Wine professionals will explore Anatolia’s unique native grapes and the vastly different climates and growing regions that cross the country.
Andrea Lemieux is a WSET L2 certified wine writer specialising in Turkish indigenous grapes. She is the founder of “The Quirky Cork”, a blog about Turkish indigenous grapes, wineries working with these grapes and people and culture around the great Anatolian wine heritage. Andrea is currently working to introduce the quality of Turkish wine and is the author of The Essential Guide To Turkish Wine, available now for direct order and soon on Amazon.
Umay Çeviker is an architect and a WSET-educated wine lover and researcher. He has contributed to the 7th and 8th editions of ‘The World Atlas of Wine’ by Jancis Robinson and Hugh Johnson, to ‘Wine Grapes’ by Jancis Robinson, Julia Harding and José Vouillamoz and to the 4th edition of ‘The Oxford Companion to Wine’ about Turkey and its grape varieties. Some of his articles have been published on jancisrobinson.com. He has a particular appreciation for the unappreciated in the wine world … especially including Turkish wines and grapes. His work researching little-known Turkish grapes Patkara, Sungurlu and Gök won him the Geoffrey Roberts Award in 2015.
Tina Lino is a PhD viticulturist and Oenologist who came to Turkey from Italy in 2013 to work at Ankara-based winery Vinkara. After three years of experiencing the country’s potential and beauty, she decided to move from Ankara to the Aegean coast and co-founded a viticulture and winemaking consulting firm, called Vine Projects. They focuses on low-impact oenology (minimum manipulation of grapes), high-quality wines, and the valorization of native grapes through cultural practices and winemaking. Sabiha Apaydin is a wine expert and WSET educator who built the wine program at and provides ongoing consultation to one of Istanbul’s premier restaurants, Mikla. In addition,
Sabiha is responsible for the development and administration of a number of projects in support of Turkish wine culture. One such project is the Root Origin Soil symposium around local grapes and wines. Root Origin Soil encourages discussions on past, present, and future studies of local grape varieties with the hope of creating awareness and change.
Gözdem Gürbüzatik is a passionate food and drinks lover. Over the course of 16 years, she led the Kayra Wine brand creation and helped establish Kayra’s wine academy – now the International Wine and Spirits Academy (IWSA) as the first WSET education partner in Turkey. At the same time, Gözdem led the Wines of Turkey platform supporting the awareness and promotion of Turkish grapes and wines as a board member of the Wine Producers’ Association. Now an independent consultant, she writes about alcoholic beverages within the scope of Anatolia-mainly wine, rakı and botanical drinks- and is currently working on a project with Sabiha and several other wine and gastronomy experts, to protect the vineyards of Cappadocia.
