Vinkara Wines of Turkey

I haven't had a Turkish wine since 2008, and I wasn't avoiding wines from the region, it's just that they never made it to my doorstep. Luckily, that turned around with a quartet of wines from Vinkara (the website seems to be down at the moment).

The modern Turkish wine industry is relatively young, though the country itself is the fourth largest producer of grapes in the world (most of those going to non-alcohol uses). Some estimate that there are over a thousand indigenous vinifera grape varieties in the country, and on this occasion I had the chance to try two grapes for the first time.

2012 Vinkara Narince
Black Sea (Tokat)
100% Narince
$15, 14% abv.

Light aroma of ripe peaches with low acidity and a mild body. Gentle finish.

2011 Vinkara Narince Reserve
Black Sea (Tokat)
100% Narince
$25, 13.5% abv.

Similar to the above, but with more floral notes, a bit more acidity, and a deeper body. Between the two I would definitely recommend the Reserve to go along with spicy grilled chicken.

2011 Vinkara Kalecik Karasi
Central Anatolia
100% Kalecik Karasi
$15, 13.5% abv.

Unfortunately this bottle was corked and was not able to be reviewed.

2010 Vinkara Kalecik Karasi Reserve
Central Anatolia
Kalecik Karasi
$25, 13.5% abv.

Certainly my favorite of the four, and reminiscent of a light table red from the South of France. Bright red cherry aromas and flavors with just a hint of tannins. Little elements of earth and oak as it opens up. Bring out the roast lamb and a tray of dolmas.

Note: These wines were provided as samples for review.

Thanksgiving Roundup

I had a lovely Thanksgiving weekend, and hope you did as well. I spent Thursday with my immediate family: Mom and Dad; my brother, sister-in-law, and niece (the latter two were recipients of butterbeer); and The Roommate. Let us not forget the canine contingent: Wolfie, Bailey, and Heidi. Dad smoked a small turkey breast, but the big draw was a medium-rare smoked ribeye roast with fresh horseradish sauce. Lots of classic side dishes like my Mom's wonderful sweet potato casserole. We all sluggishly moved from the dining room to the living room and slumped into a variety of couches and easy chairs. And that's what the holiday is all about.

Every year after Thanksgiving, I like to grab a cheap turkey and a few other odds and ends from the store. This began years ago when The Roommate lamented the lack of leftovers associated with attending a big family gathering, so I began doing a small Thanksgiving dinner on Friday or Saturday so that we'd have good stuff to eat for days afterward. And then I began doing little twists here and there. This year, I fabricated a turkey and threw the breast in the oven while saving the legs and wings for the smoker. Four hours with apple wood later, I had some damned fine bird.

Julia joined The Roommate and me Saturday for lunch, where I started out with melted brie. And since she hasn't stopped raving about it, I made Julia another batch of sweet potato-green apple soup (this time I used a whole bulb of roasted garlic, and it was wonderful). I decided to have a little fun with the sour cream garnish. The appetizers and soup were served with a basic sparkling wine (more in a future post!), and the crisp bubbles were a nice contrast against the rich cheese and soup.

I kept the main course pretty simple. Fresh cranberry sauce, steamed vegetables, and intensely flavored turkey. The smoked portion was marinated and basted with Wicker's while the breast was rubbed down with a tandoori spice blend and roasted in the oven. I liked the smoked version better. Served with amazing Pinot Noir, details later.

What of the starch-heavy sides? The gravy? I like those things, but on a second Thanksgiving I like to keep things a little lighter and fresher. I want to make the turkey taste great on its own, to the point that no other additions are necessary. Those smoked wings? Probably going to go in a big pot of collard greens this week.

After a few movies (and I fell asleep during one*), it was time for dinner, and I threw together a delicious little sandwich with the leftovers: smoked turkey, cranberry sauce, and brie grilled on good whole grain bread. The combination is wonderful, but I felt the need to add a little horseradish mustard to mine. And there's enough remnants in the fridge that I can throw together another one of these right now if I want. Yep, I think I want.

* * *

It's been rainy and grey the past couple of days, but inside it's been warm and glowing with the fellowship of family and friends. Cheers to everyone this holiday season, and I hope you get to eat and drink well in December.


*I missed about 45 minutes of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2. I will catch up soon.

