24, Mar 2008 Share 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 […] In: Wine industry|Wineries Tags: Ella Valley, Ella Valley Vineyards, Gat
19, Mar 2008 Share 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 […]
One of the challenges about writing about Israeli wine is that the story is still not out. Particularly outside of the observant kosher wine-drinking population (who then ignore great wines like Clos de Gat, Flam, Pelter, Saslove, etc.), many people still have never drank Israeli wine. Reading comments on Gary Vaynerchuk’s Wine Library TV pages and even on forums like Rogov’s forum, more and more people are interested in tasting the fine wines from Israel, but still don’t know where […]
14, Mar 2008 Share 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 […] In: Wine industry|Wineries Tags: Bazelet HaGolan, boutique wineries
8, Mar 2008 Share 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. In: Wine industry Tags: Business Week, Mark Squires, Robert Parker
3, Mar 2008 Share ISRAEL21c’s new video format was at the ISRAEWINEXPO. I admit that I wish I had pitched this to them myself, but the video is a nice montage of scenes and quotes from officials in the Israeli wine industry (although I would have preferred someone other than Hevron Heights Winery and more talk about the […] In: Events Tags: ISRAEL21c, Israwinexpo
31, Mar 2008 Share One of the most important things in wine is the terroir – basically a fancy word for climate and soil. One of the most fascinating things about Israel is that there is the lowest point on Earth – the Dead Sea (sorry, no wine there!) to high mountains in the Golan Heights. In addition, […] In: Wineries Tags: ISRAEL21c, terroir, Yatir, Yatir forest This is Israel 31, Mar 2008 Share (Actually Israel has much better wines […]
17, Mar 2008 Share 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 […] In: Wine industry|Wineries Tags: Chateau Golan, Uri Hetz
Dalton 6, Mar 2008 Share 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 […] In: Wine industry|Wineries Tags: Dalton
4, Mar 2008 Share Will have much more to say about Golan Heights Winery (had some excellent wines from them last week), but in the meantime, here’s a picture I took last Monday of an Israeli flag flying over their steel barrels outside of their winery in Katzrin, on the Golan Heights. In: Wine industry Tags: Golan Heights Winery, picture
