Turkish Wine Selection - A Thracian Journey
- Andrea Lemieux
- Jul 1
- 3 min read
Can’t make it to Turkey this year? Explore the Trakya Bağ Rotası from the comfort of your home with wines from our partner wineries: Arda, Odrysia, and Gurbuz!
Perhaps no other of Turkey’s wine routes truly captures the spirit of the Turkish wine industry the way the Trakya Bağ Rotası (Thracian Wine Route) does. Its immense size, varied meso and micro-climates, and wide range of grapes and styles showcase the country’s ability to produce elegant terroir wines while maintaining an unlimited thirst for innovation and experimentation.
The first week of July marks Sparkling Wine Week! Celebrate what is obviously the best week of the year and explore the Trakya Bağ Rotası at the same time with Fine Turkish Wine’s first Turkish sparkling wine: Nareen.
This wine is particularly special as it is dedicated to Dr. Michel Salgues, the winery's founding Enologist who was a beloved mentor to owner Zeynep Arca Şallıel. Dr. Salgues sadly passed in 2017, and, with the blessing of his family, this wine bears his name to honor his great legacy.
Made with 100% Narince, Nareen is a traditional method sparkling wine (with the second fermentation in the bottle) that rested on its lees for 48 months before being disgorged. Created in small amounts, the bottles are hand-riddled on traditional wooden pupitres, or wooden A-frame.
Tasting Notes: A visual sign of finesse and quality with a small and steady bubble stream. Lively aromas of golden apple and lemon juice awaken the senses. An elegant, rich texture with bitter lemon peel to cleanse as wet, sandy minerality and fresh pastry adds extra complexity. Crisp acidity adds lift but never overwhelms the gentle thyme and bay leaf notes, ending with a lingering herbaceous and bready finish. Delicate and complex, with balanced refinement and deep character.
One of the wineries that spearheaded Turkey’s quality wine movement in the 1990s sits in lower Thrace and has since made a name for itself with its Sauvignon Blanc (both in Turkey, and now in Houston!). That winery’s success helped spread the grape across the country, but it remains hugely popular in Thrace.
Arda has been one of the Thracian wineries to take up the Sauvignon Blanc gauntlet. After the great success of its Kuşlu Sauvignon Blanc, Arda released its Kuşlu Fumé Blanc. Like the original, this wine is 100% Sauvignon Blanc and fermented in stainless steel tanks. But, after fermentation, it aged for six months in multi-use French oak barrels.
Aromatic and expressive, unfolding layers of dried stone fruit and white blossoms, with herbal notes bringing a lifted, savory nuance. Dried citrus peel and apricot tones mingle, while saline minerality livens. Oak presence softens and rounds, without overpowering the aromatic profile. Elegant, refined, and truly effortless.
When Turkey’s modern wine industry got started in the 1930s, many of the hopeful new producers were located in Thrace. Having lost many of the old vineyards to phylloxera and neglect, foreign grapes were imported along with the safe American rootstock. This move created a lasting legacy of foreign grapes around Turkey, and particularly in Thrace.
Akın Gürbüz’s Mood perfectly showcases this legacy. The wine blends three international grapes, including Cinsault (40%), one of the very first foreign grapes brought to Turkey in the 1930s, Cabernet Sauvignon (40%), and Shiraz (10%). The wine aged for 14 months in multi-use oak barrels.
This beautifully easy drinking medium bodied wine has a delightful deep red color that invites you to fruit forward pleasing notes of red currant and strawberry, all rounded by warm oak flavors, medium tannins, and lovely acidity. This wonderfully balanced wine can be paired with many different foods.
You can enjoy and purchase each of these wines at the Fine Turkish Wine Bottle Shop + Tasting Room, located in Houston's Montrose District at 1909 Dunlavy Street.
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, and she is the founder of The Quirky Cork blog which is dedicated largely to Turkish wine.
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