Gelveri Manufactur turkey

Driving across Kapadokya in rural Anatolia, one feels theyโ€™ve been transported to an alien landscape. As an Arizona native, I find uncanny parallels to the American Southwest: the dramatic rock formations, the harsh, barren landscape. Country roads, only sometimes paved, weave between crumbling stone houses. An occasional shepherd stops to stare at my polished rental car, which leaves a cloud of white dust in its wake. Having just arrived from dense, urban Istanbul, I feel overwhelmed by both the regionโ€™s beauty and melancholy, reflected in the weather-worn faces of those I pass.

In Byzantine times, local inhabitants carved houses and churches out of the soft volcanic rockโ€”in the side of cliffs, at the top of mountains, even underground cave villages that extend deep into the earth in a series of narrow, claustrophobia-inducing tunnels. History, perhaps, best knows the region as home to theologians Gregory of Nazianzus and Basil of Caesarea, who shaped Nicean Christianity with their books and creeds. More recently, Kapadokya is better known as the hot air balloon capital of the world, and anyone with an Instagram account has likely seen a picture of its panorama, the chalky landscape littered with floating, fluorescent balloons.

Itโ€™s my second visit to Kapadokya, and this time around Iโ€™m not here to see any of the sights. Iโ€™ve come to visit a pair of winemakers trying to revive an ancient tradition in a small village called Gรผzelyurt, Turkish for โ€œbeautiful land.โ€ Turkey, after all, is home to over 800 indigenous varieties of grapes, and people have been making wine here since at least the post-neolithic period. But the ancient winemaking traditions of Anatolia experienced a massive shift in the 20th century, which saw a state monopoly on alcohol production that legally encoded industrial winemaking methods, manufactured by a couple of large-scale factories. But a rather unlikely couple, a German wildlife conservationist-turned winemaker named Udo Hirsch and his Turkish partner, Hacer ร–zkaya, are trying to rediscover the old ways. Hirsch and ร–zkaya make wine under the name of Gelveri Manufacturย with almost no modern equipment, preferring to use antique kรผp, or amphora, to ferment and age their wine.

Gelveri Manufactur turkey
ร–zkaya and Hirsch

Hirsch and ร–zkaya meet me outside the village mosque and we walk to their nearby house, lovingly dubbed โ€œthe TaลŸ Mahalโ€ (โ€œtaลŸโ€ is Turkish for โ€œstoneโ€). Hirsch is tall and lanky, with a tangled mess of cowlicky white hair. At 75 years old, he exudes a surprising athleticism, perhaps seen most clearly as he punches down the freshly fermenting wine with a large wooden stickโ€”a task that must be repeated every two hours, day and night, the first week of fermentation. Later, in the cellar, I struggle to keep up with him as he descends the steep, uneven stairs with agilityโ€”pausing only to warn me of a sudden drop or low-hanging doorway. ร–zkaya is calm and welcoming, with kind eyes and striking streaks of silver in her dark hair. Save for her penchant for technical outdoorswear, sheโ€™s the picture of a Turkish hostessโ€”constantly working behind the scenes to prepare food and drink. ร–zkaya, like Hirsch, has varied interests. She keeps a garden and teaches ceramics classes to local university students.

Iโ€™ve arrived just in time for breakfast and am treated to an impressive spread: tomatoes and peppers from their garden, olives they picked from a friendโ€™s farm and cured themselves, four types of homemade cheese, aged in their wine cellar, homemade yoghurt and pekmez, a molasses made from grapes from their vineyard.

As we drink black Turkish tea out of tulip-shaped glassesโ€”I lose track of how many times my glass is refilledโ€”Hirsch explains how they started to make wine.

โ€œI wanted a quiet place to write my books,โ€ he says. Having worked in Turkey off and on since 1969, Hirsch bought the house in the 1990s as a vacation home. His published works include a four-volume archeological study on the mother goddess of ancient Anatolian religions, as well as the official catalogue of the Vakฤฑflar Carpet and Kilim Museumย in Istanbul, a collection he helped curate between projects for the World Wildlife Foundation.

The winemaking was serendipitous.

Gelveri Manufactur turkey

Hirschโ€™s home is what locals call a โ€œGreek house,โ€ over 250 years old and quite literally carved from the rock. As Hirsch explains, the name is a bit of a misnomer, because even though the original owners were Eastern Orthodox Christians, ethnically they werenโ€™t Greek. The house, like most old houses in the area, is equipped with a wine cellar. A hole carved in the ceiling allowed grapes to be dropped into a bathtub-like enclosure, where they were trod upon by foot. From there the juice drained down a small channel where it was collected in large amphora to undergo fermentation.

