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Bittuni: A Fresh New Israeli Wine From Ancient Local Grapes
20/12/2018 In Yediot No Comment Read More

The Israeli wine industry would do well to invest in grape varieties that are unique to the region, like Marawi and Bittuni

Marawi 2014 was the first commercial wine produced in Israel from this grape, and it made waves worldwide. Now it is already in its third year. Even now, when people in the wine business, who have already tasted thousands of wines, visit Israel, this is usually the first Israeli wine they ask to taste, for the simple reason that they’ve never encountered this variety. Still, many in the local industry are doubtful that the Israeli wine industry should adopt endemic grape varieties for wide-scale production.

Bittuni, apparently named after the town of Beitunia in the Ramallah area, is supplied to Recanati by the same Palestinian farmer who grows the Marawi grapes. Like Marawi, this variety survived because the grapes are tasty. It also has a genetic makeup that differentiates it from thousands of other grape varieties. The source of Marawi and Bittuni is not the French grapes sent by Baron Edmond James de Rothschild from France in the late 19th century, but grapes that flourished in the indigenous climate and soil and survived with the changes that took place over time.

Judging by the first harvest of Bittuni, which is still experimental, this variety produces a wine that is entirely different from the Israeli wines to which we are accustomed; it has a light color, a low percentage of alcohol and a miniscule presence of tannins. At the moment it’s hard to imagine this variety producing a wine of exceptional complexity, but it can definitely play a role among wines that are pleasant and easy to drink, which are so lacking in the Israeli portfolio.

Many countries long for indigenous varieties that will differentiate them from dozens of other countries producing various wines from Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Syrah grapes. Commercially speaking,varieties that are unique to a particular region and identified with it arouse great interest worldwide and enable a glimpse at the local wine industry. Regardless of quality, we can assume that a wine bar or restaurant abroad that wants an Israeli wine would prefer an indigenous variety to one produced locally from international grape varieties – no matter how good it is.

The culinary world is also of cultural and historical significance. Archaeological finds, including dozens of wine presses and tools for preparing wine, point to the diverse wine industry that existed here in ancient times. It’s not clear whether varieties discovered in an ongoing study at Ariel University in the West Bank are the same ones that were used for winemaking in those days. What is known is that their genetic makeup is local and unique.

Local and authentic

The preoccupation with indigenous varieties bring to the surface the tension between the desire to make the best possible wine and the desire to produce wine with a local, authentic and unique character and identity. For the past three decades Israeli wine, based on well-known varieties such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Chardonnay, has steadily improved. In recent years, we have also seen more good so-called “Mediterranean” wines: Carignan, Grenache, Roussanne, Marsanne and Viognier. In the near future these will continue to be the main grape varieties in Israel, and the industry should continue to be based on them.

At the same time, if we have been fortunate enough to find local varieties, they should be studied and developed, so that producers can create the best possible wines from them, even if they won’t compete in quality with the world’s finest wines. After all, when you’re sitting lakeside in Switzerland you drink local Chasselas wines, so why shouldn’t tourists sip Marawi and Bittuni at the Tel Aviv beach?

Although Recanati is a large commercial winery, they plan to continue investing in Marawi, Bittuni and perhaps other local varieties, even if in small quantities: no more than 3,000 bottles a year, which explains their high price. Recanati has planted a vineyard of Marawi in the Western Galilee, which should bear fruit in a few years. If it succeeds, Recanati will be remembered as a pioneer. If not, there’s always Cabernet and Merlot.

 

Recanati Bittuni 2016

Bittuni grapes from the Hebron region, 50 percent fermented in whole intertwined clusters, nine months of maturation in old barrels. From a first encounter you can note the light color reminiscent of wines from Gamay or Pinot Noir grapes, initial fragrances of red berries, flowers, delicate seasoning and a light-to-medium body. With a very sparse presence of tannins and its soft structure, Bittuni, in its present incarnation, is light and pleasant to drink, presenting good fruit flavors, freshness and mainly a balance among the many ingredients. I don’t imagine it will reach exceptional complexity or concentration of flavors, but as a drinkable local wine (only 12 percent alcohol) it provides a welcome addition to the local offerings. Grade: 88. Price: 99 shekels.

Recanati Marawi 2016

It’s the third Marawi harvest, and already we can see progress and learning in light of the experience accumulated by winemakers Gil Shatsberg and Kobi Arbiv. Compared to the 2015 harvest, the fragrances of the fresh white fruit are the first to stand out. On the palate, the volume and concentration of the fruit indicate technical work that included maturation on less sediment and less intensive betonnage than in the past. As in the case of the two previous harvests, the key word for Marawi was and remains freshness, and this is apparently the right time to treat it less as a curiosity and more as an easy-to-drink white wine, which is indigenous, legitimate and original. Grade: 89. Price: 99 shekels.


wine spectator 10 10 17
The 2017 New York Wine Experience
10/10/2017 In Wine spectator ידיעות אחרונות No Comment Read More

Mitch Frank

Wine Spectator kicks off its 37th Wine Experience with the opening act of the weekend, a Grand Tasting of 267 outstanding wines.

