Last Updated on October 8, 2024
Wine and Gastronomy in and around Alaçatı, Turkey
At about three times the size of the UK, a country where Europe and Asia converge, it’s hardly surprising that there’s a lot to see and do in Turkey. I’ve travelled around the Turkish Mediterranean and of course, I’ve been to Istanbul, each time with a focus on gastronomy. But, Alaçatı, Izmir and the Turkish Aegean (on the West Coast of the country with the Marmara Region to the north, Central Anatolia to the east and the Mediterranean Region to the south) was a new destination for me.
It turned out to be a real hidden gem that went beyond the stunning beaches and turquoise waters of the Aegean. In particular, the region’s Urla Vineyard Trail (Urla Bag Yolu) is evolving into a gastronomic hub, with Michelin-starred fine dining to complement the amazing local traditional cuisine.
An introduction to traditional Alaçatı and Izmir
Exploring the pretty winding streets of Alaçatı will give you the chance to get a feel for the region. There are cute cafes and bars, a plethora of boutique hotels, shops catering for both local residents and visitors (mostly Turkish) and there’s a buzzing nightlife.
Make sure you stop for a Turkish coffee and visit some of the beaches. If you are hungry, you can buy stuffed mussels from one of the street food sellers – eat as many as you want before getting the shells weighed to work out your bill.
And, if you really want a meat fest local style, head for Veysi’s, near Çeşme where you SHOULD try one of the doner kebabs– I recommend Betya Doner, a delicious plate of slices of flatbread wrapped kebab encircling a pool of fragrant herbaceous yoghurt like a giant sunflower.
As you’d expect from a seaside town, there is plenty of seafood on offer, particularly around the Marina. We visited Ferdi Baba fish restaurant and enjoyed a whole range of mezze and some delicious fish dishes on our first evening.
The famous classic Turkish breakfast can leave you wondering if you’ll ever need to eat again. Our hotel, the charming family-owned and run Alaçatı Antmare, served a wonderful spread including borek and simit pastries, olives, salads, cheese and various fruit juices. Washed down with copious quantities of Turkish tea, I was more than happy not to eat again before dinner. 
If you’d like to experience a classic Turkish breakfast away from your hotel, I can recommend the charming Asma Yapragi which is just outside the centre of Alaçatı. At breakfast, you’ll be offered a buffet-style selection of cheese, jams, olives, fresh fruit and vegetables and a range of breads and pastries together with various egg dishes. For example, menemen a popular traditional Turkish dish that includes scrambled eggs, fresh tomato, peppers, and spices all cooked in olive oil was one that even I loved.
You’ll probably find it hard to leave without buying a jar or two of their homemade preserves and pickles, especially if you are lucky enough to have seen them being made and you might even be tempted by the collection of shabby chic homeware that you’ll find on display in their shop.
For more street food, head to Izmir city centre, where you’ll find small artisan shops, restaurants and bars selling everything from Kebabs to traditionally made Turkish coffee and sweets.
The Urla Wine Route
Perhaps most intriguing though is the Urla Wine Route. It’s a part of the world where the oldest winemaking goes back to before 1700 BC, with storage jugs discovered around the region dating to the Bronze Age. A rich agricultural area, the land has been cultivated since 4000 BC and winemaking thrived until, like much of Europe, the vines were destroyed by phylloxera around 100 years ago. Then, after the First World War, many Turkish people moved to Greece – and the winemaking expertise was lost.
At the Uzbos Arboretum, we met six of the ten vineyard owners and winemakers who make up the Urla Wine Route and tasted a selection of their wines. It was a fascinating introduction to Turkish wines, made from a mix of indigenous grapes and better-known International varieties.
The resurgence of wine-making in the area started with Reha Ogunlu, the founder of Urlice Winery. He bought the land some 28 years ago and first planted it with vines 24 years ago. Originally he’d intended to landscape plants for the Arboretum, but when they were trying to clear the slopes he found broken pieces of amphora and some of the original terraces. Realising they were relics of an earlier wine production, they stopped digging. The amphora are from the Ionian period around 1000 BC, when people from mainland Greece travelled across the Aegean Sea to colonize Asia Minor.
Turkey (Türkiye) continued to be a major wine-producing country until phylloxera and the Urla peninsula alone at one time produced 72 million litres of wine a year – more than the whole of Turkey today. Now, as part of the revival of winemaking, this part of the country is developing and evolving its cultural heritage with Gastronomy and Art as key pillars in building success.
It’s a programme that is nurtured by a new kind of winemaker – the owners of the Urla wineries are professionals – Lawyers, Doctors and Architects, with a passion for their country and an enthusiasm for showcasing what is possible.
New boutique hotels are being developed, converted from farmhouses or built from scratch. At Urlice for instance the 24-room boutique hotel with a spa and vinotherapy will be open next year
The New Gastronomy of Aegean Turkey
There’s a new gastronomy, built on the fabulous fresh ingredients that are available in the region. A far cry from Pide and Kebabs you’ll find from street sellers, the Michelin-listed restaurants pride themselves on using local ingredients to create innovative, often vegetable-based dishes.
At Teruar (Turkish for Terroir), the restaurant is housed in a modern building constructed from local stone. There are guestrooms so you can stay overnight – and there’s a menu which features many local ingredients including local olive oil, bluefin tuna, mastic, subye, blue-tailed shrimp, sea beans, and a plethora of herbs and vegetables from their own garden.
We tried their own focaccia, basil croquettes, a welcome drink of local green tomato with Armenian cucumber and a dish of phyllo filled with a house-made artichoke pate. In this region, Artichoke is a PDO product.
