Gemici Alasata Sultaniye
Gemici Family Winery began as a couple of novice winemakers’ desire to share traditionally produced wine with visitors and wine lovers. It soon turned into a full-blown winery and concept store in the southern Izmir town Alaçatı.
Gum and Wine
Alaçatı, on the Çeşme Peninsula, is a charming town on the Aegean coast often noted for its architecture, vineyards and windmills. It’s a beach town and tourists arrive in droves, particularly in the summer, drawn to the relaxed feeling of the town, great windsurfing, and wine.
In addition to wine, this area is famous in Turkey for its mastic production. A natural resin from the mastic tree, this gummy substance has a maple syrup-like flavor and is often used in Turkish desserts. Mastic ice cream, for example, is a popular summer treat. It has also traditionally been used in this region in wine production.
Gemici Family Winery
Olçay Gemici and his wife both graduated from Izmir’s Ege University with a degree in Food Engineering. After working for several years in various food sectors they realized that it was in the world of wine where they felt the most freedom. This realization prompted them to leave behind the life they knew and chase the dream of wine. They have since opened a winery and wine and concept store in Alaçatı.
Once a Greek village until the 1920s population exchange, Alaçatı takes its name from the ancient Greek word for salt (ἅλατα or alata). A lot of salt is produced in the Izmir region and during the Ottomon period, a specific tax was collected on salts, called the alatsatikos. With the departure of the Greek population, the very Greek suffix ‘kos’ was dropped and the town became Alasata. It is from this old moniker that Olçay took the name for his wine series.
Gemici 2016 Alasata Sultaniye
When I visited the Gemici shop last summer with Istanbites, I asked Olçay which were his favorite wines. For the white he said it was the Sultaniye, especially in the summer. So that’s what I picked up.
Like all of Gemici’s wines, the Alasata Sultaniye was fermented with native yeast after being hand-harvested from their vineyards around Alaçatı. The resulting wine is an intense, lemony yellow that smells a lot like it looks! Very fruit-forward as is common for this grape with aromas of yellow fruits, apples, and bread. The bready aroma comes a bit out of nowhere, not at all usual for Sultaniye, so I suspect this is a nice effect from the native yeast.
In the mouth, the wine is round and slightly oily. Flavors of yellow and red apples, ripe pineapple, and melon come together for a very fruity and juicy wine. Sultaniye can produce sweet to dry wines. The Alasata Sultaniye is dry but has a bit of a sweet-tasting finish due to its fruity nature.
A very charming wine fantastic as an aperitif or for sipping on the porch! You know, if I had a porch.
As I said, this is a dry wine. However, if you like some residual sugar in your wine, Gemici also uses this grape to produce a passito-style sweet wine!