Posted at 20:16h in Reviews, Wines by Avi 0 Comments
The following post was written by Franco Zilliani, an Italian wine writer. He writes and is member of the editorial board of ‘The World of Fine Wine’ (www.finewinemag.com) and blogs in Italian at A Thousand Bubbles, where this post first appeared. It first appeared in English on the lifestyle website Webflakes, where the full article appears.
At the end of 2012 I mentioned in this blog that Israel too had been infected by bubbles mania. I cited the well-known Israeli journalist Adam Montefiore, who claimed, in an article – “Israelis love sparkling wine” – published in the Jerusalem Post, that “Israelis of every age love nothing better than uncorking bottles of bubbly.” And that “there are several excellent Israeli sparkling wines that measure up to the foreign ones with an excellent range of prices and variety.”
Since he maintained that “The main Israeli sparkling wines of today do not suffer by comparison with all the imported sparkling wines”, I tried to find out more about them. I haven’t flown to Israel for a tasting yet, but I remembered that some of these wines were available in Italy, distributed by an importer of enological delights, Gaja Distribuzione from Barbaresco (near Turin).
Thanks to them I tasted the Gamla Galilee Brut, non vintage, from the Golan Heights Winery, which features four labels with different standing and positioning. Their top brand is Yarden, renowned for its Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Syrah (it also produces Pinot Noir, Viognier, Gewürztraminer, besides a vintage of sparkling blanc de blancs), then there are Hermon and Golan (that produces also a Muscatel wine I’d pay to try) and the Gamla brand, which, besides the classic Chardonnay, Cabernet, Merlot, Sauvignon, Syrah and Pinot Noir, also produces a Riesling and even, as if we were in Montalcino, a 100% Sangiovese).
Gamla (in Hebrew: גמלא, Gamla or Gamala) was the main city in the Golan between 87 BC and 67 AD, when it was destroyed by the Romans during the first Judaic war. Its ruins can still be visited on the Golan Heights. The name derives from the Hebrew word “gamal”, meaning “camel”, as it’s located on a hill looking like a camel hump.
The Gamla Brut is a non-vintage wine, usually produced from grapes from two different harvests, made with an even mix of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir and refined, I daresay for at least a year, on yeasts. The grapes selection is very careful: they come from 28 vineyards located across 600 hectares, split into 400 parcels, ranging in altitude from 400m (1.312 ft) to 1,000m (3.281 ft).
Read the rest at Webflakes
