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Tips for the Urla Bağ Yolu & Surroundings

 

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I recently took a quick little holiday on the Urla Bağ Yolu with a friend. I’ve been before; frankly I cannot even remember how many times at this point. This time was less about business and getting information for the book (coming soon!) and more about just enjoying. So, I thought I would share a few observations and tips for anyone planning their own Urla trip (bağ yolu or no bağ yolu). 

Places worth the visit

Let me start with the hotel. There are plenty of hotels in Urla itself and more and more wineries are opening hotels and/or guest rooms. Urla Bağ Evi, while not a winery itself, is an official part of the bağ yolu. This small, six-room hotel and restaurant offers spacious and comfortable rooms, a great breakfast, and a really nice garden in which to sit and relax with some wine. The restaurant is fantastic. In fact, the next time I go to Urla I might just stay there for two – three days and not move. The food was the best I had on this last trip and the wine list includes wines from many of the bağ yolu wineries. 

Run by the king of the bağ yolu, Urla Şarapçılık is a great stop. You get a speedy but charming tasting of four wines for a mere 30 TL. You can also participate in a tour of the winery facility. Also for those wine lovers who like to try the unusual wines, look for the Hypnose wine. Not offered as part of the tasting because of the small production numbers and sold only at the winery, this wine is a blend of Narince and Beyazkere. You read that correctly. BEYAZkere.

Another great tasting stop is Mozaik Şarapçılık. I don’t personally love the white or rosé but Mozaik’s reds are fantastic. They have wine made from grapes we don’t see often in Turkey like Marselan and Tannat. The winery also makes a 100% Ekigaïna. Not as rare as Urla Şarapçılık’s Beyazkere, this grape is still so rare there are only something like five to six hectares planted to it world-wide.

Two things to note about Mozaik though: Google lists two locations for it. You want the Mozaik Winery that looks like it’s in the middle of nowhere. If GPS is directing you to go down narrow village streets you are in the wrong location. Also, at the winery, you can play with the many, many cats if you like but not the horses. Mozaik sits on the grounds of Turkey’s largest racehorse breeding farm and their value probably outstrips the winery.

Newly opened by Ceylan Ertörer Diaz Leon and Juan Pablo Diaz Leon, Hus Şarapçılık is not (yet) a member of the bağ yolu but sits among the member wineries. And when I say newly opened, I mean newly opened. In fact they were still putting the finishing touches on the winery and café when I visited. Despite being surrounded by construction and various ustas, the friendly couple were happy to receive us and take us through both a tasting of their four wines and a tour of the winery. 

While I did not visit on this trip, I also highly recommend MMG, Ayda Bağları, and USCA. You can read my reviews of them/their wines here!

Places that are nice but don’t kill yourself to get to them

Another new winery I got the chance to visit this time around was Çakır Bağcılık ve Şarapçılık. Beautiful set up with outdoor dining areas that are practically on top of the vineyards. The tasting (five wines for 60 TL) was less rushed than at Urla Şarapçılık and the two people who spoke to us about each wine were really enthusiastic and sweet. The only reason I’m knocking this winery down from a ‘must do’ to a ‘it’s totally worth the stop but don’t kill yourself to fit it in’ is a) The food menu was a touch on the too pricey for what it is side and b) Sigh. The Bornova Misketi was nice but how much more Turkish Cabernet do we need?!

The answer, in case you didn’t guess, is none. 

Speaking of more Cab…Urlice. I like Urlice’s wines and, like Çakır, Urlice has a beautiful area where you can sit outside by the vines. I’m knocking them down on my list though because we had some customer service issues here. We called around 6pm to ask if we could possibly book a last minute table for a drink. We weren’t staying for food, just wanted to spend an hour there and have a glass or two. The person on the other end of the phone was rather shirty about it and said they’d “try to fit us in.” We arrived, the garden was at barely 25% capacity, and were shown to a “table” that was more inside than outside and looked a bit like a low plank they’d pulled two chairs up to. Negotiations ensued, we promised we’d be gone before 7:30 (at which time the first of their reservations would show up) and were given a nicer space. Menus appeared…but then for almost 30 minutes no waiters did. We were perfectly willing to have our drink and go but someone needed to come ask us what we wanted to drink. 

Next up, OD Urla. If you’re unfamiliar, this is the upscale ‘farm-to-table’ restaurant all the rage in Izmir now. We had a couple few customer service issues here as well relating to our reservation. Eventually things were settled and we had a nice table in their outdoor space (which is essentially an olive grove). We’d been advised by someone who visited previously that the tasting menu wasn’t really worth the price. We shared four or five generous-sized appetizers and that was plenty. The food was very nice (the lemon manti!) but was not really WOW. The wine list was extensive, the prices not terribly gougey, and they had a wine we couldn’t find anywhere else so I was pleased by that.

Places to avoid

Now, I don’t generally talk a lot of smack about wineries in Turkey. At least not here on my blog where I try to remain neutral. I’m breaking that rule for Perdix. I’ve had a few of their wines before. The Bornova Misketi isn’t bad and I really rather liked the Boğazkere. However…sigh. I just don’t know where to begin. For one thing, like Çakır, this is a new winery. But they’re charging between 650-800 TL per bottle for wines from 2017 and 2018. What?! No. Who are you? Because no. 

Also, the Sauvignon Blanc tastes like alcoholic water.

While the tasting does include the seven wines that are under 650 TL a bottle, the tasting itself is 105 TL. Whoa. The food prices were also pretty astronomical. There’s “Parmesan” on the menu (seriously, just on it’s own) for 78 TL. After much pressing, we got the waiter to admit that was Grana Padana. Turkey seems to think they’re the same. They are not. We’re also pretty sure it was locally made “grana padana” because real Italian cheese does not curl, sweat, and look (and taste) like plastic.

The pizza we ordered, with pork, was 100 TL. What came to the table…first, if that was actual real, 100% pork I’ll eat my hat. Second, if you’re American you’ll remember those Appian Way box pizza kits. Any one of those is better than this pizza was. In fact we did not eat it. Not even after we waited and waited and waited for it. Our waiter, who also had a lot of attitude and at one point was obviously ignoring us, clearly forgot about it because it arrived to our table cold.

I also learned some new Turkish insults there to describe the general clientele. They were not complimentary words.

The one good thing I will say is that our waiter took the pizza off the bill. But, overall, the visit to Perdix was like eating a profiterole that had no filling.

We called the Urla Bağ Evi on our way out and they kept their kitchen open for us. We got back there and had a feat of amazing food for a fraction of the Perdix prices.