Israeli wine buying season – even on a budget

March 24, 2009 - 11:04 PM by · 1 Comment
Filed under: Business, Food, History and Culture 

Zion winery's cabThe weeks leading up to Passover represent the lion’s share of the kosher wine industry’s annual sales. Just like December is the peak season for general retail revenues every year, post-Purim early spring is where it’s at for kosher wine transaction volume. Young wines from the fall harvest are starting to be bottled and marketed at this time, and those handling the wine buying for a Seder must procure enough for the proverbial four cups consumed by each participant as part of the Haggadah’s rituals, meaning around one full bottle per person – plus whatever’s consumed separately during the meal.

And just as consumer retail columnists formulated analyses and advice columns this past December, focusing on how to make solstice holiday purchases where one garners maximum bang for one’s buck in today’s tough economic climate, Ha’aretz‘s renowned wine critic Daniel Rogov recently released a highly practical guide to affordable spring 2009 kosher Israeli wines:

For several years, knowledgeable wine drinkers have known that the best buys in the country were the Tabor, Galil Mountain and Dalton wineries as well as in the Gamla series of the Golan Heights Winery. Those wines are now being joined by wines from the Zion winery and, while those may not make for the most sophisticated drinking, they do offer excellent value.

He goes on to rate nine kosher Zion winery (their Hebrew-only official site) products, all of which falling well within his “good to very good” stratum of scoring.

Rogov is getting out there more and more nowadays, serving as a formidable advocate of Israeli oenophilia. I’ve written about Gary Vaynerchuk of Wine Library TV before, and the enthusiastic eccentric personality also seemingly has Passover fever nowadays, having welcomed Rogov himself recently on the program (check out the fascinating 38-minute episode here). The banter-laden rapport between the two alone makes the video worth watching.

To Israeli wine lovers like you and me, this is not all big news (the fact that kosher wine no longer exclusively resembles cough syrup, and the fact that great Israeli wine is not exclusively kosher – we’ve known these things for years), but it’s great to see more and more mainstream wine-oriented media channels recognizing the quality coming out of this part of the world.

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Sommeliers-in-training

October 31, 2008 - 11:36 AM by · 2 Comments
Filed under: A New Reality, Blogging, Business, Food, General, Israeliness 

A member of The Premier CruOne of the most cleverly snide Israel-related blogs out there, Zabaj pines for an Israel that makes the most of her potential. But Zabaj conveys this message by bitingly yet lovingly calling natives out on their shortcomings. A recent Zabaj rant cuts an up-and-coming sommelier collective down to size nicely.

Israeli wine tastes have steadily been improving over the past decade or so, and with the growing number of delicious wines now being produced here, the country has become a destination for oeno-tourism. So it only makes sense that firms like Premier Cru are starting to pop up, offering wine catering for private upscale events, consulting services for discerning (or discerning wannabe) customers and special tastings.

Nevertheless, the launch of the Premier Cru website is surely an occasion for ridicule.

The most interesting part of the site, however, is “The Team,” where they provide detailed bios on all their wine connoisseurs.

In this case, knowing the people behind the company makes you lose any interest in actually working with them. The impression you get is that most employees are students at Tel Aviv University (many seem to be majoring in biotechnology) and are also children of the former soviet union.

But wait – it get’s more entertaining and scathing….

And if you have any doubt, make sure to read Tal’s profile, where you’ll learn that she enjoys “light athletics” (don’t ask me what that means) and “banji.” I wonder if she packs a beg of mashrooms while on her way to do banji.

Does anyone get the impression from the website these people can do what they claim? No references, no real pictures, no stories… just glamorous-sounding mumbo jumbo. And, by the way, all the pictures on the site were taken in a furniture store.

Ouch. Alright – so their transliteration from Hebrew-appropriated English into proper English isn’t the most accurate. And they don’t really have sense of what kind of marketing content would be impressive to potential customers. If only I could find the address for that furniture store….

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Wine library TV does Israeli wines

August 5, 2008 - 7:13 PM by · 3 Comments
Filed under: Food 

I’m not what you’d call a wine guy. Sure, I can easily differentiate between quality wine and bad wine and I can appreciate those who enjoy wine tasting as a hobby, but I draw the line when people search for things that aren’t there. Vanilla accents in that merlot? Subtle taste of wild mushrooms in that chardonnay? Sorry, I don’t buy that. It’s a bit much for me to swallow and more than a little pretentious in my eyes. Quality wine can be quite reasonably priced and wine tasting shouldn’t be for the exclusive set. Gary Vaynerchuk of Wine Library TV abides by this philosophy. Yeah, his descriptions can be quite over the top sometimes (kiwi with splenda on top? pear skin?) but it is certainly difficult to accuse him of anything but sincerity. He certainly doesn’t lack passion – and a hell of a lot of fun. On yesterday’s episode Gary took on a few non-Kosher Israeli wines. And he was very impressed.

Hat tip: HaKerem: The Israeli Wine Blog

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