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The 2018 Kosher rose season is open
It is officially Spring (though it snowed in Chicago for Passover – so I will hold judgment on that fact for a bit), which means it is Rose time! Rose wine in the non-kosher market is exploding – especially Rose wine from Provence; a wine region of France. Sadly, in the kosher wine market – that is not quite the case. I did not stress my previous statement with a suffix of AT ALL, even though I am not allowed to open a bottle of rose on my Shabbos table with guests – why? Well, that is simple – no one will drink it!!
Even worse, is that wine manufacturers may well have jumped the shark! There will be some 50 dry-ish kosher roses available in the USA this year! That may not sound like a lot, but when all you had was Herzog White Zinfandel 10 years ago – it is insane. The first high-end rose was Castel’s 2009 rose and that was only 9 years ago. Back then, there were few to no real Rose wine options, other than a handful of Israeli wines and almost no French Rose made it here. Now we will have tons of Rose, and I really think the real question here is will people drink it all?
Wine Color
What is a rose wine? Well, simply said, a rose is a wine that can best be defined as the wine world’s chameleon. Where white wine is a pretty simple concept – take white grapes squeeze them and you get clear to green colored juice. Yes, the white grape juice is clear – well so is red grape juice, but more on that in a bit.
White wine is not about color – almost all color in a white wine comes from some oak influence of some sort. So, an unoaked Sauvignon Blanc or Pinot Gris can sometimes look almost clear, depending on the region and how the wine was handled. Now oaked Chardonnay, of course, is what most people use as an example of a dark white wine. As the Wine Folly linked above states, different wine regions oak their Chardonnay differently and as such, they are sold with different hues from the start. With age, the wine changes color and the light gold moves to darker gold shades.
The only real exception to the stated rule above – that white grape juice without the influence of oak is somewhere in the clear to green color spectrum, is – orange wines. We have spoken about orange wines – mostly thanks to Yaacov Oryah. Outside of Yaacov’s work there really is no orange wine in the kosher world to speak about. Orange wine is made exactly like red wine, which means that the clear grape juice is left to sit on the yellowish to dark yellow grape skins (depending upon what varietal is used to make the orange wine).
Red wine juice – straight from the grape comes out the same color as white grapes. You see the juice from grapes is mostly clear to greenish in color. The red wine color comes from macerating the juice on the grape skins. The longer the juice sits on the grape skins (wine must) the redder in color the wine becomes until it reaches its maximum red color potential.
The only real exception to the rule of a grape’s juice color is the Teinturier varieties. The grapes are called Teinturier, a French language term meaning to dye or stain. The list of grapes whose juice is actually red colored is long – but the list of kosher wine options that is a wine made from these grapes – is the Herzog Alicante Bouschet. The Gamay de Bouze is not a normal Gamay grape, it is one of those grape mutations that are very red in nature. Read the rest of this entry
Kishor Vineyards Winery – the latest 2015 and 2016 wines
I wrote about Kishor Winery a couple of times, when I saw them at Sommelier the last few years. I also wrote a more in-depth article about the winery here, last year. Well, since they did not come to this year’s Sommelier, it meant I had to go and see the winery again this year.
Last year I loved the 2014 Kishor Savant Red, but when we tasted this again late last year, it had turned hard. I asked to taste it again at the winery, and it had indeed become another wine, not the crazy old-world wine I adored last year.
Well this year, there are new releases, and many are quite nice, even if they were 2015 wines. As I have stated before, in my post on the Sommelier event, 2015 whites were and are a disaster. There were a few here and there, but the vast majority were horrible.
That said, I am finding that the 2015 reds are actually drinkable, at least some anyway. Sadly, the curse of Rose in Israel has continues into 2016, the crop of roses so far are B+ wines at best. However, the clear white grape of 2016 is Viognier – it is doing very well in all the wine regions of Israel.
I arrived early, really early, like 9AM early, and my many thanks to the team for meeting me at this early hour. As I stated on my Bokobsa post, I had just landed at 5AM, dropped my bags at my host, then I essentially drove directly to Kishor! So, it was early when I arrived, and it was great to taste some nice coffee and get down to tasting wine!
Yair Una, the winery’s marketing agent was there when I arrived, and he was VERY kind to call the winemaker, Richard Davies, to come from the fields to taste the wines with me. Richard Davies is one of those Vignobles of Israel. He makes the wines and he prunes the vineyards himself! He is one of those Renaissance guys you read about in the wine books!
