A Serious Wine Article or not !

A “philosopher” with whom I’m very close says that “The wine you like the most is actually the best wine”

Taking courage from these words, I decided to write an article on wine. However, I must confess up front that I might be way in over my head. I have many friends who know a lot about wine, I even have friends who are professionally involved in wine. While they are all out there, it’s me who’s attempting to write about wine. That’s some courage! Or maybe foolishness, we’ll see.

I will not bore you by starting with the fact that wine is an alcoholic drink produced from fresh grapes or grape juice through the process of fermentation, neither will I explain all technical details such as how during fermentation the yeast produces 1 degree of alcohol for each 17 g of sugar it consumes. Nor will I talk about how sometimes, when vines are planted too close by, they get stressed by the competion and send their roots as far as 20 m underground. However, I would still like to taste a glass of wine one day and turn around to tell my friends that “This wine has never aged in an oak barrel, it was aged in a steel tank into which oak shavings were added. It just doesn’t have the smoothness, that’s how you can tell.” Even imagining the shocked expressions of those around me is enough to give me joy right now.

Just like all other Turkish teenagers in that time, my first introduction to wine was probably by Kavaklıdere Yakut. I don’t actually remember because it has been so long, and as someone who started their drinking life with the awfully insufferable vodka and sourcherry juice, I really don’t want to go into my previous drinking experience. My true introduction to wine has come very late. When I first went into the restaurant business in 2010, I had my first chance to learn about the old and new Turkish wine brands, local grapes and their prices. That’s why it’s really not very realistic to expect a deep range of knowledge from me in such a short time, please don’t stress me with very high expectations!

When we were opening our restaurant in 2010, it was already decided that our menu would be based on fresh and local produce, therefore by selling only Turkish wine, we wanted to do our part to support the business. Another rule we had was not to have any sponsorship agreements with bigger brands so that we could include smaller producers we liked in the menu. You can see that we were very free-spirited. I saw now that we had wines from 16 different producers on the menu in 2015. It’s not bad at all for a small restaurant that seats 50 people. Of course you should never think that we forgot to take care of our customers who claim that Turkish wines ‘give them an headache’. We included 2 white and 2 red French wines for them on the menu as well. Naturally I did not see French wine as I see it now. But still I see that we still managed to choose good French brands, such as the 140 year old winery Joseph Drouhin, whose wines I had a chance to taste here in France later on. They are a 4th generation family-business in production in Burgundy. We had their Pinot Noir and Chablis on the menu. This reminds me of a joke I heard the other day. . “What gives people feeling of power?” Money? Status? Knowing that Chablis is Chardonnay? Correct answer is the last one. 

Since we’ve mentioned French wines, let’s continue in that line. When it was confirmed that we were actually moving to Paris, I decided to learn more about French wines. I started studying the wine menus at each restaurant we went to. After a couple of times, I realized that almost no restaurant has the same two producers on the menu. The menus are sometimes like little novels, pages long but still 95% of the wines are from different producers. That got me discouraged and I just thought there was no way I could accumulate any sort of knowledge. I can hear some of you saying “Don’t be ridiculous.” For those of you, I have prepared just the right analysis. And I believe this huge study deserves its own paragraph.

While we were stuck at home during the pandemic, as a way to keep myself busy, I decided to save to an excel file every single wine we drank between April 2017 and April 2021, collecting all data from my Vivino account and my phone. Yes I really did that, and I already had every wine we drank saved somewhere. The results are pure madness. To start with, in the last 4 years, we have drunk a bottle of wine every 3.5 days. However let me say, we are certainly not alcoholics. For example, I’ve been on antibiotics for 5 days and I drank a half-glass of red wine, only twice. See, I am able to control myself! I also want to give an idea on the price data I’ve collected so that you can see that there is a certain price range. Looking at that, you can understand the vastness of the French wine industry when you include all the more expensive and cheaper wines out there. Apart from a couple of specials occasions, the wines we drank are all between 20€ and 70€. This includes both supermarket and restaurant prices. It’s time to reveal numbers. In the past for years, 95% of the time with Ayca, we drank a total of 299 bottles of wine. Of these 167 are white, 123 are red and only 9 are rose. (There might a few more roses but they probably did not leave a mark strong enough to be recorded) But what is most amazing, is the number of producers these 299 bottles are from. We drank 299 bottles from 259 different producers. This is a mind blowing number for a Turkish person who has had a brief encounter with the restaurant business. I’m still analyzing the list, therefore there might be more articles about that coming your way. For now, I’ll leave it at that by finally mentioning more numbers about the regions of those bottles.

