HaKerem: The Israeli Wine Blog

The following is from wines-israel.com and reprinted with permission. A rare and unique brandy tasting was recently held by Carmel Winery. It was held in the ‘Baron Edmond de Rothschild Tasting Room’ at ZichronYa’acov Wine Cellars. It was appropriately held at Purim and on St. Patrick’s Day – traditional days for Jews & the Irish to enjoy their liquor. The maximum 22 people crowded in to the tasting room to be met by eight brandy glasses laid out by numbers. The following brandies were tasted: 1. Carmel Extra Fine Brandy A two year old brandy. Light, fruity, slightly spirity. Mainly made by continuous still.This is ideal for bars, for adding mixers, making cocktails or for cooking. Extra Fine is the Israel’s oldest wine & spirits brand, and the label has barely changed. It is estimated the Carmel has produced Extra Fine brandy for 110 years! A three year old brandy, which was very fruity, and reasonably light.Considered to be the perfect aperitif brandy – to be enjoyed before ameal. 777 Brandy is one of the oldest brands in Israel, being at least 55 years old. The numbers were chosen because of the importance of the number 7 in Judaism. It was a winner of gold medals at the IWSC in the 1990’s. Underrated – thought to represent good value. 3. Muscat Brandy – cask sample A brandy withdrawn from cask for the tasting. The brandy was a distillation of Muscat of Alexandria wine, aged for 7 years in barrels previously used for fermenting & aging chardonnay. The strength was 65%, but it was reduced for the tasting to 40%. It was fascinating to taste. Very aromatic but not immediately apparent from the nose that it was made from muscat. Some of the tasters recommended it should be bottled as it is. 4. Carmel Brandy 100, 9 year old This brandy was first produced in 1982 to celebrate 100 years from the founding of Carmel. This particular expression was bottled in the 1990’s in a traditional frosted brandy bottle, after 9 years aging in limousin oak barrels . In 1998 it won the Trophy of ‘Best Brandy Worldwide’ at the International Wine & Spirits Competition in London. Only four bottles remain at the winery – one of which was opened for the tasting. The brandy was elegant, fruity, with a touch of rich sweetness. 5. Carmel XO Brandy, 15 year old This fifteen year old brandy also in its time won a gold medal at the IWSC in London. Bottled in a special glass decanter, there are only five bottles remaining at the winery, so it is extremely rare. The brandy held up well in the tasting, but some felt it did not match up to expectations. 6. Carmel 100 Brandy (the new expression) This new expression of Carmel 100 Brandy is bottled in a simple, clear brandy bottle. It is made from Colombard, Chenin Blanc & Emerald Riesling, distilled 75% in pot stills and 25% in a continuous still. The minimum age statement is 8 years, but 20% of the blend was aged for 13 years and 6% for between 23 to 25 years. The brandy was aged in used wine barrels, so can be said to be a ‘wine finish’ brandy. The brandy was actually very fruity, with a backdrop of oak flavors and a warm & complex finish. The tasters were of the opinion this was the best value brandy in the tasting. A rare brandy made to celebrate Carmel’s 120^th harvest. Only 2000 numbered bottles were produced. This brandy was produced from Colombard& Muscat grapes distilled in pot stills. The minimum age statement is 10 years, but 40% of the brandy was 15 years old and 35% between 25 to 27 years old. The older components were aged in limousinoak barrels, as is the tradition in Cognac. The younger components were aged in used wine barrels and the muscat brandy was aged in used chardonnay barrels. The brandy itself had a beautifully rich dried fruits character, a warm middle palate and a long finish. It actually improved when put in the brandy balloon glass. Israel’s leading wine critic, Daniel Rogov, awardedthis brandy 95 points and wrote this was the finest Israeli brandy he had ever tasted. This particular Armagnac was fiery, spirity. It was in the tasting to illustrate the difference between Cognac, Armagnac and Israeli brandies. It was explained that Armagnacs are usually more earthy & characterful than the smoother, more aristocratic Cognac. This was agood example of a basic cognac: smooth and round. However the majority of those present thought the Israeli brandies did not suffer by comparison. Far from it. The tasting was conducted in a series of mini tastings: Extra Fine was tasted alongside 777 Carmel 100 Brandy, 9 year old was tasted with Carmel Brandy XO, 15 year old The new Carmel 100 Brandy & Carmel 120 Brandy were tasted togethor And finally the Sempe Armagnac & Courvoisier Cognac. Then the participants were encouraged to go back & taste them all again. The older brandies, including the major award winner, were distilled & blended by Freddie Stiller, who was winemaker at Carmel until the mid 1990’s. Though he was the winemaker, he was always considered a brandy specialist.The younger brandies were made by master distiller Mendel Gil, a winemaker at Rishon Le Zion, who studied the art of distillation and blending brandy in the Ukraine and Moldova. The current chief winemaker LiorLacser blended the new Carmel 100 and 120 Brandies. Afterwards the tasters left the room to enjoy some food prepared by the Bistro de Carmel Restaurant. During the break they were taken to see the current brandy cellar (the ‘Baron Jacob de Rothschild Cellar’) and were shown a model of Carmel’s Rishon Le Zion Cellars. It was explained that until now Carmel’s brandies were made in four copper pot stills, installed in the early 1950’s at Rishon. They were shown the spirits tower built in 1938 which houses the continuous