After we made up our minds about the opening of our shop in Istanbul Moda as a wine house, we first discussed the name for a while. After choosing the name WAYANA, this time ideas were raised about how to define and set rules of hospitality that will distinguish us from the rest. Uluğ was with us during the opening of the shop, the second generation of the family and he suggested one of these ideas as "Welcome Wine". Uluğ, as an academic researcher, was able to dig in and bring out an old, long-forgotten Turkish tradition of Welcome Wine.
When you come to WAYANA, we meet you with family heirloom, tiny liquor glasses in the form of wine glasses. Traditionally in Turkey, we use these mini glasses for serving local fruit liquors when the families pay a visit during religious holidays as part of the local ceremonies. Now the same tiny glasses are used in serving our customers Welcome Wine. Every day we pick a different wine, mostly wines of endemic Turkish grapes. Welcome Wine is accompanied by cheese, dried apricots, green olives and a tiny cheese ball. This welcome set suits us very well and the value we give to our guests is easily noticed.
Welcome Wine is an Ottoman tavern tradition that appears in the Divan literature records of the Ottoman period. While the essence of the word was an expression of interest and address in the sense of 'Welcome, you brought joy', over time it has evolved into the meaning of the wine glass (welcome glass) offered as a 'Welcome' treat to the new guests in the hospitality industry. From this point of view, it is understood that the use of the word ‘merhaba (welcome)’ in our daily language today has an important role in the role of hospitality that it has undertaken over time.
The sophisticated Ottoman literature has a great deal of works dedicated to praise wine despite the fact that the consumption of wine was illegal, also sinful. The language of the poems use archaic Ottoman Turkish, a mixture of Turkish, Persian and Arabic, no longer in use. Some of the old poems are dedicated to Welcome Wine.
Tekellüfsüz sunup meygûn lebini Offered his wine-colored lips casually
Müdâm içilse tolu merhabâlı As a glass of welcome wine is always drunk from.
In the Divan literature, which is based on language and word games, all of the words mudâm, tolu and merhabâ in the above couplet have the same meaning of wine as well as their main meanings.
Let's wrap up our article "Hello Wine" with another couplet of Hayretî, another Divan poet.
Kullarunla serverâ ‘ayş-ı müdâm it sen müdâm Have your wine feast with your guests my king
Hayretî bir merhabâya râzîdur eyyâmda Hayretî* suffices with a glass of welcome wine
