When you think of sparkling wine, which countries pop into mind? Probably France, Italy, Spain? Maybe Germany, Australia, or the UK? Something I have learned since I started exploring wine is that if a country makes wine, it probably also makes sparkling wine! France, Italy, Spain, the US, the UK, Germany
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This year, I get the honor of kicking of the #WinePW 2022 calendar with a celebration of bubbles from around the world! For this month's theme, it does not matter if your bubbles are traditional method, tank method, or otherwise. If it fizzes it's fair game! Stick to a classic like Champagne, Franciacorta, Prosecco, or Cava
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I was so excited when the #WinePW 2021 calendar came out and Deanna from Wineivore suggested a Greek wine theme. You can view her initiation for this month's event here. If you can, join us on Twitter on Saturday, December 11 at 8am PT/11am ET and follow the #WinePW hashtag to join our discussion! Next to Turkish wine, I probably know Greek wine the best (which is NOT to say I'm at all an expert!). Yes we're neighbors and we share a few grapes but we don't get a lot of Greek wine in Turkey. However, two of my best friends live in Athens and regular visits over the
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Last year, the #WinePW group celebrated the December 4 #CabFrancDay with pairings and wines from around the world. I of course joined in with a selection of Cab Franc wines from Turkey. This year the blog group chose another theme for December, but I'm celebrating the day regardless. And I am so thrilled to, at long last, be able to celebrate it with not just any Cab Franc, but with a bottle of wine from Dracaena Wines, the #CabFrancDay founders! The Story of Dracaena Wines and #CabFrancDay Lori and Michael Budd's winemaking story has a familiar ring to it. Wine lovers who became winemakers. But that's where the familiarity ends.
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This year for October, the month of #MerlotMe, I did not have a lot of new wines to try. For the #WinePW event I paired Akın Gürbüz's new Winemaker Series Merlot with merguez sausages. Uçmakdere's Roze Merlot went with baked rosemary honey chicken, while two Merlots from Arda went with an amazing burrata eggplant dish. For my final Merlot of the month, I opened Saranta's Chateau Murou Merlot and paired it with a plateful of nibbles. Saranta Saranta is located in Turkey’s Thrace, just a stone’s throw from several other wineries on the Trakya Bağ Rotası (Thracian Wine Route). The majority of the winery's vineyards spread out around the winery and
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Last year for the #WinePW #MerlotMe event, I paired a late harvest, dry, Merlot by Arda and you can see that pairing here. Knowing that Arda makes several other Merlot wines, I got a couple to further explore for Merlober! Arda Arda Bağcılık is a boutique, family-run winery located near the historic town of Edirne. Established in 2007, the vineyards are overseen by family patriarch and winery founder Ilyas Saç. In true family business fashion everyone pitches in. Ilyas’ daughter Seniz is a trained oenologist and, along with Bulgarian expert Kamen Koev, serves as winemaker. His son Yavuz, a wine scholar, manages winery operations together with his wife Bahar. A
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It's Merlober! What else could the #WinePW group be exploring this month than that most divisive of grapes, Merlot? This month's host Jeff from Food Wine Click!, invitation post invited us all to join in the #MerlotMe celebration and sing the praises of this grape. You can read his invitation here. Join us on Saturday, October 9 at 8am PST / 11am EST / 6pm Istanbul time and join the discussion! Just follow the #WinePW hashtag on Twitter. The Bordeaux varieties are big in Turkey. While I do not know statistics on how much vineyard area is given over to any particular grape, I do know that they are some
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If you've seen the movie, Sideways, you'll remember the infamous line about Merlot. Some attribute the movie to the grape's loss of popularity in the US. Related or not, growers pulled up some 10,000 acres of Merlot in California alone following the film's unaccountable success. Sales of Merlot were already rebounding by 2013 when #MerlotMe got its start, but the hashtag and its devoted followers I'm sure helped! #MerlotMe takes place during all of October,
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It must be two years now since I visited Mor Salkım in Bodrum. At the time, the winery largely catered to the droves of tourists in Bodrum and the general population in the Muğla province. One of the most beautiful vineyards I've seen in Turkey. Perfectly manicured, set on rolling hills, and marching alongside the olive trees the winery uses to produce oil. At the time of my visit, I found the wines to be pleasant but simple and somewhat homogenous regardless of grape variety. The winery has developed quite a bit, I think, since my visit. They've rebranded their wine series, got better labels, and I'm happy to
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I am not a sommelier. I have never trained as one, or worked as one. But recently, I flew to Ankara to sommelier (can I use that as a verb?) at a special event hosted by the Singaporean Ambassador at his residence there. Am I that big of a deal in Turkey? As much as I'd like to say yes
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