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HomeRed WineFrancly Turkish! Turkish Cab Franc & Lamb Chops #WinePW

Francly Turkish! Turkish Cab Franc & Lamb Chops #WinePW

 


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!

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23 Comments

  • December 11, 2020
    Wendy Klik

    What an amazing feast and fun trio of pairings. Wish I had been there.

    • December 11, 2020
      admin

      Maybe when travel is safe again I can entice you to visit!

  • December 12, 2020
  • December 12, 2020
    gwendolyn alley

    SO MUCH YUM! Isn’t it wild how one grape will go with some foods and not others? Such beautiful colorful and inspiring cheese bards, too. Looking forward to learning more about Turkey and Turkish wines in 2021.

    • December 12, 2020
      admin

      There was definitely some guess work on the foods but the really wild pairing success was the lemongrass pesto. Who on earth would have thought that?!

  • December 12, 2020
    robincgc

    Broody, shouty, and “should be the scent of a candle” – such variety in these wines. Your pairings are so fantastic and stunningly beautiful. So many things I want to try! Wish I could teleport!

    • December 12, 2020
      admin

      If I could send you all wine I would do it in a heartbeat! I need to get more importers as interested as you all are.

  • December 13, 2020
    susannah gold

    Andrea- What nice pairings and dishes. So varied and so many flavors and spices. I’m impressed that the Cab Franc complemented all and didn’t compete. I visited Bodrum on a sailing trip years ago but have no recollection of what wines we were drinking, I was just stunned by the view. I also have no idea what Borek is or one of the other dishes you mentioned, despite having visited. Can’t wait to learn more. Cheers. Susannah

  • December 13, 2020
    Lauren

    Thank you for taking us on a delightful trip to Turkey – the food is beautiful; the wines sound complex and different, one from another. I’ve had just one Turkish wine – a Chardonnay – at our neighborhood restaurant in NYC, but none since then. The ones featured in your post have inspired me to seek out other examples. I love the inspiration!

    • December 13, 2020
      admin

      Thank you! Sadly the best of Turkish wines are not widely available in the US. But there are a few good examples out there, even those with native grapes!

  • December 14, 2020
    David

    Sounds like a great Cab Franc experiment! I think I’d like the 2nd one best too. Lemon balm pesto? That sounds very interesting!

    • December 14, 2020
      admin

      The lemon balm pesto was from a friend, I cannot take credit for that! I wouldn’t ever have thought to make such a thing let alone pair it with Cab Franc. It was surprising how well it went!

  • December 14, 2020
    Linda Whipple, CSW

    Love your descriptive notes and adventurous pairings! I feel like I’m visiting Turkey whenever I read your posts.

    • December 14, 2020
      admin

      Thank you! I hope you’ll be able to visit for real someday and explore some of these wines with me!

  • December 14, 2020
    Lynn

    Wow, you’ve outdone yourself with this menu Andrea! Love Turkish food… muhammara is a regular item at our house, as is anything lamb. Still on the hunt for Turkish wines but it’s only a matter of time.

  • December 14, 2020
    Lori

    I would absolutely love to try one of those Cab Francs! And your spread looks absolutely incredible!

  • December 14, 2020
    Lori

    Thank you so much for the Dracaena Wines shoutout and for sharing info about Turkish Cab Franc!

  • December 16, 2020
    Jane

    This is my kind of feast with a nice range of flavorful foods, I love it! It looks so inviting I just want to jump into your photo. The Turkish Cabernet Francs do sound different from the ones I poured, mostly higher in alcohol.

    • December 17, 2020
      admin

      Oh thank you! And yes, our wines do tend to be quite high in alcohol and I haven’t quite yet put my finger on why.

  • December 21, 2020
    Nicole Ruiz Hudson

    I really love reading about the wines you see on the Turkish scene. And Cab Franc makes so much sense to me with the herbs notes in the cuisine and in the pairings you share here.

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