76 bottles from Burgundy, 57 bottles from Loire, 47 bottles from Rhone, 30 bottles from Languedoc-Roussillon, 28 bottles from Provance, 25 bottles from Bordeaux, 13 bottles from Alsace, 8 bottles from South-West, 5 bottles of Beaujolais, 4 bottles from Savoie, 3 bottles from Corsica, 2 bottles from Jura.

Looking at these results, we can see that as a couple we drank mostly Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, followed by Sauvignon Blanc from Loire. Are we a bit boring? Why always the same classci grapes while there were so many options out there?!?!? Ayca, let’s think about this a little, he?? Hahahaa Talking about different grapes, some of the grapes that I heard of for the first time were Poulsard from Jura, Rolle from Provance, Marsanne from Rhone, Clairette and Roussanne, Jacquère and  Gringet from Savoie. I must also say that I tasted 3 of these grapes in Septime, one of my favourite restaurants in Paris. And I remember buying the rest of them from a wine store in our neighborhood. Every year at Christmas I set myself a certain budget to gift myself some new wines. This selection is usually chosen by Didier to take me on a wine adventure. Every year is a new excitement. Didier is extremely knowledged about wine. Every year I show his selection to my philosopher friend mentioned at the beginning of the article, or should I say my friend ‘the talker’? And Didier’s selection passes his evaluation with flying colors very year. Well, if Didier has managed to pair our Turkish style chickpeas with lamb and rice with butter with an amazing bottle of white wine, what more can one say about his skills. It was an amazing pairing. In case you are able to come across it one day, it was Rieffel Winery’s Granite, from the Alsace Region.

What deserves respect in France is the amount of varity available, and the effort all producers put into keeping high-quality standards in a sustainable production approach under the pressures of the threat of enviromental change. I’m impressed by and envy how the whole society works to own and preserve their food culture.

PS: The talking philosopher whose knowledge and friendship I value immensely is Levon Bağış. Nothing should stay hidden!

South of France I - Arles and Gordes

This article has been published in Turkish on Gastereamag on 24.08.2019

I’ll describe you a city, let’s see if you can guess which one? There is usually construction on the roads and sidewalks for long periods of time, a structural frame is up at least on one building on every other street, most of the sidewalks are so narrow that two people cannot fit at the same time, and it takes extra skill to push a pram on these. I’m not even mentioning the dog shit for your sake. Traffic and parking is impossible beyond words. It even has its own traffic rules. Honking the minute the light turns green is another pleasure endowed on the pedestrians. When an important politician visits from another country, most of the roads are closed off. The same goes for when it snows. When the weather gets warm, the suffocating metro cars are very disturbing. In the last two years, one patisserie blew up because of gas leakage, almost taking the whole street with it, a woman set fire to her neighbor’s apartment who complained from the noise she was making, burning down almost the whole building, a fire during the renovation works annihilated most of a historic building, heavy rains flooded some parts of the city.

Sounds familiar? Istanbul, right? No! Let me give you another clue. For more than 20 weekends, there hasn’t been metro service to one of the most important avenues in the city because there have been protests! Yes, now you know! I’m talking about Paris. As you see, even with all the picturesque beauty, widespread public transport and the forests on two sides of the city, it’s still not very easy to live here actually. I’ve haven’t even mentioned how expensive it is. Therefore, here too, we use every chance to get out of the city. On one of these escapes this April, we went to the south of France. I’ll write to you about the places we visited and enjoyed. If you get a chance to visit, I hope you’ll enjoy them too.

Paris to Marseille is 3h 20 min by train. Therefore we chose to go by train and rent a car there. Because we were trying to get away from the city, we didn’t spend much time in Marseille, so I don’t have much to say about it. Even though the idea of a city next to the sea is very appealing to someone from Istanbul, still we chose to get out of the city quickly because we were more excited about small towns and the island we were yet to visit. I shouldn’t forget to mention that this trip has been planned according to the needs of a 6 year old who gets bored after maximum 2 hours in the car and has the potential to easily disturb your inner peace as well.

