Kim
Marcus, a reporter for Wine Spectator travelled secretly to Israel a
couple of months ago and visited several wineries and sampled some of
the country's finest wines. He had earlier visited Israel in 1998 and
also graded the local wines at the time. He had given disappointing ratings
with no wine managing to score higher than 85 out of a 100.
However, this time a total of 14 Israeli wines were graded 90 and above
by Marcus with 3 wines even scoring an impressive 92.
Israel has made a giant leap when it comes to wine production and today
the country has proudly taken its place alongside veteran wine empires
from around the world, writes Marcus in the article. He also gave high
grades to some Golan Heights wineries.
Israel has an old history of making wines but it was in 1882 when Baron
Edmond de Rothschild of Bordeaux set up the first winery, Carmel, founding
a tradition for modern winemaking. However, the country continued to
make ordinary wine, primarily kosher wine for locals as well
as Jewish people overseas.
It was a century later, in the 1980s, when the shift to making premium
wines with international grapes took place with expertise from California,
and the results are now showing. Cabernet, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Grenache,
Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay and Muscat are the popular grape varieties.
Golan Heights winery (established in 1983) produces Yarden and Gamla
labels which are of very good quality. Even Carmel, the biggest producer
of Israeli wines, producing half of the total production is producing
a quality Mizrachi label.
Barkan Wine Cellars, set up in 1990, is also one of the largest wine
estates. Dalton, Domain du Castel, Recanati, Amphorae and Segal are a
few of the boutique wineries specialising in different wines from different
regions.
At a wine tasting event held in 2006 by the embassy of Israel, when
Subhash Arora, President of Indian Wine Academy had conducted the guided
wine tasting, he had commended some of the wines procured from these
wineries. He had predicted a bright future of Israeli wines and had urged
the Ambassador to forge ahead with wine promotion in India for a long
term presence. No more wine promotion events were heard of ever since,
however.
Perhaps, the time is ripe now to make their presence felt in India and
take a slice of the expanding wine market.
Subhash Arora |