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History

Kavaklıdere Winery’s story began in Switzerland. A former Young Turk, Tunalı Hilmi, who was originally a member of İttihat ve Terakki, first as a colonel, then as a Member of Parliament, married the daughter of a noted Geneva family while he was in Switzerland. They had a daughter and a son whom they named Sevda and İnsan respectively. These children grew up and were educated in both cultures - Turkish and Swiss.

 

While in Switzerland, undergoing treatment for an illness, Sevda Tunalı ,a student at Galatasaray High School, met the son of a wealthy Plovdiv family named Serçeşmebeyleroğlu Mehmet Cenap, who had studied economics in Germany. This meeting ended happily with their subsequent marriage. According to the new law governing surnames, the couple adopted And as their last name.

 

Sevda and Cenap And made their home in Ankara. Cenap worked for Türkiye İş Bankası as an employee. Perhaps due to their farsightedness or maybe because of their education, the couple saw great potential for viticulture and public improvement in Ankara’s Kavaklıdere region. Obtaining a loan from a banker friend in Switzerland, the couple bought some withered vineyards which had fallen on lean times and been neglected over the years, as well as another vineyard and some land in the Kavaklıdere area, with the future intention of establishing a winery. During this time, İnsan Tunalı took employment in Foreign Affairs Ministry and took over duties at headquarters and then abroad.

 

In 1929, Sevda and Cenap And accidentally met Balaj Usta, a foreman who was working as a foreman on the Ziraat Bank building. He had been making his own wine, using locally bought grapes and techniques he had learned while living in his village in Hungary and was a great help to Sevda and Cenap And in implementing their idea to produce wine from the vineyards they had acquired in Ankara and other vineyards in the province. This accidental meeting resulted in the production of first Kavaklıdere’s wines with the possibilities of those days.

 

While Sevda and Cenap And were developing their winemaking facility and improving the quality of wine together with wine experts, wine equipment and materials imported from Europe; they also had to pay off the debt they owed on what is today the İş Bank building and the other vineyards and land they had bought. They established Kavaklıdere as a family company.

 

İnsan Tunalı, who had shares in the Kavaklıdere, left the Foreign Ministry and joined the fast-growing company, which soon became a well-known quality wine producer of Turkey. Partners identified with Kavaklıdere built villas in the midst of the vast garden on the land they owned and settled in the neighborhood.

 

Since the partners of the company never produced children of their own, to ensure that the company would continue, Sevda and Cenap And adopted Metin Çavdar, while İnsan Tunalı adopted İsmail Uğurlu.

 

The growth of the family with new members gave the company new momentum but shortly afterward, Sevda And was tragically died in an automobile accident and this event together with the unexpected demise of Insan Tunali destabilized the company, which took quite some time to recover.

 

Metin And preferred the fine arts to manufacturing and chose an academic career; he communicated less and less until he gradually lost touch with the family altogether. After the death of his wife, Cenap And began to devote more time to the Sevda-Cenap And Foundation and its musical and cultural events, which were managed by İnsan Tunalı’s widow, Nerime Tunalı and their adopted son Uğurlu Tunalı.

 

Cenap And remained single for many years after his wife’s demise. He married Ayşe Cevza Başman, who had studied in Germany and France and was the daughter of well-known educator and government official Avni Başman who was appointed to the post of National Education Minister during the first Democrat Party government.

 

With the passing of Nerime Tunalı, her heirs joined the company as partners and this increase necessitated a review of the company’s status. For a time it was managed by Cenap, his wife Cevza, Uğurlu and Gülseren Tunalı and Aydın Sidal, who represented the heirs of Nerime Tunalı.

 

The company’s operation faltered under these management methods.

 

After the gradual transfer of shares from the heirs of Nerime Tunalı to the And and Tunalı families and the death of Aydın Sidal, the affairs of the company were administered with the permission the members of the And family, who held the majority of shares, and the company’s other partners. These management methods continued after the death of Cenap And.

 

The lack of possibility for expansion and growth of the company’s vineyard and production facilities inside the city, the increase in the value of the land containing the vineyard and facilities and the fact that the company found itself in financial distress led, naturally, to several choices.

