Category Archives: Winery Visit
Agua Dulce Cabernet Sauvignon and Alcohol and Brown Sugar Braised Short Ribs
For the past week we were tasting kosher wines at the 2012 Herzog International Food and Wine Festival. It was a wonderful event and one that was well received, look here for an in-depth write-up, along with another tasting at the Cask and a tasting at what I call ADS (Agua Dulce & Shirah), for the Agua Dulce Winery and Shirah Winery. The note below is for one of the wines that I took home – the 2010 Agua Dulce Cabernet Sauvignon. We tasted through all of the 2010 and 2011 wines of both Agua Dulce and Shirah winery. I can safely call Craig Winchell, the wine maker of Agua Dulce a friend, a person I have known for some 20 or so years and one who I have crazy respect for. Gabe and Shimon Weiss (also known as the Weiss brothers) are a pair of young and talented men. Gabe is the mashgiach (kosher certification supervisor) for Agua Dulce and the wine maker of Shirah wines. Shimon, Gabe’s brother, is the marketing genius behind the cool labels, slick website, while also being an impressive carpenter, and possessing a darn good palate as well.
I will be writing up my impressions on both wineries in due time, but for now I wanted to talk about the wine I tasted over Shabbos. I took/borrowed four half bottles from our tasting of Agua Dulce wines and they were impressive overall. I was privy to things that I do not wish to discuss but also somewhat stunted my enthusiasm for a couple of the wines, but issues that I know Craig will work out before the wines are released to the public. Craig joined the winery in 2010 and all wines from that time on were made kosher.
I took home a Cabernet that I must say, I was not expecting from the vineyards of this winery. The 90 acres of Agua Dulce’s vineyards are planted in desert plains at an elevation of 2000 feet. The winter days can be downright cold and the summer days can warm up a bit, but not to a point of Napa or the Central Coast. Gabe, who tasted the wines with us, said that the terroir of this vineyard is the black pepper that is obvious within all of its wines. There are many small black pepper bushes around, but that may well be an effect of the land and not the cause. The vineyard is a cold weather vineyard and one of the outcomes can be low ripeness, during cold summers, like the past two years. Under ripe fruit can sometimes shows green notes that in the hand of a professional like Craig can sometimes mean a masterpiece.
Four Gates Winery – a terroir driven kosher winery in the Santa Cruz Mountains
Four Gates Winery welcome sign and road up
I must start this posting by saying, I could not believe that I have waited this long to write an update to my previous postings on the Four Gates Winery. I did post about the time I crashed the Alice Feiring visit to Four Gates, which is almost fully documented in the last chapter of her new book: Naked Wine, more on that when I do my write up on the book. I also posted many wine notes along the way. Still the last real post I did on my friend’s winery is almost 4 years ago! Are you kidding me?
Once again, I was driving up this time to see Benyamin Cantz, the winemaker, vineyard manager, and Numero Uno of Four Gates Winery, in the rolling hills of the Santa Cruz Mountains AVA. It was a beautiful winter day in February 
that felt like a spring day in Northern California, another lovely reason to live in NorCal. The drive to the winery winds through the twisting roads that crest and wrap around the Santa Cruz Mountains. By the time you arrive at the address of the winery, you will notice a Bruchim Habaim (translated loosely to mean blessed be those who are arriving) sign to the left and a driveway in front of you. As you look at the driveway that will take you to the top of the hill upon which the winery is perched, the thoughts of stairway to heaven cannot help but play in your head! The drive up the hill to the winery used to be a dirt road long ago, and with all the switchbacks and near vertical climbs, it dumbfounds me how Binyamin (and many others who lived on the hilltop) ever drove up and down that mountainside many times a day. Since then, the road has been paved and now by comparison, it feels like a highway. Once you have circumnavigated the circuitous drive to the top, the vineyard will be visible flanking the driveway from both the right and the left. The larger block of vines is on the right, but the Pinot and part of the Chardonnay are on the left. Read the rest of this entry
Herzog International Food and Wine Festival 2011 Results
Well 2011 has come and gone and I am finally getting the chance to write up the 2011 International Food and Wine Festival (IFWF) that was held at the Herzog winery in Oxnard. In some ways it was the best ever and in some ways it was not. To start, 2011 was the fourth incarnation of this event and each time it has been well worth the trip. This past year’s event, in many ways, was the best. The food, as usual, was fantastic! The food is catered by Chef Todd Aarons, the head chef of the Tierra Sur, the world-class restaurant that is in the Herzog Winery. As usual, the food that Mr. Aarons and his staff prepare the event is bite size or a bit larger format, food that easily fits on a small plate. Essentially, think of them as normal or slightly large tapas, depending upon the food in question. As usual, the tapas were just divine, and as usual I always get the scarps. I say that because, I want to finish tasting the wines before I eat the awesome food, which would seriously inhibit my ability to write coherent wine notes. Of course, there is never a lack of good wines to taste, so essentially, I always eat whatever is left over as they are winding up the food and wine service. It is a mad rush to get some pictures and eat some food – truly sad, and totally my fault!
