Reaching New Peaks at Ayda Winery
My love affair with Ayda Winery began last fall in my local bottle shop. I’m in this shop a lot. Like, a lot a lot. So when there’s a new bottle somewhere I zero in on it pretty quickly. With the Ayda Winery VinAida collection it wasn’t difficult at all since they were sitting right there on check out counter.
Actually I think they might all have been samples for the store owner. There was only the one set and the shop doesn’t carry them*. They let me buy a couple bottles anyway. I think they get a kick out of the odd foreigner who gets so excited about new Turkish wines. Whatever gets me the wine is fine with me!
Ayda Kargılı Kalelioğlu and Uğur Kalelioğlu are the charming wife-husband team behind Ayda Winery. Originally a dentist, Ayda Hanım began making wine as a hobby in 2003. She and her husband Uğur planted vineyards near their home in the Urla province of Izmir. After a few years of hobby winemaking, Ayda decided she wanted to do things “properly”. She studied in France and in 2008 earned a certification in oenology.
By 2015 they had given up their vineyards in Urla and moved to the mountains for the elevation. There they established Ayda Vineyards and Winery which includes an onsite restaurant and a six-room guest house. When I say elevation I mean it. Ayda Vineyards and Winery can only be reached by way of a steep, winding, and often extremely narrow road. For not so fantastic drivers such as myself it was a nerve-wracking trip; but the views once yo’re finally there are more than worth the effort.
The Difference Is in the Details
Ayda Winery sets itself apart from other Turkish wineries in its production method. All of their wine is barrel fermented. That’s right. Fermented in the barrel. That’s almost unheard of in Turkey, particularly for white and rose wines. For both the white wines and the rose, Ayda and Uğur let the wine rest sur lie before filtration and bottling. The process for the red wines is even more labor intensive. After fermenting the barrels, red wine is siphoned into stainless steel tanks for filtration (with potato protein!). They thoroughly clean the barrels then put the wine back into them for ageing.
This is a small scale winery. Boutique is a popular word in Turkey. Very over used and often misleading. However in this case it is appropriate. Ayda and Uğur run the whole show on their own. They produce and vinify about 20 tons of grapes every year which, according to Ayda, is as much as they can handle on their own. That amount of grapes produces more or less 14,000 bottles. As you can see from the picture below, I scored bottle 472 of a mere 1,800.
If it comes down to an American-style Black Friday fight for bottle 1,800 I will fight dirty and win.
Ayda Winery is also the only vegan-certified winery in Turkey. While there are a handful of wineries with vegan-acceptable winemaking practices, only Ayda has the certification.
VinAida Blanc de Noir Grenache 2016 Tasting Notes
Let’s start with the grape: Grenache. I can count on one hand the wineries in Turkey producing Grenache. Those making blanc de 
noir with it? One.
As I mentioned earlier, this wine was barrel fermented in French oak then spent nine months sur lie (i.e. resting with the lees). The clear, intense gold color is not something I’d automatically associate with a blanc de noir but is beautiful nonetheless.
The nose here is so many things. Dehydrated strawberries, summer fruits, citrus, flint, white pepper, cream, and something savory like sage or bay leaf. The attack is soft, subtle, unassuming. Then an EXPLOSION of acid and flavor with a miles long finish of melted vanilla bean ice cream. Big, creamy fruits dominate the palate-kind of like liquid Eton mess. However, please don’t mistake me-this is a dry wine.
This wine is amazing, gorgeous, stunning. It’s not the only wine from Ayda Winery that impresses either. Ayda and Uğur also produce a dry Bornova Misketi unlike any other Misket you’ve had, a stunning Pinot Noir-Grenache Rose, and varietal red wines from Pinot Noir, Syrah, Merlot, and Cabernet Sauvignon.
Speaking of the Syrah…
VinAida Syrah 2016 Tasting Notes
As with the Blanc de Noir (and really all of their wines), the Syrah is a limited bottling. There were only 1,461 bottles produced in 2016 and I was the lucky owner of bottle 486. Syrah has so many expressions and this is one of the beautiful ones.
I feel like Syrah is easy to make badly. Hot climate fruit, over extraction, and the use of too much oak can lead to clumsy and overwhelmingly jammy wines. No danger of that with the skillful and thoughtful Ayda Winery team. Single vineyard, barrel fermented, and vegan like all of Ayda Winery’s wines, the 2016 Syrah spent nine months oak. Its surprising low alcohol level (13.1%) goes a long way to preserving the fresh fruit flavors I often find lacking in Turkish Syrah.
Clean and intense aromas of black fruits dominate the nose. Black mulberry, bramble fruits and violets blend easily with well-integrated oak aromas of vanilla and milk chocolate, Chewy tannins that end in a long, dry finish start off this very fruit-forward wine with a bang. Tart forest fruits like black mulberry and black raspberry on the attack melt into savory and earthy flavors of stable and meat.
Layers within layers, this is one of my favorite Turkish Syrahs to date.
Ayda Winery wines are not the easiest to get your hands on but I promise you that it is worth the effort.