Hey friends!

In less than 24 hours from now my flight leaves O’Hare bound for Tel Aviv!

I’m excited to get back to Israel to see friends and colleagues, take a deep(er) dive into the wine scene there, and drink some great wine.

PLEASE JOIN ME FOR A WINE MEETUP MONDAY JULY 19 at 8pm at Par Derriere Wine Bar in Tel Aviv.

They are located at 4 King George, near Allenby and the Carmel Market.

Come by, get yourself a glass of wine off of their list (lots of variety), connect with old friends and make some new ones.

Let’s chat about and celebrate the continued re-emergence of a quality Israeli wine world re-born!

Let me know you are coming by Commenting below or emailing me at richard@israeliwinedirect.com or finding me on Twitter !

See you soon!

Many thanks to my pal Yael Beeri for handling logistics with the wine bar!

In a recent post on the wine forum he moderates, Israel’s leading food & wine critic Daniel Rogov noted that several of the leading Israeli boutiques will begin producing kosher wine starting with the 2010 vintage (that’s now!).

The wineries include Flam and Tulip and Saslove.

I am the US importer for both Flam and Tulip.

In fact I will be in Israel later this month for meetings, tastings, and vineyard visits with these and other wineries.

So…what do I think about their becoming “kosher”?

Well first off and most importantly – this should mean no diminishment in any way of the outstanding quality these wineries are so very capable of. Maybe a little more hands-off winemaking (literally) for the gifted winemakers themselves but I expect the same great juice from them all.

Becoming kosher was certainly a deeply considered decision based primarily in their belief that kosher status will provide access to a broader ready-made audience and kosher distribution channel in Israel and here in the US and elsewhere. This along with the knowledge that “kosher” in itself would certainly not mean a diminshment of the quality work and reputation they have worked so hard to establish…

And it seems clear that this should mean at least an initial significant lift in exports for them.

Someone should ask Castel what becoming kosher did for their wine sales in the US. Do we know? I’m guessing a spike followed by a plateau but I don’t know.

Too many US wine retailers still seem mostly stuck insisting on a “kosher” section (I’ve referred to this as a kosher wine “ghetto” since it tends to be in a dusty corner too often ). But…. Kosher Is Not a Country. Diet Coke is kosher. Cheerios is kosher. Merely labeling a wine kosher and then segregating all the kosher options into one corner without naming and marketing the wine region does (to me) something awful to wine – it DIS-locates a wine, pulling it out of its regional context, its terroir. The other thing a kosher section can sometimes do I feel for general, non-religious wine lovers is reinforce in their minds that kosher wine is for Jews, it’s not-for-me…and didn’t I hear it’s not so good anyway…?

On the other hand, leading wine retailers like Skyview Wines and Kosherwine.com have done much to elevate the quality of wine drinking for observant Jews all across the US with their successful presences both on-line and off.

US Jews are less than 2% of the population and the number of Jews spending significantly on premium kosher wines has got to be something much smaller than that, no?

BUT no doubt these wineries will sell more wine in the US and that’s a Very Good Thing – there are many who will now be able to enjoy these great wines for the very first time!

I just want the wine-loving world to see these wines as so much more than “Jewish wines”.

Israeli wine is Israel’s Great Ambassador, taking people behind the CNN Crtain and into the Real Israel, and we should never forget this when we identify our Ideal or Target Customers. PLUS…much of the wine from Israel is Good, and some of it is even GREAT.

The Judean Hills and Galilee/Golan are 2 of the most ancient and important wine regions in the world. Period.

We need more marketing focused on making strong positive mental associations not only with “Israel”  but also with the Judean Hills and the Galilee.

So…lots of work to be done, certainly new doors will open as they always do, while others may close.

I am excited to see the growth and evolution of these great boutiques! and I am honored to be (even in a small way!) an active participant.

I hope to see you soon!

After a more than 50 day ocean voyage (don’t get me started…) the 400 cases of Israeli wine I have most recently imported arrived in California and cleared US Customs late last week.

Stay tuned for an email blast (and blog post) about all the new wines and how to get ‘em before the weekend.