still. It was also pointed out where the cellar was with its original wooden slatted roof, where all the brandies in the tasting were slowly matured in cask. They then returned for a blind tasting. This tasting explored the difference of tasting brandy in the traditional brandy balloon glass against the more professionally used ‘thistle’ glass. Views were mixed, but a conclusion was that the younger brandies showed better in the thistle glass, and the richer brandies were better in the brandy glass. Afterwards the tasters converged on the Carmel Wine & Culture shop, where they received Carmel Vintage 2007. It was explained that this was a port style wine, relevant to the tasting because it had been fortified by brandy. It was served with dry fruits and hamantaschen (being Purim.) The finale was a glass of Private Collection Brut NV. This was a very clean, refreshing way to end the occasion. The English traditionally end a large banquet with a brut champagne as the digestif for the same reason. The event was hosted by Ruti Ben Israel and conducted by Mira Eitan who is not only Carmel’s Media & Communications Manager, but she is also an integral part of the Wine Development Department. She is one of Israel’s foremost experts on spirits, and was previously a drinks journalist for both Globes and Maariv newspapers. She then became editor of the Wine & Gourmet magazine for five years, before joining Carmel in 2010. She explained the history of brandy, Cognac, Armagnac and other fruit brandies. Carmel’s Adam Montefiore, more familiar with the brandies being shown, conducted the tasting. He explained the history of brandy in Israel, also mentioning Stock 84 and Tishbi along the way, and led the participants step by step through the tasting. It was a rare and thrilling tasting for brandy lovers. This event is part of an ongoing program of events organized by Carmel Wine & Culture (Carmel’s Center for Wine Culture). Wine events have included tutored vertical tastings of Yatir Forest, Carmel Limited Edition, Kayoumi Vineyard Shiraz and KayoumiVineyard Cabernet Sauvignon. Cultural events include an opera singer’s concert and the Moran Choir performing in Carmel’s 120 year old cellars. The following post is reprinted from wines-israel.com In a unique event, Eli Ben Zaken hosted the main wine critics of Israel and four very special international guests to a vertical tasting of Castel’s finest wines. Domaine du Castel was founded in 1992 by Eli Ben Zaken at Ramat Raziel in the Jerusalem mountains, west of Jerusalem. His first vintage was a mere 600 bottles.He now produces over 100,000, and runs the business with his sons, Ariel &Eytan. Castel usually produces just three wines. The Castel Grand Vin is the first label. It is a Bordeaux style blend, sometimes containing all five Bordeaux varieties. Petit Castel is the second label, where Merlot is the dominant variety. Their white wine is an exquisitely balanced Burgundian-style Chardonnay, named ‘C’ Blanc du Castel. In one vintage only, he also produced a Rose. During the last 18 years Castel has received many accolades, which have heralded the wine revolution in Israel. The first 1992 Castel vintage was ‘found’ by Serena Sutcliffe MW, head of the wine department at Sothebys, who called it the finest Israeli wine she had ever tasted. In the late 1990’s the Castel Grand Vin became the first Israeli wine to be selected as Wine of The Month, by the English magazine Decanter. This was a feat they repeated three times. The ‘C’ Blanc du Castel 2003 was the first Israeli wine to receive 90 points or more in the Wine Spectator, the world’s most famous wine magazine. The 2005 scored 91 points in Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate, the highest score ever given by Robert Parker or Mark Squires, for an Israeli dry white wine. The Castel Grand Vin 2008 scored 93 points in Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate, equaling the highest score ever received for an Israeli red wine. In fact each of Castel’s three wines have, at onetime or another, received 90 points or more from Robert Parker. The Grand Vin has done so five times, the ‘C’ Bland du Castel has achieved this three times, and even the Petit Castel has been awarded 90 points on two occasions. So for the connoisseur and wine lover, it certainly was a special occasion. The wines tasted were: ‘C’ Blanc du Castel 2000, 2001, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010 (from the barrel) Petit Castel 1998, 2001, 2004, 2005, 2007 Castel Grand Vin 1993, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2010 (from the barrel) The foreign guests invited to participate in the tasting included some of the world’s most famous wine personalities: Michel Bettane, France’s most famous wine critic Jan Van Lissom, the most influential wine personality in the Netherlands Jeannie Cho Lee, from Hong Kong, one of very few Masters of Wines from the Far East Robert Joseph, editor of Wine Business International There are three publications which summarize Domaine du Castel’s achievements in putting Israel on the wine map spread across the oceans. In France: Castel was featured in Michel Bettane’s book, ‘The World’s Greatest Wines’, and was the only Israeli winery included. In England: Castel was awarded four stars – the maximum possible, in Hugh Johnson’s Pocket Wine Book, the highest award possible. In America: the Grand Vin Castel 2008 was awarded 93 points in Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate, equaling the highest score ever by an Israeli wine. The following post is from wines-israel.com and reprinted with permission. Eli Ben Zaken, owner of Domaine du Castel, invited some of the world’s most famous wine personalities to Israel.

