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The Mission to Uncover Turkey’s Rare Grapes

 

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A few weeks ago, I signed up for a wine tasting of rare grapes at Wayana in Moda. Wayana regularly does tastings, but this one caught my eye because I love nothing so much as a grape I’ve never heard of. What was billed as a tasting of eight wines turned into 13. Spoiler alert: it was pretty amazing. But before we dive into tasting notes, and we will get there, let’s talk first about the mission to uncover Turkey’s rare grapes. 

Uncovering Turkey’s Rare Grapes

I call it a mission, and it is “an important goal or purpose that is accompanied by strong conviction; a calling or vocation.” We’re all aware of the difficulties facing the wine (and indeed the entire alcohol) industry here. Even if we set aside policy and taxes, making wine here is already more expensive than it is for most of our neighbors. I won’t go into all that here, that’s a whole different post.

When you combine how already expensive and difficult it is to make wine here with readily understood and available grapes, why add more difficult and expense by hunting down and working with grapes no one knows? Because many here are on a mission. 

How Do You Find Them?

I get this question from people a lot, and it’s a fair question. If you believe Likya, a shepherd seems to have led them to most of their grapes. The truth there and elsewhere is far less romantic, but no less remarkable for its practicality. The short answer is that people look for them. 

Some grapes, like Kuzeybağ’s Kösetevek, are hidden in vineyards of more well-known grapes. Co-planting is a historically common way to farm and when vineyards change hands, expand or shrink, etc, knowledge of what was there gets lost. It just takes someone sharp enough to see minute differences and ask the right questions. 

In other cases, there might be a treasure trove of rare grapes growing in the same place that get ignored due to a lack of commercial wineries. When Midin Şarapçılık in the southeast opened its doors, they also opened our palates to a slew of grapes no one had ever heard of, but that had been growing there for generations. 

Others literally go looking. Turkey has so many grapes, so it’s illogical to assume that, for example, Cappadocia has only Emir, or that Diyarbakır has only Boğazkere.

Who’s Working with Them?

Wineries

The leaders in rare grape revitalization are, without a doubt, Paşaeli and Likya. They are not the only ones doing it though. To some degree, all of the following wineries (in no particular order) have given us at minimum one grape on a commercial scale: 

Vinkara, Gelveri, Gordias, Antioche, Tasheli, Selefkia, Akberg, Yaban Kolektif, Midin Şarapçılık, Neferiye, Mistia, Kastro Tireli, Urla Şarapçılık, Öküzgözü Şarapçılık, 502 Vineyards, Chateau Nuzun, Asarcık Bağları, Kuzeybağ, Datça Şarapçılık, Prodom, Ni&Ce, and I’ve probably forgot a couple. 

Tekirdağ Bağcılık Araştırma Enstitüsü Müdürlüğü

The Tekirdağ Bağcılık Araştırma Enstitüsü Müdürlüğü (Tekirdağ Viticulture Research Institute), as you might guess from the name, is behind much of the grape research in Turkey. While we lag behind in doing comparative testing against foreign varieties and tracking down grape lineage, one must remember that we have over 1,400 grape varieties to deal with.

The Institute’s studies revolve around learning the ampelographic character of each grape, determining its best use (table, raisin, molasses, wine, etc.), and ensuring that grapes are unique in the Turkish registrar. Part of the research involves microvinifications. These never reach the commercial market, but they’re vital information for wineries interested in expanding their portfolio beyond the usual suspects.   

But not everyone gets their grapes through the Institute.

How Do You Find Them?

I get this question from people a lot, and it’s a fair question. If you believe Likya, a shepherd seems to have led them to most of their grapes. The truth there and elsewhere is far less romantic, but no less remarkable for its practicality. The short answer is that people look for them. 

Some grapes, like Kuzeybağ’s Kösetevek, are hidden in vineyards of more well-known grapes. Co-planting is a historically common way to farm and when vineyards change hands, expand or shrink, etc, knowledge of what was there gets lost. It just takes someone sharp enough to see minute differences and ask the right questions.

In other cases, there might be a treasure trove of rare grapes growing in the same place that get ignored due to a lack of commercial wineries. When Midin Şarapçılık in the southeast opened its doors, they also opened our palates to a slew of grapes no one had ever heard of, but that had been growing there for generations. 

Others literally go looking. Turkey has so many grapes, so it’s illogical to assume that, for example, Cappadocia has only Emir, or that Diyarbakır has only Boğazkere.

The Rare White Grapes

Likya Işığı

I’ve reviewed this previously so I won’t go into again, but you can hop over to my post about Likya’s Likya Işığı to refresh your memory.