The Joys of Turkey Without a Holiday, Plus Sauvignon Gris

In years past I've cooked a turkey on the weekend after Thanksgiving, for the purpose of having some leftovers. This year, I decided to roast the bird almost two weeks ahead of time. Why? I was impatient and wanted some dark meat, and The Roommate would enjoy the white meat for her lunches.

I'm of the opinion that everyone should roast a turkey at some point during the holidays that's not for an actual holiday feast. Declare a random Saturday in December "Eating Day" and invite some friends over to enjoy some good food and wine without the complications of Thanksgiving or Christmas. Inviting someone over to your house for Christmas dinner is a big commitment, and involves that person missing time with his or her family. But if you just say, "We're gonna eat some turkey on Saturday", then things flow more smoothly.

I roasted the bird in my usual fashion (rubbed with olive oil, stuffed with slices of orange and apple) and made simple side dishes of homemade cranberry sauce, peas and corn, and a little salad. For the big starchy casseroles, I generally wait for the holidays. As delicious as they are, there's no way the two of us can finish one at home. I had the pleasure of serving this with a curious little wine...

2009 Cousiño-Macul Sauvignon Gris
Maipo Valley, Chile
$11, 13.5% abv.

Big and fruity, with a round, musky profile. Dominant flavors of apricot and peach, with low acidity. I was really excited to try this grape for the first time, and it was fascinating. Very unique, yet not completely alien. Don't let the name fool you: this is nothing like a Sauvignon Blanc or a Pinot Gris.

So what is Sauvignon Gris? It's a mutation from Sauvignon Blanc. Since it's darker than a blanc but lighter than a noir, what's the color in between? Gris, or grey. But the grape is actually pink. For that matter, white wine grapes are green or yellow, and red wine grapes range from blue to purple to nearly black. Meanwhile, pink wines come from red grapes, which, as we've said, may be as dark as black. With France it gets so fun. Cheval Blanc is a red wine, Cordon Rouge is a white sparkling wine... Pardon my shouting, but I ABSOLUTELY LOVE EXPLAINING THIS TO NEW WINE DRINKERS. It's a total "Who's on First?" routine.

2006 Beringer Sauvignon Blanc

Dante Gabriel Rossetti was a Victorian artist* and poet who was fascinated by his pet wombats. While history is yet to determine my fame in comparison to Rossetti, I have no qualms with voicing my own odd obsessions, such as golden beets.

On a recent Sunday dinner I decided it was time to pair the golden beet with pasta. But in what form? I roasted the half dozen small beets, peeled them, and diced them. I cooked down a 28 oz. can of Muir Glen tomatoes, added the beets, and shortly before serving, I tossed in a pound of dandelion greens to wilt. Al dente orecchiette were added, a half cup of the pasta water, and it was time for serving. A little Parmigiano Reggiano and a dash of sea salt for flavor. I had a couple of turkey thighs braising, providing a small and savory meat aside the larger vegetarian dish.

It's an odd sort of pasta dish, but one that won me a lot of licked-clean plates around the table. The dandelion greens were a little difficult to pick out of the dish, but I'd tried some raw and cooked, and can now cross them off my list of Vegetables To Try. It felt weird paying for something that grows wild in my backyard, but then again I've got two dogs with enthusiastic bladders and various strays roam through the yard, so I'll shell out the $2 for clean organic dandelion greens.

For the wine it was time for the screwcap white hanging out in the fridge door: the 2006 Beringer Sauvignon Blanc. $15, 13.9% abv. Lemony yet smooth, light and refreshing with a few grassy elements. This is a pretty decent baseline Sauvignon Blanc if you want an introduction. It's no Sancerre or Bordeaux Blanc, and frankly when I want this grape I crave the citrus explosions from New Zealand. But California Sauvignon Blanc has its place, and this wine performed well with this simple winter dinner.

*I saw his Beata Beatrix at the Art Institute of Chicago back in '95. Still one of the most beautiful paintings I've ever seen with my own eyes.