The winery has three labels. The Kerem Kishor wines (rose, white and red) are the first label. Next is the Kishor Winery label, which seems to only have Viognier, and finally the Savant label, which has the red blend. Read the rest of this entry
Assorted wines I enjoyed over the past few weeks
Well, I hope I get into the flow of weekly posts, or even more often. For now, I am behind on wine posts from Yom Tov and other get-togethers. So, here is a list of wines I have recently tasted. Some I enjoyed and well, some not. There are a few shmita wines here, so be careful, as always I highlight them as shmita of course.
2007 Elvi Utiel-Requena Makor – Score: A- (Crazy QPR)
This wine is a blend of 85% Bobal and 15% Cabernet Sauvignon. The nose on this wine is rich with lovely umami, soy sauce, ripe plum, rich earth, loam, mushroom, raspberry, and black cherry. The mouth on this medium bodied wine is rich and impressively structured for such an old wine, showing really nice acidity, still integrated tannin, with an inky mouthfeel of velvet and texture with crazy mushroom, earth, barnyard, dark concentrated fruit, blackberry, ripe fruit, perfectly balanced with ripe currant, dark red forest berry, and green notes. The finish is long and tart with more dirt, and barnyard, showing still gripping tannin, and nice ripe and rich fruit. The oak does not show strongly in the mouth but it’s influence is felt nicely. BRAVO!!
2014 Louis Blanc Crozes Hermitage – Score: A- (Good QPR)
This is a lovely black fruit Syrah, with hints of blue fruit in the background. The nose on this wine is lovely, with roasted meat, rich licorice, with blueberry notes in the background, along with earth, loam, mineral, and spice galore! The mouth on this medium bodied wine is balanced and well-focused, with a mineral core, followed by sweet boysenberry that comes alive with time, followed by blackberry, spiced plum, and rich loam, that is wrapped in spicy oak, rich mouth coating tannin, and fig. The finish is long and spicy, with leather, chocolate, lovely charcoal, and bitter almond notes that give the wine its edge. The sweet fruit shows quickly and really is a nice wine, I hope it turns more French with time. It is ready now and will be at peak in two years. Drink till 2021.
2015 Psagot 7 Shmita Red – Score: B to B+ (shmita wine)
This is a blend of all the varietals that Psagot bought/used for the Shmita year of 2015. The white shmita blend was really nice, while this was good enough. It is very green.
The nose on this wine is cranberry, cherry, and asparagus salad. The mouth on this medium bodied wine is nice, but nothing spectacular, other than the very impressive mouth coating tannin. Other than that, it feels like a second label French wine, with lots of press juice, very harsh and not balanced, with black and red fruit. The finish is long and green, with good acid, and mounds of herb and foliage.
2015 Psagot 7 Shmita White – B+ to A-
This is one of the nicer Shmita white wines, it is a blend of all the white varietals that Psagot has under control. The nose is redolent with Mango, lychee, floral notes, honeysuckle, and lovely bright citrus notes. The mouth is medium bodied with good acid, nice balance, all wrapped in straw, cut grass, mint, green notes, with lovely grapefruit, peach, and pineapple. The finish is long with nice acid, mineral, and spice. Nice!! Read the rest of this entry
Kishor Winery – an up and coming kosher winery with an altruistic theme
When I first saw Kishor Winery in 2014 and Sommelier, I loved their whites, but what one really remembers the second you say Kishor Winery must be its winemaker; Richard Davies – a gregarious man with a smile that matches his easy-going South African accent. Davies was there when the vines went down, in 2010, three years before he came to Kishor.
But I am getting ahead of myself, before we get to the winery let’s talk about Kishorit! As their website says:
Kibbutz Kishor was founded by the Shomer Hatza’ir youth movement in the late 1970s. After a number of unsuccessful attempts to settle the isolated, rocky mountain-ridge, the kibbutz was abandoned. In 1997, after lengthy negotiations with the Jewish Agency for Israel and the Kibbutz movement, Kishorit was founded on the land of the former Kibbutz Kishor.
Today, Kibbutz Kishor is experiencing a complete revival as nearly 80 mainstream kibbutz members have begun to build their homes alongside the Kishorit members. The members of the rejuvenated Kibbutz Kishor and the members of Kishorit will enjoy a fully integrated community, with private residential areas and shared public spaces, celebrations, work, social activities and communal life. Kishor and Kishorit are championing a revolutionary model of rehabilitation and inclusion of people with special needs into the community.
The idea for the integrated community stems from the holistic vision of Kishorit’s founders. We believe in a supportive, integrated community that provides for the separate, individual and unique needs of each group, but encourages inclusion wherever and whenever it is possible and beneficial.