Müşküle

Müşküle, from the Aegean’s İznik region, is known to many as a table grape. It is, however, a Vitis vinifera. Currently, Kastro Tireli seems to be the only one experimenting with making wine and has made a teeny tiny amount of the late-ripening Müşküle for 2025 (with a fantastic new label design to boot). For this wine, not only did Kastro Tireli ferment with native yeasts as is their wont, but the grapes macerated for an incredible 35 days. The result was not an amber wine, but a pale peachy color that carries over into the wine. 

This brings to mind an apricot/peach orchard in which the trees are half soft blossoms and half ripe fruit. Throw in a touch of creaminess (both texture and flavor) on the palate with what Cenap of Wayana describes as “not high acidity but enough” and you’ve got yourself a lovely, easy-drinking wine. 

Dişi Mercan

This is, I think, 502 Vineyards‘ second vintage working with Dişi Mercan. I was lucky enough to get a bottle of their first vintage and I think it’s improved enormously since then. This is definitely a wine to look out for. Wayana of course sells it, but you can also pick it up at Mahzen 26.

The Black Sea grape hails from Merzifon and, I believe, 502 Vineyards is the only winery working with it. It has a very distinctive nose, even though I’ve only had it once before, I knew it’s what was in my glass. Fruity aromas of peach jelly ring, devici pear, and lemon follow through to a palate that’s dry and textured (much like eating a crunch pear or apple in fact) with vibrant acidity. 

Amber

Did they name the grape because of the color? Don’t know. I’m just thrilled to see a couple exciting wines from Datça Şarapçılık. They’ve focused pretty heavily in the past on international grapes, so it’s fantastic to learn they’ve boarded the ‘save the rare native grapes’ train. I don’t have a lot of information about the grape itself, but hopefully we’ll learn more as Datça continues to work with it. 

The wine, fermented in clay with ambient yeasts, glowed the deep color of good Baltic amber. I know there was skin contact, but I don’t know how significant it was. The grape itself looks like it might fall into the pink-grey color group, not white which would mean it didn’t necessarily need that long to achieve a color like this.

The wine itself was orange peel, sundried apricots, and quince bathed in dark honey and finished with a sprinkle of both marjoram and white pepper. Dry with excellent tannin structure and great acidity. 

Could the label use some help? For sure. But the wine was great.

The Rare Black Grapes

Aşıkara 

Paşaeli’s Aşıkara I’ve had several times, did a beautiful pairing with last fall, but have terribly remiss about writing up. Since it appeared in the tasting, I guess at least the tasting notes are happening now. This is an Aegean grape from the Buldan area. The goblet vines are over 50-years-old. Paşaeli gets very few grapes so can only make small amounts of wine. 

Pale, brick-red, and perfect with a little chill on it. Wet forest (in a good way) and perfumed with sour cherry, ras al hanout, and mahlep (but not sickly with it). Light tannins and bright acidity carry the flavors to a long finish. 

Yayla

Two gentlemen from the Tekirdağ Bağcılık Araştırma Enstitüsü Müdürlüğü (Tekirdağ Viticulture Research Institute) joined us for the tasting. They generously brought us two of their experiments, one involving the grape, Yayla.  

Yayla came to the institute without a registered name, so they have dubbed it Yayla after the usta who leads the research. It comes from the Bolu area of the Black Sea and is one of those weird grapes that needs a pollinator. there’s a small producer in the region who wants to start working with it.

Fruity and lightly spicy notes greet the nose. Light but persistent tannins flowed across the palate carrying flavors reminiscent of sour cherry reduction with a dash of mahlep and … popcorn? 

The Institute releases its results with recommendations for which grapes are most suited to wine production, but wineries don’t always take up the banner of any of those grapes. However, it sounds like there’s a small producer in the Bolu area who wants to start working with Yayla, so we might actually see some commercial wine with this one.

Kızlankarası & Palamut

These two new grapes we’re going to tackle together because a) I don’t have a lot of technical information about either or them but more because b) they appeared in a co-ferment. 

This wine is another new one from Datça Şarapçılık. Both black grapes from the Datça area (the peninsula in this case, not just the winery). Picture a Holi festival in which the powdered colors explode against one another in shades of brown, red, orange, and pink. that would be this wine. Pale and medium transparent red brown spices and pepper hit you first followed by bursts of red fruits with cherry, cornelian cherry, red plums, and pomegranate with a lingering and pleasant pink grapefruit bitterness. Surprisingly tannic for such a pale wine.

They co-fermenting wines produces some fascinating wines. This one was interesting. I would like to try this again and have a think about it. 

