If you haven't heard already, I'm collaborating with a fabulous new agency that is focusing on wine tourism in Turkey! Vines & Pearls offers wine bar walking tours, wine picnics, day and overnight vineyard visits, and yacht board tastings! Although please no one book the yacht tasting. Goda will kill me for saying that
Read MoreThe Chateau Gali Viognier is not a new wine. It's been around for a few vintages now. But it's not easy to get so this is the first time I've been able to review it! Unlike the winery's other wines, the Viognier, its only white, is usually available only from the winery directly. Sometimes you get lucky and find it in boutique wine shops. Which is where I scored mine (Santé Wine & More). But I think I got the last one! I've also seen it at Casa Botti and Grape Wine Boutique though. At the point where the head Gallipoli Peninsula, Hakan and Nilgün Kavur found a little
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It may not seem like it with all the rain and cold days, but spring is just around the corner. Lent starts tomorrow (what are you sacrificing this year?), and soon Easter will come. What else is around the corner? What does your horoscope say you should try drinking in March? Read on and find out! Aquarius (January 20 - February 18) Introspection is your word of the month. Take some time this month to focus on the deeper emotional needs in your life that you don't usually allow yourself to think about or even acknowledge. You needn't confront anyone with anything this month if you're not ready. It's perfectly fine to
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This month the #WinePW group is taking advantage of October being #MerlotMe month. See the original invitation from Jeff at Food Wine Click! here. I have been unaccountably excited about this theme. For years I maintained a strong 'no Merlot' policy but have really come to appreciate this grape. And understand my previous prejudice for what it was: experience with bad wine. This theme also makes it easy for me to participate in the discussion with my usual raison d'être: Turkish wine. We have a lot of Merlot in Turkey due to the general popularity of the Bordeaux varieties. Like every other wine producing country, we have really good Merlot,
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I have chosen to tackle the Trakya Bağ Rotası (Thrace Wine Route) last because I find it the most frustrating. [caption id="attachment_11330" align="alignleft" width="267"] Please note the map is old; couldn't find an updated version[/caption] The Trakya Bağ Rotası was the first of all the established wine routes in Turkey. Membership includes wineries Like Arda in upper Thrace in Edirne (near the Bulgarian/Greek borders) all the way to Suvla at the tippy tip of the Gallipoli Peninsula. Technically, all these wineries are indeed in Thrace. Geographically anyway. And yet. Edirne and neighboring districts Kırklareli and Tekirdağ are significantly more northerly, colder, and snowier. While Tekirdağ based wineries (such as Chateau
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It has been years since I’ve written about Chateau Gali. Granted Gali doesn’t have the output some of the other wineries here do but considering how much I enjoy both the eponymous blend and the Evreshe Bordeaux blend it is a little shameful. So let’s talk about the Chateau Gali Saros blend. Gali’s story began in 2005, when founder, Hakan Kavur, acquired 48 hectares of land in the Gallipoli Peninsula. The goal was to manufacture a single wine, ‘GALİ. They planted about 24 hectares of land with 78% Merlot, 14% Cabernet Franc and 8% Cabernet Sauvignon grapes. In November 2011 they released their first wine, the Gali 2009 blend. The 24-hectare vineyard
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Today was to have been the last of my 4AM Twitter sessions with VinoRai and Protocol Wine Studio during which we were to compare the Diren Öküzgözü and the Gali Blend. I bought both of the wines on which the discussion was focused and was all set to drink two glasses of red wine at 4 in the morning. Unfortunately dealing with Turkish bureaucracy this week has given me a few headaches, including one last night. When I woke up in pain at 2:30 AM I knew I wasn’t going to be able to participate in the session. Happily at least I can read what everyone Tweeted and, since my headache finally went away,
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The 2010 Gali Evreshe is the most expensive wine I’ve bought so far running around 50TL a bottle. Was it worth it…eh. It wasn’t bad! Quite the contrary. With an intense, dark plum color, light tannins, a soft feel, and a smooth flavor the this Bordeaux blend was quite drinkable. Price is not always an indicator of a good wine in the states or Western Europe. One of my favorite wines when I lived in DC was an $8 bottle of Zinfandel.* However here the opposite is usually true in that the higher priced the wine is, the better the quality, as with the 100TL bottle of Prodom I plan
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