Pasaeli

Story

Wine importer Seyit Karagözoglu founded Pasaeli in 2000, and after much research found two ideal vineyard sites in Kaynaklar, Izmir, and Hosköy, Tekirdag, with the first vines planted in 2002. The former is deemed to be suited to Bordeaux varieties, the latter to native grapes, which have existed in the region for centuries. It is these indigenous varieties of Anatolia and Thrace that Pasaeli protects from the march of internationalisation, as though the Turkish wine industry has expanded greatly in recent years it has usually been off the back of international varieties rather than the native grapes that were being consigned to the past. Over the last seventeen years, Seyit has acquired new little vineyards in different parts of Turkey and played a big role in the revival of these lost varieties, earning international acclaim in the process. His Yapincak vineyard for example is at Şarköy, Tekirdağ, which is about 20km away from their Hoşköy vineyard, both overlooking the Sea of Marmara. This year Seyit bought the vineyard at Gedik in Çanakkale, where he's been buying Karasakiz for many years. It's about 70km from the site of ancient Troy, with free-standing bush vines 500m above sea level and over 30-years-old.