Our first stop is Arles, some parts of which have been under protection as an Unesco Heritage. It had first occured to us while watching Willem Dafoe’s “At Eternity’s Gate” on a cold winter night at home. Dafoe plays Vincent van Gogh and the film takes place during his years in Arles and Auvers-sur-Oise. Even though he lives here for only 15 months, he paints more than 300 pieces here and goes partially crazy meanwhile, this is the period he cuts off his ear. One of the paintings he painted here is called “Le Jardin de la Maison de Santé à Arles” which he painted while hospitalized there. The hospital garden previously green was later planted with the same flowers Van Gogh depicted in his painting.  You can recognize many locations in the city from his paintings, there are also tours taking you through them. The Van Gogh Foundation in the city center is a must-see too. There isn’t a permanent exhibition, however once or twice a year there are exhibitions of other artists inspired by Van Gogh. There was an exhibition by the Georgian artist Niko Pirosmani when we visited. I especially enjoyed compositions he painted using animals such as lions and giraffes that he never actually saw, but just imagined. There was also a rare animal painting by Van Gogh included in the exhibition. It’s called “Stuffed kalong” (flying-fox or fox-bat). It was very impressive, exhibited on another room, by itself.  We found ourselves museum hopping in Arles, as if we hadn’t been visiting any museums in Paris. After Van Gogh Foundation, we visited The Réattu Museum, 3 minutes’ walk away. Truth be told, I liked it better. First because the museum is 150 years old, and second because Réattu was born in Arles and painted all his work here. In 1867 the building and the paintings were sold to the municipality by his daughter in return for a life-long pension and residency. In 1868 the building was converted to a museum. There are also paintings donated by Pablo Picasso in 1971. One of the exhibition rooms is reserved for photo exhibitions. My favorite was a black and white photo of Pablo Picasso and painter François Gilot who is known as the only woman to leave Picasso.

After a one hour drive and two museum visits, we were naturally hungry and found ourselves in a French restaurant called “Le Criquet”. It was the type of place we always imagine; max 30-40 seats, not very touristic, seasonal and local food and good local wine. The peak point of the lunch was lamb chops. Finishing off her plate, my daughter ate some of mine even though there was more thyme than she is used to, well let’s say she helped me eat a balanced diet. The balance of little food and more wine. The lamb chops were amazing, they had cooked four chops together without drying out, without drowning in extra sauce, it was very simple and very delicious.

On with walking back in time after lunch, we aimed to go really back in history. We wanted to see the Roman amphitheater built in BC90. This is the amphitheater in one of Vincent Van Gogh’s famous paintings. It is still used as a cultural center in the city. During July and August gladiator fights are reenacted and it is also used as a concert venue during the summer. There is also another activity here that is totally inappropriate for such beauty; even though it is forbidden in most parts of France, there are still bull fights here. This is seen as sustaining an old tradition and has partially given back the city its popularity. Another characteristic of the city is, it is part of the pilgrimage route of Camino de Santiago. Practiced since the middle ages, the pilgrimage has regained popularity in the 90s. In 2017 more than 300.000 people have walked the route. Walking or cycling the route is a great experience, both physically and religiously. There are different routes but all finish at the grave of Saint James at Santiago de Compostela in Spain. The routes in France are the most popular. However walking the tidy streets of Arles full of pretty flowers was peaceful enough for us therefore we can leave off the pilgrimage for now. For us, the next step is setting off to our accommodation.

