the turk

2004
Barossa Valley
South Australia

Will drink again - the Barossa Valley entices me every time.

This is an awesome blend of 54% shiraz, 26% mourvedre, 12% grenache, 8% cabernet. This wine is on the drier, spicier side for my usual likes, but the berry in it comes through equally as well - very nice balance. A deep purple-claret in color, its bouquet was of smoked turkey or grilled chicken salad but I could smell the "heat" as well. It was a well-balanced taste of dry, spicy, sweet berry and heat right from the first mouthfeel. A very nice finish completes it - the flavor lasts and does not change into anything else. Interestingly, it's very stable from start to finish. If you like it from the beginning, you'll like it at the end. I drank it alone (no food).

This may be a really "Duh" revelation, but it dawned on me tonight that I get as much pleasure in wine as I do in cooking (and eating) because both indulge all five senses: sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste. I love to see the color that presents in the glass, the sound of the cork being pulled and the even better sound of the wine being poured, each wine's unique bouquet, the feel of it flooding the tongue and traveling to the back of the mouth and throat, and finally, its taste. Thinking about the senses involved reminded me of a website I've mentioned before in my other blog and I thought I'd share some of it here with you.

The following is taken from Wendy Dubit's website http://www.thesensesbureau.com/ :

"Sense of Smell

Smell is perhaps our most primitive and powerful sense -- readily committed to and triggered by memory, cross-linked with other senses and feelings, evocative, contextual and able to transport one in time and space.

Like primary colors, aromas can be broken down into basic categories which, when combined, yield up the rich symphony that is wine. U.C. Davis’ Wine Aroma Wheel (note: look under "Wine and Grapes" when entering this link) categorizes fruit aromas as citrus (grapefruit, lemon), berry (blackberry, raspberry, strawberry and black currant), tree (cherry, apricot, peach, apple), tropical (pineapple, melon, banana), dried (jam, raisin, prune, fig) and other. Likewise, vegetative aromas can be fresh (stemmy, grassy, green, eucalyptus, mint), canned (asparagus, olive, artichoke), and dried (hay/straw, tea, tobacco). Other categories include nutty, caramelized, woody, earthy, chemical, pungent, floral, spicy.

Smell (often called “aromas” for wine components and “bouquet” for the whole blend) is so much the predominant sense in winetasting that some chemists have called wine “a tasteless liquid that is deeply fragrant.”

Indeed, much of what we consider flavor (up to 80% or more) is aroma/bouquet as sensed and articulated by our olfactory. Based on bouquet alone, many tasters can identify a wine’s grape variety, origin/terroir, vintage and aging (including the type of oak and degree of char/toast.)

Powerful though it is, we become quickly inured to smell. Which is why, so often, tasters will revisit the wines in a flight twice or more -- swirling to release aromas, inhaling deeply, and continuing to breathe in the bouquet even during the tasting process.

Sense of Taste

Taste, our most life-sustaining sense, comes in four or five basic flavors -- sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and the more recently identified umami (savory). But, as with primary colors and basic aromas, a seemingly unlimited range opens to us from there.

Most tastes are a combination of sweet (as found in some white and most dessert wines), sour (a lively acidity present in many whites and some reds), salty (seldom found in wine), bitter (often a result of tannin) and umami (ripe, peak, pungent). Often, flavors can cancel each other out (as in the case of salt inhibiting bitter) or enhance each other (as in the case of salt accentuating sweetness).

Though tongue maps usually place our perceptors of sweet at the tip of the tongue, bitter at the back and sour at the sides, in truth, our taste buds are less specialized and more broadly distributed. In tasting, it is important to let wine roll over and linger on the tongue, be aerated by breath and give forth its first, middle and lasting impressions (although much of what factors into these impressions will be aroma and mouthfeel). "


Children safely asleep in bed,
I set to work on clearing my head.
Another day has flown past,
yet another week has been cast.
I light a candle and watch it's flame,
thankful for so much I can't explain.
I no longer think of what might lurk,
I live for now and partake in 'the turk'.

8.25 out of 10
$16.99 / 750 ml
15% alc. by vol. (yikes! no wonder why I'm feeling so warm and fuzzy)
Turkey Flat Vineyards
http://www.turkeyflat.com/

********* the Guy Weighs in *********

The Turk

Smells like dirty socks. I don’t know what it is about this wine. I was excited about it from my first impression. The name "the Turk" a common football reference – albeit not a good one if you’re a player. Apparently the wine takes some of its characteristics from the football reference. While I’m on it . . . Was it dirty socks or locker room smell? That’s the question flipped back and forth in my mind as I smelled this wine.

OK, so the nose of this wine stinks. It’s not just different, it’s untoward. Thankfully, I’m willing to go past a bad smelling wine to see what’s inside. It’s my adventurous side – at least that’s what I’ve always told the ladies. *shrugs shoulders*

As I sat there typing up my notes on my other job – the football one – I sipped on "the Turk". Berries... that’s what I smell. (side note: Heroes is a good show. I watched season one on the Internet and recommend it to all. If you can’t make it’s normal timeslot, watch it online with headphones on a decent monitor. Well worth it. Of course, I have an affinity for cheerleaders who save the world, Samurai swords and the super natural... at least in my TV shows but not my wines.)

Back to the wine.

You drink the Turk and you feel the warmth as it rolls down your throat and it inches toward your belly. Left behind though is a slightly chalky taste. It’s earthy smell fills your mouth. The wine is smooth, but leaves behind a residue like dust on the hood of your car in the desert. You know it’s there, but you can’t be bothered to wash it off because your mind is on other things.
Once you get past the initial smell, this wine is actually a decent wine. It’s not overpowering with it’s berry flavor, or it’s tannins (as many wine snobs describe it). It’s full-bodied, with a solid finish. It doesn’t disappear after the first glass, and isn’t too strong to cause you to stop drinking it after the second. I liked the wine because many times you purchase something in this price range and it’s forgettable. This wine was anything BUT that.

As the Gal described, this wine has 15% alchohol so it hits you if you’re not used to that kind of concentration. Sometimes that level can burn when you drink it, this wine doesn’t. It’s powerful, but controlled.

If you can find a smoother wine with less nose, then get it, but you won’t go wrong with this one.