As you know, Israeli Wine Direct and Tzora Vineyards are the exclusive wine partners of JNF.

Tzora Vineyards’ owner Nathan Hevrony and I are speaking at a JNF Wall Street event March 18.

The re-emergence of the Israeli wine world parallels the re-birth of the nation of Israel.

And great Israeli wine represents the very civilized, progressive place that Israel is today.

I hope you will join us for the tasting OR at least join me for supper in NYC afterwards!

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Am I the only person getting weary of all the “kosher wine sucks” and “kosher wine doesn’t suck” articles?

Here’s the deal…

If wine that happens to be kosher sucks it’s not because it’s kosher that it sucks it’s because the winemaker, the winemaking or the grapes suck.

It really is that simple.

And if a kosher wine is delicious it’s not because it’s kosher it’s because the winemaker, the winemaking and the grapes are good.

Diet Coke and Cheerios are not good because they are kosher (though they are). Bananas are kosher but that’s not why I add them to my protein shakes every morning along with blueberries and almonds, which also are kosher!

There is nothing in the basic kosher winemaking process that turns out sucky wine.

And believe it or not most of the wines I import from Israel (and most of the boutique Israeli wines) are not kosher at all.

(mevushal kosher wine – requiring the boiling or flash-pasteurization of wine – is another story for another post)

If you need an amazing wine from Israel, the Judean Hills in fact, that tastes like the place it is from – all smooth fruit-herby goodness – one that just happens to be kosher for Passover then ORDER TZORA SHORESH 2006.

Sh9resh has been kicking the cracker jacks out of Napa Cabs and other Israeli Cabs in blind tastings for months…wines MUCH more expensive than it is at $39/bottle from us.

This is a single-vineyard wine (Shoresh is the name of the vineyard – the word means “root” in Hebrew) made by UC Davis-trained Eran Pick. I have only around 600 bottles left of this wine in the US.

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Israel has a single “cult” winery – Margalit.

Founded in 1989, Margalit is the super-small producer leading the region in age-worthy wines. They don’t irrigate their vines, driving the roots down deep to pick up all the site-specific nutrients and smells and flavors from their 2 vineyards in Kadita and Binyamina.

Yair Margalit kindly sent me verticals (multiple vintages) of several of his wines so we could hold tastings in the US demonstrating the high quality of premium wine from Israel and how these beauties just keep getting better with age!

My friend Joe, proprietor of The Bottle Shop in Wilmette, IL, and I are co-hosting at his cool place the first US vertical tasting of Margalit wines.

ONLY 13 people can attend. And I want you to be one of them.

Go HERE to learn more and register.

Be a part of the re-emergence of the Israeli wine scene internationally.

We will be drinking 10 Margalit wines together along with premium cheese and bread. Attendees can order Margalit wines at a discount during the event, too.

See you there!

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A 1,400 year old wine press was recently discovered in Israel, large and advanced and likely used for producing wine to export to places like Egypt or Europe.

It’s pretty common to find even much older wine presses in contemporary Israeli vineyards. The land there has been wine-ing for a long, long time. There is a 3,000-year old wine press at Clos de Gat winery in the Judean Hills.

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CLICK HERE to join this event Thursday 2/18 at 8pm ET!!!!

It’s not every day that you get to taste wine with a Master Sommelier – and even less common to taste with a female Master Sommelier since as it turns out there are only 16 of them in the entire world.

I have been interacting with Master Sommelier Laura Maniec on Twitter for a while now.

She’s the Wine & Spirits Director for B.R. Guest Restaurants, based in New York.

This Thursday evening, February 18, at 8pm ET, Laura and I will be tasting 5 small-production wines from Israel I import.

I sent her 10 bottles to try and we’ve agreed to break the group up into 2 sets of 5 and get to them all over time.