I drove to the winery to meet Davies and his marketing agent – Yair Una. I can personally say that the kibbutz is quite lovely, with tree-lined lanes and idyllic homes surrounded by large swaths of open expanses and parks. Davies arrived in 2007 and went to work in the orchards, but when the UJA came knocking and promised to fund an agricultural expansion – they jumped all over it. The vines went in two phases, 2007 and 2010. The first planting in 2007 was Bordeaux grapes, but in 2010 they expanded to include Rhone varietals that make up much of the winners in the past few years. Throughout it all Davies has been part of the winery, and when it was time to make wine – he took over as winemaker, while continuing to manage the vines.
Still, the man is smart enough to ask for good council, and thankfully that is readily available in Israel now – wine consultants that have been helping many a winery. In this case, the consultant Davies uses is one of the country’s best; Itay Lahat. He also helps at Gush Etzion where they are making great white wines, and Tura Winery to name a few. The whites at Gush Etzion and at Kishor show the deft hand of Lahat, where bright fruit and pith are a common adjectives to their wines. Read the rest of this entry
QPR Kosher wine options that I have been enjoying recently
In my state of kosher wine industry post – I lamented at the lack of QPR (Quality to Price Ratio) options in the kosher wine world. Now that is not to say that the options do not exist, as you can see by the number of QPR options on my top wines for Passover last year. Still, given the sheer number of wines in a kosher wine store (many hundreds) and the number of kosher wines on the open market (many thousands), we are left with a very small minority – sadly.
So, I thought I would list the most recent QPR wines I have enjoyed over the past 6 months. I wanted to catch up with wines I had not had till later last year and place them in a single easy to find place.
My hope is that people will enjoy the wines and demand more of them. For instance, the lack of many of the QPR wines from Elvi Wines on the open market. I can find them on Royal’s website and on Elvi’s website, but sadly I cannot find them at many wine stores. Thankfully, Kosherwine has gotten the Elvi Cava back along with the Gilgal Brut, but they have older vintages or no vintages of the Elvi options. Onlinekosherwine.com, also has many of the older Elvi wines. I have spoken with Moises and he says they exist here somewhere in the USA – only God knows where though!!! Sadly, the exact same can be said for Netofa wines – another QPR superstar! Where are the wines? I taste them at KFWE – but they are not at stores, online or at shops!
I hope to one day write a post about wine cellaring, but till I do, understand that certain wines are made to enjoy early, like Cava, most 2014 white wines, and lighter reds. The richer and tannic reds can use time in the cellar and that is normal. This list is not a list of wines that are meant for cellaring, though many can withstand a few years. The idea here is to enjoy these wines now while you let the long-term wines cellar and age. We all have that interest to drink interesting wines and while I agree with that, that is NO excuse to raid the cellar when u have a hunkering for a complex note or flavor. Many of these wines will scratch the itch while the beasts’ lie and settle.
Finally, some of these wines are hard to find and they may have different siblings – I will point out when an older one will be an issue or a newer vintage would not be on the list (like the 2011 Ella Valley Cabernet Franc versus the 2012). The 2012 Ella Valley Cabernet Franc would never be on this list. The 2011 is a fine wine for another year, after that I fear it will turn to date juice.
Also, many of the white/rose/bubbly wines will be repeats from the various posts I made, as most of the 2015 whites and rose are not coming to the USA as they are shmita in Israel. I tried to keep these wines under 30 dollars or so, some are more most are less and that is the point of this list. Of course, that means that for some wineries there will be one or no options, like Matar or Four Gates Winery. Though I could have thrown in the Four Gates Chard – which is a lovely wine, it is still far from my goal to add into this bucket. The same can be said for many more wineries. Also, 2015 Israeli wines are not on this list, actually no 2015 wines are on this list, though Hagafen Winery, has released their 2015, but I have yet to taste them and the 2014 Hagafen wines are the ones on the market anyway. Finally, wines that can only be found in Israel like the epic Tabor Rose of 2014 and the 2014 Reca Gris du Marselan and the yatir rose and the new 2014 Yatir Viognier – and so on. All of these wines are not on this list because they are hard to find, but they are on previous lists I have posted.
So, without further ado – here is my list of kosher QPR winners so far and if you have any more please tell me!! They are listed below without any real order.