Among the hundreds of people lined up for opening night at the 2017 Wine Spectator New York Wine Experience, there was a sense of anticipation, of excitement, of thirst. But for many California vintners, the evening also brought the emotional healing of seeing good friends and loving fans.
“I never thought I’d say I wanted to come to New York to breathe clean air, but the air is a lot better here than in Santa Rosa,” said Mike Officer, co-owner of Carlisle Winery & Vineyards, in Sonoma County. The massive wildfires that have burned in Northern California for nearly two weeks, as well as the blazes in Spain and Portugal, were on everyone’s minds, and the attendees wanted to show their support for Napa, Sonoma, Mendocino and all the impacted wine regions.
At the first of two Grand Tasting nights, more than 2,400 people came to sample wines from 267 of the world’s finest wineries, a fitting kickoff for the 37th Wine Experience. The three-day event, held at the New York Marriott Marquis in Times Square, includes tasting seminars with leading winemakers, lunches with wine pairings and the black-tie Grand Award Banquet, celebrating the best restaurant wine programs in the world. The Wine Experience has become a must for wine lovers, a chance to taste the benchmark wines of the world and discover new favorites. And for the people who make the wine, it is a joyous annual reunion.
“It’s the only place in the world where you can taste all wines of the world in two days,” said Tony Bernard, president of l’Academie du Vin, based in Brussels. “I’ve been coming for 17 years. Wine Spectatornever disappoints.”
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For Pinot-philes, Erwan Faiveley of Burgundy poured his Mazis-Chambertin 2014, and just around the corner, Maison Champy offered its Mazis-Chambertin 2011. New World Pinot Noir fans could contrast Craggy Range Pinot Noir Martinborough Te Muna Road Vineyard 2015from New Zealand and Bergström Pinot Noir Ribbon Ridge Le Pré Du Col Vineyard 2015 from Oregon.
“It’s such a phenomenal event—the chance to experience all different wines and varietals,” said Anne Peters of New York, who has attended multiple times. “I just love the environment, the camaraderie, the wines.”
Anyone looking to learn about the benchmarks of Bordeaux could choose Château Mouton-Rothschild 2005 or Haut-Brion 2006; or perhaps sample two St.-Emilion neighbors: Château Cheval-Blanc 2006 and Château Figeac 2010. Italy was represented from the top of the boot to beyond the heel, with Vietti’s Barolo Lazzarito 2010, Volpaia’s super Tuscan Balifico 2012 and Firriato’s Nero d’Avola Sicilia Harmonium 2013. Tucked among the big names were some surprising newcomers and stars from rising regions that most attendees had never had the chance to try, such as Virginia’s RdV Vineyards Lost Mountain 2013, Israel’s Recanati Special Reserve Galilee 2013 and a new project in China from Moët Hennessy, the Ao Yun Shangri-La 2013, a Cabernet Sauvignon from the Himalayan foothills.

The full article


גיל שצברג ועידו לוינסון בכרם
Israel’s Transformation
15/10/2016 In Wine spectator No Comment Read More

Kim Marcus

A new generation is reshaping the country’s vineyards and winemaking, and quality is on the rise

 Brothers Golan and Gilad Flam are bumping along a dirt track in their pickup truck as it climbs a grade in the Judean Hills of central Israel. The limestone that dominates one of the country’s most promising and beautiful winegrowing regions rises in a dun-colored striated formation around them. Above it, the hills, rich with pines, oaks and scrub, lead almost to the gates of Jerusalem.

In this draw at about 2,000 feet above sea level, the hustle and bustle of modern Israel seems distant. The country’s largest and most vibrant city, Tel Aviv, lies 30 miles to the northwest, but these hills are indisputably at the country’s winemaking frontier. If the truck were to keep going, it would very soon enter the Palestinian territories of the West Bank. It’s a quiet and serene landscape that belies the region’s violent and storied past.

“This vineyard is a great combination of the terra rossa soil and limestone bedrock,” Golan says of the site, which is west of the village of Mata. He’s the winemaker at his family’s namesake winery nearby; he studied winemaking at Piacenza University near Milan and did an internship at Tuscany’s Carpineto winery. Terra rossa (Italian for “red soil”) is an ochre-colored clay-based mix that is rich with iron oxide and provides the drainage necessary for healthy vineyards; limestone is the geological constituent of some of the world’s greatest terroirs, Burgundy among them.

One of Flam’s top reds is called Classico, and its fruit comes from the Judean Hills, including the vineyard near Mata. A Cabernet Sauvignon-based blend that includes Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot and Merlot, the 2013 ($35) rated 90 points on Wine Spectator‘s 100-point scale. Minerally, savory and rich, with plenty of dark fruit flavors, it deftly transmits the soil and climate of the region, as well as the human capital that went into its creation—all the hallmarks of aterroir-driven wine.

Following a boom beginning in the early 2000s, driven by Israelis’ search for quality from their native land and by a dawning appreciation for its wines in both Europe and America, the wine industry in the Jewish state is transforming at a rapid rate. Where overoaked reds and candied whites once dominated, fresher wines are now appearing amid a young and expanding wine culture that is striving to secure its identity. But with only 13,500 acres of vineyards—a little less than one-quarter that of California’s Sonoma County—its place on the world stage will remain small for the foreseeable future.

The Judean Hills is one of the epicenters of emerging quality. It lies in the middle of the country, which is about the size of New Jersey. To the north, two regions share the spotlight: the Golan Heights, a volcanic plateau that rises east from the Jordan River to the Syrian border; and the rugged Galilee, west of the Jordan, where the best sites are in highlands that abut Lebanon. Israeli vintners are also tapping sources in the Negev desert in the south, which many consider a contender for quality in the future.

Today, Israel produces about 10 million cases annually, and though historically relegated to the kosher aisle, the country’s wines can increasingly stand on their own. “I took a tour of Israel’s vineyards in March, and I was really impressed by the quality,” says Sandy Block, vice president of beverage for the Boston-based Legal Sea Foods restaurant chain. As a result, he recently placed three Israeli wines on the lists of 15 of the 34 restaurants he oversees. “We tried about 10 years ago with an Israeli wine, but it really fell flat,” Block explains. “But the wines have gotten better. People today are interested in trying new things, especially the millennials.”

Customers seeking kosher options remain the principal buyers of Israeli wines, but retailers say there’s growing interest among nonkosher buyers. “We see a mix of customers-people who are interested in kosher wines, those familiar with Israel from a tourism standpoint, and those who have read press on the region,” says Melissa Devore, vice president of wine buying for Maryland-based Total Wine & More.

I sampled more than 100 wines during a visit to Israel this spring and followed up with blind tastings in our New York office. Overall, among the 120 wines I reviewed in official blind tastings, more than 30 scored an outstanding 90 points or higher on Wine Spectator‘s 100-point scale, the best performance yet from this small nation. For a complete discussion of the most recently released wines from Israel, see my tasting report.

Today, and likely for the near term, the preferences of Israelis and the most accessible terroirs will remain firmly rooted in red grapes. But there is a growing consensus among Israel’s best winemakers that a new generation of white wines will be an important part of the mix. And based on my tastings—especially of well-structured Rhône-style white blends, minerally Chardonnays and fruity Sauvignon Blancs—the evidence is strong.