 

Solutions to the problem included the dissolution of the company, the selling of the land to build a new winery or moving the winery and putting its property to good use.

 

It was decided to build a new winery, since moving the existing winery could not be carried out without renovating it, which would have been financially unfeasible.

 

After the sale of the original property to the Kavala Group, the idea to build the new winery in Thrace, rather than in Ankara created such disagreement between the partners that it almost led to the dissolution of the company.

 

Cevza And brought her brother, Mehmet Başman, into the company. He was a professional engineer who had worked as both an engineer and manager in the public and private sectors and he had also seen duty as a consultant to the United Nations and the World Bank. After a long struggle, a feasibility study was produced which concluded that there would be no advantage in moving the Kavaklıdere Wines Co. That Cenap And had founded to develop Anatolian grapes and which had been identified with Ankara for so long, to another location. As it also stated that relocation might even result in the decline or closure of the company, the partners were persuaded to agree and turned over total responsibility for the administration of the company.

 

The company’s new management bought a 50-hectare property in Akyurt, across from Esenboğa Airport. An agreement was signed with the Ankara Faculty of Agriculture and the French consulting firm, Sogelerg. Government support for the investment was obtained. Credit was approved by the banks. On the property a vineyard of more than 20 hectares was planted, and a state of the art production, storage and bottling facility with a 40 thousand hectoliter capacity was constructed. The facility began production by 1987 vintage. The factory increased, four fold, its yearly production capacity and sales.

 

In the 85th year since the company was founded:

 

The construction of new buildings for commercial use and otherwise, shopping passages and a myriad of hotels, big and small, have made the Kavaklıdere neighborhood one of the most rapidly growing touristic and commercial districts in Ankara. In Kavaklıdere almost all of the post-republic villas have been torn down to make way for commercial buildings, the exception being And House, which was designed by Cenap And’s architect, Emin Onat. The Sheraton Hotel&Convention Center and the Karum Business Center have been built on the site of the original Kavaklıdere Winery. On the shared properties sold by the Sevda-Cenap And Music Foundation, today you can find the Hilton-SA Hotel.

 

Kavaklıdere has total wine storage capacity of 19,5 millions of wine per year produced in modern equipped wineries located at Ankara-Akyurt, Ege-Pendore and Kapadokya - Gülşehir. The winery continues to viticultural research and development activities, promotes indigenous Anatolian grape varieties while trying to adapt the international ones to its vineyards situated in different regions of Turkey.

 

It is a leader in the development of winemaking and wine culture and their training, with its cultural and educational publications about viticulture and wine making Kavaklidere regularly organizes wine and dine evenings, where we match our products with world cuisine. We provide educational experience for curious and conscious wine-lovers; Horeca training, targeting the food and beverage sector, and “Kav Ekol” training for professional wine tasters and other candidates wishing to enter a career in Horeca sector.

 

Kavaklıdere Winery Co. Continues its moral and monetary support of the fine arts, especially the Sevda-Cenap Music Foundation founded by Cenap and Cevza And, which has taken on responsibility for the development of country’s musical culture. The foundation organizes projects in the concert halls and cultural centers of Ankara and promotes the appreciation of music at home and abroad by organizing and hosting what has become a traditional event in Ankara, the International Ankara Music Festival.

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Vineyards

In 7 different regions, Kavaklıdere Winery Co. employs 15 agricultural engineers to care for the vineyards and plant nurseries and to aid in the improvement of vineyards in all regions of Turkey. The harmony between grape varieties, soil and climate is aim to Kavaklıdere’s movement toward a regional vineyard and production facility. By 2014, the total area of the vineyards owned by Kavaklıdere is 645 hectares: in Ankara (Akyurt and Kalecik) 57.8 hectares, in Cappadocia-Gülşehir 181.5 hectares, in Ege-Kemaliye-Pendore (Pendore 1 and 2) 202 hectares, in Denizli-Güney 97.2 hectares, in Elazığ-Aydıncık 22.8 hectares and in Kırşehir-Toklumen 84.6 hectares.

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