Wine of the week for
                      free to your e-mail.
           

 
 
Shop the WineMessenger - Browse Our Collection
 
Welcome to Winesworld's Blog
Here is the most popular and most commented posts. These posts are highly recommended to read.
 
Blogpost Blogpost Blogpost 
Blogpost Blogpost Blogpost 
Blogpost Blogpost Blogpost 
ADvertise here?

Posts Tagged ‘Turkey’

VITIVINICULTURE IN TURKEY II.

Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010

turkey

This eastern Mediterranean country’s vitivinicultural history goes back 6000 years. This fertile region, located between latitudes 36 and 42 north,  was home to a number of nations including ancient Greeks, Armenians, Kurds, Laz and as of the 14th century Turcic tribes from central Asia who had adopted Islam as their religion.

Quran, the Islamic holy book, forbids alcohol consumption, although originally the interpretation of the ulema (the learned people of Islam) considered moderate consumption to be permissible. Now most Quranic scholars believe alcohol consumption is forbidden.

The subjugation of the Christian population of Asia Minor by Ottoman Turks set back viticultural advances, but only partially, because rulers allowed minorities to practise their culture, but they had to pay considerably higher taxes.

Over time, the Christian and Jewish minorities emigrated to large and more cosmopolitan cities i.e Istanbul, Smyrna (Izmir today) and often to other countries; this in turn hampered winemaking.

Vineyard acreage was not affected as the new rulers liked to eat grapes. Today, Turkey has approximately 600 000 hectares of vineyards the vast majority of which grow table grapes. Much of the harvest is dried and sold as raisins. Turkey is the largest raisin producer of the world, and 40th of wine.

Researchers established some 600 –1200 grape varieties exist, but only 60 are grown commercially.

The country is large and the topography varied, the east part being high in altitude with extremely cold winters.

Thrace, the European part of Turkey, produces approximately 40 per cent of all wine grapes.

The Aegean Coast extending south of the Dardanelles to Denizli another 40 per cent.

Central Anatolia around Ankara, the capital, and Nevshehir produce approximately five per cent, the Black Sea Coast from Amasya to Ordu, the Mediterranean Coast from Antalya to Adana and south eastern region around Diyarbekir the remainder.

Although there are many indigenous vitis vinifer silvestris grape varieties planted , growers imported and cultivated internationally known varieties i.e cabernet sauvignon, shiraz, alicante bouchet, gamay, cinsault, clairette, chardonnay, riesling, vasilaki, and semillon.

Indigenous grape varieties are: adakarasi, papazkarasi, karalahana, okuzgozu, bogazkere, horozkarasi, kalecikkarasi, and dimrit.

White grapes are narince, yapincak, bornova misketi, emir, hasandede, kabarcik, and rumi.

Genrally, varieties were planted without taking terroir into consideration, ad hence, resulting wines are often unbalanced, or taste “weak”.

Recent advances in both vini-and viticulture have contributed to significant quality improvements.

Modern presses were imported; stainless steel containers installed, and European experts were hired to make wine.

In vineyards, modern pruning techniques were introduced and yields reduced, both of which resulted in quality improvements.

In general, Turkish wines are low in acidity and contain some residual sugar, rendering them less appealing to the western palate.

More importantly, retailers and many restaurant owners/operators lack the knowledge of handling and serving wine properly.

They refrigerate red wines, and store whites at room temperature often in excess of 20 C.

People outside of large cities, i.e Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, Antalya, Adana, and Edirne have no interest in wine, and of course religious beliefs do not help the situation.

Surprisingly, a lot of people everywhere drink raki ( a.k.a ouzo in Greece, arrak in Arabic speaking countries) frequently, although it contains 40 and sometimes more per cent alcohol by volume.

There are a few larger wineries – Serafin, Doluca, and Kavaklidere and a few small ones. Their distribution network is limited at best.

Much oft the wine consumed in the country is by tourists

(approximately four and a half million visit the country annually) and by intellectuals ands the minorities, consisting of Greeks, Armenians and Jews.

The better wines are red, although white and sparkling wines are also produced.

The best wineries are:

Buyulubag, Sea of Marmara

Corus, Bozcaada

Doluca, Ankara

Sarafin Winery

Guler, Tharce

Kavaklidere, Ankara

Kayra

Melen Sevilen group, Aegean Coast

Hrayr Never miss a post! subscribe via RSS or subscribe via e-mail.
Post writer – Hrayr Berberoglu – E-mail – Read his books?
 
Professor B offers seminars to companies and interested parties on any category of wine, chocolates, chocolates and wine, olive oils, vinegars and dressings, at a reasonable cost.

VITIVINICULTURE IN TURKEY.

Saturday, April 10th, 2010

turkey

This eastern Mediterranean country’s vitivinicultural history goes back 6000 years. This fertile region, located between latitudes 36 and 42 north, was home to a number of nations including ancient Greeks, Armenians, Kurds, Laz and as of the 14th century Turcic tribes from central Asia who had adopted Islam as their religion.

Quran, the Islamic holy book, forbids alcohol consumption, although originally the interpretation of the ulema (the learned people of Islam) considered moderate consumption to be permissible. Now most Quranic scholars believe alcohol consumption is forbidden.

