Akberg Şirince Shiraz 2005

Akberg Şirince Shiraz 2005

Akberg Sirince Shiraz 2005 is another wine that we bought when we travelled through Sirince. This wine was a surprising experience for me. First, the color was a fresh, dark red. Altough I know that Shiraz usually produces lively & dark red wines, considering that this is a wine of 2005, I expected a little paler color from this wine. Apparently, this wine was not that old.

When I smelled and tasted the wine, I became doubtfull about the grape, whether it was really Shiraz. As far as I know, Shiraz usually produces rather round wines with rich and complex fruity aromas. This wine rather presents an incomplex, cherry like flavor and quite bitter taste that feels like tasting an anripe fruit. This was not a bitterness to make a face, but is rather a bitterness like the tannin caused bitterness of Bogazkere.

When I tasted the wine after two hours of aeration in a big glass, the wine was softer, less bitter, and less sharp in smell and taste. Still, the bitterness was standing in the forefront according to me. Each time I tasted the wine, I felt like tasting an anjelique plum that is not ripe enough. Additionally, I noted that  the wine had  thin-medium body, moderate acidity, marked tannin and a rather short ending.

I used a wine stopper with vacuum to close the bottle. After 2-3 days, the wine was still there without losing anything. I wonder if this can be a sign showing that the wine has a potential to age for more years.

Would I try this wine again? Well, I prefer to discover other wines instead of rediscovering this one, but if you would like to try a local wine in Sirince, Artemis would be certainly a good choice.

Idol Smyrna Shiraz @ Nardis

Idol Smyrna Shiraz 2009

We were at Nardis again last Saturday to celebrate a friends birthday. Sibel Köse was performing that night. We saw our old firends and drank nice wine, so, it was a nice evening.

I think Nardis is a very nice Jazz club. A nice atmosphere, nice waiters, nice bar, nice drinks, acceptable prices and nice music. I have to admit that I like to hear Jazz music but it is not my favourite. I could have liked it much better if I did not have to be silent whenever someone is performing at Nardis. They have a very serious policy asking you to be silent during the performance, but I can't help thinking that Jazz is a music that I should hear behind other voices while I'm having my dinner or so.

Anyway, I still like it there. I would have liked it more if they served their wines a little cooler. They serve red wines around room temparature, that makes it around 20ºC.

We ordered a cheese plate and Idol Smyrna Shiraz 2009. We asked them to put the wine in an ice bowl for a while. It got better then. It is a full bodied wine with very strong fruity aromas. I read from the bottle that it had choclate aromas. My husband said that it is certainly true, but I was just thinking that it has some sweet aromas, that's it. So, I guess what I call sweet aroma is choclate aroma.

I would prefer not to mention the price because it is more than three times of what I would pay when I bought it from a wine store. It is sold around 25 TL at onlinemahzen.com. I wonder if it is also like this in other places in the world. Do people always pay more than twice of the normal price whenever they order a wine at a night club or at a restaurant?

Kayra Vintage Shiraz with a touch of Petit Verdot

Kayra Vintage Shiraz with a touch of Petit Verdot 2008

I mentioned this wine before somewhere and some of you wanted to see its picture. Here it is! I find the sticker on the bottle very classy. The wine itself is also very nice of course. Vintage is a special collection of Kayra. They describe it as a collection serial and say that these wines are made of the best blend of the year. I do not think that it would be fair to consider this one as a blend though. There is only very little Petit Verdot in it as far as I understand.

I did not want to drink this promising wine in an ordinary evening. Therefore, I opened the bottle when my brother came to us for dinner. After having one sip from the wine, he decided that he wanted to drink bear instead! Being young means to get bored in two seconds :) I did not care of course. I would have find another excuse to drink the wine anyway. 

I noticed the wine needs dekantation as soon as I tasted it. How did I noticed? There was sharp fruity aromas and unexpectedly high acidity. Besides, I expected to see sediments as well, but I thought carefull pouring to glass would be sufficient (it was indeed sufficient). So, I let the wine rest in our glasses since I was too lazy to use a dekanter. After 20-30 minutes of rest, the wine became creamy and delicious.

With aromas of red & black fruits and spices, it is a wine that leaves a rich and permanent flavor on the palate. It appeared to me that the usually too intense fruity aromas of Shiraz are a little settled and got calmer. I do not know whether it is the impact of Petit Verdot's touch. It's taste reminds me the taste that I encountered before when I tasted relatively older wines. It is a calm and round taste with distictive flavors rather rasped.

