Sure, Yarden wines are kosher. But the Israeli wine producer doesn’t want kosher to define the product or the winery.
One of the largest wine producers in the tiny nation wants to increase its exports and get out the message that no, these are not sweet wines. These are quality, food-friendly wines, comparable with wines of the United States or South America. They just happen to be kosher.
Yarden’s lead winemaker, Victor Schoenfeld, recently presented wines at a tasting in New York at City Winery, a combination restaurant and winery in lower Manhattan. Winemaking in Israel goes back to the earliest days of civilization. Ancient wine presses, thousands of them, can be found all over Israel. Yet the industry is rather young. Baron Edmond de Rothschild helped jumpstart the industry in the late 19th century. Still, grapes had been grown in the coastal plains, often alongside bananas — terrible for quality wines. In the 1980s, growers moved up, literally, planting vineyards in cooler, higher elevations such as the Golan Heights and Upper Galilee.
“Going up has the same effect of going north,” said Mr. Schoenfeld. “Every five feet up is like moving one mile north.” That formula puts Yarden’s vineyards, which would be near the same latitude as San Diego, in the vicinity of, well, Napa Valley. Some vineyards even see snow.
Golan Heights Winery, Yarden’s parent company, is owned by a private group and several cooperatives and collectives. Yarden has always been on the cutting edge of this new wave of quality. In a slide show, Mr. Schoenfeld showed off the expensive weather stations that monitor the vines and identify the best locations for particular grape varieties. U.S.-born and University of California-Davis educated, Mr. Schoenfeld worked at top U.S. wineries and knows all the new technology, but adds they are not a substitute for looking and tasting. In its latest incarnation, the Israeli wine industry is just beginning, he said.
The slide show contained a reminder of the precariousness of Golan. Rising up behind the vineyard-surrounded winery are the towering Golan plateaus, on which can be seen military bases.
“This is where Israeli and Syrian armies look at each other,” Mr. Schoenfeld said. Seized by Israel from Syria in the 1967 war, Golan is considered by the United Nations to be “Israeli-occupied.”
Yarden CEO Udi Kadim set me straight about an often-mentioned characteristic of the Golan Heights Winery — that it was constructed to be taken down and moved elsewhere. Not so, he said. “There is nothing about our building that should lead anyone to believe we are moving,” he said, adding that they just planted 300 acres of vineyards there. In Israel, being too ready to relocate sends the wrong message.
Yarden is about wine, not politics.
The two chardonnays tasted are rich, with a lovely ginger, spice and grilled pineapple character. They are very oaky, with the organic Odem chardonnay even more so. The reds were also uniformly good, with big fruit character and easy going tannins, even in youth. The 2004 El Rom Cabernet ($65) smells of limestone, with black cherry and tobacco and dusty finish. Most merlots are made soft and velvety, but the 2004 Merlot ($22) has power with blackberry, orange spice and a bit of sage. The starter 2003 Syrah has very ripe berry character and smoky edge with a strong acidity and bracing acids. But the 2004 Ortal Vineyards Syrah was spectacular, jammy and intense with smoked meat character and staying power.
The stars of the tasting were the ’03 and ’04 Katzrin, Yarden’s iconic red blend, retailing for $100. The ’03 was perfumey, viscous and caressed the mouth with candy and fruit flavors. But I give the edge to the younger ’04 Katzrin, which showed a bit more complexity and intensity, with some herbal, dark fruit and cocoa flavors.
Someone asked Mr. Schoenfeld if he would consider making nonkosher wines. Probably not, Mr. Schoenfield said, since making kosher wines is rather easy and doesn’t detract from quality. Yarden does not make mevushal wines, which would have to be boiled. Ouch!
Most wine drinkers can forget the K word altogether and just enjoy an Israeli wine.
A handful of Yarden wines are available in Pennsylvania at prices in the teens. Recently, I wrote about the Mount Hermon red, not surprisingly their best selling wine. So far, I have never had a poor Yarden wine found them reliable, quality wines, priced right.