They included Michel Bettane from France, Robert Joseph from England, Jan Van Lissom from the Netherlands, and Jeannie Cho Lee from Hong Kong.

Michel Bettane is France’s most famous wine critic. He wrote for many years for La Revue du Vin and is author of the book “The World’s Greatest Wines.” Robert Joseph is a wine writer, and editor of Meininger’s Wine Business International. He was also founder of the IWC, the world’s largest wine tasting competition. Jan Van Lissum is Gault Millau’s representative in Holland. He organizes wine competitions and edits a food & wine magazine. Jeannie Cho Lee is Korean, and the first person from Asia to become a Master of Wine. She is an editor for Decanter Asia and since 1994, has lived in Hong Kong. On the Friday of their visit, this select gathering was invited for a unique vertical tasting of Castel wines including Castel Grand Vin, Petit Castel and ‘C’ Blanc du Castel, hosted by Eli Ben Zaken at the winery. During their stay in Israel, they were able to experience some of Israel’s finest restaurants including Toto, Herbert Samuel and Mul Yam. On the Sunday, they were given the opportunity to taste other Israeli wines. The tasting took place in a spectacular setting, on the seventeenth floor of a building, with a memorable view of Tel Aviv and the Mediterranean Sea. Eli Ben Zaken gathered together twenty two Israeli wineries including: Amphorae, Barkan, Bazelet Hagolan, Binyamina, Chateau Golan, Dalton, Ella Valley, Flam, Golan Heights, Margalit, Pelter, Recanati, Segal, Tabor, Tishbi, Tzora, Tzuba, and Vitkin. Each winery showed one wine, which was presented by their winemaker. Afterwards, Robert Joseph gave a speech, thanking Eli Ben Zaken, and he remarked at how Israeli wine had improved tenfold in the last 15 years.

The following article is reprinted with permission from wines-israel.com. Note that I believe that there are some errors in the discussion of Jewish law as some observant Jews hold no problem with women leading kiddush or serving as mashgichot (kosher supervisors). Or, as in the case of all matters – 2 Jews, 3 opinions.

