Author Archives: winemusings
The Best Kosher Wines I tasted in 2011 allowing for some editorial freedom
This past year we have been lucky and honored to be able to taste all of these wonderful wines. There are so many “best of..” lists out there, including wine lists and the such. Some decide that the criteria is uniqueness, like the Wine Spectators top 100 wines of the year, which were not the TOP wines that they scored through the year. Others use the criteria of wines they thought were some of the best they tasted for the year. This is the list of wines that many liked in the past year, on Rogov’s forum.
I chose to use my scores as the criteria, and to use a range of 14 months for the bottles I tasted. Many of these were tasted at wine events and others drunk at my or a friend’s table. Either way, the wines are top notch and the best ones I tasted in the year+, irrelevant to when the wine was released or if it is still available, as well as wines that were interesting enough to note. Like the heading says – the best wines that I tasted in 2011 and a bit before. And yes, I may well be a bit late on the deal by releasing this a week into 2012, but hey – it is a complete list, so I hope you enjoy it. Also, there are notes here that are new to the blog. They were tasted throughout the year, and have yet to be posted, so think of some of these as a sneak preview to many wineries and wine notes to come.
Enjoy and may 2012 be even better! The wines are listed by score and then in alphabetical order from there.
Wines that scored an A or Almost A
2007 Binyamina Diamond, Avnei Hachoshen Ya’alom/Diamond (50% Cabernet Sauvignon, 30% Syrah and 20% Petite Verdot) – Score: A
Wow what a blockbuster wine! Assaf Paz brought it to the tasting, and it was in very limited supply, as we said in the previous posting about the wine event.
The nose on this garnet to black colored wine explodes with sweet oak, rich and ripe blackberry, licorice, raspberry, chocolate, rich plum, along with a bit of prune. The mouth on this broad shouldered and massive wine is packed and layered with layer upon layers of rich and ripe black fruit, blackberry, and raspberry. The mid palate is balanced and flows off the mouth with rich sweet oak, acid, chocolate, and coffee. The finish is massive and long with a huge mouth coating structure, along with prune, oak, blackberry, and chocolate. This is a massive and structured wine that is unique and one that truly shows the power of Israel’s potential.
2007 Carmel Mediterranean (37% Carignan, 26% Shiraz , 20% Petit Verdot and 15% Petite Sirah and 2% Viogner) – Score: A
This is another one of those wines (like the 2005 Yatir Forest) that is more elegant than it is massive or powerful, yet it still has lovely oak, tannin, and some extraction, a nice balancing act indeed.
The nose on this light garnet colored wine is lovely and accentuated by Smoky fumes, rich oak, raspberry, cranberry, blackberry, plum, cherry, and roasted herbs. The mouth on this full bodied wine is rich with ripe raspberry, blackberry, cherry, fig, and elegant tannin. The mid palate is rich with well handled oak, lovely tannin, and red fruit. The finish is long and elegant with rich, and ripe red fruit, smoky oak, roasted herbs, plum, and cherry.
2006 Castel Grand Vin – Score: A
I love this wine – it was one of the winners of the evening for sure, and one that all the people who were around me loved as well.
The nose on this massive dark garnet to black colored wine is packed and redolent with blackberry, roasted herbs, raspberry, spicy oak, plum, chocolate, and mineral. The mouth on this massive full bodied wine is mouth coating and rich with layer upon layer of rich and dense extracted black fruit, cassis, blackberry, plum, and cherry. The mid palate is balanced with oak, extracted tannin, and rich chocolate. The finish is long, extracted, awesome, and layered with black fruit, chocolate, rich plum, and almost sweet oak.
2006 Dalton Matatia (80% Cabernet Sauvignon, 15% Merlot and 5% Cabernet Franc) – Score: A
The nose on this black colored wine starts off with cassis, raspberry, licorice, oak, nutmeg, and spice. The mouth on this full bodied wine is inky and deep with rich plum, cassis, raspberry, coffee, and oak. The mid plate flows off the mouth nicely with acid, coffee, spice, and gripping tannin. The finish is long and expressive with plum, chocolate, coffee, and tannin.
