In Daniel Rogov’s latest column in Ha’aretz, he tastes the interesting wine from Vitkin. This is a taste of Rogov’s thoughts:
Assaf Paz, the winemaker at Vitkin Winery, is doing some pretty strange things. The winery, a family affair producing about 40,000 bottles annually, has refused so far to fit into the standard mold. Instead of producing wines from ultra-popular grapes such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Chardonnay, it has chosen to focus on grapes with less of a local following, such as Cabernet Franc, Grenache and Tempranillo.
More than that, Paz is making some pretty unusual blends. With one white combining Viognier, French Colombard and Gewurztraminer and one red a blend of Syrah, Carignan and Cabernet Franc, the winery is certainly moving in unusual directions.
Call all of this a little bit crazy if you like, but the oddest thing is that it seems to work – the results, which are quite definitely not run-of-the mill, are quite successful, and the winery already has won the attention of sophisticated wine drinkers.
Read the rest
In case you missed it. Not like the real thing (no tasting on the video!) but more reason to visit Israel next year and drink Israeli wine — or if you are here this summer, check out the Jerusalem wine festival!
The latest (June 30) issue of the Wine
Spectator has an article about Israeli wine as well as a travel piece on the Galilee, including food and wine.
I haven’t yet seen the article yet, but the editor and author, Kim Marcus, also scores numerous Israeli wines. Here are the scores (please correct me if there are errors):
2005 Yatir Forest – 92
2005 Tulip, Syrah Reserve – 92
2004 Clos du Gat Sycra – 92
2006 Clos du Gat Chardonnay – 91
2004 Clos du Gat Cabernet Sauvignon Ayalon Valley – 91
2005 Dalton Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve – 90
2004 Galil Mountain, Yiron – 90
2006 Golan Heights, Viognier – 90
2004 Golan Heights, Merlot, Ortal Vineyards – 90
2005 Chateau Golan, Cabernet Sauvignon, Eliad – 90
2005 Tulip, Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve – 90
2006 Recanati Chardonnay Reserve, Kerem Ben Zimra – 90
2006 Castel Blanc du Castel – 90
2004 Golan Heights, Cabernet Sauvignon – 89
2004 Carmel, Cabernet Sauvignon, Limited Edition – 89
2005 Binyamina Special Resrerve Cabernet Sauvignon – 89
2006 Tishbi Estate Cabernet Franc – 89
2005 Margalit Cabernet Franc – 89
2004 Recanati Cabernet Franc Reserve – 89
2004 Saslove, Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve – 89
2006 Agur Cabernet Sauvignon Special Reserve – 89
2004 Barkan Cabernet Sauvignon Superieur – 89
2005 Castel Grand Vin – 89
2005 Flam Cabernet Sauvignon – 89
2005 Ella Valley Chardonnay VC – 89
2005 Dalton Single-vineyard Meron Merlot – 88
2005 Chateau Golan, Geshem – 88
2004 Carmel, Cabernet Sauvignon, Kayoumi – 88
2006 Amphorae Chardonnay – 88
2006 Binyamina Special Reserve Chardonnay – 88
2005 (?) Tabor Cabernet Sauvignon, Me’sha – 88
2007 Recanati Sauvignon Blanc Reserve – 88
2005 Vitkin Cabernet Franc – 88
2005 Barkan Altitude 720 – 88
2005 Flam Merlot – 88
2006 Bravdo Chardonnay – 88
2005 Ella Valley Cabernet Sauvignon VC – 88
2007 Agur Rose, Rosa – 87
2005 Ben Hana Petit Verdot La Mariee – 87
Wine Spectator has a fascinating little video on Israeli wine (with a Dalton Chardonnay and a Clos De Gat red blend) from editor Kim Marcus. I can’t embed it but it’s currently on the Wine Spectator home page but this is what I think is the permalink to it — check it out!
Here is also another direct link to the video.
It may not be Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate, Decanter, or the Wine Spectator – all important industry publications that have recently covered or are about to cover Israeli wine – but there is a newspaper that just published an article about Israel’s Dalton Winery that I think is even more important. But, unless you live in Maryland (where, incidentally, Robert Parker is from – we both have the same alma mater …. Just sayin’), you’ve never heard of this.
The Gazette – local newspapers in Montgomery, Prince George’s Frederick, and Carroll counties – is my hometown newspaper. And I found out about the article not from my usual Google alert on Israeli wine, but rather an e-mail from my mother. Wait, why is that better than the Wine Advocate, Decanter, or the Wine Spectator or all the other wine snob (but excellent ) magazines or even better than Gary Vaynerchuk and Wine Library TV or the other great wine blogs???? Simple – most people don’t check out the specialized wine media (or this blog, on such a niche product, little known outside of Israel and the kosher community) and aren’t wine snobs looking for the next big thing. But they do read their local community paper. And when their local community paper has an article about wine that they’ve never heard of than that means it is worth trying far more than Robert Parker (Robert who?) scoring a wine 100 points! Yup, this is the real wine revolution!
In addition, when a non-Jewish paper outside of New York publishes an article about a kosher Israeli winery (that emphasizes kashrut on their website and marketing material – not a good idea, in my opinion, as the kosher Israeli wineries need to go beyond the captive kosher market) than that also shows that Israeli wines that just happen to be kosher CAN BE accepted as good wine. Gazette’s article didn’t even have the word ‘kosher’ once – and, as a result, I suspect some people who just want a good bottle of wine are going to pick up a bottle of Israeli wine. To me, this is “Brand Israel” at its best!
