Guest Wine - Chateau Vazsonyi 2014 Royal Victoria

We're trying something a little different today! I was stuck in the middle of nowhere Hungary for work for a 10-day staff retreat...so naturally I was drinking. I was drinking a lot. It's been 12-ish years since I was in Hungary and I knew zero about wine then which means that Hungarian wine made no impression on me (sorry, dudes). However I was happy to learn on this trip! That was about the only ting I was happy to do on that trip...

The village where we were sequestered had a festival of Hungarianness. Although (as one venor explained to me) it was not Hungarianness that has always been Hungarian but things Hungairans have adopted which have, over time, become a "native" part of their culture. Perfect example: the paprika. Hungary and paprika are pretty synonymous but the paprika came to Hungary from the western hemisphere. That's a long intro to say there was a Biergarten-like place in the park: lots of wooden stalls with food and drink and tables between, all under the trees and charming villagey. The majority of the stalls are wineries so naturally I did all kinds of tasting. My first foray was to the Chateau Vazsonyi stall where a lovely girl and I discussed the merits of Hungarian wine in German. Well, she was speaking German, I was speaking some sort of weird mix of German and Turkish; Germish if you will. But I tasted and bought wines successfully so it was all good!

^That's my wine opener; it came in handy several times in Hungary. I travel with one. That's how I roll.

The Royal Victoria is a ruby red Cabernet Franc with a lovely nose of pepper, raspberry, and maybe cassis. It's a nice, medium bodied wine. Nothing particularly wow! about it but it's well-crafted and nicely drinkable. On the palate the tannins are noticeable without being overwhelming with low-ish acid. The main flavors drop off pretty quickly but the tannins linger. I'm not sure if it's odd or not but I found that the flavor was really more in the nose than on the palate.


The best part? The bottle cost about $8.75. I ended up on a little bit of a buying spree and bought four bottles from my friendly German-speaking wine adviser and had to ask her twice if she were sure that all four bottles only cost 10,000 HUF ($35). I told her that was what I would pay for one bottle of decent wine in Turkey. She was as horrified as I used to feel about that.


There will be more Hungarian wine!

Turkish Wine of the Week - Suvla 2014 Sauvignon Blanc-Semillon

I love the Suvla Sauvignon Blanc. Love. So when I was recommended the Sauvignon Blanc-Semillon blend I was only too happy to try it. I don't know much about Semillons and learning with Suvla is usually a safe bet, especially at 43TL a bottle.

Suvla's blend is very, very pale, almost colorless; but what it lacks in color it makes up for in the nose. Floral, peach, and grapefruit. On the palate I got a lot of butter but also peach, citrus, and a little mango I think.

Crisp, minerally, and with a long, clean finish this medium bodied white would pair nicely with medium spicy Asian foods, white fish, chicken, and rich cheeses.

I really wanted to love this one. White wines are not my thing so when I find one I really love I'm super happy. This was not one of those. I'm not saying it's bad, not by any means...but for me it hit closer to the 'meh' edge of the scale. I'll stick with Suvla's straight up Sauvignon Blanc.

Blue Cruise - Another Check on My Turkey Bucket List

Blue Cruises are one of the things to do in Turkey in the summer. I don't particularly like the sun or swimming...but I do love boats so I've been curious about doing one of these for a few years. Then as luck would have it, a group of friends decided to arrange a trip and invited E&M and me to join!

Blue cruises are usually from four to seven days long and generally, I think, depart from Fetihye or Bodrum. We did a four day cruise over Fourth of July weekend out of Fetihye so E&M and I got up stupidly early in the morning on the Thursday to catch our flight to Dalaman (the nearest airport to Fetihye). There we joined my other friends and caught a 10TL bus to Fetihye (and then a taxi from the otogar to the liman) where we boarded the ship that would be our home from the next few days: the Seaborn Legend.

We hung out on deck while the crew stocked the ship and got us ready to put out to sea-the Mediterranean to be specific. Apparently while we at the dock something other than supplies was also introduced to the ship. After dinner our first night out we were all relaxing and suddenly a cat, terrified out of it's poor, little mind scampers across the deck, sees us and freezes, then runs and hides as fast as possible. We were all as startled as the cat. We asked the captain if he happened to have a cat on board as a pet (no, he didn't) and then in that case what should we do about it. This is why I love Turkish people. He looked at us a little bit like we were slow in the brain and very matter of factly said "We feed it." I could hear the 'duh' he wanted to tack onto the end.*

Where we hung out during the day and slept at night.

The food was amazing.

Once we were underway it took a little while to get our sea legs! There are no shoes allowed below deck but mostly we didn't think there was a need for shoes period so we ditched them as soon as we got on board. I loved, loved it when the boat was moving. We never "sailed" the sails never went up and we just used the motor the entire time but it's understandable. When you're in motion for less than an hour at a time and dropping anchor twice a day putting up and taking down sails is a lot of extra work. Still, the breeze and the salt water spray were exhilarating sails or no sails.