2003 Four Gates Syrah (same as the last tasting) – Score: A
WOW! This is a killer wine. The first thing that hits you when you open this bottle of wine and peer into its purple-black stare is the ripe blueberry notes that come screaming out at you, along with blackberry, cassis, plum, tobacco, chocolate, tar, and rick oak. The mouth on this full bodied, mouth filling, concentrated, and structured wine comes at you in layers with fruit that follows the nose, ripe blackberry, plum, blueberry, tar, and oak. The mid palate is balanced with acid, oak, tobacco, and chocolate. The finish is super long, black, and spicy, with rich oak, chocolate, tobacco, tar, leather, and blackberry. This is a truly wonderful wine that is highly structured with lovely tannins and a wine that still has a few years left under its belt. The nose is killer with the lovely ripe blueberry and blackberry, along with the oak, tar, chocolate. It follows through with the mouth till its tantalizing finish. Quite a powerful that has its sea legs beneath it and bright horizon ahead.
2006 Herzog Generation VIII Cabernet Sauvignon (Napa Valley,To-Kalon Vineyard) – Score: A
The nose on this black colored wine is screaming with rich oak, chocolate, black cherry, blackberry, cassis, and rich spice. The mouth on this massive full bodied wine is rich, layered, and mouth coating with tight tannins, chocolate, oak, blackberry, and cassis. The fruit on the mouth is rich and ripe while not being overly ripe to the point of tasting cooked. The mid palate is balanced and flows from the mouth with still bracing tannins, nice acidity, oak, and chocolate. The finish is crazy long with chocolate, rich oak, blackberry, and rich ripe fruit. This is a crazy winner that will be around for at least another 8 years. I hope to have the opportunity to taste it again and again in the coming years at the Herzog Wine Festival.
2001 Yarden Cabernet Sauvignon El Rom (Israel, Galilee, Golan Heights) – Score: A
The notes on this wine have not changed drastically, the tannin is still kicking, the mouth equally as rich, and the heat has dissipated. This is one of the best wines I have tasted from Israel. The wine is still a bit closed, so an hour or two of air time would be of great help!
The nose on this brilliant and deep garnet to black colored wine is filled with heavy layers of blackberry, cassis, raspberry, tobacco, and oak. The mouth on this wine was also a bit slow out of the bottle, but that changed quickly enough. The mouth was complex and multi layered. This is no simple wine, it hits you in waves. The mouth on this full bodied wine is still tannic though the tannins are breaking down and adding even more opulence to this rich and mouth coating wine filled with blackberry, cassis, rich sweet oak. eucalyptus, and almost jam like – but not in a chewy annoying way – more in a rich and cultured manner. The mid palate follows off the first set of layers and is where the structure comes in. The structure is built on tannin, acidity, and lush layers of vegetal flavors. The finish is crazy long and is filled with blackberry, cassis, chocolate, tobacco, rich dirt, slight vegetal notes, and sweet wood. This is really quite a fine wine and one that is not yet peaked at all, though quite enjoyable now as well.
2008 Yarden El Rom Cabernet Sauvignon – Score: A
The nose on this purple to impenetrable black colored wine is crazy rich and redolent with blackberry, cassis, licorice, pencil shavings, ripe plum, vanilla, and oak. The mouth on this rich, layered, and highly focused full bodied wine is crazy rich and opulent, with rich sweet oak, blackberry, cassis, black plum, pencil, and massive tannin. This is a massive wine that is concentrated but equally refined with the tannin, oak, and fruit still early on in their integration. However, even now the wine shows beautifully and will be better to enjoy in a couple of years. The mid palate is rich with balancing acid, blackberry, sweet oak, more rich tannin, licorice, and chocolate. The finish is super long and concentrated with sweet oak, nice tannin, licorice, vanilla, chocolate, plum, and pencil shavings. This is right on the tail of the 2001 older brother, just way younger of course. In 8 years, you will all be begging for this wine – get it while you can!
