January 2025
Commit this year to a quality over quantity lifestyle, starting with your wine! Happily, quality does not always have to break the bank. Our January wine trio features a selection of some of our excellent wines from a range of price points.
We begin with the Odrysia Gris from Odrysia’s Kırklareli estate in upper Thrace. Your mind might go instantly to Pinot Gris when you see the wine’s name… but no! While there is a small addition of Pinot Gris, this wine is built on a foundation of Sauvignon Gris. A pink-berried mutation of Sauvignon Blanc, Sauvignon Gris has traveled from France to several countries around the world. But in Turkey only Odrysia works with it. Rich and voluptuous with tropical and exotic flavors, this is a fabulous wine to sip on its own, but also one that pairs beautifully with a wide range of foods.
Tasting Notes. Light and airy with lovely aromas of lemongrass, golden apples, honeysuckle and lemon juice along with a mild and pleasant herbaceous character backed by delightfully crisp acidity. This warm, soft, and fresh wine is like sunshine in a glass! Perfect for easy drinking on a hot day, lovely with salads and light dishes, but suitable for a wide range of foods.
Whether you want to relive the warm months or you’re just looking for a good bottle of wine - and one at a more than reasonable price! - the next wine in our January line up is for you: Arda Gala Rosé. A 50/50 blend of Papazkarası and Gamay, Arda’s Gala Rosé is full of flavor and texture. Rosé wines are not just for summer, their flexibility and food friendliness make them great to drink all year ‘round. As a dark rosé, this wine pairs well with everything from Korean bibimbap to char grilled meats and veggies, perfect for Houston's amazing food scene!
Tasting Notes. Youthful and vibrant with expressive tart cherry, lemony acidity, melon, white peach, strawberries, and a slight spice note of white pepper, all rounded with sweet and floral aromas of fresh summer fruits and lavender along with undertones of fresh greens and balancing minerality. Slight tannin adding structure for an easy drinking yet more complex and versatile Rose.
Kalecik Karası is one of Turkey’s premier grapes, and so we cap off the first wine trio of 2025 with the Gurbuz Kalecik Karası. Winemaker Akın Gürbüz sources his grapes from their original terroir in Central Anatolia’s Kalecik and ages the wine for 14 months in oak barrels. The resulting rich wine wraps around you like a hug; perfect for savoring during the long, cold winter nights!
Tasting Notes. Soft florals intertwined with cherry, plum, spicey oak and flavors of herbed meat and earthy mushroom. This native Turkish variety makes a medium bodied, versatile wine - like a more structured pinot noir - that should pair well with food and age for complexity to match heavier meaty dishes and stews.
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.
Comments