Tea time on the ship!

In every cove we stopped there was swimming, snorkeling, kayaking, scrambling up rocks to jump off, and more. Cleopatra's Cove even had the ruins of a bath where she was reputed to take her famous milk baths and a rope swing which we rowdily employed.

At one stop there was a chance to go ashore and hike across the island to another cover where the boat would meet us. When we were preparing for this trip that sounded like a fantastic idea to me but when it came time to actually do it...nah. I stayed on the boat with a friend. We sat on the prow and enjoyed the ride to the next cove.

I wondered how you'd store four days of food to feed 12 people on the boat but it seems I needn't have worried because there are market boats! There was a bread boat from which we got possibly the best bread I've ever had in my life. She actually bakes the bread on the boat so it was fresh and warm every morning. There was a full-on market boat with produce, eggs, etc, and an ice cream boat.

Sunrise at Cleopatra's Cove

Sleeping topside was fantastic. Most of us slept up every night. The moon was so bright that we couldn't really see any stars the first few nights but when they came out they were beautiful. I didn't even mind the rising sun waking me up because that was gorgeous too! And of course the sunset was magical. We only got one because it was either hazy or we were in the wrong place to see it the other nights so the night we did get it we were all crowded in the front near the prow snapping away.

To top it all off I got the chance to fulfill my "when I grow up I want to be..." dream. Sort of anyway. I want to be a pirate. I'm still fairly serious about this. A wine connoisseur pirate. Our last night on ship I asked if I could take the wheel a bit-mostly I wanted to get pictures of me and Klockly (the bunny in my hand-that's a whole different story) sailing the boat. So I hammed for the camera a bit and made to turn the wheel back to the actual captain but he told me, no keep going.

So I did! I sailed that boat like a pro. Well...better than I drive car. Although really only because there weren't any other boats around to hit. I'd look at the captain every once in a while to make sure I was ok and he kept giving me thumbs up. Except for the one time he came up beside me, said I was doing well but...then pointed way over to my 10:00 and said that we were actually going over there. Oops.

Arrgg me hearties!!!

* Despite looking for the stowaway cat, which was dubbed Sailor Cat, and feeding throughout the trip we never did find the poor thing. The Seaborn Legend now has a mascot. If you want to sail on her and make friends with Sailor Cat get in touch with Ali at www.mybluecruise.com

Turkish Wine of the Week - Chamlija 2012 Viognier

I went to Sensus wine bar a number of weeks ago and had a little bit of a shopping spree. Among the spoils of my trip was a Turkish Viognier. A Turkish Viognier!! I did not know that Turkey made Viognier and I was so freaking excited to see it I didn't even flinch at the 95TL price tag.

If you're going to spend 95TL on a bottle of wine though; this one is worth it.

Golden straw colored with an aromatic floral, peach, and apple nose; I must admit that I just sat with the nose for a little while. Sometimes the nose ends up being so much more enjoyable than the actual wine and I was worried that I would be disappointed by the taste after I'd worked myself into such a state of Viognier having excitement.

Happily I was not disappointed. My tasting notes read: "Ooooooo". Buttery with touches of honey, peach, apple, and apricot. Fresh and polished with medium acid, the Chamlija Viognier was a truly enjoyable drinking experience. One of the things I like about Viogniers is I find that, while they are dry wines, they have something of a late harvest flavor but without the cloying sweetness one often finds in late harvests.

Chamlija Viognier, we will meet again!

Turkish Wine of the Week - Suvla Kabetepe Rose

I've been through Suvla's Kabetepe red, white. and blush so I figured I should bookend the series and get the last one, the rose. I'm still a little resistant to pink wine but a) it's only 15 TL and b) it's Suvla so how bad could it be?

Not very, I'm happy to say.

In the glass it's a pale rose, salmon color with a lot of berry and floral scents in the nose. It even smelled dry if that's possible. On the palate it is low in tannin,  with medium acid, and a long dry finish. Crisp with berry flavors it was refreshing and paired really well with strong cheeses and dried meat.

I seem to be coming around to the pink wines. What is the difference, anyway, between a blush and a rose? Thanks to Nusret at the Suvla shop I learned this not too long ago. The difference is both simple and huge. A blush wine is a wine made with red grapes but in a white wine method. So after the grapes are crushed, the skins are removed immediately leaving behind lightly colored juice. A rose wine is made (with red grapes) in the same manner as a red wine (i.e. skins are left with the juice through the fermentation process) but are removed sooner than are skins destined to become red wine.


If you think it's impossible to find cheap but decent wine in Turkey you're almost right...but at 15TL Suvla's Kabetepe line is everything you're looking for. I would advise though keeping this one cold; the warmer it got the more reminiscent it was of church wine...and I don't know why but we seem incapable of making decent-tasting church wine.