Wine & Food @ Hus Wines

We wrapped up the Christmas week festivities with an afternoon outing to Hus Wines, a family-owned boutique winery in Urla. Aylin and her girlfriends went last Saturday and enjoyed themselves so much that she suggested we all go there before Mui and I leave.

The winery was established by the niece of one of Aylin’s friends, Ceylan, and her Chilean husband, Juan. The genesis of their story goes back to when her grandmother emigrated from Crete to Urla and began farming here after the 1923 population exchange between Turkey and Greece. It was the next generation — Ceylan’s parents — who planted the vines, and the current generation who picked up the torch, so to speak. The sad part of this story is that Juan, who hailed from Chile’s Vina del Mar wine district, passed away very recently … at the very young age of 34.

We were lucky with the weather today. While there were a few quick showers on our way to Urla, we had plenty of sunshine while we were there … with clouds blocking the sun periodically. It was warm enough to wander around the grounds and take photos before getting settled at the table we’d reserved for 2:30p. We appreciated having the place to ourselves for most of our time there … the pandemic, you know.

The food was all good … both the tapas selections that Aylin & Murat shared with Hakan & Serenay, as well as the main courses the rest of us ordered. Five people, including Mui, did the wine tasting … four wines: Emir, a white; Roze Öküzgözü-Syrah, a rosé; and two reds … Öküzgözü-Boğazkere and Syrah. All produced in 2019. The rosé is made with their own grapes and the remainder are vinified on site from grapes purchased from vineyards in Kapadokya and Denizli. I enjoyed my rosé, and also took sips from Mui’s taster flight. The wines are a little drier than I prefer, but not so much that I wouldn’t drink them.

After our outing, we returned to mom’s to make Rüdesheimer Coffee with Asbach-Uralt brandy. We first had this coffee on Viking Idi when we went on the Christmas Markets cruise in 2018 with mom and Aylin. Mom was as taken with the process of making the coffee and the special cups as she was with the resulting drink itself, which is topped with whipped cream and shaved chocolate.

Thus we have now brought our last full week in Turkey to a close. Laundry and packing, a bit of shopping for a few last minute items. And family time. That’s about all we’ll be doing over the next three days. Oh, and getting a PCR test on Wednesday to re-enter the US is at the top of our list, of course.En savoir plus