Akın Gürbüz’s Winemakers Selection Öküzgözü
I get the feeling that people’s minds mostly go to the Cabernets and Sauvingon Blanc when Akın Gürbüz’s name comes up. To an extent that’s fair. He began with French grapes and some of his higher-end wines come from those. However, that’s doing him and his catalogue a disservice. He makes excellent wine with quite a few native grapes including: Kalecik Karası, Karalahna, Papazkarası, and Öküzgözü. 
If he weren’t behind the grapes, would he label them under his Winemaker’s Selection series?
Gürbüz Öküzgözü, 2018
Gürbüz’s winery sits firmly in Thrace with most of his vineyards in southern Thrace running down to the northern Marmara. However, some of his grapes come from elsewhere in the country. His Öküzgözü being one of them. He brings in these from Eastern Anatolia where the grape is at home in Elazığ. Back in his winery in Thrace, he gently crushes them, ferments in stainless steel tanks, then transfers the wine to oak barrels for 13 months to age.
Darkly colored for an Öküzgözü. Does oak ageing darken a wine’s color? Probably I should know the answer to that. The nose presented definite oak influence but also Medjool dates, light brown sugar, brown spices, cedar, and carob. Imagine storing your brown spices and baking accoutrement in a cedar closet and you’re there. A silky palate with medium plus acidity (nice to see on this grape which I often find to be insipid), with moderate alcohol at 13.8%. The palate gave flavors of spice, cedar, and carob over a suggestion of fruit.
My personal opinion, perhaps a tad too much oak as I rather thought the fruit got lost in there. But really nice texture and acidity and generally quite delicious for a grape I usually avoid.