Roasted Turkey Breast

For a recent Sunday evening dinner I picked up a boneless turkey breast. The ones in that link are both sides of the breast, but mine was a half portion, giving it the exact size, shape, and weight of a human forearm sans the radius and ulna. Fortunately I'm not squeamish in the slightest and was happy to truss this and marinate it before roasting. I rubbed it with barbecue sauce and pepper before roasting, and served it in ¼" slices with steamed broccolini and scoops of Juan Canary melon, which tastes like banana and pineapple and cantaloupe all mixed together.

For the wine, I decided on the 2006 Henry's Drive Pillar Box White from Padthaway, South Australia. $10, 12% abv. 66% Chardonnay, 20% Sauvignon Blanc, 14% Verdelho. Rich fruit flavors of apricot, orange peel, and yellow raisin. An excellent minimalist label based off old postal boxes, though I would have matched the Bauhaus aesthetic with a proper sanserif font like Helvetica, Avant Garde, or Century Gothic.

2006 Red Rock Winery Reserve Merlot

A baked potato, a sliced tomato, and a turkey leg braised with blueberries. What do these ingredients have in common? All are native to the Americas prior to European colonization. English settlers were responsible for the cheddar cheese and butter on the potato, and continental European settlement of California brought the Merlot grape to the West Coast. Dutch and German immigrants served as the background of the domestic beer used as a braising liquid.

If I ever have kids they're going to get tired of these "history on a plate" lessons.

The wine selected for this educational meal was the 2006 Red Rock Winery Reserve Merlot. $10, 13.9% abv. 95% Merlot, 2.5% Cabernet Sauvignon, 2% Petit Syrah, .5% Syrah, sourced from various vineyards within California. Big, fruity California Merlot here with a dominant profile of cherry cola. Pretty heavy tannins on the finish. I picked it up primarily because of the charming cairn on the label. For millennia humans have used simple piles of stones to mark a path, note an important place, or commemorate the dead. I've relied on cairns during backpacking trips, and they can be found all over the world. A highly technological network of commerce and transportation brought this wine to my local shop, yet the ultimate low-tech sign caught my attention.

2003 Kavaklidere Öküzgözü d'Elaziğ

Since this has turned into the "Week of the Weird" here at BWR, I figure I might as well wrap things up with a strange wine that was actually quite nice. The name you see on the title of this post is not a typo, it's Turkish: land of the superfluous umlauts.

While looking around the Whole Foods in the University Heights neighborhood of Cleveland, I found the 2003 Kavaklidere Öküzgözü d'Elaziğ. $15. This comes from the Elaziğ province of eastern Turkey on the Anatolian plateau. Öküzgözü is the name of the grape and means "ox eye" in Turkish. Oddly Turkey is the fourth largest producer of grapes in the world but only a tiny percentage is converted into wine. I've never had a wine from a nation where the per capita consumption is less than one bottle a year. (The average American drinks ten bottles a year, the average French or Italian person drinks a little over sixty bottles a year.)

Bright red cherry aromas, crisp, slightly tart flavor with a mild finish. Much lighter than expected, kind of like a mellow Merlot. Totally different from what I expected--I was thinking something aggresive like a Spanish red to stand up to the robust cuisine of the area.

Turkey Sandwich & Yuengling

Back in 1995, I had a sandwich in Pittsburgh. That doesn't sound too exciting, but I've been thinking about that sandwich for a dozen years and just got around to recreating it. But first, let's talk about Pennsylvania beer. Namely Yuengling, the oldest brewery in America. It was recently introduced to the Memphis market through Budweiser (thanks to Bill H. for the info!). It's having some difficulty gaining new fans in the region because many think that it's Chinese, but local residents of Pennsylvanian heritage (or Steelers fans) have been known to rent vans, drive up to the Quaker State, and drive back with dozens of cases of this brew.

It's not the best beer in the world, but for the price it's amazing. At the store I grabbed a sixer of the Black & Tan, traditionally a layered beverage of Guinness Stout and Harp Lager (or Bass Ale). Here it's a mix of a super dark Porter with a fairly dark Lager. You get the coppery molasses aromas and deep flavor with a lighter, fizzier mouth feel and touches of black coffee on the finish. Frankly my favorite beers are those that don't permit the passage of light through a glass.

Oh, I was talking about a sandwich...

