Seneler Öküzgözü 2008

Silver Medal in Concours Mondial de Bruxelles 2010

What can I say about this wine?... I love it, it has got everything! Öküzgözü is certainly my favorite Turkish red grape variety. It gives incredibly fruity wines with fine tannins and a beautiful body. When, in addition, the grapes come from this small parcel of Elazig located on a beautiful “terroir”, I have all that I could wish for.

The Seneler Öküzgözü 2008 is an exclusive “cuvée”. The grapes come from a single vineyard in Elazığ. In fact, two small parcels next to each other rather different and very complementary.

It was fermented in tank and aged in French oak barrels for 12 months with a low percentage of new oak to preserve all the grape variety typicality.

Nice deep red hue, almost black.

The nose, of great aromatic richness, is expressed by typical black fruits of Öküzgözü: black cherry, plum and raisin. There are also more developed notes of cinnamon, coffee and black olive.

The palate is rich and concentrated with blackberry and cherry flavors.

A few touches of spicy and discrete oak (coffee, vanilla) bring complexity and smoothness to this wine with plenty of expression.

This wine is an excellent accompaniment for red meat, a beef tartar, a truffle cake…

Tasting with Stéphane Toutoundji

Today with Stéphane Toutoundji (our French consultant from Bordeaux), Hasan Turasan and Mustafa Seçen, we tasted all the 2009 wines that are still ageing in the winery.

This work requires great attention and concentration, because there are many samples to taste and they are analyzed by our noses and our mouths ...

We did the final blend of Seneler Chardonnay 2009. It has the concentration of 2007 but much more finesse and elegance. I love this wine of great complexity that combines typical notes of Chardonnay (quince, butter) with notes of barrel ageing (toasted, roasted, vanilla) and some flavors from our “terroir” in Cappadocia. In fact the last three vintages, each year we find a very fine aroma of fresh pine tree ... I associate it with the “terroir”, maybe the next vintages will confirm it ...

The conclusion of this tasting is positive. Stéphane was very satisfied with everything he has tasted. The 2009 has a lot of fruit flavors, soft tannins, a nice body and this difficult vintage has a nice freshness through acidity. A few months ageing more and we will prepare 2009 blends.

Some samples before tasting :

Stéphane Toutoundji, our French consultant from Bordeaux :

Concours mondial de Bruxelles

First of all I would like to apologize for such a long silence on the blog but spring is a busy time both at the winery and vineyard.

The Concours Mondial de Bruxelles is one of the largest international competitions for wines and spirits. It is almost 7,000 different samples sent from all around the world.

The jury of the Concours Mondial de Bruxelles is composed entirely of wine professionals, known to be international experts. There are nearly 40 nationalities represented in the jury.

Only wines and spirits that obtained the highest ranking are eligible for prestigious medals.

Thanks to the seriousness of the organization, a strict selection of jury members and its international reputation, the Concours mondial de Bruxelles has in some ways become the "World Championship" of wine.

That is why we are proud to have achieved medals in the last two years. Indeed:

• The Seneler Öküzgözü 2007 and 2008 won silver medals
• The Seneler Narince 2007 and 2008 were also silver
• The Seneler Cabernet-Sauvignon/Merlot/Syrah 2008 was gold
• The Turasan rose 2009 was gold

As far as I know, it is the first time that a Turkish Rose wine wins a medal in an international wine competition. And we started with gold, what is not so bad, isn’t it?...

Most of these wines are already available on the market, the others soon.

Feel free to contact us if you want to taste them.

Turasan wines rewarded

We have the pleasure to share with you some good news.

The projects that we have undertaken to improve the quality of our wines since 2006 with our French oenologist consultants have begun to pay off.

In 2009, in Turkey, we were the only winery to be awarded at the Concours Mondial de Bruxelles, one of the most famous international wine competitions. We had sent 2007 vintage wines, which won three silver medals.

This year we also participated and our 2008 vintage wines have again been rewarded by winning two silver and two gold medals.

  

 

We are very proud to share our success with you.

Best regards,

Hasan Turasan

Turasan wines presentation to the British journalists

Today, the seven British journalists came to visit our cellar in Cappadocia and taste our wines. I give you their names, so that you can visit their blogs or websites:

• Tim Atkin : http://timatkin.com/  
• Stephen Brook : http://www.stephenbrook.com/  
• Oz Clarke : http://www.ozclarke.com/   
• David Furer
• Caroline Gilby : http://www.cix.co.uk/~cgilby/  
• Susan Hulme : http://www.wineeducators.com/susan_hulme.html  
• Charles Metcalfe : http://www.wineeducators.com/charles_metcalfe.html

We didn't have much time because they had a busy program but we made all the same a nice tasting :

• small vertical of Emir : 2007, 2008 and 2009 (still in tank)
• Seneler Chardonnay 2008
• Seneler Narince 2007 and 2008
• Turasan Rosé 2009
• Kalecik Karası 2001
• Seneler Öküzgözü 2007, 2008 and 2009 (2008 and 2009 are still in the cellar)
• and to finish, a new blend for a new red Seneler 2008 which will be released in a few months. At this time it's my favorite Turkish wine, it has everything but it still need some time in cellar...

Then, we had a quick lunch in a restaurant, where we kept on tasting wine, with our Kalecik Karası 2009 et our Misket Dömisek 2009.

Don't worry, when I say "taste", it actually means taste and not drink, of course we spit the wine, most of the time... ! 

Turkish Premium wines

On Monday, I was in Istanbul with Hasan Turasan and other representatives of fifteen Turkish wineries.

Seven famous journalists came from UK to taste Turkish wines. It is a very important event. Thanks to them we have the opporunity to let know Turkish wines abroad and show to the world the incredible progress that wineries have made in recent years.

This day was also for us, wine producers, the opportunity to taste wines produced by the other Turkish wineries. It is a very interesting and rewarding exercise. I was surprised by a lot of wines. Most of the wines are complex and rich but really overoaked! A good wine is not necessarily a wooded wine and the best wines in the world allow the expression of the grape varieties and the terroir(s). Unfortunately many Turkish wines are masked by the wood they are made up... Hopefully this trend will decrease with the time...