Grape Escapes from Istanbul
Below we detail our two and three-day Turkey wine tours from Istanbul. These are the perfect way to explore the wine region of Thrace, try the food, learn about the culture and history a little and take a break from the craziness of Istanbul in the simply beautiful scenery.
Wine Tours from Istanbul | Highlights:
- Private tour, the flexibility, and comfort to fully enjoy Thracian wines
- Visit four wineries over two days – or seven wineries over three days
- Tour and taste with the owners, winemakers or agronomists
- Extensive tastings of local and international grapes
- Explore the stunning Dupnisa Caves to stretch your legs
- Learn about the ancient history of the region at the Tekirdag Museum
- Enjoy local gastronomy and taste how it pairs with local wines
- Stay overnight at a lovely winery hotel and soak up the terroir
- Add an Aegean wine tour or Cappadocia to your wine tour
Our Turkey wine tours from Istanbul have one or two nights away. If you choose the two-day trip you will be staying at either Bakucha Winery Hotel or Vino Dessera Winehouse, both of which are absolutely lovely. With two nights away from Istanbul we will choose a hotel in the small city of Tekirdag.
Enjoying blending in the tank room at Vino Dessera
Two-Day Turkey Wine Tours.
We will pick you up and leave your Istanbul hotel after breakfast, driving initially on main highways before veering off into the countryside and heading to the Arcadia Winery. Arcadia Vineyards and the Bakucha hotel and spa are set in lovely, green rolling hills some 1.45 hours drive from the metropolis.
At this first stop, you will enjoy a tasting of 6 or 7 wines from Arcadia´s range, accompanied by some local cheese and bread. You will be able to stretch your legs and enjoy the beautiful views while you get to know about Thracian wines. A member of the winery staff will lead us, and your local guide or wine tour leader will add their knowledge to make sure you have any questions answered.
Malka with a whole flight of Arcadia wines 
Turkish wine is much better than you might think
After an hour or so at Arcadia, we set off to drive around an hour into a very isolated part of the Thracian countryside. The views on the route are stunning and the Dupnisa Caves are a real treat. A few minutes before the caves we can make a stop at the rustic riverside eatery you see below. OK, it’s not the Ritz but what a setting!
After refueling, we head to the caves where we will spend 45 minutes walking the beautifully lit caverns, marveling at the rock formations, stalactites, and stalagmites. Small bats and lizards will be probably be spotted along the way and then we climb the steps to exit the caves into the lush countryside where you will be greeted by an explosion of trees, flowers, and birds.
Note: The route to and from the caves is quite sinuous so if you have motion sickness let us know, plus there are quite a number of steps to climb up and down for a full visit of the caves.
After we leave the caves we will drive an hour or so towards Kirklareli near the Bulgarian border, arriving late afternoon at Vino Dessera. We will be staying overnight here, so when we arrive we will check into our rooms. After we check-in, we will have a glass of wine with the owner Dogan, a real character. The next few hours will be spent enjoying tasting lots of wine, touring the winery and vines, eating dinner, and chatting all things wine with the owner.
We will awake to great views of the vines, enjoy a hearty breakfast and then head off driving 90 minutes or so to Barbare near Tekirdag. The Barbare Winery is perched among rolling hills on the Marmara coast, owned by Can Topsakal who sold his boatyard to buy the lands in the early 2000s. Both Barbare and Vino Dessera benefit from the consultancy of flying winemaker Xavier Vignon, famous for his work in the Chateauneuf du Pape region.
We will have a tasting here with views over the Sea of Marmara, we save walking the vines and cellars for later in the day at our last stop. At Barbare, we will enjoy the wines with some cheeses, stretch our legs and freshen up. After an hour or so at Barbare, we will drive 20 minutes into the small city of Tekirdag and visit the small archeological and anthropological museum with its interesting collection of exhibits, including barnacle-encrusted wine amphorae found in sunken ships.
We will spend around 45 minutes looking at exhibits in the museum before grabbing a quick lunch at a local restaurant across the street. After our lunch stop, we head off to our last winery which is around 30 minutes down the coast, Chateau Nuzun or Sato Nuzun as it can be spelled locally.
We will be greeted by the owner Nazan when we arrive. She is extremely enthusiastic about their project and rightly proud that they have designed and constructed the winery by themselves, coming from an engineering background made that possible. We will have a look around the vines with Nazan, then see a little of the production area and cellars before trying 4 or 5 of their wines.
If today is your last day on our wine tours then its back to Istanbul for you, being dropped off at your hotel around 7 pm, depending on traffic. If you decided to extend by one more day then read on!
Turkey Wine Tours – Marmara Coast
After spending the night in Tekirdag at a comfortable hotel we will head off down the coast shortly after breakfast. Today you will visit three wineries, plus a ruined Monastery among vines, before heading back to Istanbul.
The first point of call is found near the town of Sakoy, some 80 km drive from Tekirdag, where a modernist structure perched on a hillside announces the presence of Chateau Kalpak. The winery boasts lovely views from its vantage point above the Sea of Marmara.
This boutique winery produces award-winning wines with a gravity-fed, non-filtered approach while employing plenty of new French oak. The owner is an art lover as often art will adorn not just the above-ground facilities but also the cellars, as you can see below. We will enjoy a look around the vines, winery and then have a tasting to kick start our wine day.
When we leave Kalpak we will have a short drive along the Marmara coastal road through some small villages until we arrive at the Kutman winery. We will not tour the winery here but they have a very interesting wine museum. The owner spent years collecting old machinery and material to form the museum, which serves as a great environment for their wine store today. As you can read in the previous link the old winery has been refurbished and is now home to modern methods while maintaining its character and history.
After browsing the museum pieces and photos we will try tasting a few wines here, these guys are not exactly polished in their approach to tasting and will open bottles at random, this is part of the charm and experience. We will try wines made from other fruit also.
Either in this village or the next, we will grab some lunch at a local eatery, most likely with the backdrop of fishing boats. After refueling, we will head the short distance to the third stop of the day, Melen Winery. Cem, the owner of Melen and the third generation of winemakers in his family, is a bit of a character and very expressive and enthusiastic. Cem will show us his winery which is still in its original 1920s building and which is home to some lovely old amphorae, covered in barnacles from their time in sunken wrecks.
We will have a look around the production and aging areas before driving up into the surrounding hills to visit the vineyards. Melen has a brand new tasting room with superb views over the vines and sea, plus a major bonus is a fact that an ancient Greek Monastery is to be found within the vines, St Ioannis. We will have the chance to walk among the ruins, with a glass of wine in your hand.
When we have tried all the wines that Cem offers us we will get back into the vehicle and head back to Istanbul. The journey back should take around 2 hours, maybe a little more with the traffic, but you may not even notice as people generally nap after all the wine consumed.
If you have enjoyed our Turkey wine tours then why not enjoy more of Turkey with the wine region close to Izmir or Cappadocia. Or more of the ancient Caucasus region with our Birthplace of Wine Triangle?
