The Wines of Anatolia

Appears in
top 1000Anatolia: Adventures in Turkish Cooking
Anatolia

By David Dale and Somer Sivrioglu

Published 2015

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It is believed that the first place in the world where wine was made was Anatolia—by those reliable old Hittites, around 6000 years ago. The Hittites used the Sumerian term viyana for the alcohol derived from grapes—a word which some Turkish scholars think was the origin of a name to the capital of Austria (just as the Persian word ungur for grapes, gave a name to the capital of Turkey, Ankara).

Jewish and Muslim texts tell us that the first crop planted by Noah after he got off the ark was grapes, so his family could celebrate with a cup of wine. That supposedly happened on the southeastern side of Anatolia. Nowadays, excellent red wines are still made in that hot, dry climate.