As we look back in history at the subject of women & wine, it is immediately apparent that the bias against women in the wine industry has been abhorrent, but this did not start with Judaism. It began in the very earliest wine cultures. In ancient Egypt jars of wine were placed in the tombs of the Egyptian upper classes to ease their way in the afterlife. Egyptian women were not entitled to this in case they were to become intoxicated in the next world.

Ancient Greece was no better. Men used to gather to meet and drink. Women were only allowed to participate as accessories – to serve wine or act as prostitutes. Whilst for a man to become drunk was almost praiseworthy, for a woman to be seen drunk was the equivalent of being a loose woman. The Romans were even worse. They even prohibited women from serving wine.

As far as Judaism is concerned, according to the letter of Jewish law things are reasonably equal. Both men & women have to drink four glasses of wine at Passover. Jewish law does not forbid a Jewish woman from winemaking, only stressing that a Sabbath observing Jew must make the wine. In practice though, the results of subsequent interpretations ensure a quite different reality. Women are excluded from kosher winemaking worldwide because of the orthodox Jews rules on gender separation. Only a man can decree if a wine is kosher and a man has to lead the Kiddush, the sanctification with which Jews begin every festival and every Sabbath, with the blessing over wine.

The Catholics were as bad too. European winemaking survived the Middle Ages largely because of the Catholic Church. Many of the New World vineyards were first planted by Catholic missionaries. But Catholics excluded women from winemaking too.

In France even quite recently there was a superstition that a menstruating woman winemaker would damage the finished wine. This bias against women has lasted even until this generation. The Bordeaux Brotherhood also discriminated against women. The Confrèrie of St. Emilion only inducted its first woman in 2000.

Quite apart from historical prejudice or religion, wine has always been seen as a men’s preserve. Work in the vineyard & winery was heavy, physical, and took up long, unsocial hours. The vineyard and winery became a place for men only.

Furthermore the enjoyment of wine became a man thing. There were men only drinking clubs, and tasting events, where men gathered to share Parker scores and boast about which wines they had last night. In England the port was passed around the table, but only after the woman had left the room.

However women came to the fore in a very important facet of wine enjoyment. They were proved to be better tasters. There were two groundbreaking studies, one in Cardiff, Wales, and the other in Pennsylvania, USA, which both showed that women consistently outperformed men in matters of odor identification and smell. Furthermore another study at Yale identified that about 25% of the population had the potential to be super tasters, with the ability to taste more sensitively than the remainder of the population. The so-called super tasters had more taste buds and a greater sensitivity to taste differences. The researchers found that women formed the majority in this category.

Furthermore it was realized that men tend to categorize wine more using the left side of their brain. Scores, ratings and all the details surrounding the wine are important. Whereas women, are more likely to use the right side of the brain, which is more sensory, creative and artistic. A man is generally interested in the minutiae of the wine. A woman is more interested in the taste. Marketeers were slow to realize that the bulk of wine purchases was not made by men, was by women in supermarkets. So women are better tasters than men, and they buy more wine than men, but it still took a few women pioneers and a few centuries to break the glass ceiling.

The trailblazers were really four women in the 19^th century. These four women played a crucial part in running their businesses when fate left the winery in their hands. Veuve Cliquot and Pommery in Champagne, Ferreira in Portugal and Penfolds in Australia became the companies they are today purely from the management of the women who had to take the reins of their family businesses. The stories of Nicole-Barbe Ponsardin, later known as the Widow Veuve-Cliquot or La Grande Dame, Madame Jeanne-Alexandrine Melin Pommery, Dona Antonia Adelaide Ferreira and Mary Penfold are each worth telling on their own. They were women of immense courage and good sense and extraordinarily successful considering the prejudice they came up against.

Until the 1970’s women were not only scarce in the world of wine, but virtually non existent. However in the last 30- 40 years, there has been a welcome turnaround. Women have succeeded to permeate into every aspect of the wine trade. There are winery owners, winemakers, researchers, educators, sommeliers who are women and they compete on an equal level with men, often surpassing them. The wine trade is richer as a result.

A few of the most notable women to contribute to making the world of wine a better, more advanced & professional place are listed below.

