Pamukkale Anfora Kalecik Karası 2016
Pamukkale Wines is a family company started in 1962 by Fevzi Tokat. Tokat began with a fairly small capacity of 100,000 liters. Pamukkale has since grown into one of Turkey’s largest wineries. Now looked after by Yasin Tokat, the winery produces 3.5 million liters of wine every year. It’s main goal: to offer the best quality wine to the wine lovers at the best prices.
The winery sources grapes from a variety of locations in Turkey. It’s “home” vineyards located in the Aegean Region of Çal are made up of clay-loamy, limestone, pebbly soil at an altitude of 850 meters above sea level. This area has been the home to native Turkish Çalkarası grapes for centuries and Pamukkale is one of the few wineries working with it.
Pamukkale also works with producer farmers for many of its grapes. Rather than grow all grapes in the home vineyards, the winery prefers to work with trusted farmers producing grapes in the best districts suited for those grapes. As such, the winery sources grapes from across Turkey, everywhere from Tekirdağ to Diyarbakir.
The winery produces wine under 12 labels, each one reflecting a different level of quality and grape selection: Grand Reserve, L, Nodus, Mulier, Meridies, Anfora, Senfoni, Diamond, Sole, Trio, Ayra, and Sava.
Pamukkale Anfora Kalecik Karası 2016 Tasting Notes:
The nose on this starts out very typically Kalecik Karası. Really fruity with bright red fruits like raspberry and smashed strawberries and cotton candy. Underneath those top, fruity and sweet notes though lurked the bouquet of wet leaves and forest undergrowth. There’s some excessive alcohol burn (at 14% not a shock!) on the palate that rather unbalances the wine as a whole but is not entirely off putting. Otherwise the body is medium all around with medium weight and finish. The flavors take the aromas from the nose and progress them even further. Of course there were the expected flavors of fruit but black pepper and something slightly herbal lifted the overall palate to something more interesting and complex.
I drank a fair amount of Pamukkale’s Anfora Series when I first began learning about Turkish wine. I soon abandoned them and moved up on the wine quality ladder. However a friend opened this one night and in the spirit of fairness I gave it a try. I don’t know if Pamukkale changed something over the last couple years or maybe I’ve changed, but wow. I was truly pleasantly surprised by this wine. I will not be turning down the opportunity to retry more wines from this line!