Highlights of the dishes that followed included a fabulous dish with green beans in a clear tomato broth. And, my personal favourite, the Bluefin tuna with sea beans (samphire) and a fresh green pepper sauce. At least three-quarters of the tasting menu was vegetarian and there was only one meat option on offer.
Paired with Turkish wines, many of them from the Urla region, this was a great example of Michelin-star dining that really showcases local ingredients. The menu has a map on one side with the ingredients used in the ‘High Vibrations’ tasting menu listed.
Chef, Osman Serdaroğlu’s technique is something like Mediterranean meets Simon Rogan – and every bit as fine.
By contrast, Od Urla another of the region’s Michelin-starred restaurants, offers a refined menu with a focus on cooking on their open wood fire. Once again, the dishes focussed heavily on local produce and there was a focus on vegetarian and pescatarian dishes with just one meat course out of the 10 we were offered.
I have to confess that I am still craving more of that particular dish though, the Dana Yanak (Beef Cheek) with carrot and cumin. Sweet, meltingly tender and beautifully plated, it was an excellent end to the savoury part of our tasting menu.
Od Urla offers a tasting menu for around £85 with optional wine pairings at around £70 for 6 glasses. Choose to sit in the fairytale garden with moon-like lighting illuminating the foliage, or at the fast-paced Chef’s table. It’s a restaurant where the theatre of food is important and everyone from sommelier to chef takes part.
But, it’s not just show – the food itself is excellent and, although their entry in the Michelin guide claims that the cuisine is French, I’d dispute that – I’ve never come across Wood fire grilled sea bass with Cesme mastic and clams in any French dining setting!
Isabey Winery
While it’s further inland away from the peninsula and not part of the Urla wine route, it was undoubtedly at Isabey Vineyard and Winery that the fusion of local wines and fine dining was best exemplified. Isabey Winery makes Sevilen wines using grapes from their vineyards a few kilometres south of Izmir and from other vineyards, they own further inland.
The Güner Family who own the winery has been making wine in the Izmir region for over 50 years and they offer a wide range of wines based on local (Narince, Bornova Misketi, Sultaniye, Karasakiz, Öküzgözü, Boğazkere, Kalecik Karasi) and international grape varieties. The winemaking business (partly using their own grapes and partly an informal negotiant system) started when the grandfather of the current owners immigrated from Bulgaria. They now work with a French wine specialist, Florent Dumeau, to ensure the quality of their wines.
We enjoyed a wine tasting, sampling both wines made from indigenous grapes and those made from international varieties. Of the latter, the Vendage 78 was an outstanding red, a blend of Cabernet Franc, Merlot and Petit Verdot, aged for 14 months in French oak barrel. I’d defy anyone to differentiate this from a good French Bordeaux in a blind tasting and at 20 euros a bottle it’s well-priced. Of the Plato range I particularly liked the Narince 2022, made from the eponymous indigenous grape, which tasted like a subtle chardonnay, while the Plato Öküzgözü 2021 was a delicious merlot/gamay type of red with plenty of dark fruit notes, vanilla and liquorice. Excellent value at around 15 euros retail, it’s based on Öküzgözü grapes, a large indigenous grape variety with a name that literally means “ox eye”.
Sevilen wines are imported to the UK by Berkmann, so even if you don’t visit for yourself, you should find some of their offerings on wine lists in good restaurants!
Isabey has an excellent Michelin-listed restaurant (aiming for a star!!!) and we enjoyed a fabulous al fresco lunch pairing their wines with food from the restaurant. We all particularly loved the dish of baby calamari marinaded in garlic, chilli, their own olive oil, parsley and lemon before cooking.
And, they win the prize for the prettiest dessert of the trip – a wine-poached peach with white chocolate soil, sweet cream cheese and lavender ice cream served with a sweet wine, a late harvest indigenous Sultanye, Tatli Beyaz Şarap.
An unmissable place to visit if you happen to be in or around Izmir – whether to explore the Sevilen wines or to enjoy the food – or both.
Yedi Bilgeler
Finishing at Yedi Bilgeler was a good way to conclude our trip. Just 10 kilometres from Ephesus, Bilge and Gülgün Asar Yamen were doctors who had a dream to build a winery. What they’ve created is a testament to wine tourism, with a boutique hotel, an environmentally sensitive winery and a restaurant in a ‘castle’ style that reflects the local architecture. And some excellent wines to try too. The name Yedi Bilgeler means Seven Sages and reflects the ancient Greek heritage of what is now Turkey (Türkiye).
We enjoyed several of their wines with a tasting menu of local ingredients. I was fascinated to learn that they are currently restoring a Chateau and winery in France. Meanwhile, the Turkish wines are all named after philosophers. I particularly enjoyed the Pythagoras – a heady 14.8% ABV blend of Malbec, Merlot, Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon.
Summary and Fact Box
This part of Turkey is a treasure that deserves to be discovered, just three and a half hours from London Stansted by air to the region’s airport in Izmir. The Turkish Aegean is a part of the country with a thriving gastronomy and sites that are packed with history. Add stunning beaches that remain relatively underdeveloped and charming small towns and villages and you have the kind of destination I know I’ll be visiting again. From a hectic two and a half days travelling around the region, there’s too much to cover in one feature, so look out for my next article on heritage in the Turkish Aegean.
Fly direct to Izmir Adnan Menderes Airport with Pegasus Airlines. From London Stansted, the journey takes around 3 hours 40 minutes
Fiona stayed at the Alaçatı Antmare Hotel
Restaurant links
Wineries
For more about Turkey (Türkiye) in general and about the topics covered here, check the Go Turkiye website