August is just about over meaning summer is winding down
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This month, Linda from My Full Wine Glass has challenged the #WinePW group to find those 'difficult' to pair foods. You can read her invitation post here. We'll be chatting about this on Twitter on June 12 at 11 am EST / 8 am CST / 6 pm Istanbul. Whether or not you wrote a post for the event join us! See what creative pairings the group came up with and chime in with your discoveries! For some people (myself included) any pairing brings on insecurity and nervous sweats. I do not like food pairing. And yes, I see the irony in being part of not one, not two,
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It was recently pointed out to me that I never posted a list of my favorite wines from 2020. In fact, I have not posted a list like that since 2017! How embarrassing. However, I feel happy that someone reads this often enough to have noticed the oversight! We can all agree that very few of us enjoyed 2020. At least I had wine to cushion the blow! Below is a list of my favorite Turkish wines that I tried this year (in no particular order). Unfortunately my typing is a lot slower than my drinking so I haven’t posted reviews of all of them but for those I
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I am so excited to share a guest piece that Moshé Cohen of In The Vineyard With kindly invited me to write! Reviving the Lost Grapes of Turkey Turkey. The mention of this country evokes thoughts of sultans and harems, sticky sweet Turkish delights, thick coffee, and hot air balloon rides over the fantastical ‘fairy chimney’ cave homes of Cappadocia. Wine is not the first thing to come to mind. Nor is it usually the fourth or the tenth. And yet, Turkey is, and for thousands of years has been, a wine producing country. Six grapes make up the backbone of wine production (with native vs international grapes): Boğazkere, Bornova Misketi,
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Friday heralded the Year of the Ox in the Chinese calendar. The day before happened to be a good friend's birthday. She usually holds a huge Chinese New Year pop up restaurant feast. However, COVID etc, that got canceled this year. Instead she hosted our small bubble for a Singaporean-Chinese new year-birthday feast. I decided to use the opportunity to see how I could pair Turkish wine with Chinese food. I brought a number of wines to the feast to cover as wide a spectrum as I could: whites, semi-sweet, rosé, amber, red
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Hailing from some of Turkey's most easterly vineyards in Elazığ, Öküzgözü is the number one planted wine grape in Turkey. As demonstrated in my online Öküzgözü taste along, there is no shortage to wines made with this grape. Commonly found as a varietal wine but blends are also popular. Öküzgözü traditional blending partner has been the ultra tannic Boğazkere. However, we're seeing more and more blends that include more than Boğazkere or that don't include it at all. Öküzgözü's naturally high acidity makes it a great foil for any number of grapes, both domestic and international. Diren Öküzgözü Boğazkere, 2017 Diren, the only Black Sea region winery in Turkey, sources its Öküzgözü
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Kösetevek is a "new" grape; or more accurately, newly reinvigorated. The grape comes from Elazığ in the east of Turkey where it has been largely overshadowed by the popular Öküzgözü. Kuzeybağ Şarapçılık, which went from grower to producer just a short few years ago, discovered Kösetevek mixed in with its Öküzgözü vines. The grapes and leaves look very similar. As a result, for a number of years the winery unknowingly blended the two grapes. After they realized what in fact they had, the winery brought in Vine Projects to consult and help create the first 100% Kösetevek wine. Kösetevek grows in Kuzeybağ Şarapçılık's organic vineyards in Koruk Köyü, located on
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I continued my online wine tasting series last Friday with one of my favorite Turkish grapes, Öküzgözü. Öküzgözü wasn't always a favorite of mine. In fact for a long time I avoided it; finding it too insipid for my preferences. This is Turkey's most widely planted native black variety. Which means the chances for encountering crap wines is pretty high; and I've drunk a lot of those. However, a couple years ago I came across a boutique producer, Eskibağlar. That one wine changed my whole view about Öküzgözü and I began actively seeking out examples from around the country. This grape originates in the Eastern Anatolia province of Elazığ. Vineyards abound
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Kuzeybağ remains one of those semi mysterious wineries. I’ve had their wine a few times, seen them a different events in Istanbul, and even met them. Despite all that I do not yet know their story. What I do know is that the winery makes a killer Öküzgözü. Anatolia makes up the bulk of Turkey. Simplified (perhaps slightly too much) if it’s not the European side of the country (including part of Istanbul, Thrace, and the Marmara) it’s Anatolia. For wine purposes, Anatolia is then further divided into Eastern, Central, and Southeast districts. Kuzeybağ’s home is Eastern Anatolia in an area called Elazığ (El-AH-zih). Elazığ in turn is the home of the
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