This past year’s event was even larger than its predecessors. As usual, the Herzog winery was fully decked out and expanded in the back by adding on a few heated tents. Normally, the French and Israeli wines were poured from the back room and the tent, behind the back room, which itself abuts to the parking lot behind it. This past year, they expanded further by pouring only Israeli wines from the entire back areas, moving Capcanes to the Spanish and Italian section, and moving all the French wines to its own room – the Herzog Situation or Conference room, which is off to the right from the entrance, essentially on the other side of the building. Some may look at that and say they relegated the French wines to the “basement”, but the way I see it, Royal has SO MANY wines to show off from its portfolio, and only so much room in the winery that they chose the best holistic group they could that would not look too small or take up too much room, in the conference room, and that fell to the French wines.
This was the first of the, not so good points, and that was the lack of communication around this change of venue for the French wines! I totally understand the complexity of it, and there was signage. However, given the drastic change that was in affect, a bit more information for some would have been good. I found myself telling many people about the new location for French wines, that they thought were AWOL for 2011. That said, I think this will not be an issue in 2012, as the event will be moving from Oxnard and the Herzog Winery to LA at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, Century Plaza!
Of course, with all the room taken up by wines and wonderful food, there still needs to be place for the humans and this was issue number two, which again will be fixed in 2012. That being, there was very little room to move about as the evening moved on. I found myself having to find a corner to just write notes, let alone not to feel claustrophobic, which is a problem I do not normally exhibit. That said, I hope that the new venue will allow the event to stretch its wings and soar to higher heights with more space and more opportunities to showcase its wonderful food and wines.
I truly believe that 2011, was the first year where the wines totally out shone the food, excepting for 2008, when the French wines were truly off the hizzy. This is not in anyway a slight to Aaron’s food, rather it is a compliment to Royal wine portfolio, that has now reached world class, and something I am sure they are extremely proud of. I do not need to repeat the story of Herzog, which can be found in the middle of last year’s post, as that would be just repeating myself. I just hope you read this and it grabs you enough to buy some tickets that are going really fast for the 2012 version of the International Food and Wine Festival which will be happening in LA this year – enjoy the notes. I need to add my personal thank you to the entire Royal and Herzog staff for putting together such a great show, and much luck on your new 2012 event!
The wine notes follow below, in the order they were tasted:
2007 Domaine l’OrDeLine Chateauneuf du Pape – Score: B+ to A-
Would love to know how Herzog pulled this one off, and who is the negotiant for this wine. I found a lovely write-up about the winery and the name, anyway, on to the note.