Gelveri, like many businesses and hotels in Gรผzelyurt, is named for the Greek name of the village. The name, like the inhabitants here, changed dramatically in 1924 when the newly formed nation-state of Turkey, following a bitter war with Greece, underwent a population swap in which millions of Christians living in Turkey were forced to move to Greece, and over a million Muslims living in the Balkans were forced to move to Turkey. The forcibly resettled migrants were given the abandoned homes of the former inhabitants. Churches were converted into mosques, (one mosque in Gรผzelyurt is officially named โ€œthe Church Mosqueโ€) and the wine cellars were used for other purposes.

That was, until Hirsch bought one of the houses.

โ€œI thought to myself, โ€˜Okay, Iโ€™ll make some wine for myself and my friends, because everything is there,’โ€ says Hirsch. He then laughs. โ€œMy first wine, unfortunately, I had to drink myself. It was too bad.โ€

But for Hirsch, the seed had already been planted.

โ€œIโ€™m coming from Germany from a wine area, north of Mosel,โ€ says Hirsch. โ€œI know how people there make their wine, but I wasnโ€™t doing it. I was mostly drinking it.โ€

Gelveri Manufactur turkey

That changed while working on a project for the World Wildlife Fund in Georgia. Most of Hirschโ€™s friends in Georgia made their own wine, using traditional methods in large amphora called qvevri.

โ€œTraveling in the country I got very horrible wine and very good wine,โ€ says Hirsch. This inspired Hirsch to explore what was possible using only traditional methods.

โ€œI have never been trained in winemaking. Iโ€™m a nature conservationist. I came from there. I look from there,โ€ he says. โ€œLetโ€™s make it natural. Letโ€™s have a high biodiversity if possible. No impact if itโ€™s not urgently needed. Leave it and let it go.โ€

Hirsch and ร–zkaya tried using the original stone tank a few times, but now opt to lightly crush each grape with a rubber roller before the whole clusters, stems and all, go into the amphora. Some cuvรฉes might only see 50-70% whole cluster. โ€œWe have to find the balance for each grape,โ€ says Hirsch. โ€œAnd weโ€™re still doing that.โ€

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Gelveri only does single-varietal cuvรฉes, a decision based on ignorance more than principal. โ€œOur biggest problem is we donโ€™t know enough about our grapes,โ€ says Hirsch. โ€œWe are working with completely unknown grapes. They exist for maybe 10 km around, thatโ€™s it.โ€

Gelveri Manufactur turkey

Once in the amphora, the grapes undergo spontaneous fermentation with their native yeastsโ€”sometimes starting the same day. White and reds alike are left to ferment for six months, before being pumped into secondary vessels to age for another six months before bottling. Although Gelveri used to add a small amount of sulfite at bottling, for three years now theyโ€™ve been โ€œzero, zeroโ€โ€”no sulphur in the vineyard or bottling.

โ€œWe leave it as it is. This is the grape. This is its taste. This is the terroir,โ€ says Hirsch.

Each kรผp is a regionally sourced antique, most of them hundreds of years old and some much older. When Hirsch was working with handwoven textiles, he developed a network of antique dealers, now tasked with finding the ancient kรผp rather than rugs and kilims. The largest of the collection, an Armenian vessel sourced in Tokat, is used for Gelveriโ€™s red cuvรฉe, Kalecik Karasฤฑ. Weighing over a ton, the amphora is so large a garden wall had to be torn down when it was transported to Gรผzelyurt.

What started as a hobby quickly grew. Turkish law allows for individuals to home brew up to 350 liters of beer and wine for personal use without a permit, but more than that requires starting a firm. So while Hirsch focused on the winemaking, ร–zkaya began navigating the complex bureaucracy of setting up a winery in Turkey. In all, 13 different government agencies have to sign off, and inspections are frequent.

One of the many obstacles to overcome was receiving permission to ferment the wine in amphora. Inspectors were worried the porous material was a health hazard. As a compromise, Hirsch and ร–zkaya bought two stainless steel fermentation tanksโ€” which are only occasionally used to briefly hold the wine when transferring it between the fermentation kรผp and and the aging kรผp.

ร–zkaya downplays the red tape. โ€œItโ€™s no problem,โ€ she says. But Hirsch, tells a different story. โ€œThereโ€™s no way I could do this without her,โ€ he says.

Gelveri Manufactur turkey

The legal challenges, perhaps, point to the complicated topic of alcohol in Turkey. Under the Ottoman Empire, Christian and Jewish citizens were free to make and consume wine, which records show contributed significant tax revenue. But Muslims citizens were barred from drinking (though many did so in secret).

But the founding of the nation-state of Turkey in 1923 also saw alcohol laws lifted. Mustafa Kemal Atatรผrk, Turkeyโ€™s founder, was himself an avid drinker of rakฤฑ, an anise-flavored brandy considered Turkeyโ€™s national drink. In many ways, Turkey has quite liberal alcohol laws. The drinking age is 18 and drinking in public parks is permitted, though frowned upon during Ramadan. But this liberal attitude towards alcohol has shifted in recent years as the ruling party has instituted new legal controls. Alcohol taxes were hiked an additional 15.5 in 2018 and alcohol companies are barred from doing any advertising, public tastings, or even using social media.