Winery owners like Corinne Mentzelopoulos, who single handedly revived Chateau Margaux, so it returned to its place as one of the leading Bordeaux wineries. Baroness Philippine de Rothschild took over Chateau Mouton Rothschild and the built a global empire called Baron Philippe de Rothschild SA. Lalou Bize-Leroy, ousted from Domaine Romanée Conti, started her own winery called Domaine Leroy and become one of the foremost owner winemaker women producing some of the finest wines in Burgundy.

In California, some of the most prominent winemaking g icons in the New World wine revolution were women. Heidi Peterson Barret, winemaker and owner of La Sirena in Napa Valley has made many of the region’s most sought after wines. Helen Turley is another winemaker/ consultant who makes some of California’s most expensive cult wines. Zelma Long was a winemaker, beginning her career at Mondavi. Then she went from winemaking to management and became the first woman winemaker to become President and CEO of the major winery when she took over Simi Winery in 1980. She now owns Zelphi Wines, is also a flying winemaker and a much sought after consultant. Since 2002 she has also been the winemaking consultant for the Golan Heights Winery. In Australia today, Vanya Cullen is an owner, managing director and winemaker of Cullen Wines. This she has achieved in macho Australia, where women wine judges for tasting competitions were forbidden until recently.

One of the most significant developments to advance the understanding of wine tasting was the development of the Aroma Wheel at the University of California at Davis. This was compiled by a woman, Dr. Ann Noble who worked in the Department of Viticulture and Oenology. The Aroma Wheel codifies 132 descriptive words to assist wine tasters searching for the right vocabulary.

Jancis Robinson MW OBE, from England, became a wine writer whose prose matches that of Hugh Johnson and a wine critic held with the same awe as Robert Parker. She edits the main wine reference work: The Oxford Companion To Wine and co-authors the World Wine Atlas. Her television programs where also ground breaking. She has her own website & writes for The Financial Times. Serena Sutcliffe, another Master of Wine, became director of Sotheby’s Wine Department. The auction house was previously a bastion of male domination.

Mary Ewing-Mulligan became the first woman Master of Wine in the US in 1993. She is today known for her educational books ‘Wine For Dummies’, which continue to be a best seller. (The book was recently translated to Hebrew.) In 1987 Madeleine Triffen became the first Master Sommelier in the US. Andrea Immer Robinson became Master Sommelier in 1996 and then continued to become a famous educational figure through her books and television appearances. Up to 2005, there were 15 women Master Sommeliers and 57 women Masters of Wine in the world.

Each of these women are superstars in their own fields, who have encountered prejudice, but have risen to the top of their professions by being the best at what they do. All of them experienced difficulties, but now the integration of women in the wine trade is a fact and it seems inconceivable to visualize a wine world without them. Now there are even wine societies catering for women. Le Donne del Vino was an organization founded for women in Italy, another very conservative country and there are now similar organizations in Germany, California and other countries.

There has also been a breakthrough in Israel. The hardest nut to crack was that of winemaker. Women could not be part of the actual winemaking in a kosher winery, as only orthodox men are permitted to touch the wine, plant and machinery during the production process. However they could be active in the vineyards and take the same managerial role in a winery like any winemaker of a kosher winery.

The pioneer was Tali Sandovski, who became a winemaker at the Golan Heights Winery in 1986 and then studied at UC Davis. She is the winery’s longest serving winemaker. Other women were to follow. Naama Mualem studied in California and Australia before taking over as winemaker at Dalton Winery. Another women winemaker is Irit Shenk Boxer who works at Barkan-Segal, which is managed by her father.

The first female ‘owner winemaker’ was Orna Chillag, whose Chillag Winery was founded in 1998. Now there is also Tzina Avidan from Avidan Winery and Roni Saslove is partnering her father in making the wines at Saslove Winery.

Woman also broke into management of the larger wineries. Ronit Badlerbecame the first managing director of an Israeli winery, managing Galil Mountain Winery. Anat Rushansky Levy is currently managing director of Golan Heights Winery.