This wine has been a long time coming.

I have yet quite to figure out how to seamlessly manage the wine inventory side of this little biz.  Maybe my brain is not just big enough. As Winnie the Pooh once famously said, “I have a small bear brain.”

Different wines selling at different rates from different wineries who need widely varying amounts of time to prep an order for shipping then somewhere between 40-55 days on the ocean followed by uncontrollable yet all-powerful Customs and FDA agents…all this (and other factors too) make for a level of uncertainty and riskiness (having too much or too little wine at the right place at the right time).

Overlay inventory management with heavy cashflow needs and payment lag times, especially in an upside down economy when people take longer to pay (I’ve been guilty of this on occasion, too, frankly) and you have something like an enigma wrapped inside of a mystery inside the set of The Perfect Storm.

In any event….the wine is here! The wine is here!

This past Tuesday we held a highly exclusive (12 people only!) Margalit vertical tasting at The Tasting Room in Houston

This hip spot is one of the top wine bars in the US and I’m proud to have a handful of wines I import on their menu, including Pelter Trio.

Enjoy the pics!

We tasted through 10 different Margalit wines – multiple vintages of 4 different Margalit wines!

The Tasting Room’s smart and friendly sommelier Vanessa decanted and filtered the wines I sent for over an hour before the event.

I spoke about the re-emerging Israeli wine scene, the terroir of Israel, and the history and philosophy of Margalit winery.

My friend Jonathan Horowitz, one of the owners of The Tasting Room and their VP of Marketing, co-led the event and has worked hard to provide great wine from Israel a platform for Houstonians! (These great pics were taken by him!)

Stay tuned for more wines and wine gatherings at The Tasting Room!

Here’s the 2nd in a series of posts from my pal Esther Cohen, leading Israeli Wine Guide and owner of start-up My Israel Wine Tours.

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It is well known that there is no sense of personal space in Israel because everyone is a part of a bigger family.  What I’ve learned about the Israeli wine industry is that it is a family business, even if some of the biggest wineries are owned by corporations.

We have the Tishbi family, Flam family, Dahan family of Somek Winery, Rosenberg and Ashkanazi family of Adir Winery and many more families that have enhanced the industry in ways beyond measurable.

The Tishbi family, originally Chemilinksy, were settlers from the first Aliyah in 1882, and were directly affected by Edmond Baron De Rothschild himself. The family came from Romania and settled in Shefya (located neat Zichron Yaakov), hence the acronym of their name TISHBI, which stands for “Tishuva Shefya B’Eretz Israel” which was given to them by Chaim Nachmun Bialik in 1925.  In 1984, Jonathan Tishbi, the grandson of the founding settlers, and a farmer for the majority of his life, decided that it was time to breakaway from making his money by selling wine grapes to Carmel Winery, and start his own winery with his family. Jonathan and his wife Nili have 3 children.  Golan, their son, was trained as a winemaker in New Zealand; Oshra, their daughter, created the Oshra Fine Foods using the Tishbi wine infused in jams; and Micha, their son, is a lawyer and handles the business side of the winery.  The spouses also work at the winery.  The Tishbi family is an example of real chaluztnikim who developed the land and enriched Israel through their hard-work and passion.

Somek Winery, owned by Barak Dahan, a fifth generation resident of Zichron Yaakov, earns the majority of his living as a farmer, just like his ancestors who sold their grapes to the Carmel Winery.  Today, Barak sells 90% of his grapes in his 200 dunams to Carmel Winery. The other 10%, the highest-quality grapes, is used for his own production and consumption.  When you visit Barak in his home, you can taste the history, love and dedication in his wines.  He learned from his grandfather who learned from his father. Now Barak is teaching his son, Omri, the art and science of viticulture.

Israel Flam, the former chief winemaker of Carmel Winery for 35 years, now enjoys his days as the co-winemaker with his sons.  Israel was trained in South Africa in the 1960s and his trained in California and France.  Israel is not Orthodox so for 35 years as the chief winemaker, he was not allowed to touch the grapes or wine, unless it was handed to him by an Orthodox employee.  One of the requirements for producing Kosher wine is that from the time the grape touches the hopper, until the wine is bottled, only religious Jewish men are allowed to be part of the process. If the winemaker is not Orthodox then he has to depend on his Orthodox employees to assist him with handling of the wine all throughout the process.