2003 Yarden Katzrin (Red) Score: A
The nose on this deep purple colored wine is screaming with exuberant jam like aromas of black plum, cassis, blackberry, black fruit, oak, licorice, and chocolate. The mouth on this massive, tannic, and crazy jam packed wine is packed with crazy black fruit, black plum, blackberry, cassis, and raspberry. The mid palate is balanced with sweet oak, and yet more oak, and a nice dollop of tannin on the side. The finish is long with more oak, coffee, dark chocolate, and tannins that keep up nicely with the oak. A truly magnificent wine that shines through almost all other wines we tasted that night.
2004 Yarden Katzrin (Red) Score: A
The nose on this massive black colored wine is screaming with black fruit, dark rich blackberry, dark plum, black cherry, rich ripe fruit, cassis, chocolate, and rich oak. The mouth on this massive full bodied wine is rich with ripe black fruit, cassis, black plum, blackberry, and cherry. The mid palate is balanced and flows from the mouth with acid, sweet oak, chocolate, and gripping tannin. The finish is long with rich oak, black fruit, cherry, chocolate, and tobacco.
2007 Yarden ROM (53% Cabernet Sauvignon, 23% Syrah, 24% Merlot) – Score: Filthy or A
The nose on this black and impenetrable colored wine is super rich with blackberry, cherry, plum, cranberry, cassis, chocolate, cedar, and tobacco. The mouth on this rich, full bodied, and layered wine with massive extraction, and a rich mouth of blackberry, cassis, tobacco, cedar, rich layers of fruit, and plum. The mid palate is balanced with rich acid, cedar, tobacco, and chocolate. The finish is long and spicy with a smokey finish, along with ripe plum, chocolate, blackberry, tobacco, and lingers long with chocolate and tobacco. This wine is filthy and lovely in ways I have not seen in sometime. What a true joy.
2005 Yatir Forest (77% Cabernet Sauvignon, 13% Petite Verdot, and 10% Merlot) – Score: A
The nose on this dark garnet to black colored wine is another massive and explosive success by the Yatir Winery. This wine does not have an oak abuse problem, instead it has a rather elegant nose with Blackberry, lovely oak, black plum, ripe fruit, and raspberry. The mouth on this full bodied wine is mouth coating with layers upon layers of blackberry, cranberry, cassis, and candied raspberry. The mid palate flows off the mouth with lovely tannin, oak, and bracing acid. The finish is long with rich black fruit, chocolate, licorice, anise, smoke, and tobacco.
NV Yarden Brut, Segal Rechasim Dishon Cabernet Sauvignon, and other OK wines
I will keep this one short, as I want to get to my top wines of the year post. However, my wife and I spent the first part of Saturday night prepping, breaking down, and rolling 60 sushi rolls filled with Hamachi, Salmon, Tuna, and julienned vegetables. All I will say is that there was little to none of it left before the evening was over.
We enjoyed some lovely still and sparkling wines, along with some very not so great wines as well. The wine notes are iffy, as I was not taking serious notes, except for one wine that was the clear winner of the evening.
The wine notes follow below:
NV Yarden Brut – Score: B+ to B++
The first interesting thing to note about this sparkler is that it was produced in 2001 and not produced again, so we are talking about a 10 to 11 year old wine made from equal parts Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. The nose on this straw to pink colored wine is rich with citrus notes, peach, tart green apples, fresh flowers, and brioche. The mouth on this medium bodied wine is effervescent with a lovely mousse of many small bubbles, creamy and delicate attack of tart green apple, citrus, and acid backbone that is definitely not dead in any way. The finish is long, creamy, and moussy with brioche, toast, tart apples and lemony goodness. Fun stuff that works great with sushi.