“The whites stick out more than the reds. We shouldn’t make reds,” declares winemaker Paul Dubb of Tzuba winery, located within sight of Jerusalem on high-altitude, limestone-rich terrain. His statement is part challenge, part attention-getter. “We do make elegant reds,” acknowledges Dubb, who is originally from South Africa, where he grew up in a winemaking family. “But if we are going to make great wines, they will be white.”

As Israeli vintners have honed their skills in the vineyards and cellars over the past two decades, quality has risen appreciably; wineries are also much better equipped. It’s a significant accomplishment for a nation of only 8.5 million people for whom survival, rather than the conviviality of wine, was paramount until recently.

Still, per-capita consumption remains low, about half that of the United States, with many Israelis forgoing wine for religious reasons. As a result, vintners must search for markets abroad. Shipments out of the country were up 10 percent in value in 2014 from 2013 and amounted to $40 million, or about 20 percent of Israel’s total production, according to the Israel Export and International Cooperation Institute; about half of that went to the U.S. It’s difficult, but not impossible, to make a living from wine in the Holy Land. Today, about 250 wineries call Israel home, the vast majority of them mom-and-pop operations encouraged by a nascent interest in wine among the locals and visitors to the country.

“Israelis are going more and more to wineries, and so are the tourists, not only to Jerusalem for the history but for a taste of Israel,” says Israel Flam, the founding patriarch of his family winery, which opened in 1998.

Flam gets its fruit from local vineyards (such as the one at Mata) and also from sources in the northern part of the country, including the Galilee. Other producers draw from the Golan Heights. But almost none own vines; the state of Israel holds title to most rural land. Even today, many agricultural operations are overseen by the collectives known as kibbutzes, which date to the earliest days of the Jewish settlement of Palestine in the 19th century.

“In Israel, you cannot own land. You lease it long-term. It’s a big problem,” says Eran Pick of Tzora winery, also in the Judean Hills. With ownership comes responsibility and ultimate oversight. A former military helicopter pilot, Pick makes some of the best wines Israel has to offer, and he is currently the only Israeli to hold the coveted Master of Wine degree. His Judean Hills 2014 white (92, $30), a luscious mix of Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc, is a revelation. Tzora’s wines have found a place at top Manhattan restaurants such as the Modern, a Wine Spectator Grand Award winner.

Tzora’s impressive whites are a seeming paradox in a land dominated by the deserts that surround it, from the Negev in the south to the Judean to the east. The prevailing wisdom is that hot climates and white wines don’t mix. But in higher elevations, the air cools, and pockets of exemplary quality can thrive if carefully nurtured. The higher altitudes favored by top producers such as Tzora help slow maturation, as do cooling breezes from the Mediterranean, offsetting the strong summer sun at this latitude. In most vineyards, harvest begins in July and is finished by August.

Pick epitomizes the new generation of Israeli winemakers. He is a graduate of the University of California, Davis, and has done stages at Château Lafite Rothschild in Bordeaux, Torbreck in Australia and J in California—experiences he shares with many of his peers. “The young winemakers are very knowledgeable and have traveled the world. There’s a lot of sharing,” Pick says. He’s also open to outside advice. Consulting for Tzora is Jean-Claude Berrouet, formerly of Château Pétrus. He’s lent a French finesse to Tzora’s wines.

Pick’s wines are kosher, as are most made by Israeli wineries, a trend that has strengthened over the past few years. However, also like most Israeli winemakers, Pick is not certified to make kosher wines without the assistance of an Orthodox observant Jew. This means he cannot touch any of the fermenting wine, barrels or winemaking equipment.

Although being kosher provides ready access to an ethnic market in the U.S., home to almost as many Jews as Israel, it doesn’t do much to sway most other wine drinkers and has little apparent bearing on wine quality, except for the burdens it imposes on winemakers such as Pick in finding good help. In Israel, the kosher designation is almost mandatory, given rising demand among the religious and nonreligious alike. More important for Pick, however, is the burgeoning reputation of Israeli wines in general. “Up until five or six years ago, [Israeli wines] were on the kosher shelf. Now they are on the Israeli shelf,” Pick says.

Just a few hundred yards downhill from Tzora, on a chalky slope in the Sorek Valley, sits one of Israel’s most unique vineyards. It covers about 7.5 acres and is home to bush-trained Carignan vines, a rarity in Israel, where modern wire-and-trellis setups are standard. Planted in 1991 by an Arab Christian grower, it today supplies grapes for one of Israel’s best reds, from Recanati winery. The 2014 Carignan Wild Reserve rated 91 points ($50).

Recanati winemaker Ido Lewinsohn stumbled across the vineyard by chance. “I was driving here, and I was working in the Languedoc [in southern France] at the time with bush vines. I said, ‘There are no bush vines in Israel,’ but here they were,” Lewinsohn recalls.

untitled-1Today, the Recanati team, under the ownership of successful financier Lenny Recanati, is carefully nurturing and replanting the vineyard vine by vine. There’s no supplemental irrigation for the vines; a paltry 16 inches of rain falls annually at the site.

“We are going to make much taller gobelet,” says Recanati CEO Noam Jacoby, using the French term for bush vines. “We are one of the few wineries with dry-farmed surface in Israel. We think this is a good way to stress the vines and make the roots go deeper. The vines are hardier as a result.” Production is naturally controlled as well. “The growth rate of Israeli vines is very, very high,” given the warm and generally beneficent climate, he explains.

Recanati made news last year with a white wine made from the Marawi grape, native to the West Bank, where it is grown by Palestinian villagers for eating, not winemaking. Its lineage dates to the Roman era; when the new wine was released, it was billed as offering a taste of what may have been drunk in biblical times. Israel was a major source of wine production for the Byzantine Empire, and wine has deep roots in Jewish culture.

“We are the first to make Marawi as a mono-variety. It’s a small Jurassic Park type of research project to try and find lost varieties,” Lewinsohn says. “The Arabs who were here from the 12th to 18th centuries banned alcohol and winemaking, so the hundreds of native varieties were reduced almost to none.”

