Turkish Wine of the Week - Anfora 2014 Kalecik Karası-Shiraz Blush

While I still approach pink wines warily I am more open to at least trying then than I used to be. That does not mean that I go out of my way to buy them. It's not even a matter of going out of my way really, a pink wine could be sitting right in front of my and the likelihood of me buying it is still pretty slim.

However I have recently started holding Turkish wine tastings; informal parties at my place for my friends where the only rules are that you must bring a wine that is Turkish and is not DLC. If you don't live here and you don't know what DLC is count yourself lucky. As one of the goals of the tasting is to try a wide spectrum of Turkish wines at least one pink wine should make the roster.  At the inaugural meeting of Kitap Klübü Ezikler İçindir!* the pink wine was the Anfora 2014 Kalecik Karası-Shiraz Blush from Pamukkale.

 

Pale peachy pink in the glass the nose is very fruit forward with a lot of strawberries. On the palate it was off-dry with a subtle acidity and minerality. While I want to be diplomatic and say that while I don't see this particular blush bringing me any closer to being a fan of pink wines it wasn't bad...I just can't say that. I don't like pink wine-full stop. I have tried and as there are two more bottles in my fridge I will keep trying...but really just avoid this one.

I did not buy this so I cannot confidently say how much it was but my experience with Pamukkale wines said it was probably around 25TL and widely available at many of Turkey's grocery stores if you want a bottle of your very own despite my advice that don't.

*Book Club is for Suckers-you know if you've been in a book club the chances that you've actually read the book are slim because the group will talk about the book for maybe 5 minutes before delving into wine and gossip...we're skipping the books and going straight to the wine! We have T-Shirts.

Gozoten Guest Wine - Hauteville 2014 Grand Vinde

I've been terribly neglectful about both having and writing about this wine. This was a gift from a colleague last summer and we just opened it a few weeks ago. Gozo is one of the islands that make up Malta and is apparently known for being the most fertile climate in Malta and some of the best Maltese vineyards are located on this island. My colleagues lived in Malta for a while and told me that what she learned there is that, when speaking about wine, that you can't just say 'Maltese' wine, you have to identify with the specific island. So this Hauteville Grande Vinde is a Gozoten wine.

The Hauteville Grande Vinde is a 2014 Shiraz Cabernet Sauvignon blend. It was a really pretty brilliant, ruby red in the glass; not at all opaque. I found the nose very interesting as usually the fist, and sometimes only thing I can detect is fruit but with this wine I hard a hard time catching any fruit scents under some really overwhelming green peppercorn, leather, and spice.
 

On the palate the Hauteville Grand Vinde was very tart. While I wasn't getting a lot of fruit in the nose here I got a lot of sour cherry with low tannins, and highish acid. For a Shiraz Cabernet Sauvignon blend there wasn't a great deal of substance to the mouth feel and while the flavor was nice it was rather too tart for my liking. I think with the right food to balance the dominant sour cherry flavor this would be quite nice.

For my first foray into Maltese wines this wasn't too bad; and definitely leaves me wanting to try more!

Turkish Wine of the Week - Kayra Versus 2012 Viognier

I found this gem originally at Eleos on Istiklal. Aside from a truly respectable wine list, Eleos is worth a visit if you're a fan of fish, awesome views, and ridiculous amounts of free mezzes and desserts. Not paying for those leaves you free to pay the rather high ticket price of the Kayra Versus Viognier. Luckily if you buy it in a shop it's significantly less expensive (76 at Macro Center and 67 at La Cave-seriously). Regardless of what you pay though this wine is totally worth it, it's one of the most gorgeous wines I've had in a while.

In the glass the Viognier is a pale, clear yellow with no hints of green. The nose is white pepper, honeysuckle, orange flower, and vanilla bean. The latter two aromas I didn't pick up right away, I found them to be more subtle than the pepper and honeysuckle, but they are there and they are delightful.