2007 Segal Rechasim Dishon Cabernet Sauvignon – Score: A–
The nose on this black colored wine is super rich with rich cedar, tobacco, cassis, rich ripe plum, licorice, raspberry, and chocolate. The mouth on this rich and medium bodied wine is mouth coating with lovely tannin, raspberry, rich ripe plum, cassis, integrated tannin, and cedar. The mid palate is rich and lovely with good acid, tobacco, cassis, chocolate, tobacco, and cedar. The finish is long and rich with sweet cedar, tobacco, cassis, ripe plum, chocolate, and tobacco. This is a rich and concentrated wine that has just enough to grab your attention but is also a bit played out with its not so unique flavor profile. Still a fun and rich wine that has two or so years left in its legs.
Baron Herzog Brut Champagne – Score: B-
Sorry this wine did not make the mental cut for me – the flavors do not meld in any way that makes sense to me.
2006 Rotheberg Cellars Pinotage – Score: N/A
DOA, OK but really not that interesting.
Herzog Cellars Winery Tasting Room and Dinner at Tierra Sur Restaurant
This past week my wife and I went to dinner at the famous Tierra Sur Restaurant, which is located inside the Herzog Cellars Winery. The restaurant is run by the head chef Todd Aarons and is always a culinary treat. We have enjoyed his handiwork before when a few times at the Herzog International Food & Wine Festival held every year at the winery, around February. This year the event will be held in the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza, in Los Angeles, CA. Tickets for the upcoming event on February 15th, at 6 PM, can be purchased at the Herzog Wine Cellars web page here.
As we entered the winery we were greeted by the nice lady at the front desk, as we made our way to the restaurant we passed the Herzog Tasting Bar.
Traffic getting to the winery was so crazy busy that we barely made our appointed time. We entered the lovely restaurant and were seated immediately, and were given the current menu. The menu changes often, as the restaurant is proud of its local sourcing and its rich and bountiful flavors. According to the website: Tierra Sur continually strives to bring the best produce and ingredients to its customers by buying from local, small family farms. We are proud to participate in the Growers Collaborative Program under Community Alliance with Family Farmers (CAFF). CAFF is a statewide non-profit organization that works to build a movement of rural and urban people to foster family-scale agriculture that cares for the land, sustains local economies and promotes social justice.
Given the complexity of building a menu around what is available locally, even in California, Tomatoes are pretty much over now, as are zucchini, and fresh bell peppers. So the menu is filled with fresh winter salads, chard, and beets, all lovely tasting winter California bounty, with tomatoes and other Summer Solstice vegetables used as adornments. For starters we chose the Chorizo lamb sausage and black olive piadina flat bread with watercress, cherry tomato salad and zahtar dressing. The small pie was lovingly adorned by rich and spicy lamb sausage, along with black olives and a couple of tomatoes on top. For entrees, my wife chose the braised brisket and I chose the duck. After makes our choices, we made our way to the tasting bar and we sampled four of the red wines that were available.
I started with the 2008 Baron Herzog Zinfandel, which is a fine enough wine, but one that does not stand me up on my ear and make me take notice. For 10 bucks or so a bottle, at most local shops, it is the best of the baseline Baron Herzog wines. We than had a taste of the 2009 Herzog GPS (Grenache Petite Sirah) blend. According to the back label Joe Hurliman, the head winemaker at Herzog, has been wanting to make a wine from the Grenache grape and personally, he has made a wonderful wine that emotes whimsical and light white chocolate, flowers, and rich fruit. We followed that with a testing of the 2010 Weinstock Alicante Bouschet. Do not worry, I never heard of this one either before my friend told me about it when he received it in his Herzog Wine Club delivery. For some quick history and viticulture the Alicante Bouschet, it is an intensely red grape with a somewhat dark and infamous past. It was the number one grape used during the prohibition, and widely planted in California during the prohibition, because its color and thick skin allowed for the long trip to the east coast and to be diluted without discoloring the wine too greatly! The grape makes for intensely dark wines, with somewhat high alcohol, and average quality wine.