Auberge La Feniére is farm house, an hour’s drive from Arles. It is located between two villages called Lourmarin and Cadenet. It is a beautiful, isolated hotel in nature, growing its own vegetables and it wins our hearts immediately. Seasonally they grow their own tomatoes, eggplants, zucchinis, peas and artichokes. They’ve divided the garden in three parts; aromatic, vegetable and healing. They are careful of using a sustainable farming style. They attribute the success of the garden to the harmony between human, plant and soil. They believe that the three should be able to interact with each other. Apart from the vegetable garden, they also have an olive grove from which they collect around 450 litres of olive oil every year. The lead in all of this is Reine Sammut. While studying pharmaceutics in Montpellier, she meet her husband Guy Sammut and learns the Mediterranean kitchen from her mother-in-law. In 1975 they open their first restaurant and in 1995 earn a Michelin star. Meanwhile their daughter Nadia is born in 1980. She is hospitalized when 29 years old because her immune system crashes and she faces serious health problems, later she is diagnosed with Celiac disease. A chemist herself, she enters the kitchen with her mother and specializes in gluten-free nutrition. They are very careful with what they buy from the outside. For example they buy pesticide free rice from Camargue rice farm, pork from a farm north of Luberon where the pigs are chickpea fed. There are two restaurants in the hotel. One serves a fixed tasting menu and the other is a more bistrot-like a la carte restaurant. We had both dinner and sunday brunch at the bistrot one. Everything we ate was very delicious but I want to stress something else. Listen carefully, this is important!! THE BREAD! We have been in Paris since April 2017, and as a bread lover I always either buy or eat bread in every restaurant or boulangerie I go to. And I’m telling you, I have never eaten such good bread. And please keep in mind that it was gluten-free. Nadia is a bread lover like me and because she needs to eat gluten-free bread because of her disease, she has researched all the way back to the Egyptians and found out that bread was baked in clay pots on stone and that gluten content was actually very low. She then started trying similar methods, and they did so well. Because we were early to brunch, the set up was not ready and there was no bread on the buffet. You should have seen my disappointment. I thought there was no bread at brunch, I could have cried. Thankfully it came out eventually and I lost control eating it. When I saw my wife actually grimacing while I was sipping wine and eating bread, I finally stopped. Of course this was too much. After chasing good food for so long, I shouldn’t have been doing this. Reine and Nadia Sammut use rice, chick pea, chestnut and other grain flours for the bread. I have not mentioned Guy Sammut so far but Reine actually tries all new dishes on him and he might be one of the luckiest men on earth. In short, Auberge La Feniére won our hearts as a very special hotel we would love to stay at again if we come back to Southern France.

Auberge La Feniére

Our next stop is Gordes. It took us 43 minutes by car. It is the most famous mountain village in the region. You are already impressed while approaching it by car. It is a very neat, clean and calm village like other examples we have seen in the past 2 years. Two reasons why I love these little villages are the ever immaculate gardens and colorful wooden shutter and doors. Just like Arles, Gordes has Roman ruins as well. Throughout history Gordes acted as the resistance force and its latest ordeal was in WWII. While being rebuilt after the war, it attracted artists such as Victor Vasarely and has been to many artists since. If you visit in season, The Senanque Monastery is a wonder, surrounded by lavender gardens. Unfortunately we didn’t go at the right time, but if anyone reads this and manages to do so, I promise not to be ugly-jealous. We had lunch at Gordes at “L’outsider”. It is a very small restaurant located in a cistern, run by a couple. Chef Patrice de Rosa who is cooking hearty meals with local produce and his wife who was then pregnant with their second child, hosted in a very warm and intimate manner, as if we were guests in their own home. After working abroad for a long time, they’ve decided to move back to a quieter and more peaceful life. When their elder child was friends with our daughter, our enjoyment of the restaurant was of course doubled. As a starter I had foie gras and my wife had smoked salmon with leeks, and both were very delicious. As the main course, I was still craving meat, therefore chose a steak from the famous Charolais of Burgundy. I must admit that it wasn’t very interesting, but still delicious. I’m not sorry that I ordered it. My wife initially claimed that she wouldn’t have a main course, but couldn’t resist ordering one for herself when she tasted our daughter’s chops. Chef De Rosa always recommends it if you like meat. And finally, we had a taste bomb! Warm ganache chocolate cake on vanilla custard! Actually I thought it might have been a bit too heavy because there was cream both in the custard and the ganache, however when you consider both how obsessed the French are about good cream, and the balance in all the other dishes of the chef, there was no chance that the dessert wouldn’t be good. In the end, it was again an amazing lunch. After lunch we kept getting lost in the streets of Gordes and enjoying ourselves. We bought lavender honey and olive oil, which we still haven’t got to opening yet, from Le Miel Peyron, and had ice cream from Le Petit Comptoir. Apart from being homemade there is nothing special about it, however it is the perfect spot for families with kids. Do something for your kids as well, you cannot chase wine and good food all the time, right?

Gordes

Fichon - Impossibilities push for creativity

This article has been published in Turkish on Gasterea Mag on 09.08.2018

Although I didn’t realize it at the time, my story with Fichon goes back to 2011. It all began on a very busy work night in Lokanta Maya, our precious restaurant with Didem, when a gentleman, whose occupation I had no idea about, agreed to sit on the most uncomfortable barstool in the world and tasted most of our dishes. About 3 months later, in June, we found out that this gentleman was actually a very renown food writer who writes for Wall Street Journal, the Guardian, Bon Appetit, Food & Wine, Saveur, Travel & Leisure, Conde Nast Traveler, and had published an article in New York Times Magazine solely about Lokanta Maya. His name is Alexander Lobrano and he in turn introduced me to Fichon 6 years later in another one of his articles. Now, wherever I travel to, I always check his blog after my initial research about the destination. For me, his blog is kind of a guarantor of the restaurant choices I make.

