When You Let the Bottle Do the Heavy Lifting

February 22, 2023ByAndrea Lemieux 0Red Wine, Turkish Wine, Wine Reviews

Pamukkale really want to you to know that the Pamukkale YT Boğazkere is a special wine. Not only was it bottled in an overly heavy format bottle, it also came wrapped in paper, resting in its own padded box. That’s a lot of fanfare. Did the wine live up to it?

Boğazkere isn’t a grape we see a lot from Pamukkale in its premium wines. Mostly the winery focuses on international grapes for its top tier wines. However, it went native for this one which came out as a special, limited edition bottling celebrating winemaker Yasin Tokat’s 50th harvest.

I don’t generally go in for Pamukkale’s wines. But, seeing a native grape take the stage for such a prominent wine certainly intrigued me.

Pamukkale YT Boğazkere, 2017

Grapes for this wine came from Pamukkale’s extensive vineyards in the eastern Aegean in Güney. Four weeks of maceration then malolactic conversion in new French oak. After all the fermentation finished, the wine spent three years in oak barrels then four months in bottle before release.

For all that oak, the nose indicated a surprisingly tart and fresh fruit profile of sour cherry and rhubarb backed by cedar, tobacco, and a swirl of vanilla. I wondered how those four weeks of maceration were going to translate to the palate feel. Sipping revealed flavors of cherry and plum scattered over by dried, red flowers. Disappointingly simple. Four weeks seems like a long time for a grape as bitterly tannic as Boğazkere can be; even with three years in oak. Indeed, the tannins felt rather course. Medium plus body and acidity with 13.5% alcohol.

I do wonder if they hoped to impress people with all the environmentally unfriendly packaging so they didn’t notice the wine itself. For the price (around 700 TL BEFORE this last year’s inflation hit) the wine underwhelmed. We’ll see if some more time in the bottle will unlock a current, hidden potential.

Please Help Turkey and Syria!

In light of the horrific earthquake that has 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.

Donate to search and rescue efforts in Turkey via Ahbap, Akut and Turkish Red Crescent

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.

To support rescue efforts in Syria, donate to White Helmet 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”

Follow Jennifer Hattam on Twitter at The Turkish Life for continued updates on organizations accepting donations and needing local assistance.