Kosher European Wines, Hagafen Wine, Kosher Meat Lasagna, White Bean and Kalamata Soup, Vegetable Kugel
This past weekend we had a bunch of friends over to the house and we were so happy to celebrate the good health and recovery of a dear friend of the family who honored us by coming on over for the meal. It is starting to feel a bit chilly around here, so we thought it would be great to try some lovely White Bean and Kalamta Olive Soup. The link to the recipe was the best I could find on the web. The one I use is from Mollie Katzen’s cookbook, which I have no right to place on my blog, please buy her book she is a genius!
The soup is simple to make, and I follow her recipe to the tee, short of adding in a wee bit more wine than her recipe calls for. Personally, that is the ultimate compliment, using someone’s exact recipe, with little or no change, because it is perfect as it is.
We then cooked up meat lasagna. I have modified the lasagna many times, as I am constantly looking for the perfect lasagna that is not too dry or too runny. I think I have finally done that! This past week the lasagna was killer, very tasty, and it was solid without being the least bit dry. The recipe is a change from another cookbook I use, but I have modified this one to not worry about sharing it. Also, I wrote a lot about the process, so the recipe looks long, but I am just adding in my years of struggle with these recipes to make sure you do not. Overall a pretty easy recipe:
Meat Lasagna Recipe: (Makes two pans of lasagna)
2 Tbsp. Oil
2 chopped onions
5 garlic cloves smashed (or just use the frozen garlic)
2 lb. of ground meat
1 sliced green pepper
1 sliced orange or yellow pepper
3 28 oz. cans of crushed tomatoes
2 15 oz. cans of tomato sauce
12 oz. of red wine (more acid and tannin the better)
4 to 5 Tbsp. parsley
2 tsp. sugar
3 tsp. of basil
salt and pepper to taste
16 oz. (18 pieces) of dry lasagna noodle (normal pasta that needs to be cooked)
1 LARGE eggplant sliced 1/2 inch thick
In a large Dutch oven or tall walled pan, heat up the oil until shimmering and then throw in the chopped onions and cook them till they are close to being browned. Then throw in the crushed garlic and as soon as it starts to smell garlicky, throw in the ground meat. Be careful never to burn the garlic, as that is nasty! Move around the meat and make sure it nice and browned. Now throw in the sliced peppers and lets cook until tender. Then throw in the crushed tomatoes, tomato sauce, red wine, herbs, salt and pepper. Now mix the pot around a fair amount until the wine color disappears and the tomato color is bright. Keep cooking the sauce until it reduces by 20% or until the sauce looks nice and thick. This step is VERY important, so do not skimp on this, it takes time but you will be generously rewarded.
At this point, bring a very large pot of water to boil and then place the lasagna noodles and cook them 1 to 2 minutes before al dente. We do this because we want them to finish in the oven. NEVER TRY the already cooked or NOT cooked pasta – it does not work. Cook the pasta and you will get the lovely texture that is not available any other way. Once cooked, pour out all the water, and put in some cold water in the pot to keep the pasta from drying up. Read the rest of this entry
Bravdo Karmei Yosef Winery – A World Class Laboratory for Two Renowned Viticulture Professors
Israel’s wine industry may well be 100+ or a few thousand years old, depending upon how old you are or how deep your convictions run. Carmel winery made a wine, simply called #1, as in those days that was how they labeled their wines. In 1900, at the Paris Fair, it was rated as a gold label wine! A few thousand years before that, wine was made for the temple, wine made in the Judean Hills. Still, the existing rebirth of the Israeli wine Industry, that seemed to go to sleep for some seventy to eighty years, was reborn on the backs of professors like Professor Ben Ami Bravdo, the head wine maker and co-founder of the Bravdo Winery. I think it was Adam Montefiore who stated that the true genius behind the success of the Golan Heights Winery (Yarden), was not only its fine grapes, but the fact that they were smart enough to follow Carmel, in 1983, and hire only wine makers with a degree from renowned universities, like U.C. Davis and Hebrew University. It may sound obvious now, but 30 or more years ago that was not always the case.
