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!

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 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!

]]> http://israeliwineblog.com/2010/06/pics-from-the-margalit-tasting-at-the-tasting-room-in-houston/feed/ 1 http://israeliwineblog.com/2010/05/the-israeli-wine-scene-is-all-about-family/ http://israeliwineblog.com/2010/05/the-israeli-wine-scene-is-all-about-family/#comments Sun, 30 May 2010 18:37:07 +0000 Richard http://israeliwineblog.com/?p=580 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 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!

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.

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!

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.

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!

Most of the story or “narrative” we hear about Israel is highly-charged, political (left-leaning), filled with violent images. Often the narrative is of the supposed Big Bad Israeli Soldier mistreating the defenseless Palestinian. Or the whacked-out unshaven settler ruining the lives of otherwise perfectly happy moms in burkhas. Or ungrateful Israeli leaders who won’t get in line and cooperate with the naive plans of a US President who has never visited them.

These images take all the nuance out of what life is really like there – they make for easy sound-bites but do not reflect the reality on the ground fully.

For people who don’t have a personal connection of some sort that takes them behind what I have come to call the CNN Curtain, this violent conflict narrative may be the only one they know.

I founded Israeli Wine Direct, in part, to broaden people’s understanding of what Israel is all about. To help people of all backgrounds discover The Real Israel. The one with real people going to real jobs raising real kids and facing a daily reality that their existence both personally and collectively is literally up for debate. Find a moment to take out a map of the region if you haven’t ever done so. Israel is surrounded by neighbors publicly swearing to destroy her and her people, boycotting her goods, digging tunnels to smuggle weapons inside of her and kidnap young soldiers.

In spite of all this (maybe in part because of it?), Israel today is the most innovative and entrepeneurial nation on the planet. Period.

Most technology and most medical devices we all benefit from have an Israeli fingerprint. Israeli technology is inside much of the stuff we rely on every day.

The informal, anti-hierarchical, always-dissatisfied temperament of most Israelis creates just the right breeding ground for so much progress (while often ruffling feathers along the way, no doubt).

I have always been mesmerized with the way great wine brings people together across countries and cultures and backgrounds.

I see Israeli wine as one of Israel’s greatest cultural Ambassadors, re-branding Israel in the minds of Americans even in some small incremental way.

The re-birth and re-emergence of a premium Israeli wine scene is not only a true and exciting story but it’s also a counter-narrative to the narrow bad-news CNN narrative.

Just like Intel (which has a major operation inside Israel and frankly has been saved as a company by brilliant Israeli engineers) talks about Intel Inside, I have become a bit obsessed with the idea of Israel Inside.

I want to place – and I need your help placing – Israeli wine Inside the homes of as many Americans and retailers and wine bars and restauarnts as possible.

Not merely because so much Israeli wine tastes greats and rocks and comes from the Birthplace of Wine. It is all of that and more.

But also because great Israeli winegrowing – the fact that young highly-trained Israelis in some of the most important and ancient wine regions in the world are producing wine that translates place (and what a PLACE!) so well – is a counter-narrative to the nightmare images foisted on all of us by a mainstream media hell-bent on simple one-dimensional reporting and “Action News”. Wine lets you taste the place, building positive associations that the people and the place deserve.

To dig deeper into what makes the Real Israel tick – PLEASE READ Start-up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle as soon as you possibly can!!

Here’s what’s coming:

Pelter Trio 2008

Pelter Sauv Blanc 2009

Pelter Unoaked Chardonnay 2009

Flam Classico 2008

Flam Sauv Blanc / Chard 2009

Flam Cab Reserve 2005, 2006, 2007

Tulip White Tulip 2008

Tulip Syrah Reserve 2007

Tzora Neve Ilan 2006

Tzora Shoresh 2007

We’ve nearly Sold Out of many wines so I am EAGER for the new juice to get here….and excited to introduce Tulip’s Syrah Reserve into the US for the first time, too!

Plus the Tzora Shoresh 2007 is RIDICULOUSLY delicious with a dollop of Syrah cozying up to the Cab.

And Pelter whites have been a consistent SMASH HIT in cities like Houston, DC, Philly.