(For those who wants to get a price idea, I can say it is around 45 TL. I don't remember how much I paid since it was quite a while ago.)

Wine Stopper

Wine Stopper

I bought this wine stopper a few weeks ago, but I just had a chance to use it. The wine bottles are too big for me. Since I usually drink only 1 or 2 glasses of wine, I can not consume the whole bottle even if I'm not alone. It makes me sad if I have to pour it out after a few days since it becomes impossible to drink.

It's not a good solution to put the cork back to its place, since it is difficult to put it back once it is out. If you turn inside out, it may give the wine its smell of cork and besides, small pieces of cork may fall into the wine. I did these by now and each time the wine's taste was worsened and aromas were gone.

I bought this simple stopper from Sensus in Galata at 10 TL (if I remember it correctly). Once you put it at the top of the bottle, you turn the metal part downward and the rubber part inside the bottle gets thicker so that no air can come in or out.

I drank Turasan Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot Shiraz 2008 from a bottle which I closed with this stopper. I tasted it for three times, once for each evening after I opened it. Although it got a little lighter in the third evening, the strong blackberry and black pepper aromas were still there. I wrote my tasting notes about Turasan Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot Shiraz 2008 before (when I tasted it for the first time). I can say once more that it is a very delicious wine with its strong but not disturbing tannins and its moderate body.

Shiraz

Most of the wines that I mentioned here by now were made of a certain grape, namely Shiraz. This is not a coincidence. I chose this consciously, because I wanted to choose a grape for the period in which I would start raining my palate and I ended up with Shiraz. Now, I want to tell you a little more about Shiraz, which is a very popular grape in Turkey and which is used either in blends or by itself.

In the time when I was so illeterate that I could not understand anything from wine menus, my cousin told me choosing Shiraz would make it easier for me since it was very likely that I would like wines of Shiraz. I did not know why she said so, but I followed the word Shiraz in the menus and I can tell you that she was right.

The first thing I should tell you is that Syrah and Shiraz are the same grape. The same grape is called as Shiraz In Australia and called as Syrah in almost any other place in the world. It is also called mostly Shiraz in Turkey as far as I have observed.

Fortunately, Turkey is one of the many places where Shiraz is produced, but the best quality Shiraz are planted in France and Australia. The wines of Shiraz usually have a dark color and fruity aromas, and they have a good potential to age, but they can also be drunk rather young. I think, people who are not familiar with wines can like Shiraz due to those fruity aromas and also due the fact that its tannins are not as strong as they are in Bogazkere. As a hint for beginners, I can also tell that the wines made of Shiraz usually make a good pair with meals of red meat.

Kayra Terra Shiraz 2007

Terra Shiraz 2007

I continue with wines made of Shiraz. I think Terra Shiraz 2007 is the one I liked most among the wines of Shiraz that I have ever tasted. I'm not sure if it was due to the nice atmosphere or the nice conversation we were having, but I'm sure the wine itself has contributed to this. It is a wine of Kayra's brand Terra produced in Elazig.

I think I am close to understanding what is meant with saying that a wine is "round". Terra Shiraz 2007 was a round and bodied wine, based on my notes. It has fume-oak and fruit aromas on the nose. I looked around the web and noticed that nobody ever mentioned about fume or oak in this wine. I would appreciate if someone could provide their own comments about the aroma of this wine and let me know if they smelled fume or oak :) I would but this wine again without even thinking about it.

Pamukkale Anfora Shiraz 2007

Pamukkale Anfora Shiraz 2007

When I visited Metro recently, I bought Pamukkale Anfora - Shiraz at appr. $ 8 along with other wines costing around $ 25. I admit that I thought that there would be noticeable differences between the wines that costed $ 25 and this one. I was wrong! Either the price is a misleading factor, or I have to learn a lot more about wine tasting. Well, the latter is probably true.

I tasted and drank Pamukkale Anfora Shiraz (2007, Denizli - Guney) in a very quite atmosphere. I still have difficulties in concentrating in the wine in crowded places. Once I took my first sip, I new that it was a big mistake to have prejudice against cheaper wines. The wine clearly exceeded my expectations. According to the  tasting criteria that I just learned :) the color is dark red and the mody is medium. I smelled fruit and spices. I think the finish was a little short, but I should not comment about this because I don't have enough experience yet. It was a nice wine, I would definately buy it again.