I was there for a conference and at the age of 19 there wasn't a lot that I could do in my free time. I spent two afternoons in the Strip District, which is a collection of small shops and ethnic restaurants. It's one of those awesome streets where you sample dozens of different cuisines in a small area. I love places like that where you can have a two hour long lunch spread out over six different cafes, delis, and bakeries. Though if you brag about having fun in the Strip District, folks look at you like you've spent a lot of time in our own "Mt. Moriah Performing Arts District" before all the strip joints got closed for drugs and prostitution.

Prestogeorge was a little deli located on the Strip, and I don't know if it's still in operation. Looks like they mostly do coffee nowadays. When I was there, it was the first time I'd encountered a deli where you had to fight and argue to get your order. After standing in line politely for 15 minutes like a good Southern boy and getting ignored by a bunch of heathen Yankees, I finally picked up on the game and pushed an old woman out of the way to get to the counter. (To be fair, she'd smacked me with her umbrella to get ahead of me.)

After the most aggressive customer service experience of my life, I finally got my sandwich: a strange yet delicious combination of turkey, alfalfa sprouts, pesto, and gorgonzola.

The Sunday after Thanksgiving I had some friends stopping by for lunch, and I decided that a good way to use up leftovers would be to make this phantom sandwich that had been haunting my palate for over a decade. It wasn't exactly as remembered, but close enough. I found that a layer of cranberry sauce added a nice touch, and here's the construction method I employed:

• slice of whole grain bread
  
• cranberry sauce
  
• shredded turkey
  
• alfalfa sprouts
  
• crumbled gorgonzola
  
• pesto
  
• slice of whole grain bread

Fun with Leftovers, plus Wine

A friend of mine had jokingly said that after Thanksgiving I would make a gourmet dish out of leftover turkey, pumpkin, and potato peels. I took that as a challenge.

I formed the cold turkey and some leftover homemade cranberry sauce in alternating layers into a ring mold and set it atop a pool of roast pumpkin puree (enhanced with chicken stock and various spices). I flash fried a few long strips of potato peel for some quick pommes frites, and the little black dots are a reduction of balsamic vinegar with honey and apple cider. Green onions provided a fun garnish.

I had two different wines with Thanksgiving dinner and its various leftover incarnations. First off was a white from a great producer of Petite Sirah. The pleasantly unoaked 2005 Concannon Chardonnay from the Central Coast of California has a sweet apple aroma with a touch of honeysuckle. It has a tart beginning with a short finish. Which makes it a really nice Thanksgiving wine.

For a red, I selected the 2005 Hedges CMS Red from Washington State. It's a blend of 49% Cabernet Sauvignon, 47% Merlot, and 4% Syrah. Raisin and eucalyptus nose. The flavor profile is a little bitter with elements of green bell pepper and grass.

Extra Thanksgiving

For several years now, I've picked up a turkey for the purposes of cooking it on the Friday after Thanksgiving. While others are out fighting over Cabbage Patch Dolls at the stores, I'm hanging around the house, listening to classic jazz and cooking a 12-15 lb bird. Not only do I get the joy of leftovers (something you miss out on with big family gatherings), but I can also experiment and try new things.

This year I didn't do anything fancy, just put two lemons and a tangerine inside the cavity of the turkey, and poured apple cider over the whole mess every once in a while. It turned out juicy and flavorful, and several days later I'm still enjoying the leftovers.

The Girlfriend is on a big no-carbs kick, so I had to come up with a Thanksgiving side dish that didn't involve starch or bread. Luckily, while at Schnuck's in Cordova I spied a bunch of cardoons. I was surprised and excited: I'd eaten them in Italy but had never seen the stalks in the U.S. For the uninitiated, they look like big, two foot long celery but taste like artichokes. I trimmed them and sliced them into four inch segments, then boiled them in salted water with lemon for 45 minutes. That's the standard way to prepare them before further cooking. Afterwards, traditional preparations include baking them with a white sauce and cheese or battering and deep frying slices.

In the spirit of healthy eating, I elected to wilt a bunch of rapini and a red bell pepper, and then included the cardoons towards the end. If I had prepared hot olive oil and butter with anchovies to pour over all of it, then I would have had a semi-authentic bagna càuda. I also made some homemade cranberry sauce (using 2/3 cup of organic Florida cane sugar rather than the typical full cup of sugar). Why would you ever use the canned stuff when the real thing is so easy and delicious?