Last year, when Ayca accepted a job offer, we came to Paris for house hunting. We had only 2 nights, and naturally we wouldn’t choose a restaurant without first consulting Master Alexander. When I logged in, the first article that caught my eye was about Fichon, and luckily fish and sea food was exactly what we were craving. We made a reservation right away to guarantee our table and took an Uber from our hotel to the restaurant. We really loved Fichon that night and daydreamed about how we could keep coming back when we moved to Paris.

The restaurant is located at the corner of two streets, in a triangular space. The tables are not crammed together like most of the other French restaurants. Yes, you do get tired of no elbow space after a while. Anyway, when you enter, the decor and the lighting makes you feel right away that this is a cosy and intimate place. Wooden tables are matched with silver painted chairs. The drinks bar designed after a fisherman’s stall is a cute decor trick. Charles du Pouget, who has designed the restaurant, was inspired by the journey the fish makes from the sea to our plates.  The sea blue back wall, backs of chairs designed after fishnets, chandeliers, herringbone patterned marble fish bar, the fish man’s stall inspired bar and sand colored raw columns are all a part of this journey. During the day, an amazing daylight fills the space from huge windows on both sides of the triangular space.

Before Lokanta Maya I had no clue about cooking or restaurant management (Sadly but truly, I’m still clueless about cooking) Therefore when we were setting up the managerial side of Maya with Didem and Okan, I decided to strengthen my previous business management experience by taking a restaurant management course in MSA. Unfortunately, both because it was a very busy time at work, and because I’ve never been a particularly good student, I didn’t utilize the course as much as I should have. However one thing dear Osman Serim has told us from day one has stuck with me. He told us that, when opening a restaurant, one should always concentrate on the type of food one likes to eat the most. He said that, this is why small scale places always reflect the character of their owners. And this is what I have always observed afterwards in restaurants that I find successful. And Fichon is the perfect example of this theory.

Matthieu Dewilde runs the restaurant. We went there at least 6 or 7 times and he was always there, on top of his game. He attended to all his customers with care, he was always a part of the service. I think he is a bit of a workaholic. His careful attention to customers almost makes you think he might not be French after all. Matthieu is actually a sommelier and has been in business for more than 10 years. His restaurant has been open since 2016. He has a master’s degree from INSEEC Bordeaux Wine Marketing and of course, his restaurant has an amazing wine list. He buys directly from producers. 90% of his wines are biodynamic (Please refer to Levon Bagis if you have any questions about biodynamic wines :) )  Two thirds of his wines are white. And if you are already asking ‘Do I have to drink wine?’ Matthieu has cocktails and amazing beer options as well. In short, you will not have a problem with drinks. I would mention my favorites white wine here, but I’m afraid Levon will make me carry bottles of it my luggage to Turkey, so I’ll refrain.

And on a more serious note, I always believe that impossibilities push for creativity. This is exactly what happened here as well. Because of the structure of the building, it is impossible to put in a sufficiently strong and large ventilation system, it is impossible to fry anything in the kitchen. Therefore everything is served grilled, steamed, raw or smoked. Which means you actually eat a quite healthy meal. The whole menu is about fish and shellfish where freshness is a must and when you order an oyster or a shrimp it comes still smelling of the sea. I have never seen them compromise on this. When the food arrives, you realize a certain elegance in the presentation which is owed to the Japanese chef Katsuhiko Sato. The menu changes with the seasons so there is always something new every time you go. The grilled octopus has been my favorites for the past 2 years, however I still have my eye on the smoked salmon that Ayca orders (maybe the time has come for another visit to Fichon).

Paris is filled with so many good restaurants that the idea of becoming a regular of a place seemed almost impossible. Hundreds of food writers and publications keep servicing reviews on new places, on top of which new places you discover and want to try while roaming the streets. There are infinite choices available. You cannot imagine how many lists I’ve created and recreated already.  Fichon has actually succeeded in making loyals out of us within this huge pool of choices. It is the first place we think of when we want to eat incredibly delicious seafood, paired with a very good wine, careful service and calm atmosphere.