Enologist Eliyashiv Drori of Ariel University, also located on the West Bank, discovered Marawi’s ancient origins. He and others have tentatively identified dozens of ancient varieties in the region, sometimes from seeds discovered at archaeological sites.

“We are 100 percent certain [Marawi] is a local variety and it is an ancient variety. The grower is a Palestinian Muslim whom we don’t have much contact with,” says Lewinsohn, who worked for a time at the Italian icon Sassicaia. The grapes are grown near Bethlehem, in the Occupied Territories of the West Bank. Lewinsohn says the grower was found through Drori.

The wine’s label is printed in Hebrew, Arabic and English in a bid for cultural harmony and accommodation. The 2014 vintage (90, $35) is labeled Judean Hills. “It was important to put the three languages on the label. It doesn’t belong to anybody. It’s from the land of Israel,” says Recanati’s head winemaker, Gil Schatsberg, a graduate of the viticultural and enology program at U.C., Davis.

Still, wines made by Israelis from West Bank grapes will probably remain part of a broader political battle, as pressure grows externally and domestically to boycott products made by Israelis from sources within the Occupied Territories.

“It’s stupid to boycott when it’s hurting the growers more than us [through lack of sales],” Schatsberg says. “We are looking for identity. We are a new Israeli wine. We want to offer something new to the world.”

The West Bank provides fertile ground for discovery. With its high altitudes, limestone-rich soils and wealth of long-overlooked grapes grown by local farmers, many of them Palestinians and Israeli Arabs, the region may prove to be the proverbial Garden of Eden for indigenous varieties.

“This is just the beginning,” Lenny Recanati says. “When I travel abroad, I try the local varieties. I’m tired of Cabernet, Merlot and Chardonnay. To get noticed, you have to do something different. We make decent wines, but so do many other wineries.”

Adds Lewinsohn: “The environment now is ready for locality and identity. I think we are living in exciting times in Israel.”

The wine industry was integral to the founding of the modern state of Israel. This springs mostly from the efforts of Edmond de Rothschild, son of James de Rothschild, who purchased Château Lafite in 1868. Edmond was a strong supporter of the movement for the return of Jews to Israel, known as Zionism.

In 1882, he helped establish Carmel winery, which until the 1980s accounted for 60 percent of Israel’s total output and today is the nation’s second-largest producer after Barkan, near Tel Aviv. Carmel makes just under a million bottles a year, and its growers farm 3,500 acres, 25 percent of Israel’s vineyard total.

Rothschild financing helped plant vineyards and build Carmel’s historic winery near the village of Zikhron Ya’akov, south of the city of Haifa, which operates to this day and serves as the firm’s headquarters. Carmel was set up as a cooperative venture to turn the grapes into wine for collective economic benefit. Carmel had the first electrical system and telephone in Palestine. Three men who would later become Israeli prime ministers worked in its vineyards, including the nation’s first, David Ben-Gurion.

But as with most wine cooperatives, quality largely took a backseat to quantity so that the firm could make and sell as much wine for its members as possible. “Carmel kept the wine industry going for 100 years, even if there wasn’t quality,” says Adam Montefiore, who was Carmel’s president of marketing until recently.

Amid foundering finances, Carmel was sold in 2013 to a group of investors that included American Eagle clothing magnate Jay Schottenstein. The producer is no longer run as a co-op. The head winemaker is Lior Laxer, and since joining Carmel in 2005, he has been overseeing near-constant renovations. His vision is to make fresher wines, partly by reducing the influence of oak aging and fermentation, which mute the vibrancy in many Israeli bottlings. Judging from preliminary tastings in Carmel’s cellar at Zikhron Ya’akov, the results are positive, especially for the whites.

“We are moving away from barrels, to vats [both stainless steel and cement],” says Laxer, who trained in Burgundy, staging there and in Bordeaux and Australia. He oversees a team of eight winemakers. “We do struggle to make fresh, fruity wines, but the vats will help. We love the cement tanks because the wine ages much better [in them] than in stainless,” he explains. Several cement tanks, up to 5,000 liters in size and some dating to the mid-20th century, have been retooled to that end.

“We try to pick really on time,” Laxer adds, before the grapes become overripe in the strong Middle Eastern sun. “There’s no spring frost or harvest rain here. The main problem Israel faces is the hot winds that come in from the Sahara.”

Although white wines are creating excitement, reds still dominate vineyard plantings. Many of the original red-grape varieties that were grown at Carmel, most notably Alicante Bouschet and Carignan, were of Mediterranean or southern French origins. They fell out of favor in the 1970s and ’80s in the rush to plant more popular grapes, such as Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. “What’s happening in Israel lately is that it’s going back to Rhône-style blends,” Laxer says. “Mediterranean varieties are something of a newcomer over the past five to six years.”

Judean Hills vintner Shuki Yashuv of Agur winery cautiously echoes that sentiment. He has made a Syrah-Mourvèdre blend called Layam since 2010; the 2013 scored 89 points ($37). “It remains a niche wine. The Israelis like [Bordeaux] blends, though they are starting to drink Syrah.” He may be open to other southern grapes as well. “I have a protégée who is studying varieties from Rhodes and Crete,” he says, referring to the Greek islands.

Itay Lahat is another talented and knowledgeable enologist with his finger on the pulse of the Israeli wine industry. “We really want to go to more elegance, and since we are in a warm climate, that’s a challenge,” he observes. “Obviously, we have to go uphill for this.”

At Ortal winery in the Golan Heights, Lahat both consults and makes his own wines from Ortal’s grapes. The land here is within sight of the Syrian border and lies at about 3,000 feet above sea level; the soils are based on volcanic basalts. The Lahat red from 2014 is a blend of 85 percent Syrah and 15 percent Cabernet Sauvignon. It is medium-bodied and very elegant, like a Northern Rhône red. “It’s a consensus among winemakers that Syrah is the red for Israel. Stop. Period,” Lahat declares. He also sees a future for Viognier. “I think it is one of the best white varieties for Israel,” he observes.