Around that very same time, Ben Ami Bravdo was inaugurated with his now synonymous professor title from Hebrew University. Though even before his official title, he was already teaching students for 16 years on the intricacies of agriculture and viticulture. It is not hard to see how this man is a truly influential figure in the Israeli wine industry, if you do a bit of digging. For some 35 years Professor Bravdo trained hundreds or even thousands of aspiring agriculturalists, including many of Israel’s leading winemakers. Of the four or more existing universities in Israel focusing on agriculture, Hebrew University is the oldest and the most famous.
When people call a person by their old or past title, such as Senator or Congressman, I always laugh because sure they worked to get that title and rise to the fame that it bestows upon its holder. Still, once they are out of office or power, the title does not fit the holder. With Professor Bravdo, nothing could be further from the truth. For some 40 years, from 1962 till 2001, he trained and studied the effects of viticulture in regards to both the final product; wine, and in regards to the ecology and environment. Bravdo was one of the many scientists who early on spearheaded the usage of drip irrigation in both Israel and abroad for a multitude of applications, including many New World wineries. In 2001 he left the University and was bestowed the Professor Emeritus title, one very befitting his time at the University, and still in the industry.
It was during his tenure at Hebrew University that he met and later advised, his now wine laboratory partner, Oded Shoseyov. It was Shoseyov’s PhD thesis that fascinated Bravdo, the biochemistry of grape and wine flavor evolution. Together they quenched the thirst of the starving minds that passed through their lecture halls, the very same minds that lead wineries and agricultural powerhouses the world around. Shortly after Shoseyov’s PhD they collaborated on improving and developing viticulture methods for optimizing the grape aromas, as well as experimenting with the chemical properties of the wine must and wine to improve wine and aroma qualities.
2005 Barkan Cabernet Sauvignon Altitude 412+ Reserve
This past week everything we tried was a semi disaster. We were interested in trying a vegan meatball recipe that we saw on a newsletter from Whole Foods. My attempt of implementing the recipe was a semi disaster, with the meatballs not being able to keep structural integrity. I baked half of them, they could not even keep whole, when you touched them. The ones I braised in the tomato sauce essentially fell apart. To be fair, I added too many onions to the mix, so I take full blame.
We tried to also make some risotto and even that was a semi mess. The risotto looked perfect Thursday night, but it died in the oven on Friday night. They all taste fine, it’s just that the integrity of the vegeballs and the risotto were messed up.
To make matters worse the wine I chose was DAFM (Dead After Five Minutes). To be fair the wine is old and according to Daniel Rogov‘s book, it was to be drunk by 2010. The wine smelled and tasted lovely for five minutes, and after that is smelled like dark cherry and sweet dates, then a few minutes later there was nothing.
I guess it was just one of those weekends!
The wine note follows below:
2005 Barkan Cabernet Sauvignon Altitude 412+ Reserve – Score: N/A as it is now undrinkable
This wine is over, dead, it starts off great, but after 20+ minutes the wine dies. This wine is old and dead, but is alive for 20+ minutes out of the bottle, and then it ends quickly. The wine turns into sweet dates and dark cherry. The wine starts off in the following manner. The nose on this purple to black colored wine starts off with chocolate, tobacco, sweet cedar, blackberry, cassis, and herbs. The mouth on this medium to full bodied wine is rich with cassis, blackberry, raspberry, spice, and tobacco. The mid palate is weak with sweet cedar, black pepper, chocolate, and tobacco. The finish is medium long and spicy with sweet dates, tobacco, chocolate, sweet cedar, cassis, and vanilla. When the wine poops out, it tastes like dark cherry, tobacco, cedar, and dates.
