Posted at 19:53h in Wine industry, Wineries by 0 Comments
It may not be Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate, Decanter, or the Wine Spectator – all important industry publications that have recently covered or are about to cover Israeli wine – but there is a newspaper that just published an article about Israel’s Dalton Winery that I think is even more important. But, unless you live in Maryland (where, incidentally, Robert Parker is from – we both have the same alma mater …. Just sayin’), you’ve never heard of this.
The Gazette – local newspapers in Montgomery, Prince George’s Frederick, and Carroll counties – is my hometown newspaper. And I found out about the article not from my usual Google alert on Israeli wine, but rather an e-mail from my mother. Wait, why is that better than the Wine Advocate, Decanter, or the Wine Spectator or all the other wine snob (but excellent ) magazines or even better than Gary Vaynerchuk and Wine Library TV or the other great wine blogs???? Simple – most people don’t check out the specialized wine media (or this blog, on such a niche product, little known outside of Israel and the kosher community) and aren’t wine snobs looking for the next big thing. But they do read their local community paper. And when their local community paper has an article about wine that they’ve never heard of than that means it is worth trying far more than Robert Parker (Robert who?) scoring a wine 100 points! Yup, this is the real wine revolution!
In addition, when a non-Jewish paper outside of New York publishes an article about a kosher Israeli winery (that emphasizes kashrut on their website and marketing material – not a good idea, in my opinion, as the kosher Israeli wineries need to go beyond the captive kosher market) than that also shows that Israeli wines that just happen to be kosher CAN BE accepted as good wine. Gazette’s article didn’t even have the word ‘kosher’ once – and, as a result, I suspect some people who just want a good bottle of wine are going to pick up a bottle of Israeli wine. To me, this is “Brand Israel” at its best!
And a lesson for us all! Kol HaKavod Dalton! Who knows – the next article about Israeli wine might be YOUR local community newspaper.
