Ella Valley is another excellent terroir-driven winery that is making excellent wines in Israel. Ella Valley, founded in 1997 on Kibbutz Netiv Lamed Hay, produced around 150,000 bottles for the 2006 vintage.
Run by French-trained winemaker Doron Rav Hon, the grapes all come from nearby vineyards and are harvested at night, to ensure high quality. The area of Ella Valley were harvesting wine for thousands of years. When they did excavations at the kibbutz and surrounding area, they found numerous wine presses. It is a picture of one of these wine presses that adorn Ella Valley’s labels. Nearby is a city with the name “Gat” – wine press – testifying to the fertile old world of the Judean Hills.
Ella Valley aims to produce high quality wines and they succeed. From their Vineyards Choice reserve label to their “ordinary” but excellent wines to their tremendous EverRed blend, Ella Valley’s wines are all winners.
I have said this before and I will say it again: Israeli doesn’t equal kosher and kosher doesn’t equal Israeli. That is to say a very simple thing – not all Israeli wines are kosher and not all kosher wines are Israeli.
Why am I saying this AGAIN (and will keep on saying it)??? Two simple reasons:
- This clearly isn’t known for many of my readers. For example, just the other day several visitors found this site via a search for “Flam Kosher Wines.” But the wonderful wines from the Israeli Flam Winery isn’t certified kosher. So why are they searching for Flam + kosher? Why not Flam + Israeli? Totally not the same thing and the result of a SERIOUS misconception. This happens with tons of other wineries too.
- On the flip side, I’ve also gotten searches for “kosher” “Herzog kosher” (whose high end stuff is nice, but it’s from California!) or other “kosher” but NOT Israeli wine. There is great (and not-so-great) kosher wine from California, Italy, Argentina, Chile, France, and many more places as well as Israeli (although due to the mevushal process, I would suggest that those Israeli producers making kosher wines are better because – among other reasons – far less Israeli kosher wines are mevushal than from other countries).
Continue reading The kosher conundrum + not all Israeli wines are kosher, not all kosher wines are Israeli
It’s quite possible that Domaine du Castel makes THE best wine from Israel. Unquestionably, they make some of the best wine in the world. I first encountered the wines of Castel only last year, when I was asked to write a story on them for ISRAEL21c, which you can read here. While there, I tasted an immense array of wines and I have to admit that my best wine experience ever was tasting their Grand Vin at that tasting and at a press event with Eli Ben-Zaken a few months later.
It was with great excitement that I returned to Ramat Raziel, in the Jerusalem Hills, earlier this month. While I didn’t get the chance to talk to Eli this time, as I was with some people who were not familiar with Castel, it was a great opportunity to show off the great world-class wines from Israel. My fear, however, is that they will be viewed as a lesser-quality due to the “kosher” status that they acquired since 2003 (having no affect on the wine, if anything they have only gotten better with time).
Domaine du Castel’s Grand Vin and “C” is listed within Huge Johnson’s list of best 200 wines around the world. The winery is listed in Bettane & Desseauve’s list of the world’s greatest wines – one of the few wines not made in France that are included.
While at Castel, I tasted the 2006 barrel blend of the Grand Vin. I am excited to see what will develop from this wine. I also had the 2005 Grand Vin and “C” Chardonnay Blend, which were excellent even though they weren’t served under ideal conditions (as they had not intended on serving them, and this was a last minute addition since I was with industry people not familiar with the winery).
Domaine du Castel sits on a gorgeous estate, without the unnecessary frills at Chateau Golan, where everyone is focused on the wine. The winemaker Ariel Ben-Zaken, son of Eli, was trained in France, and Eli is well traveled in Europe and lived in Western Europe in his youth. Yet this family-owned winery is making uniquely Israeli wines!
Chateau Golan is a small, boutique winery on the Golan Heights. While its modeled after a French chateau, its winemaker was trained in Oregon. Unlike the Franco-phile Domaine du Castel, which is truly making French-style wines, it appears that the Chateau Golan’s decision, with its glorious but, I suspect, expensive façade is a decision of the investors and they want to use the glorious grounds for events … but this speaks nothing of the wine.
