Quick heads up that the Wine Advocate tastings on Israeli wines have just been released. The magazine was just mailed yesterday morning, so it should be arriving in subscriber’s mailboxes shortly and the article will be on the eRobert Parker site (only accessible to subscribers and subscriptions cost $99, so I don’t have one) around December 27. The early news is that several wines received scores of 90 or more and about 50 received 87 or higher. Some wineries will […]

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Derekh haYayin (Wine Route) has put the June 30 Wine Spectator article on Israeli wine online. It’s here in PDF. However, if you haven’t already, please buy the magazine. There’s also an article on the Galilee region of Israel in the magazine, which I look forward to reading once I get my copy mailed from America. There are many benefits to this blog being written from Israel – this isn’t one of them.

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Monday night I had the opportunity to taste five truly amazing wines. While most were from California (including Covenant’s second label, the Cabernet Sauvignon Red Sea 2003), there was one unique and special wine from Israel. In fact, it was from a winery that I had never tried before: Psagot. While we didn’t take formal tasting notes, the Psagot Cabernet Sauvignon 2005, was quite an interesting wine from an interesting winery. Psagot, in the Benyamin mountains, was founded by the […]

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Carmel Winery is well known to all of the readers of this site and anyone who knows anything about Israeli wine. Carmel Winery is one of Israel’s oldest wineries and the wineries in Rishon L’Tzion and Zichron Ya’akov are among Israel’s oldest buildings. In the past few years Carmel has made major investments in its Zichron Yaakov Winery. I had the opportunity to visit Zichron Ya’akov recently, after not being there for a few years, and discovered substantial new infrastructure […]

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Last week, Daniel Rogov unveiled his annual Guide to Israel Wines at Tel Aviv’s Wine Route. Unfortunately, due to horrible traffic, it took me longer-than-anticipated to reach Tel Aviv and I only arrived after the event was over. Nevertheless, the Israeli food portal Bakbuk was there and covered the event. Most importantly is a video of part of Rogov’s address. Rogov releases his annual Israeli wine guide Since Daniel Rogov first arrived in Israel in 1978, he’s been tasting wine. […]

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ISRAEL21c’s new video format was at the ISRAEWINEXPO. I admit that I wish I had pitched this to them myself, but the video is a nice montage of scenes and quotes from officials in the Israeli wine industry (although I would have preferred someone other than Hevron Heights Winery and more talk about the non-kosher producers). If you missed the event, well, the video can’t replace the great Israeli wine but it will make you even more upset for missing […]

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Well, I can’t just drink Israeli wine all the time. This past Thursday, I returned to Jerusalem’s Wine Hall – a relatively new but top wine store in downtown Jerusalem – for a tasting of the California Herzog line of wines. As you may recall, I first went to their Carmel Limited Edition and Single Vineyard tasting, but they had several other weekly tastings. For New Year’s Eve, they will be doing a tasting of sparkling wines. Attendees of the […]

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(This article first appeared on wines-israel.com and is reprinted with permission) Two wines were recently launched on the same date, at the same venue, with a tasting by a select group of Israel’s leading wine journalists & critics. As the wines were tasted together, it was the perfect opportunity to compare the story and tasting notes of two of Israel’s finest wines. The wines referred to are Carmel Limited Edition 2007, produced by Carmel Winery, and Yatir Forest 2007, produced […]

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While Carmel Mizrahi Winery is definitely not my favorite, it is the old man on the block. Founded by Baron Rothschild, who is also the founder of many top French chateaus, in the late 19th century, the history of Carmel is the history of modern Israel. However, for many years that also means that it was the history of bad Israeli wine. To this day, they are still the prime producers of the sickly sweet Kiddush wine that has more […]

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Israeli wine made from the Barbera grape are becoming more and more popular. Several new wineries have been introducing this Mediterranean varietal into their wines. Originally seen only by Dalton and Recanati, Galil Mountain has also recently introduced an Israeli Barbara. Barbera is not known much outside of Italy, but it is one of the most common varieties in Italy – a country not too far away from Israel: both are in the Mediterranean region. The Jerusalem Post recently wrote […]

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