Carmi Lebenstein was firstly sales manager and later marketing manager of Carmel Mizrahi in the 1990’s, and she recently looked after marketing at Barkan. The current marketing manager at Carmel Winery is Ifat Rozenberg Moshan. The previous marketing managers of Galil Mountain and Binyamina Winery were respectively Carmit Eherenreiche and Timna Shitreet.

Many of the sommeliers in Israel are women. Hadas Ezer was Israel’s first woman sommelier of note, being sommelier at Keren Restaurant in Jaffa. She is now an importer of fine Burgundies to Israel. Ruti Ben Israel studied in Italy to become a sommelier and returned to Israel to become manager of Carmel’s Center for Wine Culture at Zichron Ya’acov. Debbie Shoham is education manager of the Golan Heights Winery.

Mira Eitan was Israel’s main female wine journalist, writing in the past for Globes and Maariv. She then edited the Wine & Gourmet Magazine for 5 years. She is now the media and communications manager for Carmel Winery and part of their wine development department.

Ifat Rozenberg Moshan, Mira Eitan and Ruti Ben Israel are part of an initiative to organize regular tasting and cultural events for women only on behalf of Carmel Winery. Each meeting is over subscribed. More and more women are having the confidence to participate, taste wine and give an opinion. The development of the women consumer and the flowering of female wine experts is the next trend already underway.

So the glass ceiling is well & truly cracked here too. Thankfully women feature strongly in Israeli wine today and the industry is better for their presence & expertise.

As some of my first posts showed, my core interests have always been wine marketing and the business of wine. Whether it’s a post on wine sales in Israel or my second post on Marketing to the Millenials, the topic of business and wine have always been close to my heart.

It’s a tough thing to market Israeli wine to the global market – an issue that Adam Montefiore discusses in Wine Business International Magazine.

Adam Montefiore authored a post in Meiningers Wine Business International about the economics of Israeli wine and the difficulties faced when exporting and selling Israeli wine on the global market — particularly when you’re not competing solely in the Anglo Jewish market.

Please read his article, reprinted with permission from Meiningers Wine Business International.

Among other conclusions (read the entire PDF), Montefiore notes that:

• Production costs are high
• Focus on the ethnic and Israeli expatriate market limits international expansion

• Niche products, in a small country (small quantity/limited resources) and supply chain difficulties prevent Israeli wine from achieving mass-market success
• The Israeli wine sector is emerging, despite little to no government support, and several wines are receiving international acclaim.

The following post is reprinted from wines-israel.com

In the latest tasting of Israeli wines published by The Wine Advocate, the Israeli wines to stand out were:

• Margalit Cabernet Sauvignon Special Reserve 2007 93 points
• Margalit Kadita Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon 2007 91 points
• Flam Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve 2007 90 points
• Vitkin Carignan 2007 90 points

The Wine Advocate is the newsletter published by Robert Parker, the world’s most influential wine critic. His expert on Israel is Mark Squires, who tastes and reports on the wines from Israel.

Thus Margalit becomes the fourth Israeli winery to receive a 93 point score from the Wine Advocate. The others are Domaine du Castel, Clos de Gat and Yatir Winery.

Since December 2007, The Wine Advocate has tasted hundreds of Israeli wines. Out of all the wines tasted, there are sixteen Israeli wines that stand out by scoring 91 points or more. Castel and Yatir have both achieved this on no less than four occasions. Clos de Gat, Golan Heights and Margalit have done so twice, whilst Carmel & Tzora have done so once.

The following is from wines-israel.com and reprinted with permission.

The Jewish Week recently a tasting of kosher wines from around the world. Eight judges tasted 280 wines.

The results are published in the 2nd Annual Jewish Week Kosher Wine Guide, which publishes the top 18 wines in various categories.

The top Israeli red wines were adjudged to be: 1. Psagot Single Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon 2009 2. Yatir Forest 2007 3. Carmel Kayoumi Cabernet Sauvignon 2005 4. Petit Castel 2007 5. = Yatir Cabernet Sauvignon 2006 Shilo Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve 2007 Binyamina Cave 2006

Psagot Edom Red 2007

The top Israeli white wines were: 1. Carmel Sha’al Gewurztraminer Late Harvest 2006 2. C Blanc du Castel 2007 3. Yarden Chardonnay 2008 4. Dalton Viognier 2009 5. Gamla White Riesling 2009 6. Galil Mountain Chardonnay 2008 7. Psagot Chardonnay 2010

On March 27th between 2-5 pm, the Grand Tasting will take place at City Winery, 155 Varich st in Tribeca, NYC. There visitors will be able to taste some of the winning wines.