And you may have noticed we will have 3 vintages of the Flam Cab Reserve to play with too,  as we help some of our key customers (consumer and trade) build out verticals for their lists of this outstanding wine.

It’s common this time of year with Passover right around the corner to find (mostly boring and repetitive) articles and posts around the theme of “kosher wine for Passover”.

While I guess these things have become sort of obligatory, they do little I fear to promote the truly great Israeli wines to the general audience of international wine lovers. I worry they subtly and not-so-subtly reinforce in the minds of many that Israeli wine is really just wine-for-Jews (it’s not).

Even the positive reviews feel almost like pleading to me “please try kosher wines, they’re not nasty, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE try them!”

If you know me at all you know by now that I feel “kosher wine” is a nonsensical wine category that means little or nothing to serious wine people. Aside from religious Jews who need to know such things, “kosher” means nothing to a serious wine drinker in search of wines that have the ability to translate PLACE.  The kosher status of a wine should be neither a reason to drink or not drink a wine.

Diet Coke is kosher. Cheerios is kosher. But we don’t eat them because they are kosher. People eat them because they like them.

All of this is to say that I really appreciated the way wine writer Peter Hellman approached his piece highlighting the quality wine growing coming out of the Judean Hills published yesterday in the Wall Street Journal.

I have long said publicly and privately that next step for those of us who give a hoot about wine from Israel need to start building associations in wine drinkers minds around the 2 most important wine regions in Israel:

The Upper Galilee

The Judean Hills

People have all sorts of instant associations to wine regions like Napa and Burgundy but not (yet) to the Galilee and Judean Hills.

Hellman’s article is a good start.

While we don’t have the wonderfully unpronounceable grape varieties like they do in Greece to market, the volcanic remains of the Galilee and Mediterranean breezes and spice of the Judean Hills operate in unique uncommon ways against the common European grape varieties now planted there.

I want the wine world to know about this.

For me, as I told Hellman in an interview, the Judean Hills is one of the most under-rated wine regions in the world.

An area that has been wine-ing for millenia.

A region that also contains some of the foundational stories our very civilization is based upon, like the story of young David’s defeat of Goliath, which happened in these hills.

It’s time wine lovers took note of this important wine region. Not because the wine is kosher (or not), not because it’s nearly Passover again, but because the combination of good land there in the hands of talented Israeli winemakers tastes great and reconnects drinkers to an area nestled within the very Birthplace of Wine, the eastern Mediterranean.

The Judean Hills doesn’t produce “Jewish wine” – it produces world-class wines that are “herbal and nuanced with a sneaky way of taking charge of your palate,” as Hellman writes so well.

I was proud two of the wineries I work with Flam and Tzora were highlighted in Hellman’s article.

In fact, both Flam Classico and Tzora Shoresh were recommended by him.

Cheers!

Manischewitz Wine is NOT Israeli wine!

(It’s made from Concord grapes in New York!)

However, most of us Jews of all ages regardless of our religiosity have a ton of mental and emotional associations to Manischewitz all wrapped up with memories of childhood Passover seders and family time around the table.

I want to hear about these stories!

The good, the bad, the ugly, the sad, the funny, the everything…

Contest Essay Question (respond in the Comments section with either a narrative or video post):

Tell us how you really feel about Manischewitz! What thoughts and emotions and memories rise up when you hear that word?

For me Manischewitz is associated with family time, when my grandmother (sadly, no longer alive) would be in my home, proud matriarch that she was – her presence always made me feel that the world was still alright. Sneaking extra sips of Manishewitz and the way it warmed my face and made me slightly dizzy, the taste of it in the haroset, the way it stained the apples…but mostly that sweet wine for me meant being close to people I loved when it was spring again. The highly structured and choreographed seder ritual was something ancient and also strangely felt like home, though I was not quite sure why at the time.

Okay….your turn!

I’m the sole judge. I can select 1 essay or more than 1 or even none as the winner! (I love contests like this!)

To enter, you must 1) post a written or video response in the Comments section below AND 2) Re-Tweet and/or post to Facebook this post. (you gotta do BOTH things to be considered for the prize, people!)

Got it?

Good luck!

Prize winner(s) will receive Gift Certificate Credits to the Israeli Wine Direct Shop in the amount of $54!

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!

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.

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!

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.

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!

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.

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!