Gรผzelyurt, like most villages in Turkey, is conservative and some of Hirsch and ร–zkayaโ€™s neighbors are scandalized by having a boutique winery in town.

โ€œSometimes we have a discussion in the market. We have a tea or something. They say โ€˜This is sin. Itโ€™s not so good,’โ€ says Hirsch. โ€œI say, โ€˜I donโ€™t know what you want. We just pick the grapes and squeeze them, the rest is done by Allah. After that we bottle them and you come to drink them!โ€™โ€ The anecdote points to the reality that locals who imbibe, do so in private. โ€œThe tourists come during the day,โ€ he says. โ€œThe Turks come after itโ€™s become dark.โ€

But in Istanbul, Gelveri has a cult following, and those lucky enough to drink their wine donโ€™t do so in secret, but brag on their Instagram accounts. Because itโ€™s illegal to mail alcohol in Turkey, sommeliers from high end restaurants like Mikla and Neolokal make the seven hour drive to fill up a van.

Gelveri Manufactur turkey

Gelveri Manufactur turkey

The success for Gelveri at home followed some unexpected recognition abroad. First, one of their wines showed up unexpectedly on Nomaโ€™s wine list during their 2015 Tokyo pop-up (Danish chef Rene Redzepi has long been an advocate for natural wines.) Later that year Jordi Roca, of famed Catalonian restaurant El Cellar de Can Roca, selected their Hasan Dede to pair with a seafood dish during the Roca brothersโ€™ guest stint in Istanbul. Attention from two restaurants atop the Worldโ€™s Best list generated a lot of buzzโ€”the kind of attention that it isnโ€™t even legal to buy in Turkey.

Though demand is high, Hirsch has no interest in increasing production. โ€œWe are producing 5,000 bottles, and thatโ€™s it. We donโ€™t want to make more because we want to enjoy it,โ€ he says.

Gelveri Manufactur turkey

At Hirsch and ร–zkayaโ€™s dining room table, we sit down to taste six of Gelveriโ€™s cuvรฉes. ร–zkaya brings a ceramic spittoon.

โ€œIn case you donโ€™t like to drink wine,โ€ says Hirsch. Hirsch and ร–zkaya donโ€™t spit out the wine, so I donโ€™t either.

We start with Keten Gรถmlek, literally โ€œlinen shirtโ€ in Turkish, so named because the grape is so thin-skinned you can see the pips in the sunlight. The wine is a golden yellow, almost lager-like, with yeast and sediment visibly swirling in the bottle. In the glass, the nose offers aromas of candied hazelnuts and ripe stonefruit. Those nutty, oxidative qualities I associate with vin jaune from the Jura region continue on the palate, but open up to notes of dried apricot. This wine is vibrant, alive.

We move on to the deep and brooding Hasan Dede, a so-called orange wine. (Here, the name only alludes to the color imparted by the skins, as the vinification of the wines are the same). It opens with aromas of honey and orange peel. A burst of lychee and bergamot immediately give way to slowly building tannins, that linger on the tongue like oversteeped oolong tea. Itโ€™s complex, structured, and intenseโ€”the sort of wine that needs a food pairing to smooth itโ€™s rougher edges. A natural wine for peated Scotch drinkers; decidedly not glou glou.

Next, we move on to the reds, Kalecik Karasฤฑ, 2015 and 2016. This is the lone grape Gelveri works with that I was already familiar with. Known for its big fruit, high acidity, and low tannin, itโ€™s a versatile grape grown in practically every wine producing region in Turkey. But the commercial versions are clones grown on American rootstocks. Here in Kapadokya, Gelveri has endemic, phylloxera-free vines growing on their original rootstocks, which Hirsch believes explains why his Kalecik Karasฤฑ bears little resemblance to mass-produced versions.

ฤฐn the glass, the two vintages are starkly different. Clocking in at 14.5% alcohol, the 2015 is wild and austere. It shows some signs of volatile acidity, which fade after itโ€™s been decanted for an hour. It has that elusive smoky taste I associate with amphora wines, be they Georgian or Sicilian. Hirsch only sees its potential. โ€œThis one needs another five, six years in the bottle,โ€ he says. By contrast, the 2016 is youthful and juicy and only 13% alcohol. It reminds me of a Fluerie or Morgon, with its quaffable red fruit supported by an elegant, but firm structure.

