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Turkey’s grapes: A paradise lost

Turkish wine has a wealth of untapped potential, but it is increasingly under threat from climate change, agricultural practices and the government.

Text by KATIE NADWORNY

Photos by BRADLEY SECKER

Seyit Karagözoğlu wasn’t there when inspectors came to visit his wine business, Paşaeli, in 2021.

Besides running the business, Karagözoğlu spends his time driving through Anatolia, trying to preserve a part of Turkey’s endangered heritage, uncovering the winemaking grapes that time forgot. He was on the road when he received a call from his brother, alerting him something was wrong — this was no usual audit.

The inspectors combed through Paşaeli’s facilities for 13 hours until they found a minor infraction, an excuse, and the brothers were entangled in a two-year court fight. Though they weren’t convicted, they were eventually fined $50,000.

Their crime? Making wine in Turkey at a time when it’s never been more difficult — or more necessary.

Turkish wine is ripe with contradictions: The grapevine was most likely first domesticated in southeastern Anatolia, and the country is currently the 6th largest grape producer in the world, with about 1,400 indigenous grapes. But the harvest is a wealth of untapped potential, as only 3 percent of harvest is used for winemaking, with most of the grapes going toward raisins and grape molasses.

Meanwhile, recent laws from the country’s increasingly conservative government are making it harder for independent wine producers to remain in business. And this year, after the hottest summer in memory, the harvest came early.

Despite these challenges, however, there’s a persistent and growing movement among winemakers like Karagözoğlu, looking to revive the heritage grapes of Turkey.

Historically, much of the country’s wine heritage was lost with the forced migration and population exchanges of Anatolia’s Christian minorities in the early 20th century. When the Ottoman Empire’s Armenian and Greek populations, who traditionally produced wine, were forced out in the aftermath of World War I, production decreased significantly — and generational knowledge was lost with them. And as farmers raze their fields for new, more profitable crops, these heritage grape varieties and indigenous vines continue to be lost to time.

This is a trend that Umay Çeviker is working to reverse. An architect with a passion for Turkey’s wine grapes, he’s the co-founder of Yaban Kolektif — a group focused on promoting and preserving Turkey’s viticulture by partnering with small local vineyards to produce wine.

“We owe it to the Greeks, to the Armenians” to revive these historical wine methods, Çeviker said. “We are not only losing varieties, old vines, we are also losing knowledge about adaptation to changes in climate patterns.”

Another one of the winemakers working diligently to uncover these historic vines is Udo Hirsch, a gentle 81-year-old German transplant in Cappadocia. Hirsch has a steely determination when it comes to nurturing local grape varieties in the land’s volcanic tuff and making wine in ancient amphorae.

Under the shadow of a dormant volcano, he strolls through fields of soft crumbly soil to pick clusters of grapes: He plucks Keten Gömlek, a sweet grape with a bite of bitterness; he picks Bulut, grapes named after the Turkish word for cloud; and he picks Taş Üzüm, grapes that grow together so tightly they resemble a clenched fist. He then uses them to make local wine.

“This place,” Hirsch said, “is a paradise of grapes.” But that paradise is under threat — from climate change, agricultural practices and the government.

^{By nurturing local grape varieties that have been neglected, it’s possible to find ones that ripen later, which, in turn, can help balance the early harvest.}

Early and intense heat throughout the summer this year affected the growing season and now threatens to impact the wine’s flavor. In one of Paşaeli’s vineyards in Gedik Köyü, for example, the grapes ripened by late August instead of late September like usual.

Hirsch also struggled with the early grape harvest this year. His company Gelveri is a small boutique winery that only produces about 5,000 bottles a year — all hand-labeled by Hirsch and his small team of employees. By the second week of September, the grape harvest couldn’t be postponed any longer. And when their pickers fell ill, Hirsch and his wife had to pick the grapes themselves. “If we wait too long, the grapes will be too sweet,” he said.

Besides these changing conditions, there are standard agricultural practices to work around too.

Early on in his winemaking journey, Karagözoğlu realized that few were cultivating Turkey’s heritage grapes, and thus set out by car, along with his Italian consultant Andrea Paoletti, to visit villages and ask farmers if they could look at their grapes. Through this process, he was able to buy and cultivate thousands of kilos of grapes, including underutilized varieties like Karasakız and Çakal — but it wasn’t all that straightforward.

After finding one grape variety, the Koloroko, in the field of a local farmer, Karagözoğlu bought some to try and vinify it. But when he returned, the farmer had razed his field that winter to clear the land for a different crop. Eventually, he was able to buy enough of these grapes from a handful of other local farmers to plant it in his own vineyards.

And though it may seem small in scale, there are both heritage and climate benefits to this kind of work. By nurturing local grape varieties that have been neglected, it’s possible to find ones that ripen later, which, in turn, can help balance the early harvest that will become more and more common with climate change and increasingly hot summers.

^{Despite the political pressure, though, Turkish wine still has the potential to be as well-known, well-regarded and distinct as wine from Italy or Georgia.}

However, possibly the biggest obstacle to contend with is government pressure, and it’s only growing. After years of increasing bureaucratic restrictions, taxes and surprise inspections — including the one that entangled Karagözoğlu in 2021 — the Turkish government released draft communiqué 2023/50 in December 2023, requiring alcohol producers to put up a large amount of collateral based on their production. This can be an insurmountable obstacle for boutique wineries, especially those just getting started.

“Today, government inspectors have more authority than a judge when they come to inspect our wineries. If they find something wrong, they have the power to shut the company down for up to six months. This is guilty until proven innocent, there’s nothing we can do,” Karagözoğlu said. “Financially, this can be disastrous…. it drains our energy.”

Despite the political pressure, though, Turkish wine still has the potential to be as well-known, well-regarded and distinct as wine from Italy or Georgia. The resilience of Turkish grapes and the winemakers cultivating them can also offer lessons to the rest of the world when it comes to ecological diversity in the face of climate change.

“I am proud of what we do. I’m proud of producing these wines from these unknown grapes,” Karagözoğlu said. “In Turkey, we are sitting on a great treasure.”