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Doluca Tag

HomePosts tagged "Doluca"

  Every year - well every year that I remember - I like to do a quick review of the wines I posted about during the year that I most enjoyed, that most surprised me, etc. So with no further ado, let's jump into my favorite Turkish wines of 2023! My Favorite Sparkling Wines There weren't many new sparkling wines released this year. And frankly, with the skyrocketing price of most Turkish bubbles, I didn't really drink much. And while the Paşaeli Karasakız Pét-Nat may not be a fair wine to include, as it was a super limited bottling, it nonetheless gets a spot.  My Favorite White Wines Over the last few years,

  Halfway through Advent and time for a rosé! We couldn't do just any rosé for this though. Clearly, we needed something different, special, new.  Advent day 17 Doluca Signium Rosé, 2022 Doluca's Signium line represents the pinnacle of the winery's selection. Until this last year, the wines have been red and white blends. But then came the rosé, a 100% Pinot Noir.  Beautiful peony pink with shades of onion skin in the glass, the wine practically glowed! Not in that awful, radioactive fake rosé way. But in a pure, promises of good things way. But, intense nose here full of cranberry, pink grapefruit, red currants, black currant leaf, and laurel. Nice acidity

  Quite some time ago I had the opportunity to attend a vertical tasting of some of Doluca's Karma wines. These were the red blends, mainly Shiraz Boğazkere and Cabernet Sauvignon Öküzgözü blends. You can see my review of all of those here. Since then, I also got my hands on a bottle of the white Karma. Which frankly was not entirely recently. My drinking sadly outpaces my blogging by rather a lot! While the Karma line includes three red blends (the aforementioned Shiraz Boğazkere, Cabernet Sauvignon Öküzgözü, and a Merlot Boğazkere), there is only one white in the series. Like the other three wines, the white blends together an

  Do not judge a book by its cover! We all know this. Sometimes though when it comes to a wine label I forget. I'm often guilty of buying, or not buying wine based on the label. I've had wines as fabulous as the label, wine as terrible on the label, terrible wine tarted up by a great label, and great wine hidden under a terrible label. The Doluca Kav Narince falls into that latter category.  This label hardly looks like the most interesting thing I've ever seen. Although to be fair I have seen far worse labels. However, it does not particularly evoke any excitement or invite one to

  I begin this post with a little bit of a rant. One of my recent wine pet peeves concerns the hype around small production wineries. I'm all for small production and understand the allure of it over large format wineries. If the wine is good. However, sometimes these wineries have more cachet than quality. Wineries shouldn't be lauded simply because they make under a certain number of bottles annually. If the wine isn't good, it doesn't matter if it comes from a small "boutique" winery or a large factory winery. But if the wine is good, should it matter who produces it? Turkey has its fair share of factory

  I frequently lament the vast amount of Bordeaux-style blends we have in Turkey. Partially because it does get rather tedious to drink the same blends over and over. Mostly though because Turkey has a plethora (1240+ at last count) of its own grapes! Of which we see maybe 40 in wine. But since I do so often complain about the sea of wanna be Bordeaux here, I thought maybe I should talk about a few of them for once. But first

  I'm one of those annoying people who has to touch everything when they go through clothing and housewares stores. Although I am certainly trying to control the impulse during these days of COVID-19. But I'm a very tactile person. I learn by doing, not by seeing for example. And how things feel is critical for me. I might like the look of a dress or even a couch cover but the feel of the material is ultimately even more important than the look. For that reason, I particularly enjoy textural wines and one of the reasons why, for years Cabernet Sauvignon was among my go-to grapes. I drank a

  At the end of November during Turkey's annual Sommeliers' Selection event, I had the chance to participate in a vertical tasting of two wines from Doluca: the Karma Cabernet Sauvignon Öküzgözü and the Karma Shiraz Boğazkere presented by the winery's Education and International Marketing Manager, Ebru Günaçan.  Circa 2000, Doluca owner Ahmet Kutman decided to make the Karma line to show that Turkish grapes could blend well with recognized, European varieties. Blending Turkish and international varieties isn't new (well maybe it was in 2000, that was before I got here).  Now, at least, such blends are not uncommon as a) many of the grapes really do work well together; and

  For some years now, Doluca has been making a red blend called Signium. The blend changes from year to year but it has always been red. Until now. Last year the winery released its first white Doluca Signium. As one of Turkey's largest wineries, I often look upon Doluca a bit distrustfully. The winery is responsible for putting some of Turkey's worst wines on the market. However, it was also one of the first to recognize the need for quality wine. In the late 80s it launched its Sarafin line. Together with wineries like Umurbey slowly began to change the face of Turkish wine. Now it offers wines at every

  In high school one of my favorite songs was Aerosmith's Pink. And while pink anything, let along wine, is not my obsession, I'm no longer so obsessed with hating it. In my previous post about Turkish rosé, I covered a handful of pink wines I've had here which have helped (slowly) change my mind about rosé. As winemakers respond to the global trend that has popularized rosé as serious wine so too has the quality increased. There's still more than enough plonk available. However, one can find a few gems out there ranging from the fruity and simple to more complex and savory. Maybe the next time you reach