Mecidiye

Mecidiye, is another new grape/wine from Kastro Tireli. The grape takes its name from its village of origin: Mecidiye. Now, we all know that my Turkish is only semi reliable so take this next information with the caveat that I may have misheard. For their first, 2025 vintage of Mecidiye, Kastro Tireli made such a very tiny amount of wine because they only found five (goblet) vines of the variety. 

Here’s to hoping they find more this year. I could see this being a successful wine (commercially I mean, the wine itself is already successful, tiny quantities or no).  As with the Müşküle, Kastro Tireli fermented this with native yeasts after it spent 35 days with the skins. 

Here we delve into blacker fruits with perfumed and spicy blackberries, plums, black cherry, and even blueberry. An underlying rich earthiness keeps if from being just a fruit bomb while medium tannins and fresh acidity provide good structure for the fruit. 

Karamenüş

Karamenüş is a black grape hailing from the Arapgir district of Malatya. We had two examples of it at the Wayana tasting. The first came from the Tekirdağ Viticulture Research Institute with the grapes they grow in lower Thrace’s Tekirdağ, not so far from the Sea of Marmara. 

The Tekirdağ example was made with Nebbiolo yeast which I thought was interesting. Having never had Karamenüş before, I couldn’t even begin to tell you how that affected the wine. I can tell you, that it was deeply purple and really needed some air. I held onto this one for a while and was glad I did. Initially it was very tight, jealously guarding its flavors. When it opened, rich black cherries and plums, brown fruits, oregano, and walnut flooded out of the glass. 

Prodom is also dipping its toe into rare grapes. While the Prodom winery sits in an industrial complex in Aydın, its vineyards are spread around larger Aydın. They also bring in grapes from elsewhere in the country, including the Karamenüş which they sourced from Arapgir. Their wine (small production of just 369 bottles) aged for six months in neutral French barrels.  More red fruits from Prodom with raspberry and sour cherry but the same brown spices and oregano. 

Urla Karası

Urla Karası isn’t all that new. For years Urla Şarapçılık has buried a small portion of it in a blend with Nero d’Avola. I’d heard they’d finally made a 100% Urla Karası. It’s available in Istanbul Airport’s duty free…where even there without the high local taxes it’s an outrageously expensive wine. 

Another wine that wanted lots of room to breathe before giving up its unique herbal and fruit harmony of rose hips, red plums, pomegranate syrup, and anise. 

Alço 

Those of us at the tasting really benefited from the Tekirdağ Viticulture Research Institute. Alço was the third wine they shared with us. They identified this variety from Hatay and have been working with it for several years, but without ever finding even a local name for it. Because they couldn’t find a name, they named it Alço in honor of Tezcan Alço, one of the Institute’s most senior experts who dedicated significant effort to the research.

Again, I beg forgiveness for my dodgy Turkish when I say that possibly heard this is a teinturier grape variety. Which would be especially interesting as I don’t know of any others in Turkey. I’d believe it is based on deeply pigmented color. The Institute treated the grapes to a 40 day cold soak (at 1C) before fermentation. The result, a medium-bodied wine with fruits so dark it’s as if they’d never seen the light. A big spicy character with savory rosemary-plum jam, firm tannins, and mouthwatering acidity. This would definitely do well on the market. It would be great if Hatay-based winery Antioche would start working with it. 

Dimrit 

Dimrit is one of those grapes that we all know exists, that has a not-so-great reputation and often gets hidden in cheap blends but never appears in quality wine. That’s certainly a story we’ve heard before, so maybe this Cappadocia-based grape is capable of more. No one expect Gelveri. Although even that gets a caveat since Gelveri hasn’t worked with it since 2011.

I’d heard rumors of this wine, but hadn’t ever seen it prior to the tasting. Made in, what I call the “throw everything in a pot and hope for the best” method, Udo fermented whole bunch Dimrit in clay vessels with native yeast. He bottles his wines unfiltered and with zero SO2 addition. We were all curious to see how a 15-year-old Dimrit made this way would hold up.

My initial reaction after a delicate sniff: eeesh. Mossy, wet terra cotta, no fruit at all. The palate was slightly less objectionable, but certainly nowhere near being moreish with herbs and tilled earth and dusty tannins. 

Dimrit, we learned, is not a grape name so much as it is a grape group name. The Tekirdağ Institute has recorded some 30 different Dimrit grapes which all seem to be related, but distinct. 

Several of these bottles were one-offs Wayana managed to secure for the tasting. However, if you’re interested in these or any of Turkey’s other rare, emerging, and popular native grapes, it’s definitely the place to go and taste. 

If you want to explore Turkish wine or any of the plethora of Turkish grapes mentioned here more deeply, get a copy of the second edition of my book: The Essential Guide to Turkish Wine! If you already have the book but think maybe you’d like larger versions of the infographics…good news!! You can get digital downloads of all of the infographics!