When the Oenotrian wine club was still active in Istanbul*, one of the wines I received from them was a varietal Narince from Selendi. It blew me away (you can read my notes here). I drank the bottle from the club then ran out to buy more
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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've been taking the Wine Scholar Guild's (Northern) Italian Wine Scholar course. Even though I have a million other things I should be doing, the allure of online courses and exams, plus the opportunity to procrastinate those other things, is strong. Of course now I'm finding excuses to procrastinate this course and not study. So that's all worked out marvelously well. Why is this digression germane to a post about Turkish wine? Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc blends. One of the things I've managed to retain so far from the reading is that a number of the norther Italian wine regions make blends of Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc
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Located in the northern reaches of Turkey's Aegean region, Selendi Şarapları prides itself on its many red wines. I, however, vastly prefer their whites. The vast expanses of dry land in Akhısar where the winery is located don't look look like they should produce lushly flavored wines. And yet both Selendi and neighboring winery Kastro Tireli do just that. Selendi's Moralı Narince remains one of my favorite Narince wines. You have to really want this wine though to find it. Luckily, Selendi makes more than just the one white wine. I've had two others from this winery, both blends, that are more easily available. Selendi Sarnıç Chardonnay Viognier, 2017 Pale straw
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Hidden away in the unwelcoming landscape of Turkey's north-eastern Aegean are the organic vineyards of Selendi Şarapları. The arid heat of Akhısar is not where one would expect to find the native Narince grape. This thin-skinned, delicate white grape hails from Turkey's Black Sea region where it thrives in the area's 1500+ meter elevations and mild, oceanic climate. And yet, it is exactly in this dry heat where the winery grows the grapes for its Selendi Moralı Narince. A combination of stony, loamy clay, and limestone soils make up Selendi's Moralı vineyard where they grow Narince at 850 meters. Narince may have its roots buried more deeply in the wet
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I used to feel rather agnostic about Cabernet Franc. Wines left me with a feeling of “meh.” Over the last few years grape has grown in popularity in Turkey. With increased popularity has also come increased quality. Now I hunt down all the variety Cabernet Franc wines I can find. So in honor of #CabFrancDay I thought I'd dig out notes on a few recent finds. Cabernet Franc can be found in vineyards across Turkey. However, it is especially prevalent in Thrace, Central Anatolia, and various areas of the Aegean. So today for #CabFranc day we're looking at a couple wines from each of these regions. Pamukkale Anfora Cabernet Franc
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In Part One of my Turkish Wine Routes series I covered the Urla Bağ Yolu. Now for Part Two, we're moving east from the Aegean coastal district of Urla to Turkey's more inland Aegean areas with the İç Ege Bağ Rotası. İç Ege Bağ Rotası The İç Ege Bağ Rotası (literally: inner Aegean vineyard route) is a fairly recent invention. At least it is the newest of Turkey's four wine routes. The route covers a large area; some 11,700 square kilometers. So says Google. It is 200 kilometers from the winery closest to the Aegean (Nif Bağları) to the farthest inland (Küp Şarapçılık) and another 200+ kilometers from Kastro Tireli
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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
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I tasted this 2012 Selendi Sarnıç Merlot at a wine tasting with Şarap Atölyesi. Of course I’m not going to buy a Merlot on purpose. I have to say though that for a Merlot this wasn’t all that bad. We tasted several wines from Selendi’s Sarnıç line during this wine tasting. Sarnıç being the village where this Akhisar-based winery grows its Merlot grapes at 850 meters. This is also one of Selendi’s organic wines. Like many other wine-making countries making organic wine is still a burgeoning concept but one pursued passionately by winemakers like Barbare and Chateau Nuzun who are dedicated to making all organic wines. Selendi Sarnıç Merlot 2012 Tasting Notes This is
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In November I attended another wine tasting lead by Şarap Atölyesi’s Murat Mumcuoğlu at the Historic Pano Wine House in Istanbul. We tasted eight wines all by winemakers Paşaeli and Selendi; one of which was the 2015 Selendi Sarnıç Viognier Chardonnay. Selendi is one of Turkey’s Aegean wineries located in the Akhisar district of Manisa (outside Izmir). The name of this wine, Sarnıç, is actually the name of the specific vineyard. It is not uncommon for winemakers here to name wines after the villages where the vineyards are. Selendi has three vineyards in Sarnıç (Sarnıç I – III). It’s in Sarnıç III where they have grown their Viognier and Chardonnay grapes since 2009.
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