Style: White Wine
Producer: Gelveri
Country: Turkey
Vintage: 2019
ABV: 12.7%

These are truly unique wines, from Gelveri. The winemakers, a German conservationist-turned-winemaker named Udo Hirsch and his Turkish partner, Do Özkaya, preserve old ways of making wine with almost no modern equipment, preferring to use ancient küp, or amphora, to ferment and age their wine.

"I am a nature conservationist. I come from there. I look from there", Udo says.
"Let's make it natural. Let's have a high biodiversity if possible. No impact if not urgently needed. Drop it and let it go." Hirsch and Özkaya opt to lightly crush each grape with a rubber roller before all the bunches, stems and all, go into the amphora.

Güzelyurt is situated about 1500m high and so are the vineyards of the area which belong to the highest-altitude winegrowing regions in the world. Harvest and processing of the grapes usually does not start before early October. At this time temperatures during the day are just over 20°C but can lower to 9°C in the night. Gelveri makes their wines in steel tanks and in free-standing küps (amphora) for the first two years.