The following post was reprinted with permission by wines-israel.com

The KFWE 2011 recently took place in Manhattan, NY. This refers to the Kosher Food & Wine Experience which was organized by the Royal Wine Corporation of Bayonne, New Jersey.

Royal Wine are owners of Herzog Wine Cellars in California, Kedem Winery in Upstate New York and Kedem Food. It is the largest food & wine specializing in the kosher market in the world.

They represent wines produced all over the world – in every wine producing country that produces kosher wines. However most important for this website, Royal Wine is the number one company in the United States advancing the Israel brand.

Royal imports and represents the following Israeli wineries or brands:

• Alexander
• Carmel
• Barkan
• Binyamina
• Castel
• Flam
• Gamla
• Netofa
• Psagot
• Segal
• Shilo
• Tzuba
• Yatir
• Zion

This list includes some of the major wineries in Israel such as Carmel, Israel’s largest winery, Barkan, the second largest winery, and Binyamina, the fifth largest winery. It also includes two large selling brands: Segal and Gamla. These taken all together represent quite a high percentage of Israeli wine production.

They also represent some of Israel’s boutique wineries such as Castel and Yatir. Flam was also at the show, indicating that their kosher wines would be represented by Royal. These are three of Israel’s highest quality boutique wineries.

Representatives of the wineries including CEO’s, and winemakers, were on hand to provide tastings and give explanations firstly to buyers and those in the trade, and then to members of the general public who had purchased tickets.
The event showed off Royal’s excellent portfolio and gave a positive impression of the size of the kosher market in the New York area.

David Herzog of Royal Wine Corp, with Adam Montefiore and Arnon Geva of Carmel Winery.

View Israeli Wineries in a larger map

The holidays of Purim & Passover and the weeks in between are a great time to explore Israeli wines whether at home or by visiting the wineries. Many smaller wineries not typically open to the public open their doors to visitors who might be looking for wines for two of Judaism’s most traditional drinking related holidays.

While Purim is more like Halloween or Mardi Gras or St. Patrick’s Day in that revelers are encouraged to get drunk ( and often forgetting the cultural and religious origins of the celebration, Passover is much more about reclining and having at least four glasses of wine (over a Seder, which means “order”… a traditional Passover dinner which can go on for hours as the story of Passover is recounted in a certain order and has been for over 3000 years).

So, with Purim good but inexpensive wines might be a better bet because great wines are far better appreciated with less distractions than a drunken free for all but Passover where music isn’t allowed and is a festive but relaxed setting lends itself to impressing family and friends (whether you’re a guest or a host) with the best wine your budget can allow.

As a Sommelier, I often provide wines for family seder once they tell me their budget and what their serving. Although, I get paid for the service it’s really a treat because even though I can only attend one Seder an evening it allows me to feel like I’m contributing to each person’s experience.

With Purim, I still try to drink good wine but end up selling and often suggesting less expensive wines to drink as is or a base for Red or White Sangria.

I hope for all of Hakem’s readers a Happy Purim & Passover in 2011 and many more…

for any suggestions I, David Rhodes,  can be reached at [email protected] or 052-702-WINE (9463)

as the holidays near I’ll make some suggestions but to best suit your needs and budget feel free to contact me directly

When I first visited Eli Ben Zaken of Castel, in 2006, he said that he was waiting for the Wine Advocate to start noticing Israeli wines. It seems, his wish has happened. Mark Squires, of Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate, has just reviewed 11 Israeli wines in the latest issue (#193).

All of the wines scored between 87-93 points, including the following 3 90+ point wines:
1. Margalit, Cabernet Sauvignon, Special Reserve, 2007: 93 points 2. Margalit, Enigma, 2007: 90 points

2. Vitkin, Carignan, 2007. 90 points