Lovely Sausage Stew, Quinoa, vegetable kugel, and current kosher Cabernet Franc wines
This past weekend I finally got around to something I have been planning for sometime, which was my Cabernet Franc Horizontal. To be fair, it was more like two horizontals, one for 2006 and one for 2007, along with a 2005 wine thrown in. So I guess I am using the term liberally, but hey, this is my blog! Anyway, the wines were quite lovely, with the only real loser being an a fore mentioned wine that was previously in a dumb period, and now I think it is just going down hill, that being the 2007 Hagafen Cabernet Franc. My deep love for all things Franc is clear and documented here.
That said, though the wines were great to exceptional, none of them exhibited anything Franc’ish. I say this because, there was almost no vegetal notes (even from Four gates), and little to no floral notes or even floral perfumes. Instead, what we had was deep and expressive wines that were nice, but more Cab’ish than Franc’ish. The common notes were, Oak/Cedar, Chocolate, Tobacco, and red fruit. There were a couple of wines with black fruit and rich flavors as well.
Awesome kosher meatball recipe, lovely sauces, last 2009 HaSod Cabernet Sauvignon, and 2010 Tierra Salvaje Pinot Noir Reserve
This past weekend, I was on a mission from God (in my mind anyway) to make the best possible meatball possible. My wife thinks I have gone crazy, because to her the meatballs we have made in the past were fine to her, and they are. Still, my quest to make the perfect meatball cannot be quenched, though this past iteration was quite possibly my best. There are some more tweaks we will need to do, but more on that soon. Now I wanted to make a single meatball recipe, but two different sauces. Why? Simple, my wife was not interested in a meat based sauce, and I did. Now the only con to frying meatballs is that the sauce you make has no meat flavor in it. Yes, the onions and base can start from the fat that is rendered from the fried meatballs, but that still does not cut it. A true meat sauce requires meat flavors to be fully integrated in the sauce, via cooking and reducing with the meat, thereby concentrating the meat and tomato flavors, in combination. Further, I was NOT going to braise the meatballs after I went to the trouble of frying them and getting them nice and crunchy to only lose that in a pot of sauce!
So, I was left with the trouble of cooking two sauces, one with the rendered fat and one without. To get the rich meat flavor, I further rendered the fat of Nechama’s Smoked Andouille sausages (made from turkey and chicken), and then cooked them in the completed tomato sauce, to enrich the sauce with a lovely bit of heat and meat flavor. While this was successful, the extra sausages did not render well enough for me, and the extra steps were not worth the final outcome.
For the meatball recipe, I used a further modified version of the classic meatball recipe from America’s Test Kitchen:
- 1 cup of cooked but slightly watery oatmeal (cooled down) – this is the panade
- 2 pounds of 85% lean ground beef
- 6 oz. Aarons Best Sliced Beef Fry Cured & Smoked – well diced
- Two cups of squeezed shredded onions and zucchini – WELL SQUEEZED out
- 4 tablespoons minced fresh parsley
- 2 eggs
- 3 garlic clove, minced
- 3 tablespoons of paprika and cumin (combined)
- Salt and pepper
- Vegetable oil Read the rest of this entry
Flam Winery – The venerable European-styled family boutique winery, that is now kosher
Our culture is very quick to exaggerate for the sake of sensationalism and many in the wine industry press or bloggers have never missed a chance to prove it. Still, every so often we get it right! Use the word boutique in conjunction with a winery, and everyone from Mondavi down to your local corner Garagiste, will lay claim to being one. If you then throw in the terms family owned and European styled, believe it or not, you can still find many who are willing to lay claim to them as well. Thankfully, I was able to spend some quality time at a perfect example of exactly what we are talking about, the Flam Winery, in the rustic Judean Hills.
