…says winemaker Golan Tishbi. “It’s a lot better than last year.” as he tends to his family’s estate vines in Zichron Ya’acov and who harvests grapes from all over Israel to produce about 1 million bottles every year at Israel’s 6th largest winery.  The Tishbi Winery has already harvested several kinds of grape varietals from their estate coastal vineyards including Sauvignon Blanc, French Colombard, & Emerald Riesling and expect their thicker skinned Cabernet Sauvignon from Judean Hill vineyards to be […]

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The following is a guest post by Alex Aizenberg about his recent visit to Israel. Alex is a lover of Israeli wine and public relations guy. If you are interested in writing a guest post for HaKerem: The Israeli Wine Blog, please e-mail [email protected] with your submission Making our bi-annual trip back home to Israel, my wife and I always look forward to visiting our family up north in the Golan for some great conversations, dinners and wine in the […]

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A conference on the subject of the Englishman, Sir Moses Montefiore, was held recently at Mishkenot Sha’ananim in Jerusalem. It was entitled: ‘Moses Montefiore: The Man Behind The Windmill’ and was attended by people from all over the world. The first lecture of the three day conference was given by Adam Montefiore, the first member of the family ever to make aliyah to Israel. He is a direct descendant of Moses Montefiore’s nephew and heir, and fifth generation after Sir Moses. Adam spoke about his distinguished ancestor’s agricultural vision, his observation that vines and olive trees were growing everywhere in […]

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This was the second year of the Best Value competition, organized by Studio Ben Ami. There were 128 wines in the competition from 28 Israeli wineries. The main category was for wines less than 79 shekels and there were also prizes for wines under 50 shekels. The results were announced at the David InterContinental Hotel in Tel Aviv and they are listed below. The best results were achieved by Carmel Winery and Golan Heights Winery, Israel’s two most famous wineries, […]

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Jerusalem will be the host of the first kosher wine tasting festival on January 30-31 at the International Convention Center in Jerusalem. Admission is 70 NIS or 35 NIS if you purchase here. There will be over 30 wineries (I don’t know which wineries) attending, allowing visitors to taste their wine, and a session on cooking with wine. The event will take place from 3:00 PM until 10:00 PM in the Teddy and Oranim Halls at the International Convention Center […]

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Earlier this month, Adam Montefiore published a list of top wine resources in his Jerusalem Post column. Looking for last-minute gifts, here are some recommendations: as well as several websites. Notably, this site gets a shout out: The main wine blog on Israeli wines is www.israeli-wine.org. This is created and maintained by Avi Hein, a canny marketer using social media. Here, you will find regular articles of interest.

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Inaugural U.S. Grand Tasting to Feature 20 Premier Israeli Wineries NEW YORK, Jan. 22 /PRNewswire/ — Wines of Israel will be hosting the first ever extensive tasting of Israeli wines in New York City for members of the wine trade and media on Tuesday, February 3, 2009. The Grand Tasting, which will take place at the Prince George Ballroom from 11 AM – 4 PM, will feature more than 100 premium Israeli wines from 20 of Israel’s most celebrated wineries. […]

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The BBC has a great profile of Domaine du Castel, a great winery that I discovered several years ago. When you think of the world’s great wine producers Israel is not a name that often crops up. But Eli Ben Zaken is trying to change that. What started as a hobby is now an international business, but as his success has grown so too has the competition in the hills around Jerusalem. So is there enough business to go around? […]

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One of the most important stories of the Israeli wine world is the quality revolution that took place (and is continuing with continuing improvements) at Carmel Wineries. Carmel Wineries, founded in 1882, is one of Israel’s oldest producers of wine (and, I suspect, oldest producer of table wines) and certainly the most famous Israeli wine. In fact, it’s fair to say that the story of Carmel is the story of Israel (with several Prime Ministers, including David Ben-Gurion, Levi Eshkol, […]

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Israel’s Upper Galilee is one of the best areas to make wine. Dalton Winery was founded in 1993 by Mat Haruni and is consistently making high quality wines at reasonable prices. In fact, Daniel Rogov writes that “Dalton has earned a consistently good name for high quality wines, providing excellent value for money.” It is also unique in Israel for having a female winemaker, Na’ama Mualem, who trained in Australia and California. Last Sunday, I traveled up north from Jerusalem […]

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