23 March 2016

Turkish Wine of the Week - Chamlija 2014 Papaskarası

How much do I love Chamlija? A whole lot in case that rhetorical question wasn't obvious.


I'd never heard of the Papaskarası grape before seeing this bottle at La Cave (65 TL). It's a very old grape varietal, it's been around for some 1,500 years. The "forgotten king of Thracian grapes" produces a table-style wine similar to Pinot Noir and traces likely roots (haha see what I did there?) to Prokupac grapes which have been grown in Serbia and Macedonia since the 5th century.

The nose was very promising, cherry, plum, forest berries, I think I got a little dried rose towards the top of the glass. I'm guessing this probably hasn't spent much or any time in oak as I did not detect a great deal of spice. The longer I swirled the more one scent rose to the top: chocolate covered cherries.


The first sip was unexpectedly tart; somewhat shockingly so. I was not expecting that at all. Happily after the initial sip the rest went down much more smoothly to reveal (sour) cherries, young plums, a ribbon of spice. There were no tannins to speak of but a fairly high amount of acid which is likely why it was so tart. It felt very silky in the mouth and once I got accustomed to all the acid it was really lovely.

Another winner with another beautiful label from Chamlija!

No comments:

Post a Comment