Yakut 2007, Kavaklidere
4th February 2009
Noah, the tiller of the soil, was the first to plant a vineyard. He drank of the wine and became drunk, and he uncovered himself within the tent.
Genesis 9:20-21
So the first man to grow wine was also the first flasher. Best not to linger on this unhappy coincidence; of greater interest to me is where Noah is alleged to have carried out his planting, drinking, etc.: the southern Tigris-Euphrates valley, in what is now eastern Turkey.
The Bible may well have got it right. According to the experts, Turkey competes with Georgia as the most likely birthplace of wine. The country boasts over a thousand varieties of vine, and it was a vigorous winemaking nation from earliest antiquity until the 10th century AD, when Islam arrived. Thereafter, Turkey and wine had very little to do with one another. This grim hiatus lasted about a thousand years, though throughout that time Turkey continued to grow grapes. (It is still the world’s fourth-largest producer, with most of its crop destined for the fruit basket or for drying into raisins.)
Wine production resumed in the 1920s, in the new secular order brought in by Kemal Atatürk. The first wineries were owned by the state, to be joined later by a number of private producers, one being the firm of Kavaklidere. But with 99% of the Turkish population still Muslim, all this wine must be principally for export. So the vital question is, what do we, the intended market, think of Turkish wine?
Not bad at all, is my verdict. This week’s Yakut is a pleasant, medium-bodied quaffer, smooth and clean on the palate, with a bright, fruity nose. It is lighter than one might expect, but at 13°, by no means flimsy. Indeed, the best compliment one can pay it is to say that it is everything a table wine ought to be. On the strength of it I am keen to sample the firm’s more upmarket offerings. $12 in the US, £7 in the UK.