South from Ortal is the Golan Heights winery, which was the first breakout venture to establish a quality reputation for Israel with its Yarden reds and whites in the 1980s. Early on, it received subsidies from the Israeli government as a means to establish claim over the region, which was captured from Syria in the Six-Day War in 1967. Given the current political upheaval in Syria, the dispute over the status of the Golan, which Israel annexed in 1981, seems moot.

Political struggles in the Golan and West Bank aside, the status of many Israeli vineyards remains an open question. In a damaging blow, many of the grapevines imported into Israel in the 2000s and then planted were found to be infected with the leafroll virus, which can slowly strangle grapevine productivity and affect wine quality by disrupting ripening. The only known cure is replanting. With that in mind, Golan Heights has established a certified virus-free nursery, complete with hazmat-suit protocols, that will supply growers throughout the nation; in the years ahead, it may become the font for revamping almost half of Israel’s vineyards.

“I think the style of the wines will be changing because of the new vineyard plantings,” says Victor Schoenfeld, the U.C., Davis-trained winemaker and California native who has overseen Golan Heights since 1992. “It’s painful, but at least it’s an opportunity to upgrade all the vineyards.”

The Israeli wine industry has faced many gauntlets in its young life. Its vintners have persevered and many have prospered, though the path has not always been straightforward. Challenges remain as the country continues to grow and mature in the 21st century, but the determination of its winemakers and grapegrowers is not in doubt.

 


נוף הררי
The Future of Israeli Wine
09/08/2016 In Food & wine No Comment Read More

Peter Weltman

Ancient Grapes Are the Future of Israeli Wine

Three winemakers who are bottling Israel’s vinous history.

“Is that the wine that Jesus drank?” This is the near automatic response I receive whenever I express enthusiasm for wine made from Israel’s native grapes. But my geek-like fascination is not unfounded. Although modern winemaking in the country tends to focus on transplant French varieties, like Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon (Baron Edmond de Rothschild of Bordeaux’s Chateau Lafite brought over plantings in the late 19th Century), a small group of winemakers have now gone back to the country’s viticultural roots. Some of these specimens are not only native to the land and country; they’re also very old. Ariel University researcher and oenologist Elyashiv Drori has found references to the white grapes Jandali and Hamdani (also known as Marawi) in the Babylonian Talmud dating back as far as 220 A.C. Now, those grapes are slowly making their way into the portfolios of Israel’s wineries. In a place that has antiquity in its DNA, why, I’ve often wondered, was this history ignored for so long?
As an impressionable young sommelier in February 2012, I traveled to Tel Aviv for IsraWinExpo – the country’s largest wine trade show. I was certain the tasting would be filled with local grapes I didn’t know—Israel’s equivalent of Greece’s Assyrtico or Lebenon’s Merwah grape. Yet I left deflated. Winemakers eagerly extolled their new French oak barrels and international blends. My inquiries about local grapes were met with a seeming sense of shame. The wines I tasted felt a little like imposters: made in Israel but not necessarily from here.
But Drori was already on the case, surveying the indigenous grapevine population from his laboratory in the West Bank’s Ariel settlement. His team has identified a staggering 150 unique genomes from collecting grape samples—both wild and from growers around the country. Twenty show the most promise for wine. He is working to substantiate the antiquity of these grapes by matching them to plant material found in archeological excavations. “We may have the most interesting wine legacy,” he says, “but we need facts to actually support it, and that documentation was neglected here for too many years.”
Drori’s research on a grape called Marawi caught the attention of Recanati Winery’s energetic winemaker Ido Lewinsohn. “I first tasted a Marawi micro-vinification from Drori three years ago and immediately saw its potential,” says Lewinsohn. “It’s my hope that local varieties like this one, as well as more Mediterranean grapes like Marselan and Carignan will help us in our search for true Israeli typicity.” Recanati has since planted its own Marawi vineyards, but finding fruit at first proved troublesome. For its inaugural 2014 Marawi bottling (the country’s first commercial release of the grape), the winery contracted grapes from a secretive source: a Palestinian grower near Bethlehem who requested his identity be concealed. If it were discovered that he sold his grapes for wine—and to Israel no less—there could be serious repercussions. “We know he grows the grapes on pergola trellises and that the vineyard is dry-farmed,” says Lewinsohn, “but that’s all the information we have.”

Olive terraces at Cremisan Wine Estate in the West Bank © Peter Weltman
The wine is low in alcohol (around 12 percent) with vibrant acidity, ripe melon and pear flavors and a rich, textural mouthfeel from aging eight months on the lees. The newly bottled 2015 tastes even fresher, its green melon notes and wooliness reminiscent of Chenin Blanc. The label displays the grape’s name in both Hebrew and Arabic – a subtle hint at its border-crossing origins.
Further inland at Cremisan Wine Estate, head vintner Fadi Batarseh is no stranger to these sorts of geographic complexities. The winery, associated with a Christian monastery, is located in the Israeli occupied West Bank. Its property – dramatic rock terraces studded with olive trees and grape vines—lies in what is now considered Bait Jala, Palestine, but that could change with the political tides. Batarseh had previously written his thesis on the native grapes of this land while studying oenology in Trento, Italy. In 2007, he paired up with famed Italian oenologist Riccardo Cotarella to start Cremisan’s Star of Bethlehemseries. “The project focuses on the idea of origin,” he says. “We have this unique opportunity not to only be in Holy Land but also to make wine from its original grapes.” One wine from the series, a 2013 Baladi, was the only native red that I encountered. It had plush plum flavors that could rival the best northern Italian expressions of Merlot, accented with Syrah-like coffee notes. Their fifty-fifty blend of Hamdani (Marawi) and Jandali that I tasted next shared a similar green melon note with other Marawi wines but with an extra mintiness and punch of acidity, which could be the hallmark of the even rarer Jandali grape.
I caught up with a man who intimately knows the country’s vinescape—former Segal Wines head winemaker Avi Feldstein—over lunch in Tel Aviv’s Levinsky Market. He just launched his own label earlier this year, and one focus of the new project is Dabouki. Meaning “sticky” in Arabic, this ancient, oblong-berried white grape was widely planted in the 1948 Israeli borders but had long been relegate to use as a table grape or sold in bulk to be distilled as Arak. “Arabs refer to some things as min al-‘asr al-rumani, meaning ‘from the time of the Romans,’” Feldstein said. “My point is, Dabouki is from even before that!” He poured a 2015 Dabouki tank sample that was weeks from bottling, made from the grapes of 60-year-old bush trained vines in the Upper Galilee. It had a distinct yellow melon note, which satisfied Feldstein. “We have these melons in Israel,” he said, “so its flavor defends its expression of place!”
True terroir expression—not just of the local soil and climate, but also the local history—was something these winemakers all seemed to be after. And, tasting the wines, I think they’ve found it. Israel’s wine industry is amidst its most important awakening in thousands of years.


