Italian (now Israeli) Sandro Pelligrini comes from a family of winemakers back in the Old Country.

I met Sandro and his wife Irit in August 2007 at their home on Moshav Shachar on the northern edge of the Negev Desert (the Israelis have figured out how to grow wine grapes in the desert! They invented drip irrigation, in fact!). Their home is a short drive from S’derot, the Israeli town under almost constant mortar attack from Gaza (you remember me telling you never to trust anyone who won’t drink with you, right?).

When my son Noah and I arrived at their home last summer, we were warmly greeted by Sandro and Irit, with whom I had been in touch for more than 6 months before we finally met.

La Terra Promessa winery produces only 5,000 bottles of wine annually – that’s less than 500 cases….and we imported 80 of those cases this year!

Sandro is carrying on an Italian winemaking tradition in his family hundreds of years old. His family seal from the 1400′s is on his wine labels.

Here’s a shot of me (that’s my left hand if you are interested) holding a half-drunk bottle of their La Terra Promessa, Primitivo 2005, standing out on our back patio.

Americans generally call the Primitivo grape red Zinfandel – it’s the same grape, though.

We had this wine with supper tonight (whole wheat pasta with a homemade pasta sauce of olive oil, garlic, asparagus, tomatoes, pine nuts) and I’m telling you this juice goes great with food – it’s light making it good with food, has tons of fruit like cherry and raspberry, and the taste keeps coming for a long time after you swallow, like it wants to stick around.

I just love the label on this wine, too. A couple of Primitivos – “Primitive” cavemen – sitting around the camp.

They also make a fun, drinkable Emerald Riesling (I bought the 2005 vintage) that we imported 40 cases of, too. Next time I drink that, I will write about it for you here.

The thing I love about Sandro and Irit is their deep involvement with the Slow Food Movement. I think all of us would agree that Americans need to SLOW DOWN when we eat, and eat food with wine and with friends. That’s for sure what we did the day we visited them at their home – we were there for more than 2 hours, tasting almost a dozen wines as I recall, and sampling from almost an equal number of dishes Sandro personally made for us one after another. For Sandro and Irit (and I really do think for more Americans now), food and wine are ”social objects” meant for gathering people you love around.

Follow this link to purchase some great wines made by the Israeli Slow Food Movement winemaking couple from the Negev Desert, Sandro and Irit.