Turquazz Article: The Preternatural Volcanic Landscapes and Wines of Central Anatolia
Visitors to volcanic regions often have little doubt about where they are. Volcanic mountains and hills (active or not) make up places like Mount Etna, Santorini, Somló, and the Canary Islands. Wherever you happen to be, you know you’re on land created by violent, fiery, eruptions. But not all volcanic regions are so obvious. In Turkey’s Central Anatolia, Cappadocia, famous for its hot air balloons, hidden cave churches, and strange fairy chimneys, does not have a towering volcano. There are no craters or deep piles of lava rocks. But this land too was created by fire, ash, and lava.
While volcanoes have not been active here in a very long time, (between 3 and 9 million years ago) they left an indelible stamp on the area. The alien landscape dotted with the fairy chimneys that has made Cappadocia so famous is a direct result of those very eruptions. Volcanoes first belched ash that, layer by layer, covered the land. Then came lava, which coated mountains of ash deposit and formed a hard, crusty surface. The resulting tuff (rock made of volcanic ash) had areas of both strength and weakness. Pounding water washed away the weakest sections. Rushing winds then entered these tunnels to race around, carving out wider pathways, and finally to swirl around the hardest and immovable sections of rock. The result, the eerie, basalt rock formations we call fairy chimneys. Early Christians took advantage of the softer tuff, hollowing out caves for churches and burrowing deep into the earth to create underground cities used to escape enemies and persecution.
Within the strange beauty of this region lies a dynamic industry of which few are truly aware. Wine. An industry that predates Christianity and its use of wine; it played as important of a role in the rituals and culture of the peoples who came before. Above all, it exploits the region’s volcanic legacy. Wines created here are unique among Turkish wines for their expression of the volcanic terroir.
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