שורות גפנים בכרם
Best wines from exotic locations
24/07/2016 In Expess No Comment Read More

JAMIE GOODE

Fresh, aromatic and vivid: The best wines from exotic locations OUR expert goes on a voyage of discovery to find bottles from exotic places.

The wine world has grown and flourished over the last couple of decades. As well as the classics from France,Italy and Spain, we have New World wines from California, Australia, Chile, Argentina and New Zealand. And then there’s South Africa, where there’s a mix of the old and the new.
But of late we’re starting to see bottles from more exotic locations such as Macedonia, Georgia, Greece, Romania, Turkey and Israel. So this week’s super selection includes a Romanian pinot noir, a shiraz from Israel and a sweet red from Macedonia. Enjoy!
Waitrose Pinot Noir 2015, Dealu Mare, Romania £5.99, Waitrose, 13% alcohol
It’s rare to find a good, cheap pinot noir but this one is supple, fresh and juicy with simple, direct cherry and berry fruits, with a bit of sweetness on the finish.
Recanati Shiraz 2014, Upper Galilee, Israel £14.99, Waitrose, 14% alcohol
Although the Israeli wine industry is small, there are some tasty bottles emerging, such as this floral, aromatic, vivid shiraz bursting with pure sweet berry fruits.
Tbilvino Qvevris 2014, Kakheti, Georgia £9, Marks & Spencer, 12% alcohol
About half of this wine is made in a super-traditional Georgian way in large clay pots called qvevri, which brings out the flavours. Full-yellow in colour, it has moreish apple pie and lemon fruitiness with some exotic apricots, too. It’s gorgeous stuff.
Wine Atlas Feteascã Regalã NV, Romania £4.97, Asda, 11.5% alcohol
Feteascã regalã is the grape variety here, and it has fashioned a white wine that is grapey and bright with a hint of sweetness. Rounded, juicy and pretty, this wine is highly drinkable and a bargain at under a fiver.


מזיגה של רקנאטי קברנה סוביניון רזרב אל תוך דקנטר
Big reds that pack a real punch
28/04/2016 In The guardian No Comment Read More

Fiona Beckett

Wine: big reds that pack a real punch

For some people, only big reds will do even when the sun is shining. Our wine reviewer picks her best of the current crop I’ve been reminded, after spending a week in France with one of my oldest friends, that many people just want to drink walloping big reds whatever the time of year. So, before we go into full summer mode and I start enthusing about all the crisp whites and rosés I’m joyfully popping in my fridge, here are a few to keep you going.

Reservado Malbec 2013: serve with steak and chips.

Malbec is, of course, the vin rouge du jour, and there’s plenty of that around. Look out, in particular, for the consistently reliable Vinalba range from Bodegas Fabre in Argentina – the big, spicy Reservado Malbec 2013 (14.5% abv) is a solid buy at £10.99 at Majestic, and an even better one at £8.99 on that store’s “mix six” deal.Morrisons has a similar bottling for £10 currently, though I’m guessing there will be an offer on that at some point, too.

If you’re a fan of classic Aussie shiraz, you’ll love Aldi’s grunty Tudor Shiraz(14.5% abv), from Victoria, which is ideal for a barbie and a heck of a lot of wine for £8.99. Mind you, it’s available only online, as per Aldi’s new policy, which is a bit annoying because that means you have to buy a case of six (for £53.94). Amazingly, Aldi describes the wine as medium-bodied. Well, not in my book, it’s not.

Wines based on grenache are also reliably beefy. Unfortunately, I can’t find my mate’s favourite, La Croix Belle’s Cascaillou (15% abv), in the UK right now (it’s too pricey for us Brits, apparently), but this classic blend of grenache, syrah and mourvèdre is well worth picking up from the domaine in Puissalicon, if you ever find yourself in the Languedoc, where it sells for around €17 a bottle. In the meantime, a good Rhône or priorat should rock your big red boat. Majestic’s Les Hauts Vignes Cairanne 2014 (14% abv), a similar blend that’s £11.99, or £9.99 on the “mix six” deal, is a good example and a bargain at several pounds cheaper than anything from nearby Châteauneuf-du-Pâpe. And the whopping Frares Priorat 2013 (£13 Marks & Spencer; 15% abv), a weighty blend of grenache and carignan from southern Spain, packs a huge punch despite being unoaked.

Finally, for something rather more exotic, I suspect aficianodos of big reds will also love Recanati Wild Carignan 2013 (£24.95 Berry Bros & Rudd, £28 Ellis Wharton; 14.5% abv), from the Judean Hills, which I served at one of the monthly wine lunches I host at the wonderful Honey & Co in central London. Not only is this one of the few Israeli wines available in this country, it’s also truly delicious, even though I’m not a massive fan of carignan because I usually find it rather one-dimensional. It’s big, too. Very big.


Israel Aims to Recreate Wine That Jesus and King David Drank
Wine That Jesus and King David Drank
25/11/2015 In New York Times No Comment Read More

Jodi Rudoren

Israel Aims to Recreate Wine That Jesus and King David Drank

Eliyashiv Drori, an Ariel University oenologist who heads the research that aims to identify and recreate ancient wines, worked in the foothills of Jerusalem in October 2012. CreditRina Castelnuovo for The New York Times

HEFER VALLEY, Israel — The new crisp, acidic and mineral white from a high-end Israeli winery was aged for eight months — or, depending on how you look at it, at least 1,800 years.