2014 Domaine Netofa White – Score: A- (Crazy QPR)
I must say this is clearly the best Netofa white so far, and I hope they continue to impress! The wine is 100% Chenin Blanc sourced from the slopes of Mount Tabor. The nose is redolent with rich and bright quince, straw, mineral, lemongrass, and wet grass. The mouth on this medium bodied wine is lovely and rich mineral bomb, with more hay, spiced quince, now dry fresh cut grass, green apple, Asian pear, along with a crazy dry and insanely tart crab apple. The finish is long – spicy, dirty, and mineral based, with dry fruit, rich ripping acid, cloves, and nutmeg – BRAVO!!!
2013 Domaine Netofa Red – Score: A- (and more) (QPR!)
This wine is a clear step up from the 2012 Netofa Red, that is not putting the 2012 down in any way, it is just that this wine is even better! This wine is a blend of 65% Syrah and 35% Mourvedre. The nose on this wine is redolent and packed with mineral, lovely smoke, flint, ripe plum, lovely blueberry, with currants in the background. The mouth on this full bodied wine is attacks you first with lovely currants, followed by layers of blueberry, floral notes, richer and more extracted than the 2012, with great mineral, dried strawberry, all wrapped in ripping acid, and lovely tannin. The finish is long, extracted, and richly mineral in style, with blackcurrant, draping tannin, while being spiced with cloves, black pepper, sweet her, and hints of pith and lovely acid. BRAVO!!!
2012 Weinstock Cabernet Franc, Cellar Select – Score: A- (Mevushal) (QPR!)
This is not the same wine as the 2011 vintage, which was crazy and great this vintage started off closed and disjointed, but is now showing far better. The nose on this wine is mad green with red fruit notes, and herb. The mouth on this medium bodied wine is nice and round, with green notes, well balanced with good acid, raspberry, plum, earth, more bell pepper, crazy sweet dill, mouth coating tannin, and green foliage. The finish is long with nice enough acid, forest floor, nice butterscotch, good sweet tobacco, cedar, with tannin adding weight. Read the rest of this entry
State of the Israeli Wine Industry and shmita 2015 was not a vintage to remember
Sorry for the pause in posts – but I was traveling to Israel and now that I am back I hope to keep the posting back to a regular weekly rate. I travelled to Israel for this year’s sommelier – a wine event held in Israel that is normally attended by many of the upcoming and established wineries in Israel and abroad. I also went all around the country to more than 10 wineries and it helped me to get a very good feel for where the kosher Israel wine industry is now and where it is moving to in the next few years – wine wise anyway.
Sommelier
The event was originally marketed towards smaller and mid-sized wineries and distributors for restaurants, wine shops, and hotels to come and see the wineries that are scattered all over Israel in one place! Over time the event has ebbed and flowed and is now more of an event for smaller wineries to really spend their marketing dollars to garner the biggest bang for their buck. My personal fear is that in the coming years, this will fade, and start to get segregated much like it is in the USA. There are already many city oriented wine events, like the Judean Hills wine event and the Binyamina and Tel Aviv events. Add to that the famous Jerusalem wine event for kosher wines before Passover and I fear that things the Sommelier event will start to move away from a fairly well set of distributed and independent wineries to either a set of wineries run under a few select distributors (like HaKerem, Shaked, The Scottish Company, HaGafen) or worse – to a place where only a couple reign supreme. This will all play out – I fear – to the tune of follow the money. Still, the hope is that the need for small players and some medium ones as well to keep a good and well-lit profile – may mean that the event will stay safely away from the vertical plays going on in the USA.
With all that said, I was very impressed by the event overall this year. It was not over the top and almost drunken like last year, when Tabor was doing Mixology with their beautiful wines! Sadly, the wines were not as impressive as the event was overall. This year the event managers were smart enough to NOT lay down a temporary flooring – THANK GOD! For the past few years that temporary flooring reeked of glue and plastic and made smelling wine an almost impossibility around the winery stalls. It forced me to go to open areas smell the wine and come back and forth and so on until I was done tasting that winery’s wines. This year the lack os such “extra” flooring was a true god send!
Further – the wine event this year saw more kosher wineries than ever and the addition of kosher international wineries to boot! Elvi Wines was showing wines imported by Shaal Rubin, under a large heading of The House of International Kosher Wines. Another great example was Eli Gauthier’s Chianti – which was brought in by Mersch Premium Wines. Also, Bokobsa had a stall showing off some solid QPR wines, with only the Champagne, a Merlot based rose, and the Gigondas scoring high. Overall, ignoring the imports for a second, which is a lot of wine, the majority of the wineries at the event were kosher. Actually, the majority of the wineries, again ignoring imports for a second, were micro small to boutique sized wineries, most of them staffed by the winemaker or owner, kosher, and very passionate and personable folks. Of course there were a few mammoth kosher wineries at the show, including Binyamina. Read the rest of this entry
2013 Kishor Viognier, Savant
Well last week I posted about the kosher white and rose wines for 2015. Sadly, I had yet to retaste the 2013 Kishor Viognier, let me tell you get some! The wine is lovely, and it is currently available in the USA because of the nice folks at Israel Wine Direct.