An interesting cuvรฉe that technically doesnโ€™t meet the natural wine standard โ€œnothing added, nothing taken awayโ€ is the MayoฤŸlu Terebinthe. Perhaps best understood as the Central Anatolian answer to retsina, the pine-resin flavored wine notorious in Greece, this century-old recipe comes from the original owners of Hirschโ€™s house: the MayoฤŸlu family, a family of jewelers that also distilled their own brandy they sold in Istanbul before being relocated in the population exchange. The cuvรฉe calls for the best of the white grape harvest, which is macerated with a small amount of terebinthโ€”a dried fruit known as menegiรง in Turkishโ€”which Gelveri sources from ร–zkayaโ€™s hometown of Alanya on the Mediterranean coast. The fermentation takes a staggering two years, so the cuvรฉe is only released biennially. Itโ€™s light and delicate, with wonderful florals. The terebinth notes take a subtle, supporting role, an extra touch of complexity in a fascinating yet refreshing wine.

Gelveri Manufactur turkey

The next morning I climb into the backseat of Hirschโ€™s station wagon and the three of us set off for their vineyard sites, about 20 minutes away in the foothills of HasandaฤŸฤฑ, the towering, inactive volcano that fills the horizon. (Neolithic cave paintingsโ€”an area of interest for Hirschโ€”depict the volcano erupting.) Hirsch drives the mountain passes furiously, shifting into a passing gear even on blind turns to get around the occasional tractor, slowing only to pass the occasional villager riding a donkey (as we gain elevation, donkeys soon outnumber cars as the primary form of transportation.) At over 1500 MASL, weโ€™re at the upper limits of where itโ€™s possible to grow grapes. As we tread the sand-like tuff soil, Iโ€™m amazed any produce can be coaxed from this harsh land.

To those familiar with the neat, orderly rows of a vineyard with vines growing on trellises, the chaos of Gelveriโ€™s vineyards might appear unrecognizable. Here, thick, tree-like stalks go deep into the ground, in search of underground streams which come down the mountain. The unsupported branches are heavy with bunches of grapes and are set to be harvested the next day.

The vines are a winemakerโ€™s dream: indigenous varietiesโ€”many without official namesโ€”on their own rootstock. The location is so remote that these vineyards are phylloxera-free. (Around the world, most wine is made with grapes grown on vines grafted onto American rootstocks, which are resistant to the aphid that has decimated vineyards since the 19th century).

Gelveri Manufactur turkey

The wild temperature swings on the mountainโ€”as much as 15 degrees Celsius each dayโ€”make for slower maturation times and more complexity in the glass. โ€œWe have a volcanic soil, with lots of minerals,โ€ says Hirsch. โ€œIn the night itโ€™s 14 degrees, in the day itโ€™s 30. This adds to the aroma and all of these things.โ€

The viticulture, is practicing organic.

โ€œIn the beginning, there was a little bit of sulphate used in the fields,โ€ says Hirsch. โ€œSlowly we went down. We were afraid to do it completely without. But now for three years now we are completely without sulphate.โ€ Today, the only input in the vineyard is goat dung, which is piled up in a small mound.

Weโ€™re met in the vineyard by Nariye YeลŸilgรถz, who along with her husband Adem manages Gelveriโ€™s four vineyard sites, one of which they own. Today Adem is in a nearby town, selling their table grapes in the local pazar. As we walk around the vineyards, Nariye picks fruit for me to try from the garden. Hirsch and ร–zkaya have slowly convinced Adem to plant trees and other plants for greater biodiversity. Like using no sulphur, he was reluctant to at first, but heโ€™s since come around, using one of the vineyards as a sort of test farm.

For Hirsch, Gelveri Manufactur is a model business, the sort of community project he spent 40 years doing around the world with WWF. He wants to show Turkey that a single family of farmers can earn a comfortable income making wine with traditional methods that are ecologically responsible. To help propagate this idea, Hirsch and ร–zkaya routinely host students from two nearby universities. One student did her dissertation in food science comparing their wine to conventional wines. Interest is growing, but so far no one else has tried to make wine with antique kรผp in Turkey, at least not commercially.

Gelveri Manufactur turkey

Gelveri Manufactur turkey

Back at their house, the three of us are tired from walking the wind-swept slopes, and sip some more tea. Hirsch for the first time during my visit starts to look his age. He steps away to take a phone callโ€”a documentary film crew that wants to visitโ€”and ร–zkaya talks to me in Turkish with hushed tones.

โ€œInลŸallah, we will continue to make wine for years to come. We still have our health, but you never know. Weโ€™re getting older,โ€ she says.

Hirsch, for his part, still has work to do.

โ€œAs a nature conservationist I feel itโ€™s necessary to save at least a few [of these grapes] and to make them known by producing a very good wine,โ€œ says Hirsch. โ€œTurkey has more than 800 unknown grapes. Itโ€™s such a genetic richness. I think if European winemakers knew that, they would be here.โ€