Bozcaada

The island was Tenedos in antiquity, a name that appears in Homer and, in Virgil's Aeneid, as the place where the Greek fleet hid while the wooden horse stood before Troy, whose mound lies a short distance across the water. Its position at the mouth of the Dardanelles, with the only good harbour for ships waiting for a wind to enter the strait, made it valuable out of all proportion to its size. It was settled by Aeolian Greeks, taken by the Persians, joined the Athenian empire, and passed in turn to Alexander's successors, Rome and Byzantium.

That same position made it a prize in the late Middle Ages. Venice and Genoa fought over the island in the 14th century, and the Treaty of Turin of 1381 ordered its fortifications destroyed and its inhabitants removed. The Ottomans took it under Mehmed II in the 1450s and rebuilt the castle; a Venetian fleet seized it briefly in the 17th century during the long war for Crete before the Ottomans recovered it. The fortress on the harbour carries the marks of all of these hands.

Modern history came with the end of the empire. Greek forces occupied the island during the Balkan Wars, and during the Gallipoli campaign of 1915 the British used it as a supply base and built airstrips on it. The Treaty of Lausanne of 1923 confirmed it as Turkish and, unlike the Aegean coast, exempted it from the population exchange, so its Greek Orthodox community remained. That community nevertheless declined through the 20th century until only a handful of families were left. Vineyards and fishing kept the island going, and from the 1990s tourism from Istanbul turned the old houses into hotels and the wine into a reason to come.

Wine is the island's defining trade and its cultural signature. Vines have been grown here for thousands of years — ancient coins of Tenedos carried a bunch of grapes — and the vintage in early September still organises the calendar, with tastings, music and open cellars in the town. Several wineries work local grape varieties alongside international ones, and a bottle from the island is the standard gift to take home.

The island's double heritage is visible in its streets. A Greek Orthodox church and the lanes of the old Greek quarter stand beside the mosque and the Turkish quarter, and descendants of the island's Greek families return in summer, some for the church's feast days. Islanders talk about that history matter-of-factly as part of what the place is, and restoration work on the old houses has made it more legible rather than less.

Summer brings a different culture again: writers, musicians and film-makers from Istanbul with houses in the old town, small festivals and concerts in courtyards, and late evenings at the harbour. Out of season the island returns to a few thousand residents who know each other, when shops keep short hours and life follows the ferry timetable and the wind. Manners are informal and Aegean, with tea and conversation expected before business.

Bozcaada is a district of Çanakkale province with roughly 3,000 permanent residents, almost all of them in the single town; in July and August the number on the island multiplies several times over. It is small enough that everything official — the district administration, the school, the health centre, the police — sits within a few streets of the harbour.

The economy stands on three things: viticulture and wine-making, fishing in the strait, and a tourist season of about five months. A wind farm of seventeen turbines, put up at the western cape in 2000, adds another income. Nearly everything else arrives by ferry, which makes supply and prices sensitive to the weather; a few days of northerly gales in winter can empty the shelves and cut the island off.

Daily rhythms follow that dependence. Deliveries, commuting students and workers all move on the boat, and the summer day runs early to the beaches, slow in the afternoon heat and late in the harbour restaurants. Local issues are those of a small island under pressure: the price of houses bought as second homes, water in dry summers, the balance between vineyards and building, and the strain a crowded August puts on a place built for a few thousand people.

The kitchen here is Aegean and light. Vegetables cooked slowly in olive oil and eaten cool, wild greens dressed with lemon, tomatoes, peppers and cheese make up the meze table, and fish from the strait — sea bass, bream, bonito and the small fry fried whole — is the centre of an evening meal, usually with rakı or a local wine.

The island's own products are sold in every second shop in the lanes. Tomato jam is the best known, made from the small, intensely flavoured tomatoes grown in the island's dry fields; grape molasses, dried figs and grapes, olive oil, herbs and soap sit beside it. Breakfast follows the regional pattern — cheeses, olives, tomatoes, eggs, bread and preserves, with tea refilled until the table is cleared.

Wine is the reason many people come. The vineyards work Turkish varieties alongside international ones, and tasting rooms in the town and among the fields pour both. Coffee is the other fixture: Turkish coffee in the shaded courtyards of the old quarters, drunk slowly, and tea glasses on every shop counter through the day.