Trip to Israel - Part 2

Barak Yitzhaki with Israel Wine Tour picked us up bright and early at our hotel on November 26 to take us tasting wines at a few of his favorite wineries in the Judean Hills.  By this point in the trip, I was staying in Tel Aviv (at The Vera—a lovely hotel that features its own serve-yourself wine station as one of its amenities—ssshhhh!).  So, the Judean Hills wine regions was only about an hour’s drive outside the city.  And, I highly recommend this move of visiting wineries with a local expert.  I’m a firm believer in being guided by someone who actually knows what they’re doing.  I was pretty confident in my abilities to seek out wineries for tastings after already having found three, and having pleasant experiences at them.  But, after we got stared visiting places with Barak, it became clear that he was operating on a whole different level.  He has an intimate knowledge of the wine industry in Israel, and has personal relationships with a lot of the different winemakers in the country.  So, we got a wonderful history of the region, and unbelievable access to some of the most exciting cellars and winemakers—each one distinctly different from the others.

 Our first stop of the day was Tzora Vineyards, one of the premier kosher wineries in the country, and a member of the Judean Hills Quartet, a group of artisanal wineries that have helped revive the practice of creating high-quality, premium wines in Israel.  I tasted through the range of Tzora’s main offerings.  The white wines I tried included the 2018 Judean Hills Blanc, and the 2018 Shoresh Judean Hills Sauvignon Blanc.  Moving on to reds, I tried the 2018 Judean Hills Syrah Blend, then the 2017 Shoresh Cabernet-Syrah Blend, and Tzora’s flagship wine, the 2017 Misty Hills Red Blend.  As a treat at the end, I got to taste a bit of Tzora’s version of “ice wine,” their Shoresh Gewürztraminer 2018—very fun.  You can check out all my tasting notes for the trip over at Delectable.  As I was tasting, I got to know a little bit more about the terroir of the Judean Hills. Some of Tzora’s finest vineyards are planted on what they call their “fossil plots.”  And you can see from this photo just how richly concentrated the soil is with ancient sea fossils.  And, in addition to the tasting, Barak arranged for me to meet with and talk to Eran Pick, winemaker for Tzora, and Israel’s first Master of Wine.  And, talking with Eran was an invaluable opportunity, since I aspire to head down that road myself.  He had a lot of great insights and advice to offer.  And, I plan on fully taking advantage of his offer of further counsel in the course of my studies. :)

 In between winery visits, Barak drove us by some of Recanati’s vineyards so that we could take a look at their dry-farmed, bush-vine Carignan.  The modern Israeli wine industry is still so young that winemakers have the opportunity to really experiment with different philosophies in viticulture and vinification.  So, it’s really fun to see the various houses trying different things.  Since Israel generally has a very Mediterranean climate, it only makes sense that different vineyards would try out different pruning and training systems that have been successful in other regions with similar weather conditions.  And, these vines look like they’re thriving.  And, speaking of experimentation, the next two wineries I visited really embody the spirit of innovation and investigation.

 The next winery on the docket was a smaller operation—Sea Horse Winery—and this stop was an absolute delight.  Winemaker Ze’ev Dunie is the epitome of the eccentric winemaker, and he lets his whims determine what wines he’d like to make.  As a former filmmaker, his cellars are lined with cinematic posters, and he names his creations after his artistic inspirations.  We took some time to speak with Dunie, and hear about his winemaking techniques and philosophies, but we did most of our tasting with Eyal Drory.  And, this tasting was really something special.  I had never had the opportunity to do a barrel tasting before, and Drory was pulling samples out of all kinds of different casks for me to try.  We also tasted some finished examples of the wines as a comparison, so I got understand how different wines evolve through their élevage with hands-on experience. 

 I started with Sea Horse’s signature Wild Yeast Fermentation Chenin Blanc 2018 from the bottle.  And, we got to compare it with a barrel sample of the soon-to-be-released 2019 James Chenin Blanc, as well as a barrel sample of the 2019 Wild.  The James and the Wild essentially started off with the potential to become the same wine, except that one was fermented with cultured yeast, and the other with naturally occurring wild yeast.  It was really fun spotting the differences between the two.  And, it was interesting seeing the progress of the Wild from tasting the two vintages.  Next, we moved on to taste a wide selection of red wines from the barrel.  We started with a 2019 Counoise with savory red fruits, which would eventually make its way into a blend.  Then, a 2019 Cinsault that tasted of raspberries and strawberry jam, and which was destined for a similar fate. 