The wine, called marawi and released last month by Recanati Winery, is the first commercially produced by Israel’s growing modern industry from indigenous grapes. It grew out of a groundbreaking project at Ariel University in the occupied West Bank that aims to use DNA testing to identify — and recreate — ancient wines drunk by the likes of King David and Jesus Christ.

Eliyashiv Drori, the Ariel oenologist who heads the research, traces marawi (also called hamdani) and jandali grapes to A.D. 220 based on a reference in the Babylonian Talmud.

“All our scriptures are full with wine and with grapes — before the French were even thinking about making wine, we were exporting wine,” he said. “We have a very ancient identity, and for me, reconstructing this identity is very important. For me, it’s a matter of national pride.”

The redevelopment of local varietals, however — like so many things in this contested land — is not free of political friction. It comes alongside contentious new labeling guidelines by the European Union requiring that wines from the West Bank and the Golan Heights carry a label saying they were made in Israeli settlements. And Palestinians have their own ownership claims on these grapes.

For Israeli winemakers, the search for old-new varietals is an opportunity to distinguish their wares in a competitive global marketplace where they harbor little hope of improving on, say, chardonnay from France. Archaeologists and geneticists are testing new methods for analyzing charred ancient seeds. In the endless struggle between Israelis and Palestinians, it is a quest to underscore Jewish roots in the holy land.

But Recanati is not the first to sell wine from these grapes. Cremisan, a small winery near Bethlehem where Palestinians partner with Italian monks, has been using hamdani, jandali and other local fruit since 2008.

“As usual in Israel, they declare that falafel, tehina, tabouleh, hummus and now jandali grapes are an Israeli product,” Amer Kardosh, Cremisan’s export director, sniped in an email. “I would like to inform you that these types of grapes are totally Palestinian grapes grown on Palestinian vineyards.”

Yes, but the Palestinian farms that sold the grapes to Recanati have insisted on anonymity, for fear of backlash over working with Israelis, or just helping make wine, which is generally forbidden in Islam. Recanati, for its part, embraced the heritage, using Arabic on marawi’s label and hiring an Arab-Israeli singer to perform at its October unveiling to 50 select sommeliers.

The vintner, Ido Lewinsohn, said his product is “clean and pure of any political influence,” adding of the grapes: “These are not Israeli; they are not Palestinian. They belong to the region — this is something beautiful.”

Wine presses have been uncovered in Israel — and the West Bank — that date to biblical times. But winemaking was outlawed after Muslims conquered the holy land in the seventh century. When Baron Edmond de Rothschild, an early Zionist and scion of a famed Bordeaux winery, helped restart the local craft in the 1880s, he brought fruit from France.

Today, Israel’s 350 wineries produce 65 million bottles a year. The sticky-sweet Manischewitz was long ago overshadowed by top-quality chardonnay, cabernet, merlot, syrah, carignan and more. But there is only so far to go with such imports.

“Have we managed to create a DNA for Israeli wines? Not yet,” lamented Haim Gan, owner of Grape Man, a company that advocates Israel’s wine culture.

Enter Mr. Drori, who has a Ph.D. in agriculture and in 2005, started a boutique winery, Gvaot, near his home in a West Bank settlement. There he noticed a neglected vine with small, very sweet white grapes that he thought might yield tasty wine.

With a budget of about $750,000, mainly from the Jewish National Fund — a century-old Zionist organization that has helped transform Israel’s agricultural landscape — Mr. Drori and a dozen colleagues have since 2011 identified 120 unique grape varieties whose DNA profiles are distinct from all imports. Around 50 are domesticated, Mr. Drori said, 20 of them “suitable for wine production.”

Separately, researchers have identified 70 distinct varieties, using DNA and a three-dimensional scanner that has never before been successfully employed this way, from burned and dried seeds found in archaeological digs. The idea is to match such ancient seeds with the live grapes, or someday perhaps to engineer fruit “Jurassic Park” style.

Then there is proving that the old specimens were actually used for wine, not snacks. Mr. Drori points to one set that was recovered near the site of the destroyed Jewish temples alongside a shard of clay marked in an ancient Hebraic script, “smooth wine.”

He believes seeds found in donkey droppings in Timna — where copper mines date to King Solomon’s era, the 10th century B.C. — must have come from pomace, the residue left after winemaking, since animals would not have been fed fresh fruit.

He also cites a Talmudic reference to a sage who lived in A.D. 220 that mentioned “gordali or hardali wine.” That was picked up by a 16th-century scholar who used slightly different names, jindali and hamdani, and described jindali as “soft to chew and the wine weak,” hamdani as “hard to chew and their wine strong” — characteristics similar to those of their descendants today.

Given the difficulty of procuring the grapes from Palestinian farmers, Recanati produced just 2,480 bottles of the 2014 marawi, which is available in only about 10 Tel Aviv restaurants. The winery has about 4,000 bottles of 2015 marawi aging and hopes to soon plant its own vineyard to expand and refine the brand.

1

Mr. Drori says he and a dozen colleagues have since 2011 identified 120 unique grape varieties, with 20 of them suitable for wine production. CreditRina Castelnuovo for The New York Times

Itay Gleitman, the wine writer for Haaretz, called marawi “this year’s most important Israeli wine,” for its provenance, if not taste. He said it was “pleasant and easy-to-drink,” and “opens slightly in the glass with gentle aromas of apple and peach.” And, if expressly cultivated for winemaking, has potential that “piques the imagination.”

Next up is dabouki, also white, which the well-known Israeli vintner Avi Feldstein plans to debut along with his new winery in a couple of months. Dabouki might be the oldest of the local varieties, a good candidate for what filled the glass of Jesus (who Mr. Drori believes drank white as well as red).

Mr. Feldstein said he has about 800 bottles each of 2014 and 2015 dabouki, one “cashewlike” and the other “a little bit tropical.”

“If you are a true winemaker, you want to express a place,” Mr. Feldstein said. “Without locality and the diversification it gives, wine is reduced to alcoholic Coca-Cola.”

