Among the headlines that wine publications regularly update, emerging wine regions always find a place. In Forbes’ list of rising wine regions for 2024, there were four from the United States (Finger Lakes, Long Island, Vermont, Michigan), along with Canada, Armenia, Hungary, Japan, and Patagonia. In the updated 2025 list, Northern England, Scandinavia, and the Azores from Europe were added. While we always scan these lists for Turkey, our name has yet to appear.

DISTINCTIVE STRENGTHS OF THE TURKISH WINE WORLD

Developed at Stanford in the 1960s, the SWOT analysis is a tool that can be applied to almost any structure. We used it to assess the Turkish wine sector.

In this framework, the subject is evaluated in terms of Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. The initials give the model its name: SWOT.

Two of these headings—Strengths and Opportunities—are where we may find the light on the horizon. Let’s start with Turkey’s strengths, then move to the opportunities they create.

TURKEY’S STRENGTHS

1. Vineyard area  (ranked fifth in the world)
2. Diversity of Vitis vinifera grape varieties
3. A small but highly skilled private production sector
4. Steady growth in the number of wine grape varieties
5. Emerging wine routes tied to culture and gastronomy tourism
6. The historic advantage of being part of wine’s earliest story

OPPORTUNITIES AHEAD FOR TURKEY

When it comes to weaknesses, the public sector tops the list. Under current conditions, improvement in this area seems unlikely. This is a major gap—but it’s the reality we face. 

In this piece, I invite you to think about how we can turn our existing strengths into real opportunities without state support. 

What opportunities does our vineyard area offer?

Turkey is one of the largest grape producers in the world and the global leader in dried grapes. In the alcoholic beverages industry (including distilled spirits), only about 10–12% of grapes are used—of which just a quarter goes into winemaking. In other words, there is no real barrier to increasing wine’s share of grape production.

What can our Vitis vinifera diversity bring?

Italy is considered the global leader in registered Vitis vinifera varieties, with 545, followed by France with 210. About 350 Italian varieties are actively used in winemaking.

Turkey’s Tekirdağ Viticulture Institute records 1,459 registered grape varieties. After removing synonyms and duplicates, roughly 850 remain—more than Italy and France combined. 

Our misfortune is that, unlike other European countries, we have not carried out the same legal registration processes, nor identified how many of these grapes are suitable for winemaking.

Is there an advantage in having few but skilled producers?

Turkey has around 200 active producers. Given low domestic consumption, even this number faces challenges in sales. What unites them is a passion for wine and the private financial means to bear production costs. Their modest profit expectations make it easier to keep going. 

This situation means the number of producers large enough to qualify as “industrial” is fewer than ten—far too few to make an export impact on the global wine market. Yet Turkey remains perfectly suited for small- and medium-scale winemaking. The fact that producer numbers keep rising despite every restriction and obstacle is proof of this.

What does the steady growth in wine grape varieties mean?

In 2014, before WAYANA, when we first began serving wine at our previous establishment, Turkey had 26 registered wine grapes, with wines made from 20 of them. By 2025, that number exceeded 80, including newly tasted varieties. In the years ahead, there are dozens—perhaps hundreds—more we have yet to discover.

Younger generations are drawn to experience-driven events. For both local and international wine lovers, Turkey is an unmatched paradise waiting to be explored. 

Our only task is to make sure they hear about this paradise before they miss the chance to see it.

How can more and better wine routes help?

The first serious attempt at wine tourism in Turkey—Trakya Vineyard Route—was launched with state support but died at birth. 

It needs to be rebuilt and revitalized. The Urla Vineyard Route, by contrast, began as a civil initiative and continues to grow successfully.

In the last two years, smaller-scale routes like the Çal Vineyard Road and the Lydia Ancient Vineyard Route have been added. Talks are underway for routes in Cappadocia, Troy, and Kalecik. Combining Turkey’s archaeological and ethnographic wealth with gastronomy offers extraordinary potential.

What does it mean to be part of wine’s birthplace?

Turkey is home to the land where the wild vine was first tamed and wine was first made. This is not a competition—it is history’s gift to us. To write the history of wine without including Anatolia is to leave the record incomplete.

Turkey has yet to produce a scholarly history of wine. One can only hope we will have the means to do so someday. 

Even without such a history, just three examples show the identity “Anatolian Wines” could carry:

• The Anatolian Civilizations Museum in Ankara houses more archaeological wine artifacts than any other museum in the world.

• Mount Ararat, accepted in sacred texts as the resting place of Noah’s Ark—the first vintner—is in Turkey. Our neighbor Armenia, a rising star in wine, often uses photographs of Ararat (from their side) in promotions.

• Troy, setting of Homer’s epics that form the foundation of Western literature, is in Çanakkale. Yet we do not fully claim the Iliad and Odyssey as our own Anatolian heritage.

IS THERE LIGHT AHEAD FOR TURKISH WINE?

If the points above do not inspire hope, perhaps the reason lies in the fatalism this land often breeds.

Would it be easier if the state supported these efforts? Certainly. But that option is not on the table today. 

So, should we simply complain and leave it to fate?

We have the vision, expertise, and human capital to create an organized promotional program for the wine sector. 

A collective model for Turkish wine could help us break that pattern.

There are NGOs working under various wine-related names. If these groups coordinated their efforts, we could achieve much—starting with analog and digital publications that showcase what we have. 

With such publications, the Turkish wine sector could tell its story, present Turkey as a destination worth knowing, and secure a lasting place on the map for global wine lovers.

That would be one of the greatest gifts and legacies we could leave to our children. 

Here, we call on all organizations with “wine” in their name to lend a hand to wine. We believe the sector’s stakeholders will quickly realize just how much strength we actually have.

A FINAL WORD

With our small structure, we see it as our duty to be the voice of the richness described above. 

Ours is the ant’s slow walk to Baghdad. You know the ending to that tale: when told, “You’ll never reach Baghdad at this pace,” the reply is, “Then we’ll die on the road to Baghdad.”

If we fail to build a collective identity as industry players, we will be doomed to tell our children yet another story of a missed opportunity—and we will likely have died on that road. 

But at least we will be able to say: We did all we could.