Wine Tasting @ Kanyon

Kanyon - Kerem Görsev is playing

I had the chance to attend the wine tasting days in Kanyon Shopping Mall in the last day of the organization. On the same day, I also met two different groups of my friends and I even managed to shop for a few small things and I did all of this in Kanyon. So, I'm very proud of my organizational capability :) I had a very lovely day. I also feel like a did some charity since I dragged some of my friends to the wine tasting organization.

When I arrived Kanyon around 11:30 - 12:00, Kerem Gorsev was rehearsing and the warm atmosphere backed by the music was a nice warm up for me. I like even the rehearsal of piano music. The wines started to appear on the stands around 13:00, but we had to wait until 15:00 for tasting, until the end of the concert. Then it was almost a hurray! There was a serious crowd willing to taste wines which I certainly did not expect to see.

I went to Doluca's place first with the intention to taste Karma Chardonney Narince, their new white wine, and to introduce it to my firends, but they only had Doluca Antik, one of their cheapest and oldest wine. I realize now that I did not ask them why they did so. Then I leaned towards Pamukkale but they said they runned out of Anfora Shiraz Reserve, which is one of their best as far as I heard. In fact, they had one on the stand, but I gues it was part of the decoration so they did not open that one.

Umurbey Wines

I tasted so many wines from Diren, Idol, Umurbey, Urla, Likya, Sevilen, Vinkara, Yucel, Silent Valley, and Buyulubag that I can't really say how many. I spent most of my time with Idol, Sevilen, Umurbey and Buyulubag. This may be due to their attention and patience to my questions rather then their wines :) A lot of times I was offered with rose wines first, I guess their favorites are rose in these days. I admit that I tasted Idol's Smyrna Shiraz-Grenache at my own will, simply because I wondered how Granache was like. Then I tasted Smyrna Shiraz and liked them both.

Umurbey Rezerv 2007, Urla Nero D`Avola – Urla Karası, Buyulubag Adakarasi, Buyulubag Shah, Sevilen Centum Syrah, Sevilen Majestik, Sevilen "900" Petit Verdot are other wines that left a positive impression on my mind. I may have drunk Sevilen wines for the first time and I want to make it up to myself because they have really nice wines. After I anchored on their stand and tried 3-4 wines consecutively, I fortunately remembered that alcohol does not stand still in the body as it does in the bottle and I took a break. I certainly do not blame myself for having tried too much wine in a short time. I think the organizators are to blame since they did not put any bins for spitting after tasting.

Perran Aribal from Anatolian Vineyards was offering solution tasting to demonstrate the differences between the impacts of French oak, American oak and no oak (I hope I'm explaining it correctly). This was the most interesting part of the organization for me.

Sevilen and their indefinite choices

Actually, it is not my stlyle to taste wines in such a crowded place. I have difficulties in concentrating and after a few glasses of wine (even though they poured very little since the aim was tasting), it gets more difficult to notice the differences between the wines. Therefore, I preferred to enjoy what I was having once I figured out that I could not focus on the details anymore :) That's way I can't offer you detailed tasting notes. I already mentioned the wines that I rememeber, which I also liked.

I like Urla since they produce wines from Urla Karasi, Silent Valley since their grapes are produced in Bodrum and since their wines are new (they don't have their own production facilities yet, they are now producing with guidance of Corvus), Buyulubag since their grapes are produced in Avsa Island and since they use Adakarasi which is an authentic grape. There were of course reasons for which I liked the others, but I already forgot most of them. I better try them again one by one, soon.