For those of you who don't know, today is the first day of Passover. Part of the traditional celebration of this holiday is for Jews to drink four glasses of wine during the course of the Seder. Where I come from, that means sweet wine that is truly dreadful.
This is no longer the case as there are winemakers like Jeff Morgan at Covenant Wines who are making kosher wine from some of the best vineyard sources in the Napa Valley. I was privileged to take a course from Jeff where we tasted his top of the line red blend along with his chardonnay. To paraphrase an old car commercial, this is not your father's kosher wine.
But I digress. As I am not Kosher, we have always had non Kosher wines at our passover Seder. One of my unexpected finds was bringing a 10 year old Lenz Long Island Merlot to a Seder at my sister in law's house and finding the the wine was terrific. Wish I could say the same about the other kosher wines I had that night.
It has been the habit of Wine Spectator to publish an article on Kosher wines to correspond with this time of year. In the past several years, there have been ever increasing stories about how Israeli wines have been improving by leaps and bounds. As someone who's synagogue sold sweet wines by Carmel (Israel's largest producer) as a fundraiser, I was extremely skeptical.
Well, we found ourselves in Israel over the summer of 2009 and had to investigate this first hand. Armed with Daniel Rogov's comprehensive book on Israeli wines and a large Hammond map of this country, we plotted a day of wine tasting int he Judean Hills outside Jerusalem.
Before I go any further, let me describe this country for those who have not been there. It is very small, like the size of New Jersey. We flew into Tel Aviv airport and were in Jerusalem in 30 minutes. We had just crossed one of the widest parts of the country.
During the first 10 days of our trip, we sampled wines all over the country. Most are Kosher, and most are not available in the US. Barken seemed to have the widest distribution, and they made very pleasant wines, that matched the very interesting food of this region.
After seeing all the standard sites of the country, it was off to the Judean Hills. With at stop at the local Hertz office to pick up a car (driving in Israel is not for the faint of heart. Think NYC on steroids), we navigated our way from Tel Aviv to the Latrum interchange on Highway one. It fast became apparent that our day in Israel wine country was not going to be like going up to Napa or Sonoma for the day.
Making appointments was easy enough. We emailed the wineries from home, gave them where we were staying and our cell phone number. Now we had to find these wineries.
Our first stop was Clos de Gat, located in Harel. We found Harel, but no winery. So we called them on the phone. The response was so classic. Go back to the main road, make a left on the dirt road by the tracker shed and then look for the three trees. We did find it. No signs, to marketing materials, no nothing. This is a winery that scored 92 points in Parker for their chardonnay and 90 for their Syrah!
Oh, did I mention that it was hot? Very hot. Of the 14 days we were in Israel, it was over 100 degree on 13 of them. It peaked at over 120 when we were at the Dead Sea. So we get to Clos de Gat, and they had a tasting set up for us outside overlooking the vineyards and the Ella Valley, where David supposedly fought Goliath. It was too hot, inside we went. The wines were spectacular, but that may have been the atmosphere as well as the wine. We ended buying, and shipping home, their Har'el Chardonnay and Cabernet.
Being we were getting the hang of how difficult it was to find our way around this wine region, and not wanting to wander into the Left Bank, we asked directions from Clos de Gat to Castel. Now Castel is one of the true pioneering wineries in Israel, and one of the first developers of classic varietals in the Judean Hills. So it was back to the main road, a left at Beit Shamsh and then we had to find a dirt road. We missed the turn off, we ended up on a dirt road and up the side of a mountain.
After picking our way back to the main road, we found the correct turnoff. The road circled the side of a mountain and we ended up in a small village. We saw what appeared to be a winery, but we could not find an entrance. We had to circle the winery several times until we found the entrance. Again, no signs or any other indication that this was the place. Mind you that Castel has also received 90 point ratings from both Parker and the Spectator.
This winery was Kosher, so as we descended the stairs into the cave we had to put our hands in our pockets because as non-Sabbath observing Jews, if we touched anything we ran the risk of making the wine non-Kosher. And coming in from 100 degree heat, the cellar felt so good that I would have tied my hands behind my back to enjoy the coolness of the room.
Castel makes 3 wines, a chardonnay, a right bank blend call Petit Castel, and a Bordeaux blend called Grand Castel. We were tasting the 2007 versions of each. The chardonnay was very good, the reds even better. We became wine club members to get free shipping of a case back to California. The tasting also featured some fantastic local Israeli Cheeses. The food here is worth a discussion on another day.
Our final visit was to Flam winery. And guess what, there as a sign, small as it was, that directed us to the tasting room. There wines were blends of local grapes with ones from the Golan, several hours away. We enjoyed their Flam Classico, a 50/50 blend of cab and Merlot from both the Judean Hills and the Golan, and were hooked up with their US importer so we could purchase a case here.
As I sat on the Tel Aviv beaches reflecting on this experience, I had to agree with the Wine Spectator that the wines were truly interesting, they were also definately new world in taste and texture. I also was gateful for my son's patience as we dragged him along on this adventure. When we next venture to this part of the world, we will go to the Golan as well.
Last night, we broke out our last bottle of Glos De Gat Cabernet Sauvignon to drink at our Seder. With that in mind Hag Sameah to everyone, and thank you for reading my blog.
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