So for 35 years Israel Flam had his hands behind his back as a winemaker, but once his sons grew up they shared his interest in becoming viticulturists. Today, Flam Winery produces 140,000 bottles of wine from the Jerusalem Hills and Upper Galilee vineyards. Their wines are winning International awards and are well-known throughout Israel.

Lastly, the Rosenberg and Ashkanazi family of Kerem Ben Zimra partnered as dairy-farmers and viticulturists to establish the Adir Winery about 10 years ago.   Both families have lived in Kibbutz Kerem Ben Zimrafor over 30 years.  The Kerem Ben Zimra vineyards are known to be some of the best vineyards in Israel because of the terrior.   Today, Adir Winery is a boutique winery producing 10,000 bottles annually and is predicting to produce 30,000 bottles annually in the next couple of years.   Adir Winery’s new Visitor’s Center opened in April 2009 and has two sides, one for its goat’s dairy products and the other for the wine products.

Each winery has an interesting and often magical story behind its establishment.  Although Israel is a relatively new country, the old world traditions are still seen and family bonds are stronger than ever in the wine industry.

Become part of the wine family and sit with the winemakers in their homes by taking a tour with My Israel Wine Tours! www.myisraelwinetours.com

I tell people all the time how much I love people from Texas.

I think Texas people and Israeli people have a lot in common and, in fact, if you pull out your maps, you will discover Texas and Israel share the same hot latitude…. and the same hot attitude, too!

I’m in NYC this weekend to host our next in a series of Margalit vertical wine tastings at Lelabar in West Village Sunday afternoon- to demonstrate what ageing does (it does something friggin amazing!) to Margalit winery’s age-worthy wines. Margalit is Israel’s cool cult winery led by father-son winemaking team Yair and Asaf Margalit.

Our next vertical event is in Houston with my pals Jonathan and Vanessa at The Tasting Room at Uptown Park.

The Tasting Room and their sister wine bar Max’s Wine Dive carry a bunch of our wines and bring a lot of fun and spirit to the way they select and introduce to their (thousands of) followers great wines from around the world.

I’m a Big Fan of theirs and it just seemed the right spot for this next round of exclusive wine gathering.

Here’s the deal – we have 12 seats available (they will go fast and a couple are already spoken for) and you will get to taste 10 Margalit wines along with gourmet snacks and chow from The Tasting Room’s kitchen. The mood will be informal and fun and also take a serious deep-dive into the wine library of one of the regions top wineries.

The event is 6-8pm on Tuesday June 8 at The Tasting Room at Uptown Park.

The cost is $100 plus tax and tip per person.

OK, this is the really really important part……you can ONLY reserve a seat by credit card through Jonathan at The Tasting Room – so email him (NOW!) at jonathan@lascoenterprises.com

See you there!

P.S. several of the wines you taste will be available for ordering during the event.

This is the only Margalit tasting of its kind done in Texas – and only the 3rd one of its kind ever done in the US.

These are some of the best wines made in the Mediterranean. And only 12 people in Texas will get to taste these older vintages. I hope you are one of them.

I’m leading the tasting along with TTR’s somm Vanessa.

See you there!

The world’s best wine regions seem to all have active wine tourism along established wine routes. There’s a kind of reinforcement that happens for serious wine lovers when they step foot inside the spots whose wines they love.

While Israel has been producing wine off and on for thousands of years, and today is home to more than 200 wineries, Israel is still an infant I think when it comes to having anything anywhere near an “established” wine route and wine tourism industry. For instance, and I know this will sound silly but the winery signage (is that a word?) in Israel mostly stinks – and by that I mean there is largely none. This has really got to change fast…and seems like a simple quick-fix way to begin to mark a literal wine route for tourists.

