Gallipoli Vineyards: A Journey from Historic Battlefields to Flourishing Wineries
If you haven’t heard already, I’m collaborating with a fabulous new agency that is focusing on wine tourism in Turkey! Vines & Pearls offers wine bar walking tours, wine picnics, day and overnight vineyard visits, and yacht board tastings! Although please no one book the yacht tasting. Goda will kill me for saying that…but I get super sea sick!
Vines & Pearls has just launched the blog on its website and one of their first posts is a piece from yours truly!
Gallipoli Vineyards: A Journey from Historic Battlefields to Flourishing Wineries
Gallipoli Peninsula
On the European side of Turkey, a small, narrow peninsula extends off the mainland, neatly separating the Aegean and Marmara seas between the Dardanelles and the Gulf of Saros. This is the Gallipoli Peninsula. The peninsula forms the European side of the Çanakkale Province and today is home to beautiful beaches, nature, and quite a few Gallipoli Vineyards.
Visitors, domestic and foreign, flood this part of Turkey every year. They come to camp, play on the sandy beaches, visit war memorials, and tour the Gallipoli Vineyards. Gallipoli also serves as something of a “jumping off point” to the Turkish Aegean islands, Troy, and the ruins at Assos on the Asian side of the province.
While the beaches and nature have existed for some time, the wineries are a fairly recent addition and one need only visit the Gallipoli Vineyardsto be reminded that this beautiful and lush peninsula has a tragic past.
Glance into history: the Gallipoli Campaign
During World War I, the Gallipoli Campaign raged here from February 17, 1915 to January 9, 1916. What started as a sea battle for control of the Dardanelles took a deadlier turn in April, 1915 when the combined British, Australian, New Zealand, and European forces took the fight to land. During the eight months of combat, more than 250,000 people died. So many died on those beautiful beaches, before being able to scale the steep cliffs that form the peninsula’s spine, that Çanakkale’s Aegean-side beach was later renamed Kemikli Plajı, or Beach of Bones.
Continue reading Gallipoli Vineyards: A Journey from Historic Battlefields to Flourishing Wineries on Vines & Pearls blog!
Please Help Turkey and Syria!
Turkey and Syria are still in desperate need of help after the horrific earthquakes that have decimated large areas of Turkey’s south east and northern Syria, please consider donating to one of the relief efforts if you are able:
- Animal rights organization Haytap is helping animals affected by the earthquake, and displaced people who need a place to stay with their pets. Other animal-focused groups such as Dört Ayaklı Şehir (Four-Legged City) and Work Animals Rescue Foundation, are also helping farm animals, street animals, and pets.
- Donate to civil society groups working on the ground to provide immediate relief and medium- to long-term recovery to survivors via UK-based Turkey Mozaik Foundation or US-based Turkish Philanthropy Funds.
- Donate to the volunteer response being carried out in Turkey by the trusted, independent NGOs İhtiyaç Haritası (Needs Map) or Ahbap.
- Hayata Destek (Support to Life), is a Turkish NGO experienced in providing humanitarian relief and working with underserved communities.
- World Central Kitchen provides funds and food to those still living in tents in the affected areas.
- To support rescue efforts in Syria, donate to White Helmets and SAMS.
- Field Ready Türkiye (Sahaya Hazır İnovasyon Derneği) is a team of engineers working in Gaziantep, Turkey, and northwest Syria who make cheap, low-tech airbags for search and rescue from buildings which have collapsed. “If we move fast they can make more,” a good friend who previously worked with the team writes. “The workshops in Syria also have vast experience of fixing essential medical equipment, and making insulated shelters – both greatly needed right now”