Kalecik

Drinkers are getting into something of a fizz over Turkish sparkling wine.

"We are selling out very quickly. We cannot meet the growing demand especially as the New Year [celebrations] near," said Candaş Mısır of the Vinkara winery an hour from Ankara.

A magnitude 4.5 earthquake rattled Turkey's capital Ankara on Jan. 10, according to the country's disaster management agency.

The Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) said on its website that the epicenter of quake was the Kalecik district.

It occurred at a depth of 12 kilometers (around 8 miles) at 10.53 p.m. local time (1953 GMT), the agency added.

Some eight people were killed and another 34 were injured early on May 27 when a passenger bus overturned in the Kalecik district of Ankara, state-run Anadolu Agency has reported.

The bus driven by Sedat Gürer overturned in the Çankırı-Çandır junction while it was heading to Ankara from Kastamonu.

A number of ambulances were immediately dispatched to the scene.

Years ago, during the harvest season, I was strolling in the streets of Kalecik, a small town close to Ankara, when I noticed a strange handwritten note on a box of grapes for sale. It wrote "şişe kaçkını," with a rough translation meaning "escaped from the bottle." Of course I said to myself, just the right wording; these were the grapes that were not good enough for the bottle.

Rose of the World! That was her name. Gülcihan; when literally translated, "gül," meaning rose in Turkish, and "cihan" is world. We only met briefly, about two months ago. It was a wine-tasting event in Ankara; her smile was contagious, warm and hugging. 

The vast vineyards of businessman Lucien Arkas are located close to the antique city of Metropolis near İzmir in western Turkey. During a recent business trip to İzmir, at a lunch in Arkas' vineyards, I thought once again about how valuable the grape is for these lands, where grapes and mythology coexist.