Elazığ hoping to cash in on vineyard traditions

Grape production has a long history in the city of Elazığ but using the grapes to produce wine has never really been attempted, until now, with many farmers turning to wineries.

For hundreds of years locals have grown grapes in the region but their production and marketing techniques have not kept up with the technolog.

In an attempt to overcome this shortfall, grape producers in the Elazığ province came together and formed a co-operative in 2007.

Today the co-op has 411 members, mostly local grape producers, and is planning to build and manage a winery with two production lines: one for producing wine and the other for grape-based non-alcoholic products.

"The group members and businessmen who invested in this project will be the owners of the factory. Fifty-one percent of the company will be owned by the villagers," said Hüsamettin Kaya, the head of the group.

The group’s amateur enthusiasm is considered an advantage but the lack of financial resources to build the factory is one of the main handicaps. Kaya believed, however, this could be solved with the help of the businessmen who are also on the group’s executive board.

The businessmen are also enthusiastic about being a part of such credible projects likely to bring prosperity to the region but they are hesitating to commit to full financial aid until realistic feasibility tests have been carried out.

"Lending a hand to projects that aim to develop the region is always on our agenda but this is a very serious investment and the necessary tests should be done on whether or not the region needs the bigger factory," said Mehmet Gül, owner of Gülsan Construction Company. Gül currently lives in Istanbul but is originally from Elazığ. The factory is projected to cost around 21 million Turkish Liras, Kaya said. "We will collect 1.5 million liras of the total cost from the 380 villagers who are members."

The rest of the money is still to be sourced, however, and Kaya said they had sent their project to the European Union Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance, or IPA, to ask for funding.

Hüseyin Şedele, the owner of the Las Zırh Company, which produces snow chains for vehicles, said he supported the project by looking for ways to find financial resources abroad. The local administration is also backing the project. Fırat University will be accepting students to its new viticulture department for the next academic year. The Elazığ Governor’s Office has allocated 120,000 square-meters of land for the envisioned factory in Koruk, one of Elazığ’s grape producing villages.

Wine industry slow to develop
Elazığ already has one factory, which was built in 1942 by the state and sold to the Mey Group, one of the country’s major alcoholic beverage firms, in 2005. Kaya said grape production in the region was enough to warrant a second factory in the city. The total grape production in Elazığ for 2007 was 129,000 tons.

Kaya is so confident the factory will profit that he has already patented the Öküzgözü variety of grape in July 2008. The Öküzgözü variety is unique to Elazığ but experts believe wine making is a serious job that requires many years of experience and stable financing, especially in early on in a venture.

"There is a common saying: ’In order to earn $1 million in the wine industry, you need to start with $5 million.’ This is exactly how slowly it works," Daniel O’Donnell said, a wine maker with more than 20 years experience who works for the company Kayra Wines in Turkey. The lack of technology or experience could amount to severe losses. The Elazığ region experienced a harvest decline of up to 60 percent in 2008 due to drought and a disease called dead-arm, which is caused by a deeply embedded wood rot in the branches or trunk of a grapevine. Only 52,000 tons of grapes were produced last year.

Gov’t not enthusiastic supporter
"In the Kayra case, the maturing process of wines takes around two to three years. After two years of maturing you have to purchase bottling machinery and then obtain a license. To be successful is difficult," O’Donnell said.

On a global scale, the most successful actors can change at any moment. "Argentina is doing very well these days, China and South Africa are also good. Brazil is making a good effort too," said O’Donnell.

He said the Turkish government was not necessarily a great supporter of the industry. In Chile or Australia, government loans provided for grape agriculture or wine production is very high. Turkey, however, is more prohibitive than supportive, which is a shame, he said.

In Turkey, 3.6 million tons of grapes were produced in 2007 and only 482,292 tons of these were used to make wine, according to the Turkish Statistical Institute.