Turkish Wine Selection: Meet Barburi

This year, we’re shaking things up a little! Instead of having a featured wine trio every month, we’re extending our holiday discount and diving deeper into a new grape every month. For every purchase of six bottles or more, enjoy a 10% discount to help you meet the 12-month Turkish Wine Challenge!

In our month-by-month tasting plan, February is dedicated to one of Turkey’s most food-friendly grapes: Barburi.

Barburi

Even if you’re familiar with Turkish wine, you may not yet have crossed paths with Barburi (bar-boo-ri). Native to the Antakya region along Turkey’s southern Mediterranean coast, this rare grape remains one of Hatay’s best-kept secrets. Its recent resurgence is due entirely to the Hatay-based winery Antioche Bağları.

For generations, locals have used this grape to make their own wine at home and pekmez (grape molasses), relying on grapes foraged from wild vines growing deep in the region’s forests. These old vines, often climbing high into the trees, were never systematically cultivated. Over time, neglect and encroachment caused even these wild vines to disappear, making Barburi increasingly rare.

Antioche Bağları founder Abud Abdo grew up among these traditions. His grandparents were among those who foraged Barburi to make wine at home, and as a child, he often helped both in the forest and with the winemaking. After founding his winery, Abdo made it his mission to find wild Barburi vines and cultivate them as an homage to his family’s past and to the region’s long winemaking history. Today, Antioche Bağları is the only winery in Turkey cultivating the grape.

Barburi Wines and Food Pairing

Barburi produces deep blue-black fruit in relatively tight, elongated clusters, framed by distinctive frilly, five-lobed leaves. In the glass, the wines are medium-bodied yet generous, offering vivid notes of blackberry, mulberry, black cherry, black pepper, and violet.

Hatay is celebrated not only for its history but also for its extraordinary cuisine, widely regarded as among the best in Turkey. Shaped by Levantine neighbors such as Lebanon and Syria, and by centuries of Mediterranean trade, the region’s food culture is layered and distinctive. Signature dishes include künefe, cevizli biberli, pomegranate vinegar, and richly spiced meat dishes like tepsi kebabı and kağıt kebabı.

Here, more than anywhere else in Turkey, food and wine have found a happy meeting place, especially with Barburi. While we can’t offer you any of Hatay’s amazing food, you can enjoy and purchase each of these wines and many more at the Fine Turkish Wine Bottle Shop + Tasting Room, located in Houston's Montrose District at 1909 Dunlavy Street. 

Wines to Try

While the 10% discount applies to all the wines in our shop, why not drink along with the 12-month Turkish Wine Challenge and try one or two of the Barburi wines we have?

Antioche Barburi

This deep but surprisingly medium-bodied wine displays uniquely bright and jammy strawberry flavors that leap from the glass and burst off the palate along with notes of red raspberry and black cherry, all rounded with hints of black pepper, fresh herbs and warm vanilla. Pairs nicely with most foods, but particularly with salty, nutty and rich dishes.

Antioche Özel Seri

Aromas of tart cherry, red raspberry and plum with earthy undertones of wilted flowers and fresh cedar. A beautifully structured and rounded juicy blend, this wine is ready to drink now or could be aged to develop further complexity and robust tertiary flavors.

---

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 blog which is dedicated largely to Turkish wine.