The subjugation of the Christian population of Asia Minor by Ottoman Turks set back viticultural advances, but only partially, because rulers allowed minorities to practise their culture, but they had to pay considerably higher taxes.

Over time, the Christian and Jewish minorities emigrated to large and more cosmopolitan cities i.e Istanbul, Smyrna (Izmir today) and often to other countries; this in turn hampered winemaking.

Vineyard acreage was not affected as the new rulers liked to eat grapes. Today, Turkey has approximately 600 000 hectares of vineyards the vast majority of which grow table grapes. Much of the harvest is dried and sold as raisins. Turkey is the largest raisin producer of the world, and 40th of wine.

Researchers established some 600 –1200 grape varieties exist, but only 60 are grown commercially.

The country is large and the topography varied, the east part being high in altitude with extremely cold winters.

Thrace, the European part of Turkey, produces approximately 40 per cent of all wine grapes.

The Aegean Coast extending south of the Dardanelles to Denizli another 40 per cent.

Central Anatolia around Ankara, the capital, and Nevshehir produce approximately five per cent, the Black Sea Coast from Amasya to Ordu, the Mediterranean Coast from Antalya to Adana and south eastern region around Diyarbekir the remainder.
Although there are many indigenous vitis vinifer silvestris grape varieties planted , growers imported and cultivated internationally known varieties i.e cabernet sauvignon, shiraz, alicante bouchet, gamay, cinsault, clairette, chardonnay, riesling, vasilaki, and semillon.

Indigenous grape varieties are: adakarasi, papazkarasi, karalahana, okuzgozu, bogazkere, horozkarasi, kalecikkarasi, and dimrit.

White grapes are narince, yapincak, bornova misketi, emir, hasandede, kabarcik, and rumi.

Genrally, varieties were planted without taking terroir into consideration, ad hence, resulting wines are often unbalanced, or taste “weak”.

Recent advances in both vini-and viticulture have contributed to significant quality improvements.

Modern presses were imported; stainless steel containers installed, and European experts were hired to make wine.

In vineyards, modern pruning techniques were introduced and yields reduced, both of which resulted in quality improvements.

In general, Turkish wines are low in acidity and contain some residual sugar, rendering them less appealing to the western palate.

More importantly, retailers and many restaurant owners/operators lack the knowledge of handling and serving wine properly.

They refrigerate red wines, and store whites at room temperature often in excess of 20 C.

People outside of large cities, i.e Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, Antalya, Adana, and Edirne have no interest in wine, and of course religious beliefs do not help the situation.

Surprisingly, a lot of people everywhere drink raki ( a.k.a ouzo in Greece, arrak in Arabic speaking countries) frequently, although it contains 40 and sometimes more per cent alcohol by volume.

There are a few larger wineries – Serafin, Doluca, and Kavaklidere and a few small ones. Their distribution network is limited at best.

Much oft the wine consumed in the country is by tourists (approximately four million visit the country annually) and by intellectuals ands the minorities, consisting of Greeks, Armenians and Jews.

The better wines are red, although white and sparkling wines are also produced.

Morten Never miss a post! subscribe via RSS or subscribe via e-mail.
 
Post writer – Hrayr Berberoglu – E-mail – Read his books?

The Last Supper (in 2008).

Thursday, January 1st, 2009

The turkey

Since we don’t celebrate Thanksgiving or having turkey for Christmas dinner we decided to have it on the last day of 2008. The bird was about 5.5Kg and we roasted it in the oven on 160 degrees Celsius. It has a built-in thermometer so we thought it would roast for about 3 hours, but it popped much earlier. So it got a little hectic at the end in the kitchen, but it turned out just find.

The stuffing

The stuffing was made of bacon, mushroom, parsley, bread and a little sour cream. We do like to try out different kind of stuffing; this one was quite nice except of the bread that got a little mushy.

The sauce

We used the heart, liver, neck and gizzard and cut it up in pieces. Then we cooked it in water for about an hour and used the juice for the sauce. The bird was roasted on a grid with water under it, so we got a little juice for the sauce her to.

turkey

The result

We were happy with the result of the roasting, even though the bird was finish before the time we had estimated. I had planned for setting up the temperature on the oven the last half hour to get more golden color on the bird, but had to leave that out.

turkey

The wine

My choice for wine this evening was a 2004 Vosne-Romanée from Arnoux. The wine review you can read all about it in Winesworld, but I can say that we were very pleased with the wine.

turkey

2009

We do hope 2009 will give us and all our readers many happy times and may good moments with a lot of great food and wine.

Morten Never miss a post! subscribe via RSS or subscribe via e-mail.
 
Post writer – Morten – E-mail

Happy New Year to you all.

Wednesday, December 31st, 2008

turkey

Happy New Year to you all!

We are having a turkey and a Vosne-Romanée wine for dinner this last day of 2008. We will come back with pictures, recipe, wine review and more tomorrow.

I have just put the bird into the oven, so in about 3 hours time it will be ready. The white meat from this kind of bird is so lovely and we are so glad it is quite healthy to. Because we all love to eat turkey and chicken and we do a lot.

If you would like to see the results please come back tomorrow and the blog will be updated.

Meanwhile happy New Year!!!

Morten Never miss a post! subscribe via RSS or subscribe via e-mail.
 
Post writer – Morten – E-mail

Related Posts with Thumbnails