Kishor Winery is one of those up and coming wineries that are based in a moshav (settlement) that was built for handicapped individuals, much alike the Tulip Winery. The name of the community is called Kishorit (hence the Kishor Winery moniker). Kishorit was founded in 1997.
Kishorit is situated in the Western Galilee, where Kishorit planted their vines in 2007. Their first vintage was in 2010 and the wienry produces some 35,000 bottles a year. When I was at the Sommelier this year, I had a chance to taste two fabulous reds and some nice whites, including a lovely old Riesling. But the 14 did not get my attention nearly as much as the 2013 vintage. So, I went looking for their wines and when I heard it was available here, I was set.
The winemaker; Richard David, is the hearty man, with a broad smile and a fantastic South African accent. He came to the settlement, worked the vines and eventually became the winemaker. The last two times I had the chance to meet with Richard it was always fun and a wonderful learning experience for me. When Richard is in need, he has the ever present and competent Itay Lahat, on speed dial.
Well, I hope you enjoy this wine as I did, and I hope more of Richard’s wines are brought here to the US, Bravo!
The wine note follows below, and I have updated the kosher wine post with the new wine!
2013 Kishor Viognier, Savant – Score: A-
The nose on this lovely light gold colored Viognier, smells more like a Gewurtz because of the soap than a Viognier, but with time the honeyed notes of peach, honeysuckle, and honey come out, along with sweet apricot and lovely floral notes. The mouth on this wine is actually quite lovely, and improves greatly with time, showing candied nectarine, lemon, grapefruit, and lovely tart acid, wrapped in a textured and velvety mouthfeel, that brings both sweet and tart notes along with good complexity, lovely acid, melon notes, and crazy pith. The finish is long and tart/acidic, with honey covered fig, quinine, and sweet spices. Bravo!
Sommelier 2015 results – White wines ruled along with a few reds
Sadly, Sommelier 2015 has come and gone and I can fairly state that I found nothing to be heartened about, in terms of the Israeli kosher wine scene. To be fair, the issue is still the same, wineries are deepening their love for all things over ripe and the excuse of poor vintages is really just that – an excuse. Having tasted almost every viable kosher wine at the event, I can safely say that only a few wineries care to make wines that are not over ripe, and the rest are the usual suspects. Before, anyone says there were many great wines, I can say I totally agree! The clear winners, winery wise were:
1. Tzora Winery (the 2012 vintage is insane)
2. Gvaot Winery (the 2012 Masada may well be their best ever)
3. Recanati Winery (clearly the biggest winery with a desire to build very good wines from the bottom up)
4. Tabor Winery (they continue to excel at the Adama series, though the Adama II wines have lost a step since 2010). Still, the whites, rose, and reds of Adama were impressive.
5. Carmel Winery (the whites continue to excel and even the reds are solid, sadly the US labels are date juice)
6. Yatir (nothing new here they are one of the best of the bunch)
7. Yarden – SOLELY for the whites and bubbles. The reds were all date juice, the classic example of a winery that has purposely and consciously taken the road of over ripe fruit.
8. Netofa Winery (the 2013 and 2014 wines will blow your socks off) – not listed here because I will post separately
9. Mia Luce (Another winery made by a Recanati Associate Winemaker, this one being kosher) – maybe the best wines of the entire event
10. Tura Winery (continues to push the boundaries and improving mightily. Love the Merlot, blends, and the new Gewurztraminer. Will post their wines on a separate post).
A few to keep track of – if they keep things up:
1. Kishor Winery (some of their reds were truly impressive, their new whites were a step behind 2013)
2. Jezreel Winery (Their white blend and the Carignan were nice, they need to tighten up the rest)
3. Gush Eztion (Their whites were solid though they too need to tighten up on the reds)
Sadly, of the 200+ kosher wines at the event, fewer than 40 reds were anything to write about. It was the whites, even at wineries that I found physically painful to taste at, were quite acceptable. In the end it was the white wines that saved the event for me. White wines are the clear new trend in Israeli wineries and a trend that continues to impress. Sadly, the 2014 whites are step behind the 2013 vintages, as many did not add acid to the wines, but they are very solid none the less. Read the rest of this entry
