Turkish Wine Selection: Gök

In our month-by-month tasting plan, August is dedicated to one of Turkey’s rarer white grapes: Gök

Meet Gök

From the Mersin district in Turkey’s Mediterranean region comes the grape, Gök or Göküzüm. It’s a larger grape that develops a good amount of sugar, making it great for eating. For decades, people in Mersin have tended their Gök vines, in some cases for making wine at home, but mostly selling them at market for table grapes or using them to make raisins or molasses.

Despite it having one of the shortest names of all Turkish grapes, beat out only by grapes such as Ak (Üzüm) and İt (Üzüm), it can be surprisingly tricky to say. In Turkish, the word gök means sky. Why is it the Sky Grape? Apparently, the local tradition for making grapes is not to lay them out under the sun, but to hang whole bunches of the grapes in the rafters of homes.

Taurus Mountains above Mersin

In the Vineyard

Mersin is far more well-known for its beaches and Mediterranean coastline than it is for grapes and wine. But just a little higher up from those sun soaked beach goers, Gök has quietly made its place, thriving in the sky.

Grown high in the Taurus Mountains at 3,500 feet or more, the elevation helps mitigate the heat of the Mediterranean region. In mountain villages like Çömelek, Gök vines are dry-farmed and hand-worked. Topsoils on the Taurus Mountains are thin and sandy and overlay ancient shelly limestone bedrock. Grapevines dig deep into the rock to access water reserves and minerals. These old bush vines, 60 to 70-years-old and older, have been looked after by families for generations.

Generally, these vines are moderately vigorous and highly productive, producing significant numbers of grape bunches. The berries themselves develop a golden-green color as they ripen and have thin skins. The loose bunches and continual airflow keep humidity from forming, protecting grapes from hazards like downy mildew, powdery mildew, and grey mold.

Shelly limestone of the Taurus Mountains

In the Winery

Very few wineries are working with Gök, four at most, and only two of those are based in the Mediterranean. They’re all approaching the grape from a slightly different angle, giving us a variety of expressions. So, while we’re still learning about Gök, these wineries have so far shown us that:

• It works well in blends.

• Cold soaking maceration doesn’t add color but does add texture and body to the wines.

• The grape is unafraid of barrel-aging.

• Extended maceration/amber style wines work very well with Gök.

Wine to Try

José Hernández, one of Heraki's winemakers, demonstrates how they mounted barrels on wheels to make lees stirring easier.

At the moment, we have only one Gök wine, but it’s a good one: Heraki Gök.

As with all of their wines, Heraki does not own the vineyards, but buys from independent growers. The particular vineyard from which they source these grapes clings to the slopes of the Taurus Mountains 3,675 feet above Turkey’s Mediterranean coast, 28 miles from the sea. With roots dug deep into the clay and limestone soils, these goblet vines, averaging 60 years of age, are own-rooted and dry-farmed.

Once the grapes reach Heraki’s winery, they undergo a cold soak maceration before fermenting in stainless steel tanks. The wine spends about four months on its fine lees in large, third use, French oak barrels before being bottled with limited filtration.

A fresh, dry wine with a savory character, it offers up notes of yellow pears framed by briny and citrus notes with a kiss of white tea and aromatic herbs. Firm acidity accompanies a textured palate reminiscent of biting into a crisp, golden apple.

As always, you can enjoy and purchase this wine and many more at the Fine Turkish Wine Bottle Shop + Tasting Room, located in Houston's Montrose District at 1909 Dunlavy Street.

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Andrea Lemieux is an international wine expert with particular expertise in Turkish Wine. She is the author of The Essential Guide to Turkish Wine, the world's only comprehensive English language book on Turkish wine. She is also the author of The Quick and Dirty Guide to Greek Wine and the founder of The Quirky Cork website which is dedicated largely to Turkish wine.