In a previous post concerning Ella Valley Winery, I have already discussed what I believe to be the definition of a boutique winery. In a sentence or more, it means a crazy (in a good way) level of oversight from the mundane to the essential. Of course, my take leaves a large enough space to drive a semi-trailer through, as exemplified in these retorts to my post. With that said, to me Flam Winery exemplifies many of the aspects of what I look for when talking about a boutique winery. Yes, they are smallish, at some 120 thousand bottles a year, along with very tight oversight of their vineyards. Flam leases five vineyards throughout the country, three in the Judean hills area and two in the upper Galilee. The vineyards are leased so that Golan Flam, the head winemaker, can work hand in hand with the vineyard manager, and know that they will both get what they want. The vineyard knows it will be paid on a consistent manner, per acre. While, Golan knows that the vineyard will be managed with quality as the benchmark and not quantity. Also, Golan has the opportunity to work hand on with the vineyard manager to maximize the potential of the grapes, in the direction that he thinks is most beneficial to the vineyard and the winery.
There are a few famous family owned wineries, including Castel Winery in the Judean Hills, and Tulip Winery in the Galilee. Flam Winery, of course is also on the short list of quality family run wineries. Flam Winery, which was started in 1998, is a personification of Golan’s dream to create an Israeli wine estate, focused on premium quality wines. The dream was hatched after graduating from Hebrew University with a bachelor’s degree in agriculture, on a trip through Tuscany, Italy in 1996. While on a fascinating tour amongst the splendid wineries of this enchanting region, Gilad & Golan decided to build a boutique winery in the Land of Israel, which should be surrounded by superb vineyards, and would be the source of the best possible Israeli wines. Golan returned to Italy to get his Master’s degree in Enology, and worked at Carpineto Winery in Tuscany, and in Australia as well. In 1998 Golan returned to Israel to be the wine maker of Flam, and joined forces with his brother Gilad, a successful lawyer and businessman, who runs marketing and Business Development. They recruited their mother, Kami, a successful businesswoman to be the winery’s CFO, and they leaned heavily in the beginning on their father, who was then the head wine maker for Carmel Winery.
Psagot Winery – A Stunning Winery on the Peaks of the Binyamina Mountains
The community settlement of Psagot is located on the peaks of the Benjamin Region Mountains, 900 meters above sea level, east of the city of Ramallah, overlooking the Wadi Kelt basin, the Jericho Valley, the Dead Sea and the Edomite Mountains. The literal translation for the word Psagot, is Peaks, hence the play on words in the title of this posting.
In 1998, Naama and Yaakov Berg planted the winery’s first vineyard, 18 dunam of Cabernet Sauvignon grapes. In the first year, the Bergs sold their grapes to Binyamina. In the following year, 2002, they decided to make a go of it, thereby establishing the Psagot Winery, named for the settlement upon which the vineyards, and winery are located. Soon thereafter, in 2005, the winery added on another 22 dunam of vineyards, with a varied group of varietals, along with the normal mainstays. Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Chardonnay are the usual suspect, with Petite Verdot, Cabernet Franc, Viognier, and Shiraz adding to the mix.
While the settlement was laying a road near the vineyard, Berg says, “we found a little hole in the ground. If was full of mud and rocks and stones. … So we dug for more than a month by hand and we found a lot of things, including a lot of coins, and at end we found a wine-press from the time of the Second Temple.” Today, this cave serves as a large wine barrel cellar next to impressive stainless steel tanks and other winemaking equipment. The cave’s cooling system rarely needs to be activated, as the naturally cool conditions preserve the constant temperature, which during the winter does not go below 54 degrees, and during the summer does not rise above 64 degrees. The natural humidity stands at 90%.
The winery’s vineyards are all planted on rocky limestone, Terra Rosa soil. The vine’s yields are kept low, to about 600 kilos per dunam. The vines are terraced upon the mountainside, but the close proximity to the winery makes up for the difficulty of harvesting. The vineyard’s 900 meter altitude allows the vines to cool down significantly in the evening, thereby concentrating the sugar flavors that are created in a far slower manner than if they were in the valley. The entire harvest is very reminiscent of how Ella Valley Winery does its harvesting, by picking during the early morning, and being close to its winery, thereby assuring the highest quality product from the grapes they source. Read the rest of this entry
