Nif Bağları (Nif Vineyards & Winery)
A lovely estate winery with the most authentic Bornova Misketi and notable Reserve red wines.
Nif Vineyards is the long time labor of love from a successful industrialist Mr. Hamid and his family. The founder from this village near Kemalpasa near Izmir left in the 1970s to make a living and became one of the leading glass manufacturers in Turkey. He and his children's dream of a winery has been realized and quite beautifully as well.
The vineyard is a mere 35 minutes from downtown Izmir on the northern inland route. It is settled into the foothills on the same range where Homer's preferred wine - what we now call Bornova Misketi was grown. Nif continues that tradition of growing this magnificent, fragrant, fruity, strongly scented grape in the same foothills region just up from the Bornova bay of Izmir.
The vineyard has a lovely restaurant/ tasting room that is in the same building adjacent to their modern and sophisticated looking winery. They do progressive food and wine pairings here and the weather is always nice due to the mild inland climate of the region. The winery interestingly has tractor collection - set among the steel fermentation tanks - with amazing views of the vineyard.
Their range of wine grape varietals includes Shiraz, Sangiovese, Montepulciano, Grenache, Bornova Misketi, Chardonnay, Solaris (the only one I've seen in Turkey) and Viognier. The Reserve series and the Chardonnay are barrelled in French alone or sometimes French and American Oak barrels from 8 mos to 21 mos (the Reserve Shiraz). They have a wide selection of wines and I'm sure everyone will find something to their pleasing here.
As the winery is close to Izmir and along the road to Ankara it can be busy on weekends, but they have plenty of space.
Tastings are well done and you often have more than 8 wines on offer, as well as bottles of everything. As the vineyards are located all around the winery, you can easily step out into the soil and experience a bit of the terrior.
This is a lovely place run by lovely people. They graciously accompanied me on a full tasting of their wines and we enjoyed hours (literally) of thought provoking conversation.
What more could you ask for in a winery than great wines to try, good food selections, vineyards to meander in, nice conversation and a tractor museum!
A lovely recommendable winery.