Back at Ariel University’s research winery, small cooled trailers with eight wood-aging barrels, Mr. Drori and a graduate student, Yaakov Henig, have made tiny batches from about 30 different grapes in search of the great new — or perhaps ancient — Israeli wine. Their bottles are labeled with masking tape and handwriting recording the date and location of the harvest.

There is a rich red from the shores of the Sea of Galilee, and a white from Sorek in the foothills of Jerusalem. A few specimens were so scarce they yielded only a small juice bottle. Mr. Henig has named his favorite, found in Nitzanim kibbutz near the Gaza Strip, “Yael,” after his 2-year-old daughter.

“Very good color, very good balance acid and sugar, body, structure,” Mr. Drori observed as he sampled it. “That’s a very good wine grape, even without the story.”


Will an Ancient Grape Revolutionize Israel’s Wine Industry?
26/10/2015 In Haaretz No Comment Read More

Made from native Holy Land grapes, Recanati’s Marawi 2014 is the result of a partnership between an Israeli winery and a Palestinian vineyard.

I can already tell that the newly released wine from the Recanati winery is this year’s most important Israeli wine – and it has nothing to do with how it tastes.

The Recanati winery, located in the Hefer Valley in central Israel, has just introduced its Marawi 2014. Marawi is the name of the grape varietal. Never heard of it? That’s not a surprise.

This is the first commercial wine made from an indigenous variety of grapes with deep roots in the Holy Land. This is a white wine that is making history. It also has a chance of helping the local industry avert the dead end it has been approaching for the past few years.

After 30 years of birthing pains, local wineries are now looking for the next step that will propel the industry forward. On one hand, the quality of Israeli wines is constantly improving. On the other hand, the local consumer wine market is not developing at the same rate as the industry. Thus, the industry is setting its sights on exports.

Yet despite the great efforts to promote Israeli wines in Asian countries including China and Japan, for example, most of the exported wine is sold to Jews in North America seeking a kosher product. Beyond that market, Israeli wine is proving a hard sell.

One of the main reasons for this is that locally produced wine is expensive relative to its quality and to comparable wines from other places. But another problem is that even when Israeli wine is well made, reasonably priced and well regarded by international critics – it simply isn’t unique enough to pique the interests of overseas buyers.

After all, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot – the main red wine varieties produced in Israel – can be found nearly everywhere that wine is produced. Chardonnay? It’s all over the place. Shiraz has been aggressively marketed by the Australians; Sauvignon Blanc, by New Zealand; and French Malbec, by Argentina. And thus it goes.
So what’s left for the latecomers? Not much, aside from trying to make a hit out of local grape varieties. That’s what’s happening in Greece, Turkey, Hungary and Georgia, and that’s probably the only strategy available to Israel as part of its effort to grab the attention of wine lovers around the world. Instead of trying to market wine of different kinds made in Israel – it can offer a truly Israeli wine.

Arabic and Hebrew labels

Against this background, a team at Ariel University in the West Bank has been conducting a fascinating study that pulls together experts from several fields. The team is trying to identify ancient grape varieties native to this land.

One of the researchers, Dr. Shibi Drori, who also owns the Gvaot Winery, located between the Israeli settlements of Shiloh and Eli, says that so far they’ve identified nearly 120 varieties, including 20 that could be suited for winemaking. Two of the varieties, which DNA tests proved to be unrelated to any other type of grape in the world, are Hamdani and Jandali. The small winery run by the Salesian Monastery in the Cremisan Valley, on the Green Line between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, released wines just last year made from these white grapes, and they have won warm praise.

The white Marawi variety, which is being used by Recanati, has the same characteristics as Hamdani, according to research by Drori, Prof. Zohar Amar and their colleagues. Their theory is that Marawi is in fact the same variety but goes by a different name, and that it survived until this day because its grapes are also good for eating.

Why did Recanati choose the name Marawi and not Hamdani? According to Recanati CEO Noam Jacoby, they wanted to differentiate their product from the Cremisan Cellars’ wine, as well as preferring the sound of the name.

The new label bears the name in Arabic script as well as Hebrew. One must presume that in a land such as ours, with the political atmosphere being what it is, some people will try to “inject” the political conflict into these grapes.

In any event, an article by the researchers in a book entitled “Yehuda and Shomron Research,” which was published by Ariel University, presents only uncertain evidence that the Hamdani and Jandali varieties are mentioned in the Talmud (the ancient collection of writings that constitute the Jewish civil and religious law.) The first clear mention of them comes from Rabbi Menahem di Lonzano, who lived in 16th-century Jerusalem, and wrote: “Until this day there are in Jerusalem two varieties of wine: Jindali wine and Hamdani.”
Recanati’s 2014 Marawi is the product of a partnership between Drori, the winery and a Palestinian vineyard near Bethlehem. The vineyard’s identity is being kept secret due to the controversial nature of the partnership.

“Suddenly we received a variety that we weren’t familiar with and don’t necessarily know how to work with,” said vintner Gil Shatsberg. His colleague at Recanati, Ido Lewinsohn, added, “And yet, we believe we created excellent results. Beyond the matter of whether it tastes good, I believe we’ve made history.”

This is only a first attempt, which yielded a meager 2,480 bottles of the new wine, and it’s too early to draw conclusions regarding the future. Given that Recanati received the grapes as a finished product, as it were, from a vineyard that raises them for eating, not winemaking – the result is both well made and interesting, and piques the imagination regarding the variety’s potential when grown for the express purpose of making wine.

Is this the beginning of a new era for Israeli wine, or will it go down in enological history as an oddity? It’s hard to say. But even if we don’t conquer the world, maybe we’ll gain an Israeli wine of a variety that exists nowhere else. And if it also tastes good – hallelujah!
Recanati, Marawi 2014: This white wine opens slightly in the glass with gentle aromas of apple and peach. On the palate the wine is thin and a bit diluted, but with good, refreshing acidity and clear hints of mineral saltiness. Ultimately, this is a good-tasting, pleasant and easy-to-drink wine that leaves one optimistic vis-a-vis the future of this variety of grape. Score: 86. 120 shekels ($31).


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