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Öküzgözü Tag

HomePosts tagged "Öküzgözü"

  For my birthday in August, my friend Malia of Shoyu Sugar made SPAM musubis for me!! I remember eating SPAM a bit when I was a kid. My mom mixed ground SPAM with American cheese and white onions and we made hot sandwiches with it. I actually really kind of liked it. But it wasn't until I had Malia's musubis that I understood what kind of magic you can make with this meat.  I won't go into the history of SPAM or how deeply embedded it is in Hawaiian culture. Suffice to say, SPAM musubis are a common snack food in Hawaii. When she can get the ingredients, Malia

  Summer has arrived hard and fast in Turkey with temperatures already soaring into the 30s even in Istanbul. Air conditioning units work round the clock and electricity outages have increased apace of everyone running those units. While I love white wine (and am increasingly coming around to rosé), especially during this time of the year, not everyone does. Even if you do like white and rosé wines, the summer heat is no reason to give up your red wines entirely. “But no!” I can hear you exclaiming, “How can I drink red wine in this heat?” Chill them! Yes, you heard me, stick ‘em in the fridge. Before

  Over the last several years, 7Bilgeler has slowly released a series of wines, the Vindemia series, made with native grapes. Some have been more successful than others. I'm very excited to try the Karasakız, which I really really hope they haven't managed to mess up. But in the meantime, the Öküzgözü. 7Bilgeler Vindemia Toprak Öküzgözü, 2021  Like many (if not all) of the native grape wines 7Bilgeler has released, the grapes for the Vindemia Toprak don't come from the winery's Aegean vineyards. Owner Bilge Yamen sources them from the home of Öküzgözü, Eastern Anatolian district Elazığ, specifically Karaçavuş Köyü. The vineyard sits at 1540 meters in clay and limestone soils, and

  Week one of Advent challenge has been met and I'm still going strong! I bounced around the globe during the first week so decided to open week two back at home. Although "home" is a little bit of a stretch when the wine comes from the opposite end of the country to Istanbul. Advent day 9 Midin Miras (red), 2021 Midin's Miras red wine blends together mostly Öküzgözü and Boğazkere with small additions of the regional grapes Gavdoni and Raşegurnık aged for 10 months in oak.  Opaque purple-ruby in the glass with bramble fruit compote, cedar, forest spices, and vanilla aromas. Medium tannins and high alcohol (14.5%) gave the palate a fulsome

  Today's Advent wine was a new release this year from Kuzubağ as part of its sophomore wine collection. Advent Day 5 Kuzubağ Öküzgözü, 2021 The winery's first Öküzgözü with grapes sourced from its (the winery's not the grape's) home in Çal. Aged for 12 months in oak barrels.  Very purple in the glass. I'm not good at all at blind tasting, but if you're looking at something you know is Turkish and it's super purple, it's probably Öküzgözü. Initially oak heavy on the nose with vanilla, sweet candied fruits, violets, and spice. Tannins were almost plush with figgy/date, caramel, and carob flavors that dropped off pretty fast. For my two cents, not as

  The lovely Lisa Morrow, author of several books about life as an expat in Turkey and Inside Out Istanbul asked me to write a guest post for her site. I am very happy to share that she posted it yesterday and hope you all enjoy it! Where to have a drink in Istanbul this festive season When I first moved to Istanbul, I lived in an area of the city called Cevizlibağ. Generally foreigners don’t know it and most Turks’ reaction is along the lines of “uuufff, why?”. The why is a boring story and so is the area. It mainly consists of apartment blocks, a few small markets, a

  I get the feeling that people's minds mostly go to the Cabernets and Sauvingon Blanc when Akın Gürbüz's name comes up. To an extent that's fair. He began with French grapes and some of his higher-end wines come from those. However, that's doing him and his catalogue a disservice. He makes excellent wine with quite a few native grapes including: Kalecik Karası, Karalahna, Papazkarası, and Öküzgözü. If he weren't behind the grapes, would he label them under his Winemaker's Selection series? Gürbüz Öküzgözü, 2018 Gürbüz's winery sits firmly in Thrace with most of his vineyards in southern Thrace running down to the northern Marmara. However, some of his grapes come

  Disclaimer: This post includes wines received as a sample. All opinions are my own. Some time ago, Midin sent me several of the wines from their new vintage. I previously posted about the white wines so let's crack on now with the rosés! We all know that I have mixed thoughts about rosé wines. While I don't universally love them, I have come around them more over the years. I tend to prefer those with lighter colors, not necessarily because I like a lighter, Provence-style rosé, but because in Turkey, those are the "safer" ones. Many rosés here come in neon or otherwise impossibly pink colors.  Midin's rosés fall into a

  Arcadia, based in upper Thrace in Kırklareli, has long prided itself on its winemaking techniques. Including a crazy looking machine that very gently filters the wines and then bottling them unfined. They're now following the popular trend of spontaneous fermentation, or doğal fermentasyon in the Turkish. This has become a growing trend over the last few years. Some wineries, like Kastro Tireli and Tomurcukbağ, have always allowed their wine to ferment spontaneously with ambient yeasts. Büyülübağ has made one or two "wild ferment" wines for years. When Claros opened, they did the same and Gürbüz, Paşaeli, and probably a handful of others all have at least a couple wines.

  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 2022! My Favorite Sparkling Wines Sparkling wines are always going to be at the tippy top of my list! Not many new sparkling wines were released this year but, even if it were the only one, the Arcadia Pét-Nat Sauvignon Gris would still sit at the top of the tippy top.  Yaşasın is not new but it still makes my list. This year, I