Well, in case you have not realized it yet, I am posting for each of the wineries I visited in the two days I was actually in Israel, outside of my one day at Sommelier. Of course, I visited the wineries that I love, and so far I have visited Netofa Winery and Kishor Winery, up till this point.

After I left Kishor Winery, I made my way northeast, to Ein Zivan, another 2+ hours away from Kishor. By this point I have driven 5 hours from Tel Aviv, to my host, then to Kishor, and now to Ein Zivan. It is the farthest north I would travel. From here it is all south. The image above, was a picture I took from the side of the road up north, showing a fully snow-covered Mount Hermon! Beautiful!

The destination was Matar by pelter Winery, a winery I have written about in-depth before. In my opinion, it is a winery that I think is building the best compromise, for artistic, yet non-religious, winemakers who want kosher as an option, but also like to interact with their wines. As you know the only real issue with kosher wine, is the religious jew requirement to make wine kosher. There are a few other ones, but that is the biggest, and most difficult one on the list.

So, if you are a non-religious winemaker and you want to make kosher wine, you have two options. You either stop touching the wines or you make non-kosher wines. Pelter decided to combine those options, and by doing so, it gives Tal Pelter, the head winemaker of Pelter and Matar Winery, the ability to still interact on a very personal level with his Pelter wines, while also being able to expand his portfolio with Matar wines to the kosher market, at the same time.

Anyway, getting back on track, the 2015 vintage was not bad for Matar. While most wineries could not put out a good white wine from 2015, Matar continued its impressive run, with good Shmita wines. The Rose was of course, much like the rest of Israel, average and not inspiring, the only “miss” for Matar in 2015, so far. The red Cumulus was nice as well. So far, IMHO, 2015 has been bad at most wineries in Israel, in regards to the white wines. For reds, there is more hope, with the best wineries creating very acceptable to very good product. Read the rest of this entry →