Sweeter than pomegranates
What more is there to write about a wine festival? I’ve already covered the annual shindig, which takes place in the sculpture garden at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, several times in years past.
I could write about the presence of all of Israel’s top wineries and many of the more exotic mom and pop boutique establishments; about the seeming emphasis this year on Merlot-Shiraz-Cabernet blends; or the booths selling everything from sushi to gourmet cupcakes (presumably to soak up the wine).
All of that would make for interesting but familiar fodder. There was one stand out this year, however, that I’ve never seen nor tasted before: red wine made from fermented pomegranates.
Bottles of Granada wine
The Granada winery had just a small stand but it was the talk of the festival – everyone we spoke to had an opinion on the two bottles being sold – a half dry red and a dessert wine. Most found them too sweet. Jody adored it; I felt it was good for a sip but not a whole glass.
However, winery owner Avraham Kashi explained to us a glass a day of pomegranate wine is not only tasty, but good for you. Avraham’s wife drinks, he said, a glass a day at lunchtime; her cholesterol level has dropped from 260 to 90. And Avraham claims his own GERD (gastro-esophageal reflux disease) has cleared up after 15 years of popping Tums imported from the U.S.
Granada grows its own pomegranates on a family farm near Ashdod, of which Kashi and his brother Ovadia are second-generation “pioneers” (or so says their website). The process involves 4 months of fermentation and 8 months of aging. The wine has 15% self-contained alcohol.
There’s more information on the winery’s website.
Expert on the spot
Filed under: education, Food, health, Medical Breakthroughs
This is great! Ask any question you have about food to Dr. Zohar Kerem, a member of Hebrew University‘s Robert H. Smith Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment, located on their Rehovot campus. He’s an expert on food chemistry and investigates the questions that many of us have about food, from whether we can really eat butter without worrying about the fat to the whys and wherefores of red wine and olive oil. He also researches getting rid of the calories in our favorite foods and has discovered some interesting things about chickpeas.
You can meet Dr. Kerem in this short video clip, and ask your questions on Hebrew University’s Facebook page. (They said by May 8, but I posted my question this morning.) Word is that he’ll post a video response with the answers by Tuesday, May 11, offering the answers that could change the way you eat.
Foto Friday – Visit Israel the Virtual Way
Filed under: Art, Foto Friday, General, History and Culture, Travel
“Snob! Have you been to Tiberias yet?” The late great Israeli humorist Ephraim Kishon quipped that those words were scrawled across the Acropolis, chastising those Israelis who preferred to travel abroad rather than tour their own fair country. Today, fortunately, Israelis — and anyone else for that matter — can sit in the air-conditioned comfort of their Athens hotel and visit the sites of Israel in full color — thanks to a new feature on the Ministry of Tourism website: the Virtual Tour of Israel. The new multimedia experience includes 100 videos, 130 panoramic views and dozens of photographs. Here’s a classic:
Ten virtual, ten-day tours are available online, including: general interest itineraries, Jewish interest, Christian interest, Culture and History, Nature, Family, Archeology, Active interest, Mobility challenged and — last but certainly not least — Food and Wine.
Sites that can be visited include Caesarea… Jerusalem… Mitzpe Ramon… the Dead Sea…
The Bauhaus architecture of Tel Aviv …
Here’s Tiberias – we are not snobs!
The Haifa Port, where my running club, the Holyland Hash House Harriers, will be running this weekend with 40 sailors on shore leave!
By the way, the Ministry of Tourism website is available in 11 languages and is updated on an ongoing basis.
Israeli wine buying season – even on a budget
The 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.
Coffee roasting and other gourmet hobbies
Filed under: A New Reality, Business, Food, Israeliness
Hyper-specialized gourmet-themed hobbies are getting really big in Israel. It’s no longer enough to just be a “foodie.” I have a friend who has made really good beer, and I’ve met several people who have been involved in one way or another in boutique wine-making. Homemade-style chocolate boutiques are springing up everywhere now. Olive pressing (for olive oil) and curing is emblematic of the region’s symbology, with many of my peers debating various methods of cracking and spicing the fruit.
And then there’s coffee. Israel is one of the few countries that has actually survived an attempted Starbucks infiltration – and has responded by exporting our own espresso bar chain to the USA. The Eretz Nehederet sketch comedy TV show once spoofed newfound Israeli coffee snobbery with a poignant vignette (viewable here with English subtitles)
When I visited Vietnam a few years ago, I had the opportunity to enjoy “weasel coffee” (if you need to ask, click here), so I probably out-snob any of the local coffee snobs – without taking myself as seriously, of course. I buy cans of ground beans at Café Joe, after all.
But check this guy out. He takes coffee snobbery to a new level. Dima Ingret, a 36-year-old high tech worker who lives in metro-Tel Aviv, apparently likes to roast his own exotic beans, which he orders on eBay when he travels abroad on business. But more and more of these varieties are apparently appearing in Israeli stores, making things easier for Ingret and his fellow enthusiasts.
According to the piece in Haaretz which profiles Ingret, as well as Shaul Rubin, CEO of coffee and coffee accessory importer Amigo, the Israeli coffee aficionado scene has clearly reached a turning point:
Israelis have jazzed up their hobby with shiny machines and home roasters to such an extent that the hard-core members of the coffee clubs are invited to the launchings of designer machines (bothersome events that were reserved until now only for top-of-the-line machines). The coffee market in Israel has turned into an experts’ market….
Maybe we would’ve been better off had Starbucks succeeded here.
Image by jevnin from Flickr under a Creative Commons license.
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