We’re starting with premium Israeli Reds that represent Israel’s 2 best winemaking regions – The Judean Hills and The Upper Galilee:

Tzora Shoresh 2006 (single-vineyard Cab)

Flam Superiore Syrah 2006

Pelter T-Selection Cabernet Franc 2007

Flam Cabernet Reserve 2006

Margalit Enigma 2006

I’m doing this tasting “virtually” (I will be in my home in Chicago and she will be in her office in NYC) in part since one of the projects I am working on is the development of a virtual trade wine tasting platform that fits the economic realities of a small supplier/importer who must be targeted, efficient, and take responsibility for generating demand “direct to trade”. In the new world of wine small suppliers will have to learn to step up and interact a lot more directly with consumers and trade buyers.

I’m inviting YOU the Public since I want to take you behind the scenes with me as we hear from one of the top wine experts in the US. “Trade Tastings” like this happen all week long behind closed doors. I want you to get a glimpse!

Honestly, I am just super-excited to have someone with Laura’s knowledge and skills tasting with me. I told her I want The Truth as she sees it about these wines. Her frank feedback will be invaluable. I am honored Laura is taking the time to try these wines she can’t try from anyone else (I’m the exclusive US importer of all these wines) and certainly not from large traditional distributors.

I will Tweet and message everyone with links to the ustream site where we will be tasting LIVE over the next couple days. I hope a lot of people will join since we will all very likely learn a lot from Laura. No doubt, she already knows a couple textbooks more than I ever will about Israeli climate, soil, terroir!

You can ORDER the set of 5 wines we will be tasting. If you would like to taste along with us, consider UPS 2nd Day Air to have it arrive on time.

Cheers!

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This past Friday night we held an Israeli wine tasting of 6 wines I import at another one of my fave wine bars in Houston called 13 Celsius. Listen to me….the place was packed!

I love the vibe in this old building. And the crowd keeps it real and fun. I loved the people I met at the event, too. Except maybe for the one guy who poked me in the chest as a way to get me to pour him more wine…Ummmm this is not a recommended strategy !

And Mike and Ian, the wine director and owner, have done a superb job of going out of their way to bring you wines that stretch you to visit new parts of the wine world you may have never traveled to before. (I actually think they were pleasantly surprised about the number of people who came by and the excitement these wines generated, too).

One of the surprise wines of the evening was Trio Spirit 2007. You can ONLY order this Cab blend directly from me by calling me at 866-469-8708. It is not online. You can find a couple bottles at Proof Wine Bar in DC but that’s about it. I only imported 20 cases into the US and most of them are long gone. CALL ME if you want some. These people are making this juice in their basement! Less than 5,000 bottles annually, in fact. Get it.

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This afternoon my friend Charles from fave wine bar + retailer + killer restaurant Block 7 Wine Company in Houston held a tasting of 7 wines I import from small wineries in Israel.

I was again amazed by the overwhelmingly positive response top these wines from the great people of Houston.

We have (as I had hoped) gone well beyond a Jewish audience with these grand wines,

I focused on very basic talkpoints as usual (as Winnie the Pooh said, I have a small bear brain!).

Like the fact that wine was born in Israel.

And that Israel is smaller than New Jersey but long and narrow like Chile or California or Italy and therefore contains within itself multiple microclimates, the best of which for wine grape growing are the Galilee and the Judean Hills.

Or the fact that there are today more than 250 wineries in Israel, while 20 years ago there were a mere 20 wineries there.

Towards the end of the event, Charles and I held a blind tasting of 8 wines, 4 from Israel and 3 from California and 1 from Washington state.

People tasted them all and ranked them.

Here are the rankings…

(And listen to me – NONE of these wines were “bad” – I thought all of them were “good”)

The punch-line of all this is that Israel took 3 out of the top 4 places in the competition!

WINNER: Tzora Shoresh 2006 (Israel)

2nd Place: Amavi Cellars 2007 Walla Walla WA

3rd Place: Margalit Cabernet Sauvignon 2006 (Israel)

4th Place: Flam Cabernet Reserve 2006 (Israel)

5th Place: Lail Vineyards Blueprint 2006 (California)

6th Place: Pelter T-Selection Cab Sauv 2007 (Israel)

Tied for 7th: Cloverdale Ranch Cab Sauv 2005 (California) and Volume 2007 Cab Sauv (California)

The best part of pouring great Israeli wine for people is the look of surprise and discovery.

I can’t wait to come back to Houston again soon!

