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When a Trend Is Actually Culture: Mesashuna

 

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For many of us, our first encounter with amber wine, wine made in amphora, or “natural” wine was with a Georgian wine. While many countries have for centuries made wines thusly, the global trend and enthusiasm for such is often attributed to Georgia.

Wine trends come late to Turkey, but they do come. These started quietly with Gelveri and have since spread. Now finding orange wines does not take much effort and a growing number of people are making amphora wines and “natural” wines. What happens though when a trend isn’t a trend, but culture? Does that change the wine? For those who poo-poo amber/”natural” wines, does culture make the wine more legitimate than a trend does? For the Arifağaoğlu family behind Mesashuna, culture is exactly why they make skin-contact, amphora-aged, “natural” wines.

The Legacy of Mesashuna

You might have heard about Mesashuna before now (I am super late in writing this after all). Located in Turkey’s northeastern province Artvin, the Arifağaoğlu family started Mesashuna as a tribute to their family and their heritage. The winery name is a portmanteau of the family’s four children: Melek, Safiye, Şule, and Nazim. Although it is really only Safiye – who was a lawyer before all of this – who is actively involved in the winery. Almost 20 years ago, they began growing grapes on their their farm, located among the rugged, tea-covered mountains some years ago and, with encouragement from friends, produced wine. And not just any grapes, Rkatsiteli and Saperavi.

Wait, those aren’t Turkish grapes (I hear you thinking). And no, they’re not. But Artvin, just a stone’s throw from the Georgian border, is home to many Georgians and Turks of Georgian descent, like the Arifağaoğlu family. Family patriarch Yusuf feels so connected to his Georgian heritage, that he created a small museum in their winery’s marani, featuring antiques and wine-related paraphernalia from Georgia like drinking vessels of various shapes used for different occasions and khantsi, the ceremonial drinking horns used in Georgia. They even feature khantsi on their wine labels (designed by Yusuf’s son-in-law) – four horns to represent the four children.

Reclaiming a trend

A few months ago, Safiye Arifağaoğlu invited us to the winery (well okay, we invited ourselves but she very kindly welcomed us). On the farm, fruit trees grow around the vines, pumpkin patches lay in the shade of pergola’d grape vines, and Rkatsiteli, Saperavi, Chkhaveri, and Tita grow happily in the clay soils.

Safiye showed us their winery where all wines are made in qvevri (sourced from Georgia), buried in the ground. Grapes are destemmed and lightly crushed in a mobile machine that’s placed directly over the qvevri. Stems are dried under the sun for a few days and added to the must as necessary.  They punch down three to four times a day during fermentation at the beginning then less as the cap starts to sink. The only clarification done at all is when they “rack”the wines from one qvevri to the other, without using pumps! Safiye adds no SO2 to the wines but she washes out all the bottles with SO2 and burns sulfur in the freshly cleaned qvevri for hygiene. 

As for the wines…some of the best examples of Rkatsiteli and Saperavi I have ever had!

Mesashuna Rkatsiteli, 2021

The 2021 Mesashuna Rkatsiteli has 21 days skin contact (the 2022 has more!) resulting in a dull gold gold. Just slightly hazy in the glass, the wine initially showed aromas akin to pear kombucha. After living a while in the glass and coming to proper temperature (because let’s face it, I almost never remember to decant), tantalizing aromas of spice, lily, jasmine, pear compote, and caramelized butterscotch danced out of the glass. 

Lightly spritzy on the tongue and textured, but not aggressively tannic with a mere 11% abv! Tangy/tart flavors reminiscent of the aromas found on the nose filled the mouth with pear cider, spice, butterscotch, and the suggestion of young walnuts.

Really nice. I am looking forward to the 2022!

Mesashuna Saperavi, 2021

Saperavi is one of the world’s rare teinturier grapes. That word, which I cannot pronounce to save my life, means that not only is the skin of the grape black, so are the flesh and juice! What does that mean for wine? Generally, it means that you will have a deeply colored, purple-black wine and the Mesashuna Saperavi certainly lived up to that!

The nose burst with blue fruits like blueberry and blue plums with notes of savory (the actual herb), candy, and just a whiff of goat hair. Which might sound off-putting but wasn’t. The palate presented light tannins carrying flavors of sweet fruit, olive, and slightly funky animal, wrapped around an acidic backbone with just 12% abv.

I’m sure there are more clever or innovative pairings for these wines (Safiye recommends eggplant and walnuts with the Rkatsiteli) and I’m sure I’ll get to those in the future. But for our first time with these wines, we went take-out from the Georgian place!

Interested in trying Mesashuna’s wines? The 2022 vintage will be out soon (if it’s not already) and cane be found on a number of restaurant wine lists as well as shops in Istanbul like: Perest, Santé Wine & More, Casa Botti, Dekante, and Kiffe.