Rogov ranks Chateau Golan ninth in its list of top wine producers (behind Golan Heights Winery, Castel, Yatir, and Carmel’s top series). Personally, as someone familiar with Israeli wines, although perhaps its because I am used to the wines of Golan Heights and others, I did not find these wines to be unique or extra special, although they certainly were very good world-class wines. However, the person whom I was escorting, who works for a wine importer in the US which also owns a small winery in California, was strongly impressed with their Syrah as well as their Eliad blend (named for the Moshav in which the grapes were grown). This is not surprising since the winemaker personally likes Syrah and it is suitable for the hot Israeli climate.
Chateau Golan currently produces between 70,000-75,000 bottles annually, with expectations of producing 100,000 bottles in the future. All of their wines are sold out in Israel, and they are not available outside of the country. Incidentally, they lack a formal kashrut certificate, which I will write about later. I asked them why, and they said that the winemaker (Uri Hetz) is not Sabbath-observant and they had no market reason to do so, within the domestic market. But, this has no impact (positive or negative) on the quality of the wines.
I have just been informed by Richard of Israeli Wine Direct that limited quantities of Clos de Gat is being made available. Clos de Gat is also available in the US via some New York-based distributors, but besides IWD’s purchase, had to find outside of New York.
Clos de Gat is an excellent boutique Israeli wine – in fact, the wine importer that I was with a few weeks ago picked up several bottles from this winery when we were in Tel Aviv.
From Richard (note: I am in no way affiliated with IWD except as an enthusiastic supporter of their mission to promote Israeli wines among those who are not exposed to them):
In the foot hills of the Judean Mountains, near the Ayalon Valley where Biblical Joshua battled the Five Kings, sits a winery called Clos de Gat.
An ancient “gat” (Hebrew for wine press) sits in the middle of their vineyards.
Winemaker Eyal Rotem studied in Australia and now makes one of the most critically acclaimed wines in all of Israel, winner of Decanter magazine’s Best Regional Wine award last year .
The winery now produces 70,000 bottles per year, only using wild-yeasts for fermentation!
IWD currently has 15 cases of Clos de Gat, Har’El Syrah, 2005. Robert Parker rated this wine an 88. Daniel Rogov rated this wine 91-93 and 5 cases of the unbelievable red blend Clos de Gat, 2003. Parker rated this wine an 89. Rogov rated this a 92.
IWD has promised free shipping (for those in states that permit direct wine shipping … not Maryland or about half of the continental US!) via UPS Ground if you buy 6 bottles or more. CHECK IT OUT (again, I am not affiliated except as an enthusiastic believer in Israeli wine)
They also will be bringing in 200 cases of some more of Israel’s best wine from some excellent wineries NOT YET AVAILABLE IN THE UNITED STATES (which means non-kosher for most of it, as very little non-kosher Israeli wine is in the US but much (not all!) kosher wine is available, albeit in places that are hidden and secret for the non-kosher consumer. But now THE SECRET IS OUT)! So stay tuned and I will be letting my American readers of HaKerem know about this tremendous opportunity to buy new Israeli wine. If you explore Israeli wine via Israel Wine Direct, let them know you found out about it via HaKerem: The Israeli Wine Blog … from Israel!
Bazelet HaGolan is a winery that I recently “discovered” on my trip up north. Bazelet means “basalt,” and refers to the volcanic terroir of the Golan Heights. The winery was founded in 1998 and released only Cabernet Sauvignon until 2005, and is releasing its first Merlot from the 2006 vintage. The wines are kosher as of the 2004 vintage, which shows that there is no difference in quality between kosher and non-kosher, except that the cellar is now locked and only the mashgiach has the key. But, as is the case with all Israeli wines that happen to be kosher, this has nothing to do with the winemaking process and so these wines are of interest to all who like small, terroir-driven wines.
I had several of the wines, including from pre-2004 vintage, and found them to be excellent, complex, and tasty. If anything, they have only gotten better. They are available in the United States in select locations (unfortunately probably mostly places that specialize in “kosher” wine, meaning those who don’t look for this are going to miss out on an excellent wine, but including New York’s Gotham Wines – which seems to be a great place to get Israeli wines) and throughout Israeli restaurants and shops. I look forward to drinking more from the Bazelet HaGolan winery.
