Cabernet Franc 
• Avvinare: Cab Franc in Friuli Venezia Giulia
• Somm’s Table: “Old World/New World Cab Franc Explorations”