Wine and dine with art
End-of-year pieces typically highlight the milestones of the past year. For a food writer, it's about the best meals savored; for a wine writer, it's the finest bottles uncorked. This year, my memory is foggy, the only memory I recall vividly is our bizarre trip to Provence with my daughter who is 28. Our motive was not to make a culinary discovery trip but to make an entry to France because of her soon-to-expire Schengen visa. The rest of the trip was planned haphazardly by my daughter. The word bizarre fits in at this point. Her motive was to go to Cos in the cheapest way possible, and it turned out to be from Pisa, Italy, for only 16 euros direct flight to the island. She had to attend a friend’s wedding at Cos, and the travel from Ankara to Bodrum, and to take the ferry to the Greek island was more costly than to travel from Türkiye to France, take the coach to Torino and then the train to Pisa to fly to Cos. She had to first make an entry to France anyway, so we booked to Marseille. The schedule was tight as the due wedding date limited our stay in France, but we let ourselves to the flow, and mostly to the decisions of our travel companion Oray Eğin, who is a leading columnist in Türkiye, but also an unforgiving food critic who wouldn’t blink an eye to splash money for a good meal. With the car he rented we hit the road!
Pink memories of Château La Coste
The start of the trip was a bit dim for me. I was not at my best self as I had a three-way operation on my right wrist, two knees and an injection to the spine. Our first stop was sort of torturous because it was Chez Michel in Marseille for their famed bouillabaisse. I have a strong sensitivity to the smell of fish and seafood, and my personal culinary history is spotted with embarrassing moments of not handling properly the fishy tastes. I survived concentrating on my potato plate. Maybe that is why the rest of the trip is still a bit blurry for me, but you never eat bad in Provence, even the small bakery in the sleepy town where we were staying had amazing bites, and probably the best crunchy flaky gigantic Palmier ever. Our target dinner at the summer pop-up Songes at St Rémy de Provence was a Turkish-inspired dinner by the young Turkish chef Ecem Karakuş and we were lucky to visit the vicinities with her guidance. One never eats badly in Provence, though it can be a bit repetitive. Another repetitive thing one does in Provence is to imbibe constantly on rosé wine, especially when in August. So, it is natural that we tried several formidable bottles, but a glass of chilled rosé is more about savoring the moment, rather than tasting the wine. And that idle happy moment turned about to be in Château La Coste, a wine estate midway between St Remy and Aix-en-Provence. To admit, being there was a revelation, entering the vineyard through the gate and visitor center designed by Japanese architect Tadao Ando was the telltale of a great day ahead of us. Despite the operations I had only a few days ago, the walk through the vineyard was an amazing discovery of art & architecture, full of surprises at the most unexpected moments. Just as you are walking through Cabernet vines, a steely sharp Richard Serra sculpture ruptures the landscape, or in an Oscar Niemeyer pavilion a temporary exhibition by Japanese artist Ding Yi, just made for that particular site perfectly echoes the vine leaves seen behind. Time flew hopping through sculptures, installations and galleries designed by distinguished architects like Kengo Kuma, Frank Gehry, Renzo Piano, Richard Rodgers and Jean Nouvel to name a few. The memorable moment of the year was sipping the estate’s rosé wine rose at the end of the long vineyard walk. My chilled glass reflected lovely shades of pink, hued pale salmon pink to onion skin, it was vibrant with fresh summer berries and delicate nectarines on the nose. It was totally a moment engraved to my mind, perhaps it was because I was momentarily away from what I had been doing lately, enjoying a totally last moment trip, in the most unexpected unusually beautiful setting. The excitement from art and architecture surpasses the pleasures of fine dining, sometimes it is the atmosphere that enhances a sip of wine. No wonder the memories of the rest of the year remain foggy!
Exhibit of the year: Miró in İzmir
The rest of our Provence trip continued in Nice, mostly sitting on a bank in a park watching people playing “jeu de boules” and never being able to figure out how the game works. All those idle moments were again accompanied by sips of summer wine, and when we were not lazy we’d visit the museums. The highlight was the “MiróMatisse: Beyond Images” exhibition at the Musée Matisse in Nice examining the relationships between Henri Matisse and Joan Miró’s works and showcasing the little-known encounter of the two great artists. But the rest of the year was full of further surprises. Upon returning to Türkiye, I had an unexpected invite for the opening of another Miró exhibition in İzmir at Arkas Art Center titled “Joan Miró: Image, Text, Sign” for a formidable experience, especially because we were lucky to listen to the curator himself, Robert Lubar Messeri, the foremost expert on the Catalan artist. The exhibition was organized in collaboration Serralves Foundation in Portugal consisting of an exceptional selection of works by Miró, displaying pieces executed on a wide variety of surfaces such as packaging, paper, masonite, panels, tapestries, tapestries, burlap and newspapers, and in techniques such as bronze, driftwood and ceramics. The overall exhibition stands out as one of the most comprehensive Miró exhibitions ever held in Türkiye as Arkas Holding Chairman Lucien Arkas claims. In addition to the paintings for which the artist gained his fame, the exhibition also presents for the first time in Türkiye the “Sobreteixims” series, which aims to bridge the distinction between paintings and fabrics, and a sample from his Burnt Canvases, which emphasize that art can be used as a powerful tool of criticism beyond aesthetic expression. Visiting the Miró in İzmir surpassed the Nice experience, offering a profound exploration of Miró’s inventive and imaginative universe, with sips of LA wine from Arkas wineries. It seems my memorable wine and dine moments were always accompanied by art, a good pairing indeed! The exhibition will be open until Feb. 9, 2025, be sure not to miss!
