Balloons fly over vineyards
in Cappadocia, a region in central Turkey known for growing the white Emir grape.
The wine scene in Turkey is on the cusp of change, with a growing movement to revive indigenous grapes making it one of the most exciting new frontiers in the world of wine.
It’s also a country of contradictions, with the world’s fifth-largest vineyard area (410,000ha in 2022, according to OIV), but only 3% of the annual grape harvest used for winemaking (OIV 2019 report); a country where a 2013 legal move banned any promotion of alcohol, but which has managed to snag more than 1,000 medals and commendations at the Decanter World Wine Awards since it started in 2004.
To understand Turkey’s unique viticulture, it’s essential to look at its past. Southeastern Anatolia is now considered one of the two prime locations in which the grapevine was first domesticated, around 9,500-5,000 BCE (Science, March 2023). In the seven geographical regions that now compose modern Turkey, viticulture existed continually throughout the centuries, and although alcohol was prohibited during the Ottoman era (14th century through to 1922), non-Muslim communities were allowed to manufacture and trade it.
Credit: JP Map Graphics
From state to private
The breaking point occurred in 1923 when, during the aftermath of World War I and the Turkish war of independence, Armenian and Greek communities (the country’s main wine producers) were forced to migrate. Vineyards and wineries were abandoned and failed efforts to revive them during the era of the newly formed secular Turkish Republic eventually led to a state-run monopolistic market for much of the 20th century. It wasn’t until the 1990s that Turkey’s first boutique vineyards emerged, planting international grape varieties, often under the guidance of foreign consultants.
‘In the early 1990s, Turkey’s oldest wine producer Doluca began to produce fine wines from international grapes,’ explains Levon Bag??s?, one of Turkey’s foremost wine experts. ‘Around the same time, Kavakl?dere, another long-established producer, started to produce local O?ku?zgo?zu?, Bog?azkere and Kalecik Karas? wines. We can say that these two events were milestones in Turkey’s modern winemaking story.’
Bag??s? co-founded Yaban Kolektif, a nomadic viticulture project that endeavours to return endangered grape varieties into commercial activity and save them from extinction. ‘Nowadays, small and large producers are focusing on native varieties – this and the natural wine movement have brought real excitement to Turkish winemaking,’ he says.
Varietal treasure trove
According to the Tekirdag? Viticulture Research Institute, Turkey has 1,435 grape varieties, most of which are grown on old vines. However, for a mostly Muslim country, where the annual average wine consumption is less than one litre per capita, grapes don’t always convert into wine. The vast majority are either consumed fresh or made into molasses, raisins, vinegar or rak? (Turkey’s popular aniseed-flavoured spirit).
‘I say thank you to the molasses and the raisins for protecting and maintaining these indigenous grapes,’ says Sabiha Apayd?n Go?nenli, wine director of Istanbul’s one-star Michelin restaurant Mikla, co-founder of Heritage Vines of Turkey (@heritagevinesofturkey) and founder and organiser of the annual wine conference Ko?k Ko?ken Toprak. ‘You can take a shoot from these historic vines and plant it somewhere else and it will flourish.’
Apayd?n continues: ‘When we began our research with Heritage Vines of Turkey, there were about 20 local grape varieties used commercially. We have managed to increase this number to 65. What we typically find are not vineyards but gardens – a hectare or less in size, but all of them with historic gobelet vines.’
Regions & revival
Urla ?arapç?l?k (see Producer section, below)
It’s difficult to be exact, but currently Turkey is home to about…
Source : https://www.decanter.com.master.public.keystone-prod-eks-euw1.futureplc.engineering/wine/turkey-wine-lands-on-the-rise-535193/
