WSJ Talks Israeli Wine…And it’s not even Pesach!
Today’s Wall Street Journal has an interesting article discussing Israeli wine (kudos to the IsRealli blog for the link), but focusing on Domaine du Castel’s owner/founder, Eli-Gilbert Ben Zaken. The article gives a good quick history of the changes in the Israeli wine market due to the changes in the Israeli economy and travel habits of Israelis.
For those who have not yet tasted their wines, Domaine du Castel is doing great work that has been recognized globally. Robert Parker recently did a survey of Israeli wines (both kosher and non-) and the wines did very well, with many scores in the 80s and 90s. (articles: Israel21c; HaKerem 1, 2). Of course, the value of objective numeric scores for wine is highly debatable and Robert Parker has been at the head of that controversy since he started publishing Wine Advocate. The point, though, is that Israeli wines are increasingly on the world wine map and that can only be a good thing for quality.
I will hopefully have the time soon to write up my notes from the recent Galil Mountain Winery tasting that I attended as part of the Kosher Wine Society. They remain some of my favorite Israeli wines.
I look forward to the upcoming Pesach wine articles and events and will post what I can.
To me, Domaine du Castel is a perfect example of how the kosher wine bis (and from what I hear, the entire wine biz) is headed in the wrong direction in chasing Parker’s points – it’s an expensive, high alcohol, fruit juice that can’t hold a candle to the subtleties and nuance of a half-decent Bordeaux – I’ll take a Margeaux any day over that swill.
Ok, let me be the forst to say it: the Beerhound is an idiot.
I wrote my comment, turned off the computeer for shabbos, opened my wine cellar, pulled out a bottle, and . . .
&%$#!!!
I was thinking of The Cave, not The Castle.
Cave, Castle, it’s all ca ca right?
man, I’m an idiot.
sorry
Gordon & Alperin, the glatt kosher butcher and market in Newton, will be hosting two wine tastings on March 9 and April 6 from 1 – 4 PM. Hope to see you there.
Susan and Ricardo
Yes, Beerhound, the Cave (from Benyamina, yuck) is very different than Domaine du Castel – a great example of a wine that “just happens to be kosher” – what we need more of both in Israel and America. Too many Americans (and American Jews) think kosher wine is bad and a separate category — pure ignorance but widespread and bad for kosher wine and increasing Jewish observance.
Castel is indeed amazing juice!
My team is importing 800 cases of Israeli wine within the next week or so from 9 wineries, 2 of which are kosher. Tzora and Yaffo! There has been a quality revolution in the kosher wine scene in Israel – thank goodness – and these wines can compete very well internationally now in many cases.
More on Domaine du Castel, from HaKerem: http://israelwine.wordpress.com/2008/03/19/domaine-du-castel/
Re comment #5: It is a real chutzpah of you to come to a kosher blog and try to promote your non-kosher Israeli wine. There are dozens of Israeli wineries whose wine is for sale in the United States. Non-kosher Israeli wineries, which are tiny and produce very little wine and sell even less, sell almost none in the United States. You will soon find that there is no market for non-kosher Israeli wine here. When you find that you can not sell the wine, you should go back to the wineries and deliver them the news: If you want to sell some wine, then you should become kosher.
BS”D
Steve:
He did say that 2 of his offerings, Tzora and Yaffo, are kosher. So he was really promoting his kosher wines to readers of Kosherblog.net, not his admittedly more numerous nonkosher wines. So I don’t see a problem. As to your opinion that nonkosher Israeli wines cannot sell here, you’re probably correct. Castel, after all, tried to sell nonkosher, and there must be a reaso they are now kosher, probably the reason you state. But that does not mean the future couldn’t look bright to an optimist, and there’s nothing wrong with him being one. The size of the market could indeed be greater as a tiny part of a big pie, rather than a small part of a small pie, at least in the future.
The proprietor of Castel has said that he believed it to be important to become kosher as the most avid fans of Israeli wine are those who keep kosher.
The idea that there are kosher Israeli wines and non-kosher Israeli wines in somehow equal number is simply false. Add up the amount of wine from the kosher and the non-kosher (use Rogov’s numbers for each winery), and one sees that there is approximately FORTY times the amount of israeli wine made that is kosher. Basically, there are ZERO large-sized wineries (above 1,000,000 bottles per year) in Israel which are not kosher. There are ZERO medium-sized (above 100,000 bottles per year). Apart from Latroun (which is made by a monastery and is unlikely to become kosher barring a transfer of ownership such as happened at Mony), there are only nine Israeli non-kosher wineries which even make the minimal amount of 25,000 bottles per year. Per the OK certification’s web site, Tsuba Winery and Karmei Yosef will now be making kosher wine, so that is now two less than nine: Seven. All the rest of the non-kosher wineries are even tinier, and there are dozens of them. Basically, if one is serious about making Israeli wine (Read: If the intention is to actually sell it), then any smart businessperson would become kosher. Anybody foolish enough to thumb his nose at the society from which he comes by making non-kosher wines will find that that same public will ignore said wines.
As for the size of the pie, it would be great if Israeli wines would also be purchased by people unconcerned with kashrut. But to cater to that group (which is small indeed) strikes me as rather foolish. Rather, one can make the pie larger with making Israeli wines more attractive to those who keep kosher AS WELL as attracting those to whom kashrut is not a concern. Anybody who thinks that Israeli wine can be sold in large quantities without attracting both segments is simply wrong and uninformed. As it happens, the biggest proponents of the fantastic idea that non-kosher Israeli wine is going to somehow make a fantastic ‘breakout’ a la New Zealand wine are several immigrants of long ago to Israeli from the U.S. and Canada (see under: Rogov and Saslove). They clearly have not seen the revolution in observant Jewish life which has taken place in the last several decades, nor have they read the latest demographic numbers which show the Orthodox community in the United States become a larger and larger percentage of the whole Jewish community. They have not been present as tens of thousand of foods in American supermarkets have become kosher, and kosher certification has become desirable in the American marketplace.
I’m not sure what in this discussion provoked the tirade above — did a nonkosher Israeli wine delivery truck run over your dog? Why isn’t this simply an issue for the wine consumer to sort out? Either Israeli wine will find a large enough market outside the kosher world or it won’t and that’ll be that. Why should this be a source of anger? I really am perplexed. Personally, I think anything that might bring a more positive view of Israel to the non-Jewish world is a good thing. If they can produce and sell good wine that people are interested in drinking, then why should that involve you? If you don’t want to drink it then the solution is pretty simple: don’t buy it.
BS”D
Marc:
No need for argumentum ad hominem my friend. If you are so averse to anger that you perceive in Steve’s “tirade,” why don’t you simply accept it for what it is (an astute analysis of the Israeli wine market) instead of dispensing your own veiled contempt and portraying your misunderstanding of his point with such indignation and self-righteousness.