And a lesson for us all! Kol HaKavod Dalton! Who knows – the next article about Israeli wine might be YOUR local community newspaper.
I promise that this is the last post about Carmel Winery for a little while, but I promised last month some more information and news about Carmel and this post about Carmel’s quality revolution (which definitely does include the opening up of the Yatir Winery) just doesn’t cut it. But, since the story of Carmel is the story of Israel and Israeli wine, there is so much to say.
I was graced with a tour of Carmel’s wineries at Rishon L’Tzion and Zichron Ya’akov, Israel with “The Ambassador of Israeli Wine” (and an all-around nice guy) Adam Montefiore.
Rishon LeTzion is Carmel’s first winery, opened in the late nineteenth century and is Israel’s oldest continuing functioning industrial building. It’s also the home of the first telephone in Israel and first electrical power – showcasing its importance in Israel’s history. While today, it is surrounded by a bustling city, this yishuv was one of Israel’s first cities (hence the name: Rishon L’Tzion means First in Zion), and once primarily agriculture.
Rishon L’Tzion is familiar to anyone who has ever picked up a bottle of Carmel’s Limited Edition. The winery is on the front image. There are also famous pictures of David Ben Gurion (who worked there as a young adult) in front of the winery when he was a bit older … and with a bit more work experience under his belt.
Continue reading Carmel: From Sacramental to Single Vineyard
An article about Israeli wine is in this month’s Decanter, the UK’s finest wine magazine. For copyright reasons, I’m not posting it but it can be purchased via Decanter’s website.
In addition, there will be an article in next month’s Wine Spectator, expected to hit newsstands in late June.
It’s great to see Israeli wine get noticed! We’re on the way up!
Thanks! We’ve hit over 10,000 unique hits in just about 6 months! It’s great to know that there are so many fans of Israeli wine and a market for news about Israeli wine in English.
Keep reading, keep linking, and please encourage others to read, link, and drink Israeli wine!
And if you have comments or thoughts about ways to get even more people to read or things you want to see drop me a line! What’s missing in the Israeli wine world?
But thanks for the 10,000! ‘Til 120,000!
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, and Ehud Olmert, having spent time working at Carmel) and certainly represents the story of Israeli wine – from sacramental to single vineyard.
Because Carmel wasn’t always making the world’s best wine, with the growth of new wineries in Israel, several years ago Carmel decided that they needed to make some changes. As such, they underwent what’s known as “the quality revolution” and today Carmel has some truly truly excellent high-level wines (which are making their way into fine restaurants in the UK and are available in the US and around the world) and some value wines that are also of exceptionally high quality and enjoyable at all price points.
Continue reading Carmel’s Quality Revolution
I want to point out a little-known feature of this blog – the store. Yes, one of the important functions of HaKerem is not merely a list of wine essentials – from books, DVDs, and accessories like stemware and wine fridges – but also the opportunities to order them online via Amazon.com.
I want to just quickly highlight a few offerings, but I strongly encourage you to check it out and make a purchase. If there are products you think are missing, let me know.
Continue reading Great resource to find wine essentials – HaKerem: The Israeli Wine Blog Store
Anyone who knows me knows that one of my passions is wine marketing and especially emerging technologies and wine marketing. Well, not entirely emerging (although I do remember first surfing the web in the 1990s and reading Tom Friedman’s The World is Flat – one of my new favorite books — brought back some fond childhood memories) but one of the most important tools of marketing and brand management is a website.
In other words – if you want to sell your wine and get your brand known (and if you have an Israeli winery, your brand probably isn’t known except maybe for Carmel and even then not necessarily ‘the new Carmel’) than you need a good website.
Unfortunately, too many Israeli wineries either don’t have websites, don’t have websites in English, or don’t have good websites. I’m glad to see that’s changing a bit as Carmel’s website appears to be “under construction” so hopefully something new is coming. Golan Heights Winery’s websites, like far too many Israeli websites, doesn’t work well in Mozilla Firefox. And, for a long time, Castel’s website truly sucked – despite, of course, having great wine. Of course that means that great websites don’t necessarily make great wine and some really bad websites may mask excellent wine. Continue reading On the Israeli wine web
Check out this new article by Adam Montefiore on the history of Israel wine since independence.
As Israel celebrates Yom Hatzma’ut – Independence Day for the 60th time, I have been given the task to look back and select a wine to cover each decade. This is not necessarily meant to be a list of the best wine, but the one that best represented Israel at the time, particularly overseas.
1948 -1958
This is a difficult choice. The main brands that continue from pre-state until today are not wines but brandies: both Carmel Extra Fine Brandy and Stock 84 have survived the 60 years of statehood and are still on the shelves. However, if I had to choose a wine to be representative of the period from 1948 to 1958, it would have to be a sweet wine, which is what people then drank. Then there were wines sold by names which have since been protected, like Port, Sherry, Malaga & Tokay. A big seller representing Israel overseas at this time was Palwin (short for Palestine Wine) – Israel’s oldest wine brand, but this was exclusively sold in Britain. So my choice would be Alicante, which was then a sweet red wine made by the Alicante Grenache variety.
Continue reading Six wines for sixty years
