She Who Dares Wins

First of all I want you to raise a glass to all those fine Turkish men and women who run the Turkish wine industry. Making wine takes craft and passion. Wherever in the world that wine is made you will find passionate individuals for whom money comes second to their love of the product.

They will pin you against a wall and talk of their ‘terroir’, the effect of climate, water, soil, orientation. They will pour a measure into a glass, swirl it, hold it up to the light and watch the legs trickle down the side of the glass. They will put their nose in the bell of the glass and breathe the fragrance, ‘oohing’ and ‘aaaghing’ like parents over a firstborn, before letting a trickle in to the mouth and staring in to the far distance as they nail the “warm mossy notes, with a chalky astringency that delights and surprises the palate” or some such bull.

But I am sure that no group of producers are more passionately devoted to their craft than Turkish ones. They have to be. The government does not like them. It does not like their product, it does not like their business and it probably does not like them as people. They are not in the gang. So it makes it very difficult for them. Wine is not allowed to be sold within 100m of a mosque or a school. No merchandising is allowed; prayer mats good, beer mats bad. No selling online. No promoting online. No transportation by courier (kargo) and so on.

Likya Wines are a boutique winery growing grapes and making great wines above 1000m in the mountains above Elmalı, 100 km or so from Kalkan towards Antalya. The brothers who run it are fantastic people and love their business but they will tell you how hard it is. You will find very little about them online. But buy their wine or go and visit them if you are allowed to.

Ironic that wine has been made in these lands for thousands of years. This is where it all started.

And now I have joined this band of brothers (and sisters) in a modest way. Yes! I can be modest. Indeed as far as winemaking goes I am, as Churchill said of Attlee “a modest man with much to be modest about”.

I am part of a little group of mountain desperadoes led by our Master Winemaker, Hero of the recent Izmir Earthquake Rescue, Protector of the Mediterranean Seal and all round good egg, Fatih Tunali. A modest man with a lot to shout about.

Also joined in this common endeavour are another three couples who have hoisted their flags in the beautiful Turkish mountains above Kalkan.

So last winter saw several of us trampling grapes in the traditional manner as a co-operative labour in the Islamlar mansion of Mystic Healer, Sage and Prophet (well he looks like one with that lockdown beard) Solihin Thom and his domestic goddess consort Saint Alicia.

And as the demijohns of red and white stuff burbled and bubbled over the winter months we awaited the Spring to start bottling. Nervously I may tell you. Damnably nervously. My total production is 50 bottles of the red but some have 150 mixed. That is a lot to throw away or force yourself to drink for the next twelve months and pretend it does not taste like camel’s piss.

So Spring has come. One of our number agreed to host the initial tasting at which all would be revealed, but not straight away. It was to be a blind tasting of all 9 wines which we would assess for colour and (the big one) taste.

And so a couple of days ago the Duster convoy headed to Kalkan Mountain Villas to the Bauhaus styled Über kool residence of – what to call them? – Alan and Yvonne let us say.

The villas must be one of the very few developments in the mountains that are fully registered with a legal title deed and habitation certificate. How this was achieved is the stuff of legend. At one point building control from Antalya insisted that he build a bomb shelter (don’t ask) for the six villas as they were rated condominions. So that was an additional £100,000! No wonder he did not make any money from them and a little insight into why most buildings in country areas are illegal. Build whatever you like, pay a fine, collect the rent. Great job. Except it is not. Do not get me started.

So we sat down and were served up nine wines one at a time and guess what? They were all at least drinkable and some were very good! Even my own which came in a modest 7 out of 9 is palateable. Result!

We did not get around to organising a label contest as that is still a work in progress but I reckon Leto House’s designed by Special K is a sure winner.

So we now have our own little passionate wine co-operative in the Turkish mountains. Something else to spark joy in these strange times. And that comes on a day when the village of Islamlar opens its first organic shop selling fabulous local produce. The finest such shop in the whole Kaş area and a great win for a modest village with far too much to be modest about.

I love brave,  creative, determined people who dare to be different. So here is to Turkish wine producers and here is to TC Şukran Üstali’s organic shop and all those others of you out there not following the herd but carving your own path and dealing with the difficulties.

Enjoy your last lockdown

 PS

I am chipping away at my book project provisionally titled  “Between a Rock and a Hard Place”. You can download the first section here and let me know whether you thing the mix of light comedy from my blog works alongside the darker narrative of the first hundred years of the Turkish Republic.