 Next, we tasted a couple wines from the barrel that had already been blended into their final composition.  We tasted a maturing 2018 Take 2, which is a Zinfandel, Mourvedre, Petite Sirah blend with intense black fruits and vanilla.  And then, another barrel sample of 2017 Hemingway, a Petite Sirah and Syrah blend, with a full body, high tannins and flavors of black fruits, black tea, and spices.  These two wines have already been established as popular blends that the winery has been selling for a number of years.  So, I was very excited when Eyal pulled out a bottle of what was going to be the very first vintage of a new wine, the 2017 Oz, a wine with slightly lighter body and spicy red and black fruits.  We finished off with a sample of Sea Horse’s 2015 Antoine that had been opening up in a decanter for five hours.  This wine is a blend of five grapes, (the proportions of which are different each year), and it was a very powerful, full-bodied wine, with intense ripe black fruits and notes of potpourri.

 I loved my visit to Sea Horse’s cellar, and we definitely stayed a little longer than we planned.  The best part of the appointment was that I could feel the winemakers’ excitement for the process and for their creations.  And, that energy was quite contagious.  It was a wild visit, and I left with pretty much a bottle of everything they make.

 The final stop of the day was at Soreq, a winery and regional winemaking school.  The winery bottles wines of their own, but they also produce private label wines for restaurants, as well as a countless variety of student wines from their comprehensive winemaking school.  We were shown around the winery by teacher and winemaker Dror Engelstein.  He showed us around the place, pulled some barrel samples for us, and told me all about the school.  The program sounds so cool.  Students are responsible for their wines from start to finish.  They decide what their blend will be, go harvest the grapes in the vineyard themselves, and craft their wines by hand.  Students learn all the principles of winemaking in classes, and decide how to apply the lessons to the wine they are making, including decisions about grape, blend, fining, filtration, correction, stabilization, and aging.  The whole program seems made for experimentation.  Student winemakers have a blank slate, and could theoretically go wild with their winemaking decisions. 

 When the wines are complete, students bottle their wines at the school, and have a bunch to take home, after sharing their creation with the rest of the class.  When I heard that last bit, I started to feel irrationally anxious for any hypothetical students whose wine didn’t turn out quite the way they’d hoped.  For some reason, even in my fantasy of joining the school, I fear that I’d be the only student to produce terrible wine. :o/  Because, once I learned about  Soreq’s wine school, I began immediately plotting a way to enroll myself.  Of course, that may be a bit difficult, since I’m pretty sure all classes are taught in Hebrew.  But, there’s gotta be a way.

 Dror was offering us barrel/tank samples throughout our tour of the premises.  We tried a 2019 Sauvignon Blanc that was in the process of cold stabilization.  It had classic notes of grapefruit, grass, and florals.  And, we tried a 2019 Blanc de Noirs that was a co-fermented field blend of Grenache, Syrah, and Mourvedre.  I’d never had anything like that before.  Then there was a 2018 Syrah harvested from four different regions.  At this point, Dror had to step out to attend to a minor winemaking emergency, so Barak took the opportunity to step behind the bar to open a few bottles of Soreq’s own label of wine for us to try.  We broke into a 2015 Cab/Merlot/Petit Verdot blend, and a 2016 Grenache/Syrah/Cinsault before Dror came back and caught us in the act.  Oops.  The Cab blend was savory with ripe and dried black fruits, and a bit of black olive.  Whereas, the GSC had bright notes of cherry candy, and rustic spiced berries.  At this point, Dror took us back out to the tanks to share some really special works-in-progress with us.  We tried his own 2019 Syrah based wine, which though young, already displayed qualities of perfumed black fruit, and rich, earthy notes.  He told us that he decided to use 50% whole clusters, macerate the juice on the skins for 23 days, and age it in used white wine barrels.  It was a very exciting wine, and one I’d be very interested in tasting upon maturity.  Next, we tried a 2018 Marselan from the barrel, which displayed strawberry and dark fruit notes, as well as a subtle yeasty toastiness.  And then, we tried a 2019 Oseleta from the barrel, that was destined to be blended with Syrah.  Its sky-high acid and bright fruit flavors would definitely complement Syrah’s richer tones.  But, I was particularly struck by the wine’s gorgeous, rich magenta hue.  It looked like a jewel.  We rounded out our visit by tasting Soreq’s Port-style wine from the barrel.  The wine had good acidity, and complex red fruit flavors, with vanilla and an interesting savory note that reminded me of allspice.

 All too soon, the day was over, and we were headed back to Tel Aviv.  It really was a special day, and it was definitely the highlight of my trip to Israel.  It had me immediately trying to figure out when I could come back again.  I loved that day that Barak with Israel Wine Tour planned for us.  Each winery we visited was distinctly different from the others, and each had its own charm and lessons to teach.  It was interesting visiting Tzora, an established, commercially viable winery that distributes market-pleasing wines to many different outlets.  And, comparing it with Sea Horse, a smaller operation that makes wines to please the palate of its eccentric head winemaker, was an absolute riot.  And then, getting to see all the fascinating, experimental winemaking that’s happening at both Soreq’s winery and winemaking school, was inspirational and motivating, and had me immediately asking myself whether I should become a winemaker.  Of course, it didn’t hurt that all the winemakers I met were each very attractive and charming in their own right. ;)  All I’m saying is that I can’t wait to go back.