A handful of hip entrepreneurs have decided to do something about that, combining their love for Israel and of wine into start-ups focused on taking visitors behind the scenes into the Original Wine World.

For many of them, I feel, it’s their way of broadening people’s understanding of what Israel is all about.

I recently held a Skype conference with one of these cutting-edge folks, Esther Cohen. We talked about aliyah, her love of wine,her plans for her growing company, My Israel Wine Tours, and how our companies might work together, connecting the dots between her on-site touring activities there in Israel with access to Israeli wines here in the US from my warehouse upon visitors’ returns. In the meantime, I want readers of my blog to enjoy the Israeli wine world through her on-site eyes!

So we agreed Esther will write a series of guest posts on my blog, bringing to life the Israeli wine scene through pictures and stories.

What follows is her introductory guest post.

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One hundred and twenty-five years ago Edmond Baron De Rothschild founded the Carmel Mizrahi Winery and through his influence and vision, today Israel is a thriving wine country.  Two years ago when I made Aliyah I wanted to make a positive impact in Israeli society and contribute economically through improving an aspect of Israel.  However, I was not sure how I was going to accomplish this mission.

After completing Ulpan in Jerusalem, I decided to move up North to improve my Hebrew and learn about the Israeli Wine Industry.  Just as Rothschild saw promise in the immigrants from the First Aliyah, so too did Jonathan Tishbi, the grandson of the first settlers in Zichron Yaakov, see potential in my venture to learn about the Israeli wine industry.

I started out waitressing, then moved up as an English tour guide and then to co-managing the Tishbi Winery Visitors Center.  After a year of touring groups around the Tishbi Winery I finally found my niche combining both the Israeli Wine and tourism industries.

Israel calls herself a wine country and has 200 wineries throughout five regions, but the tourism around the wine industry is lacking because it is so new and people come to Israel for her history, religion, and archeology, not wine, but that has changed in the last 10 years.

I founded My Israel Wine Tours in January 2010 as a way to create and organize wine tours around Israel.  My tours consist of meeting the winemakers, exploring the vineyards, tasting delicious food, and drinking a variety of wines.

Usually I am the one touring the group, but yesterday I got a chance to tour the vineyards and other wineries of the Golan Heights with Danny Maor, owner of Maor Winery.  Danny explained that even though the Golan Heights is a Plateau the altitude differs greatly throughout. In the Northern Golan the volcanic soil is airy, cold and 1200 meters in altitude with snow in the winter. The volcanic soil in the Central Golan is like cement and the altitude is approximately 600 meters. In the Southern Golan the volcanic soil is rocky and the altitude is 450 meters. The altitude in the Golan Heights also rises from East to West and in the Northern Golan there are hills throughout that give the vineyards different wind-patterns and amounts of water which has many different affects on the final product.

Danny Maor owns 30 dumans of vineyards in the Telfaris vineyards near the most Western boarder of Israel, near Syria. His vineyards are organic and have the volcanic cement like soil.  His vineyards consist of 15% Cabernet Sauvignon, 13% Syrah and 2% Petit Verdo. Maor predicts that in the next 10 years the Golan Heights is going to resemble Bordeaux with different sub-regions that hold stature and fame. The wines will not be called by the name of their variety but by the terrior that they were cultivated.

Yesterday we also visited Assaf Winery; with a production of 35,000 Assaf produces some of the most award winning wines in Israel. Bashan Winery is an organic kosher winery in the Southern Golan.

Each bottle of wine tells an intimate story. Join My Israel Wine Tours to see, hear and taste the flavors of Israel in a timely and timeless way! www.myisraelwinetours.com or contact Esther Cohen atMyIsraelWineTours@gmail.com.

I’m very excited about what I’m doing in NYC on Sunday May 23rd !

Margalit winery, led by father-son team Yair and Assaf, remains the leading Israeli “cult” winery, and one of the top wineries in the eastern Mediterranean today.

Yair kindly sent me a set of “verticals” (a bunch of different vintages of the same wines) so Americans can experience together the wonderfulness that occurs in the bottle as the finest Israeli wines age!

I am hosting a tasting of all of them on May 23rd from 4-5:30pm in NYC!