The nose on this light gold colored wine is hopping with kiwi, grapefruit, lemon, gooseberry, mineral, apple, and white peach. The mouth on this medium bodied wine is rich with white fruit, tropical fruit, and mineral. The mid palate is round and balanced, with nice spice and mineral. The finish is long with clean yet round flavors of of fruit, spice, mineral, and bramble. The wine is so classic in its minerality and clean lines yet ripe and luscious. Read the rest of this entry
Gush Etzion Winery – One of the oldest and up and coming wineries of the Judean Hills
This is the ninth article I am writing on wineries from the Judean Hills wine region of Israel. This particular winery is located just outside the city of Gush Etzion in the Judea region. The winery was a not even a figment of their imagination when Shraga and Tamar Rosenberg moved to Efrat, which is located in Gush Etzion, in the heart of Judea, just south of Jerusalem in 1986. However, the blackberry bush in their backyard looked interesting and their neighbors told them that it could be used to make fermented juice. So with the simple act of fermented blackberry juice (sorry I cannot bring myself to call that wine) was born the desire to, in time, create a world-class winery in the Judean Hills! He was not so different than another pioneer in the Israeli wine world, Eli ben Zaken of Castel Winery, who also left his job to create a world-class winery. Though Gush Etzion has not yet reached the level of Castel in terms of overall wine quality, it is steadily making its way up the hill.
Most would not associate wine and blackberry juice, but for Rosenberg it was a great gateway beverage to acquire the yearning for something a bit more real. With time, Rosenberg realized that wine was his real future and he started tinkering with it in his basement – a classic garagiste! During that time his ultimate dream was growing, of building a winery that would prove the words of the Patriarch Jacob, who prophesied to his son Yehuda some 3000 years ago: “Binding unto the vine, his foal, and unto the choice vine, the colt of his ass; he will launder his garments in wine and his robe in the blood of grapes. His eyes shall sparkle with wine, and his teeth white with milk” (Bereishit 49:11-12). Commenting on these verses, Rashi states, “[Yaakov] prophesied regarding the land of Yehudah, that it would produce wine like a fountain.”
As his tinkering continued friends told him how much they loved his wines and one thing led to another – with Rosenberg officially leaving his managerial position at senior citizen’s home to become a farmer and winemaker! In 1995, with the decision already made, he started to look around for enough grapes to make his dream a reality. To do this he reached out to growers in the area and he quickly found out that if he wanted to make this happen, he would need to plant his own vineyard and augment it in the time being with what he could find in the area. With total control on his vineyard, Rosenberg could manage the vines to make the kind of wine that he sees as world-class, rather than the yield and size that the growers wanted.
As the winery started to grow so did their output. In 1998 the Rosenbergs released their first vintage from their newly minted winery, in the basement of their house in Efrat. They initial vintage consisted of 7000 bottles, which is quite large if you are doing all the work in your basement! The varietals for the first year were all from the Noble grapes; Chardonnay, Cabernet, Merlot, and Sauvignon Blanc. Since then both the varietals and bottles have increased. By 2009 mass planted had expanded the winery’s vineyards to about 120 acres. Among the varieties planted include; Chardonnay, Organic Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, White Riesling, Shiraz, Merlot, Organic Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot and Gewurztraminer and Viognier.
Tanya Winery – an idyllic winery in the rolling hills of Binyamina’s Judean Hills
This is not the first time I had the opportunity to taste wines from the wonderful Tanya Winery. Actually, the first time we had the chance to taste Yoram Cohen’s wines (the winemaker) was in 2008, some five years ago. Since then, we did not have the chance to taste ant other wines from Tanya, as they were not available here in the US, until recently! Now, they are being imported by Red Garden Imports, an importer’s name that I heard many times from a few small boutique wineries as I walked around Sommelier! Actually we were supposed to go to the winery early in 2011, but Yoram’s kid got sick so we had to postpone the visit. Instead, we had to wait almost a year to get the chance to taste some Tanya wines, and it was a worthwhile wait, given the current crop of wines.
Many in Israel know Yoram not because of his unique personality or artistic passion, but rather because he was on Israel’s Big Brother 3! Yes, you heard me correct Yoram Cohen was on the Big Brother of Israel, but I guess he should stick to what he does exceptionally well, as he was the second housemate to be tossed out. I hope it helped to put focus on his personality and winery, because they are both quite unique and wonderful treasures that we get to enjoy!
