Vinkara 2012 Kalecik Karası
And we’re on another Vinkara wine this week; this time the Vinkara Kalecik Karası. I’m going to say that by and large there isn’t (or I haven’t found it yet) a bad Kalecik Karası, but this would be close. I begin to suspect that Vinkara just isn’t producing a lot of winners.
Since I don’t have a great deal to say about the Vinkara Kalecik Karası I looked up the grape on my new favorite website, Wines of Turkey, to get a little bit more information about it.
Apparently we must all pretend to be British when we talk about this wine and add an -er at the end of it: Kah-le-djic-car-ah-ser. Grown largely in Anatolia (semi-central Turkey), Kalecik Karası produces a medium-bodied wine, low tannins, with a fruity flavor, and red fruit in the nose. Which would be why I like it so much. I lean towards the reds that have more of a berry flavor profile. Kalecik Karası also has something that I’ve never seen as a wine description before…a top note of cotton candy. Yup. Cotton candy.
I’d say that this is probably the “Chianti” of Turkey as it pairs best with pasta, pizza, tomato sauces etc. Although having just recently been in Italy where I was reminded of the complicated 
flavors of some of the more complex Italian wines I’m not saying that you could compare this to one of them. I had one red in Venice, a Schioppettino, that just about knocked me off my chair.
I did in fact have this with a pizza I ordered from one of Beyoglu’s premiere pizza places: Miss Pizza. And after I finished the pizza, Sherlock tried to eat the box.
Like the Vinkara Öküzgöz, the Vinkara Kalecik Karası was not particularly remarkable and is my least favorite of all the Kalecik Karası wines I’ve tried. So while not horrible, I’m not going to recommend this particular iteration to anyone since there are so many better Kalecik Karası out there. In fact I think I recently did find my favorite and the review for that will be up soon.