In the mouth there's a nice amount of acidity balancing the flavors and a long finish of honeysuckle and vanilla. I think I may have also detected some melon and/or tropical notes and some citrus in the flavor.

It's lighter than Chamlija's Viognier which has more oak characteristics and while they're both gorgeous in their own ways, Kayra's Viognier is the far more easily drinkable. In fact it's dangerously drinkable as I proved by killing the bottle in one sitting. Go buy this. Like, right now.

Turkish Wine of the Week - Turasan 2015 Misket and A Bosphorus Cruise

Recently I discovered that a new friend owns a yacht. And while I would love to be friends with the idle rich O is not idle, she and her husband have a travel agency here in Istanbul and the yacht is one of the services they offer. However she kindly offered to take a bunch of us out a couple weeks ago for a Sunday Bosphorus cruise.

Ortakoy Mosque & the First Bridge

So on a gorgeous, sunny afternoon we all met at the Kabatas dock to board the Zoe in what was going to be a three hour tour (and don't think the Americans didn't giggle at that). Three hours turned into four and half as we cruised up the Bosphorus admiring the palaces and architecture along the way and stopping near the Black Sea, practically underneath the infamous Third Bridge, for a swim.

Anadoluhisari

Of course I wasn't going to miss the chance to sip a wine as I pretended to be idle rich myself. It's not everyday a girl gets invited aboard a yacht (although if anyone does have those days often please tell me how!). What wine would go better with a Sunday summer cruise than a semi sweet? So I broke out one of the Turasan wines I had shipped from the winery in Cappadocia: Turasan's 2015 Misket.

One of the things I like about Turkish Misket (or Muscat as most of us know it) is that they are generally of the semi sweet variety; they're not cloyingly sweet dessert wines. Turasan's isn't quite dessert-level sweet but it is sweeter than I like my Miskets.

In the glass it's, a bright, extremely pale yellow and smells, of all things, like champagne. I love aromatic white wines and Muscats usually deliver in that respect with a lot of floral and tropical notes. On the palate there was little acid and it felt a bit thick however some of that might well have to do with the fact that I wasn't drinking it at ideal serving temperature. A few degrees colder would have made a world of difference. The flavor was very nice following the aromas from the nose: tropical, citrus, and white flowers. I did not get the orange blossom though that I love so much in Miskets.

Maiden's Tower

Pricing on this one is a little difficult. I ordered directly from Turasan so I got the winery price of 28TL. The Cave sells these for mid/upper 30s, and Solera has a mid 50s price tag. It's worth the 28. At the risk of sounding like a credit card commercial, drinking it on a yacht on the Bosphorus, priceless!

The best thing about it? You can do it too if you're in the city! The Zoe is for hire for private events of I think 10-12 people. It was recently written up in The Guide Istanbul magazine and you can contact them for hire information via the Zoe Yacht Cruise Facebook Page. Bon Voyage!

Turkish Wine of the Week - Sevilen Isa Bey 2013 Narince

My second foray into the land of Mr. Jesus wines was the 2013 Narince (35 TL at Carrefour). Isa Bey is a "concept" wine from Sevilen produced with the principle of "tek bağ tek üzüm" (one vineyard, one grape). As such they produce a smaller number of bottles each year than wineries that take grapes from other vineyards.

Narince is often compared to Chardonnay but other than sometimes sharing pineapple flavors I personally find them to be quite different. While it can be used to create dömisek wines, more often than not Narince is a dry wine with a sweet nose. The Isa Bey follows this pattern with a nose of stone fruits and plumeria and light hints of of oak influence.

In the glass this light-bodied wine is a clear, pale yellow but with no hints of green. On the palate it is softly acidic and smooth with flavors of white peach and pineapple and light minerality.

I liked it more than I thought I would, frankly. However I do recommend serving this one on the colder side if you do not like the taste of oak in white wine. As it warmed the under tones of oak became more obvious and I found it to be very off-putting.