Kuzubağ Çal Karası 2024
£14.95
The wine
Pale red in colour, with aromas of fresh cherry, raspberry, red forest fruits and delicate spice. A medium-bodied wine with a lively aromatic structure, fresh and fruity, developing a velvety and spicy character with age.
çal Karası takes its name from the çal district of Denizli, where the estate's vineyards lie, and it is grown essentially nowhere else on earth. It gives naturally pale colour and high acidity with fine tannin, which places it closer to Pinot Noir or Gamay in style than to anything Mediterranean, and it is best served with a slight chill.
The producer
Kuzubağ
View all Kuzubağ winesKuzubağ was founded in 2007 by Salih Kuzu and his daughter Aslı Kuzu, who planted vineyards in their hometown of çal in Denizli province, inland from the Aegean coast of Turkey.
They then waited. The vineyards were given thirteen years to mature before a winery was built, a 3,000 square metre building discreetly embedded into the landscape at the heart of the estate, and the first vintage was released only in 2021. That patience is unusual anywhere and almost unheard of in a young wine industry.
Turkey has the fourth largest area of vineyard in the world and produces very little wine from it: the overwhelming majority of its grapes are eaten fresh or dried into sultanas. It also holds an extraordinary genetic inheritance, with something between 800 and 1,200 indigenous varieties, since Anatolia is one of the places where the grapevine was first domesticated some 6,000 years ago. Kuzubağ work çal Karası, Kalecik Karası, öküzgözü and Narince alongside French varieties.