Join me!

$75/person gets you a solid mouthful of 10 outstanding Bourdeaux-style reds from Margalit along with premium cheese, breads and other accompaniments.

…AND attendees get access to discounted Margalit wines from newer vintages so you can enjoy them now or start your own Margalit Wine Library (we never really discount Margalit wines so keep that in mind!)

We are holding this exclusive event at one of my favorite wine bars in the universe – Lelabar wine bar in NYC’s West Village, located at 422 Hudson. They carry several of the wines I import already.

The only way to acquire a seat (only 9 of the original 15 remain) is to REPLY to this email OR call my cell at 847-924-5523. Credit Card holds your seat.

Come meet me and hangout with other serious wine lovers as we experience and discuss some of the most serious Mediterranean juice around today.

Sunday, May 23rd from 4-5:30pm at Lelabar Wine Bar in NYC

Richard

P.S. We will be tasting multiple vintages of Margalit Cab Sauv, Margalit Enigma and Margalit Special Reserve Cab Sauv….plus an older Cab Franc!

I was struck today (again) by the fact that none of us fully understands all that goes into creating a bottle of wine and then getting it from (in my case ) Israel onto your kitchen counter or into a restaurant.

This morning, I learned the details of the actual vessel that will be transporting my wine order of 500 cases of wine from Israel into the US leaving Haifa in a couple weeks. That’s her above! (not sure when we started referring to boats as “her” but I like it!)

I just did a simple Google Image search of the vessel name and found all sorts of fun images and videos.

Seeing her makes this all feel more REAL, don’t you think?

I have a re-confirmed sense of all the hard work (and room for nightmare) that goes into importing these wines for you.

Or bringing to market any goods like this, really. I mean, none of us have even a clue as to what it takes to get food to market!

So much can go wrong but somehow (thank God) mostly doesn’t.

And I work hard to ensure it doesn’t as best I can. I ONLY ship wines, for instance, in temperature-controlled containers from winery to warehouse. We call these “reefers” and shipping this way adds THOUSANDS of dollars of expense for me to each order but it’s the only way I can protect the wine from the elements. That’s important to me since I literally have my name on the back of these bottles now. And I want that to mean something.

I’m sure the carbon foot print of all this can’t be good. But “green” is not the only criteria some of us have for running our businesses.

Anyway, I wanted you to see this. And now maybe you’ll have a little more insight into what it takes to get you this juice.

A lot of people I will never meet, who probably don’t even realize (or care) they are carrying the best Israeli wine work together to make this all happen.

The ship should arrive in Oakland (it passes through the Panama Canal!) about 40 days after it leaves Haifa. Let’s all pray for calm seas and a safe ride for the wine and (more importantly) for the crew of the Alkin Kalkavan.

Where in the world is Israeli Wine Direct’s next wine order?

Well that’s a really good question!

I had hoped the 500 or so cases of premium boutique Israeli juice I have just ordered would be in my US warehouse south of Napa by now.

But the TTB wine label approval process and a few other things conspired to slow us down a bit.

But not to worry!

Now, finally, I expect the wine to leave from Haifa port in Irsael and start its 40+ day sea voyage to Oakland in the next week or so.

(Thank God)

We have restaurants and wine bar customers who are great partners with stocks of our wines that will soon (in some cases, already…) need replenishing.

And all of our consumer fans eager to taste new vintages, as well.

I’m convinced more than ever that small-production wine from Israel is uniquely positioned to broaden people’s understanding of what Israel is all about, in addition to transporting them to the Original Wine World.

Priorities for me now while the wine is crossing the seas and after it arrives:

• Margalit Vertical Wine Tastings (we are settling on a May date for NYC now…stay tuned….)
• Allocating big chunks of this coming order to our key restaurant/retail/wine bar partners in places like DC, Philly, NYC and Houston
• Designing New Wine Arrival speak-easy-style wine parties as soon as the wine arrives in a handful of hot spots nationwide

While we’re all waiting for the new wines and vintages to arrive, use the Promo Code NEW to receive an 11% discount! My gift to you!