In the middle of the first day for me at the 2011 edition of Sommelier, I got to the Tanya Winery booth! Just a few reminders about Tanya Winery, in case you are too lazy to click the link to my other posts 
. In 2002 Yoram started to make wine out of his house. In 2007 one of Chaim Feder’s friends tasted Yoram’s wines and was sure that Yoram was the next big thing in wine. Chaim and his partners met Yoram and the rest is history. They upgraded the winery’s future productivity by purchasing new equipment, plantings new vineyards, and leasing more space for the winery. The winery’s current production is about 30,000 bottles annually. Most wineries were displaying their wines from 
2008 at the event, which by now you all know is a problem for many, being that it was a Shmitta year. In case this is your first roll through my blog, check out my Kosher 101 posting about Shmitta and more. Tanya however did not produce any wines in 2008, which all I can say is WOW! Takes a certain spirit and belief system to not make wine for a year! The winery has three labels; Enosh, Halel, and Eliya Reserve, all named after his kids, which are shown on the booth and on the website (though at a younger age). Enosh is the winery’s top Bordeaux blend, Halel is the main wine line, while Eliya is the lower label that has recently been upgraded, as is visible in the Shiraz below.
As I tasted these wines, I did not know that one of them was also part of my original wine tasting in 2008! The 2007 Pinot Noir, which we tasted from the barrel, has clearly changed with more red fruit showing and lovely oak extraction as well. However, the body and structure look the same from those many years earlier!
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.
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.
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
Tzora Winery – the founding terroir estate of the Judean Hills
Say the word terroir and most folk’s thoughts would consciously, or maybe sub-consciously jump to France, heck the word is French after all. Still, ask what does it mean, and now we are off the races. Why? Because other than its literal translation; land or sense of place, there is no real translation for terroir. I think that is fitting in a way, as the word has really just started its long and obviously complicated journey. According to the incomparable Harold McGee and Daniel Patterson, it all started in the 17th century, when used to describe a wine, in a non-complementary way. My! Fast forward to 1831, when it was first used as a compliment! From there, it has evolved over and over, like clay, or silt, or maybe rocks, in the hand of a potter, changing and evolving to meet the needs of place and/or time.
While researching this article I spent a good few hours, heck days, searching the real meaning of the word terroir. I almost felt like Indiana Jones on the search for the Ark of the Covenant. No matter how hard I searched, no matter the words I typed into the oracle of the web, all I got were old and stale answers. Finally, I fell upon the father of wine tasting, Eric Asimov’s, blog posting on the fore mentioned article, and I screamed Eureka (yeah my wife was not impressed)! On an aside, Harold McGee is my generation’s original scientific foodie, his books are the bible to many of our nowadays chef demi-gods gastronomical feats. It comes as no shock to me that he would be my knight in shining armor, remember wine may well be romantic in verse and scripture, but it is a chemical at its most base, in other words, dead center in Mr. McGee’s wheelhouse!
So, after reading more and more on this subject, it became even clearer to me, that the word may well be derived from the Latin meaning “earth”, but that is just the beginning of its true essence. Flash forward to a lovely early spring day in the Judean Hills, where my friend and I walk into the newly appointed Tzora Winery, sited on Kibbutz Tzora, and surrounded by sumptuous foliage and landscaping. Tzora Winery is the handiwork of one of Israel’s original and unique winemakers, who truly understood terroir, and saw Israel’s and the Judean Hill’s potential to become a world class wine region. In 1978, there was no Yarden winery, there was just a single Carmel Cabernet success, and Israel was just in its infancy, in terms of wine making, but to the visionary viticulturist Ronnie James, it was a path as clear as day. Mr. James was the Messiah to your average vintner. In his 30 years of service to the vine, Mr. James, will always remain the pioneer, not only at Tzora but also on the Israeli wine scene. Among Mr. James contributions were his enormous respect and passion for terroir and his insistence that his wines reflect that passion. James, known as “Dr. Terroir,” was the first to make wine from his own grapes and the first to introduce the vineyard name on a label. He recognized that the character of a wine comes from the site rather than the grape. Read the rest of this entry
