From Grapes to Pekmez: An Anatolian Tradition

A Harvest Day in Anatolia

In the vineyard villages of Anatolia, autumn mornings begin with neighbors filling baskets in the vine rows. Turning that grape harvest into syrup is more work than one household can manage alone, so the day is organized as a shared effort; grape-growing districts such as Zile, in Tokat province, are built around this custom, with much of the harvest set aside for the pekmez kettle rather than any other use.

The batch cooked on such a day is not meant for a single meal — it is meant to last the whole winter, which is why skimming the foam, feeding the fire, and hauling the must are tasks divided among the group.

Clarifying the Must with Clay

Freshly pressed grape must, known in Turkish as şıra, is not boiled straight off the press. A clay-like earth called pekmez toprağı is stirred in first; it settles cloudy particles and tempers excess acidity before the clear liquid on top is drawn off for cooking.

Treating grape must with a specific soil has old roots in the wider region: the 14th-century traveler Ibn Battuta described a similar technique in the Levant, where the soil was used to firm the syrup so it held together even if its container broke — a somewhat different purpose from the acid-balancing role the clay plays in Anatolian pekmez making today.

Boiling, Skimming, and Reading the Set

The clarified must goes into wide kettles and simmers for hours. Foam that rises to the surface is skimmed off at regular intervals — left alone, it darkens the color and can leave a bitter edge.

As the water boils away, the sugar concentration climbs and the syrup thickens; cooks traditionally test readiness by dropping a bit into cold water and watching whether it holds together. That same rising sugar concentration is what keeps the finished syrup shelf-stable — the same principle behind jams and fruit preserves.

Dark and Clarified Pekmez

Two main types reach the table. Dark pekmez, closer to brown in color, is the more common version and keeps most of its color through the long boil.

Clarified — sometimes called white — pekmez goes through a more thorough clay treatment that removes most of the color, resulting in a lighter, milder-tasting syrup that is produced far less often.

From Şıra to Köfter, Pestil, and Walnut Sausage

Not all of the must ends up as syrup. Some is drunk unboiled, as a sweet, non-alcoholic seasonal drink. Some is thickened with flour or starch into köfter, a confection with distinct regional versions in places such as Niğde and Muğla; the 17th-century Ottoman traveler Evliya Çelebi wrote about köfter varieties across different cities, rating the versions from Istanbul and Euboea above those from Antep and Manisa.

Pestil, thin sheets of pressed and dried fruit pulp, follows the same winter-storage logic and is made from mulberries and figs as well as grapes; several regional pestil varieties — from Gümüşhane, Tillo, and Tortum — carry geographical-indication protection from Turkey's Patent and Trademark Office. Walnut sausage, or cevizli sucuk, threads walnuts on a string and dips them repeatedly in starch-thickened pekmez; in the Muğla region, the syrup left over from making it is used for köfter as well.

The Pantry Before Refrigeration

Before mechanical cooling reached Anatolian kitchens, pekmez was one of the few sweeteners that could be kept through the winter. Boiled down and stored in earthenware or tin containers in a cool pantry corner, it stayed stable for months at room temperature — spread on bread or mixed with tahini, it was a staple of the winter breakfast table.

A Place Reshaped by Industrial Sugar

Pekmez's near-monopoly in the Anatolian kitchen began to shift in the first half of the 20th century, as Turkey built its own sugar industry — starting with plants in Uşak and Alpullu in 1926, followed by Eskişehir in 1933 and Turhal in 1934, merged in 1935 under Türkiye Şeker Fabrikaları A.Ş.

Refined sugar became steadily easier to find, even in rural areas, and daily sweetening habits gradually shifted toward it. Pekmez did not disappear — many households still make it the traditional way — but it settled into a more seasonal, cultural role, carried forward largely through its winter derivatives.