I’m not going to write much about the Golan Heights Winery because it is one of Israel’s best known – and best – wineries. If you aren’t familiar with their wines from the Katzrin, Yarden, Gamla, and Golan labels, than go out RIGHT now to pick something up (from the GHW, I would say, with the exception of the highest level Katzrin, preferably a varietal wine and not a blend). From the moment Golan Heights Winery released its first bottle in 1984 (after a UC Davis Professor realized that the Golan Heights was perfect terroir for growing vineyards in 1972, with the first vineyards planted in 1976), Golan Heights Winery proved that Israel could make quality wines.
I recently returned from a tour of the winery and some of its vineyards, having the chance to sample some wines that I had not had before. While everyone is familiar with the supermarket entry-level Mount Hermon series, this is not representative of their truly excellent wines. This California-inspired winemaker has some excellent Cabernet Sauvignons (both a blend from vineyards throughout the region and the tremendous El Rom), Merlot, Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and Sangiovese, as well as top level dessert wines which were highly praised in the Wine Advocate.
Among other wines, I had the Yarden Gewürztraminer and their HeightsWine, an award-winning ice wine, which makes an excellent dessert. The Golan Heights Winery is my favorite large Israeli winery who is bringing the wonderful world of Israeli wine to the masses abroad. (They have their own arm, Yarden, Inc. in the US, and recently took out a new ad campaign ‘Savor the Mediterranean’ in Wine Advocate, which I hope to comment more on later).
Golan Heights Winery is owned by the vineyards themselves, ensuring top quality grape production, and excellent wine.
It’s no secret to readers of this blog that one of my favorite wineries is the Galil Mountain Winery (not, as my tour guide kept on annoyingly referring to it as the Mt. Galilee Winery). Owned by the vineyards (which also own the Golan Heights Winery) and Kibbutz Yiron, Galil Mountain makes some of the best value wines from Israel. In fact, because it’s a good wine at a good price, my wine of choice on Shabbat tends to be from the Galil Mountain Winery.
At their modern visitor center on Kibbutz Yiron, near the Lebanese border, we tasted, among other wines, the 2004 Yiron and Yiron Syrah. While they could use further cellaring, they were, of course, excellent. I’m a regular drinker of the “regular series” and find them excellent, albeit young and not overly complex, wines.
While at the winery, the tour includes not only a tasting (which was enjoyable, but since I was already familiar with the latest releases, it was more interesting to see others’ reactions … which I will discuss later), but also see the steel tanks and barrels, as there has been some debate over whether the Cabernet Sauvignon 2006 was in steel or oaks (the answer: steel with oak chips). I will write more later about what makes a wine kosher vs. not kosher, but one of the key things is that a wine is not considered kosher if it is touched (including the barrel, steel tank, or sealed bottle) by someone who is not a Sabbath-observant Jew. Hence, it was quite interesting to see a layer of plastic sheeting near some of the barrels that prevented it from being touched. Needless to say, however, that this obviously has nothing to do with the taste of the wine, which is why it is so frustrating to me that people see non-mevushal kosher wines as a category unto themselves and inferior, when there is absolutely no basis in truth to this libel.
Robert Parker talks about Israeli wine in his Business Week column, with rankings for Castel, Yatir, Carmel’s Limited Edition. Here is the link.
It’s great to see Israeli wines begin to get the recognition that they deserve. Wine Spectator also recently featured an article about Tulip Winery.
I’ve never had the Segal (I’m scared away from them because of their low-end stuff), but will be looking out for this wine shortly due to Gary V’s review. I strongly enjoy the Yiron myself, and just picked up the Yiron-Syrah last week (a different wine) but yet to open. Carmel still has to get past their history and make more serious wines, but some of the Single Vineyard is pretty good, but they still have to improve, I admit.
I strongly strongly wish that Gary V would have titled the tasting “Three Israeli wines” instead of focusing on the fact that these great wines happen to be kosher and de-emphasized the “kosher” label but it was great to see him address and debunk the misconceptions and the myths surrounding both Israeli and kosher wines (which are, of course, NOT the same label)
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