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While good wine doesn’t exactly go “bad” there comes a time when you gotta make room for the newest vintage.

We’ve sold A LOT of Flam Classico 2006!

In fact we have only 71 bottles left at last count this afternoon.

And it’s time to make room for the 2007. Which is what I am drinking right this moment as I sit in bed and write this brief post.

A lot of you have ordered Flam Classico 2006 from me.

If you like fruit and Mediterranean herbs, you love this wine. Period.

Winemaker Golan Flam trained in Italy then brought back to his estate winery in the hills outside of Jerusalem all that earthy-chewy-barnyard-sage goodness he’d learned how to create while in Italy.

Here’s what’s in it for you.

When you help me make room for the next vintage and order a case of the 2006 Flam Classico I sell it you for $250 – that’s 20% off of the regular price.

Good wine for a great price!

Thanks.

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It’s good to regularly review why you are doing what you are doing.

This allows you to make decisions about how to spend your time and money, and how to allocate attention.

What is it that you INTEND?

And how is what you are doing aligned (or more likely, not aligned) with your intentions?

There’s a big difference between thinking about what you’re making or selling or whatever and fully considering what you are trying to bring about in the world by making or selling what you make or sell.

I guess it’s sort of like the difference between “features and benefits” but on a MACRO level.

So, following that advice I have been reminding myself this week what it is I am trying to bring about in the world through my little (growing!) Israeli wine business.

I mean, there are more than 6,200 domestic wineries in the US – and the wines of thousands more imported wineries are also available to most Americans, too. How could we possibly need more wine in the country?!?!

Here’s The Big Thing for me, the Big Thing I am trying to accomplish:

I intend to use great Israeli wines and winemakers to broaden peoples understanding of what Israel is all about, hopefully shattering some assumptions in the process. The wine is a vehicle and a bridge and a translator of The Real Israel. I want to help re-frame people’s perceptions about Israel, the Birthplace of Wine and the Birthplace of much of our civilization.

I know, I know. Sounds way elevated and maybe even overly self-important.

I encourage you to make your Big Thing equally expansive and lofty and challenging and MACRO. There’s plenty of room for TACTICS (and they’re easier to figure out) if you get your Macro Intentions clarified and go back to that again and again.

How about you? Why do you do what you do?

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To you wine-lovers who set a New Year’s resolution of getting out of the Cab-Merlot-Chardonnay wine box and a litte off-the-trail in terms of wine varieties you taste…I’m here to help!

Carignan, anyone?

Usually a sort of behind-the-curtain, high yield, nothing-special blending grape, tiny little Somek winery in Israel has elevated Carignan to fine wine in their 2004 showing.

Full Disclosure: YES, I import this wine! And I am totally biased in its favor or I would not have brought it at great expense across several oceans to bring it to you! Get over it

Led by husband and wife team Barak and Hila, Somek winery is located in the lovely little Mediterranean town of Zichron Yaacov. Their winery is literally a garagiste winery – it’s in a closet attached to the back of their house. Barak’s family has lived in this lovely home (it’s the one pictured on the wine label) since 1882 when they moved to Israel from Romania, subsidized by none other than Baron Rothschild himself, Jewish owner of Chateau Lafite, one of the most important wineries in the world. The Baron sought to re-ignite Jewish agriculture and winemaking in Israel and the Old Man put his money where his mouth was at the end of the 19th century after making several documented trips to Israel. Big Time.

This winery produces a mere – get this ! – 5,000 bottles of wine annually. That’s it.

I’m telling you that the big commercial wineries in Israel spill more wine than this little family winery produces all year long.

This varietal-version of Carignan is all smoky, chocolatey, dark-fruited juicy chewiness wrapped up in a very deftly applied oak wrapper that complements without stifling.

I want you to try it.

I want you to get over your hesitancy to try Carignan or any other grape that you ain’t had before.

So!

I’m offering you a case of Somek Carignan 2004 for $240 – and it’s regularly priced at $360/case.

And when you order a case of wine through us Ground Shipping is also included. All the time.

This wine is not for babies, okay? It’s not petite. It’s fireside. It’s Sasquatch. It’s the stretch some of you need.

Try it!

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