THE WINES OF ISRAEL

A NEW GENERATION IS RESHAPING THE COUNTRY’S VINEYARDS AND WINEMAKING, AND QUALITY IS ON THE RISE.

Brothers Golan and Gilad Flam are bumping along a dirt track in their pickup truck as it climbs a grade in the Judean Hills of central Israel. The limestone that dominates one of the country’s most promising and beautiful winegrowing regions rises in a dun-colored striated formation around them. Above it, the hills, rich with pines, oaks and scrub, lead almost to the gates of Jerusalem.

In this draw at about 2,000 feet above sea level, the hustle and bustle of modern Israel seems distant. The country’s largest and most vibrant city, Tel Aviv, lies 30 miles to the northwest, but these hills are indisputably at the country’s winemaking frontier. If the truck were to keep going, it would very soon enter the Palestinian territories of the West Bank. It’s a quiet and serene landscape that belies the region’s violent and storied past.

“This vineyard is a great combination of the terra rossa soil and limestone bedrock,” Golan says of the site, which is west of the village of Mata. He’s the winemaker at his family’s namesake winery nearby; he studied winemaking at Piacenza University near Milan and did an internship at Tuscany’s Carpineto winery. Terra rossa (Italian for “red soil”) is an ochre-colored clay-based mix that is rich with iron oxide and provides the drainage necessary for healthy vineyards; limestone is the geological constituent of some of the world’s greatest terroirs, Burgundy among them.

One of Flam’s top reds is called Classico, and its fruit comes from the Judean Hills, including the vineyard near Mata. A Cabernet Sauvignon–based blend that includes Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot and Merlot, the 2013 ($35) rated 90 points on Wine Spectator’s 100-point scale. Minerally, savory and rich, with plenty of dark fruit flavors, it deftly transmits the soil and climate of the region, as well as the human capital that went into its creation — all the hallmarks of a terroir-driven wine.

Following a boom beginning in the early 2000s, driven by Israelis’ search for quality from their native land and by a dawning appreciation for its wines in both Europe and America, the wine industry in the Jewish state is transforming at a rapid rate. Where overoaked reds and candied whites once dominated, fresher wines are now appearing amid a young and expanding wine culture that is striving to secure its identity. But with only 13,500 acres of vineyards — a little less than one-quarter that of California’s Sonoma County—its place on the world stage will remain small for the foreseeable future.

The Judean Hills is one of the epicenters of emerging quality. It lies in the middle of the country, which is about the size of New Jersey. To the north, two regions share the spotlight: the Golan Heights, a volcanic plateau that rises east from the Jordan River to the Syrian border; and the rugged Galilee, west of the Jordan, where the best sites are in highlands that abut Lebanon. Israeli vintners are also tapping sources in the Negev desert in the south, which many consider a contender for quality in the future.

Today, Israel produces about 10 million cases annually, and though historically relegated to the kosher aisle, the country’s wines can increasingly stand on their own. “I took a tour of Israel’s vineyards in March, and I was really impressed by the quality,” says Sandy Block, vice president of beverage for the Boston-based Legal Sea Foods restaurant chain. As a result, he recently placed three Israeli wines on the lists of 15 of the 34 restaurants he oversees. “We tried about 10 years ago with an Israeli wine, but it really fell flat,” Block explains. “But the wines have gotten better. People today are interested in trying new things, especially the millennials.”

Customers seeking kosher options remain the principal buyers of Israeli wines, but retailers say there’s growing interest among nonkosher buyers. “We see a mix of customers—people who are interested in kosher wines, those familiar with Israel from a tourism standpoint, and those who have read press on the region,” says Melissa Devore, vice president of wine buying for Maryland-based Total Wine & More.

I sampled more than 100 wines during a visit to Israel this spring and followed up with blind tastings in our New York office. Overall, among the 120 wines I reviewed in official blind tastings, more than 30 scored an outstanding 90 points or higher on Wine Spectator’s 100-point scale, the best performance yet from this small nation.

Today, and likely for the near term, the preferences of Israelis and the most accessible terroirs will remain firmly rooted in red grapes. But there is a growing consensus among Israel’s best winemakers that a new generation of white wines will be an important part of the mix. And based on my tastings—especially of well-structured Rhône-style white blends, minerally Chardonnays and fruity Sauvignon Blancs—the evidence is strong.

“The whites stick out more than the reds. We shouldn’t make reds,” declares winemaker Paul Dubb of Tzuba winery, located within sight of Jerusalem on high-altitude, limestone-rich terrain. His statement is part challenge, part attention-getter. “We do make elegant reds,” acknowledges Dubb, who is originally from South Africa, where he grew up in a winemaking family. “But if we are going to make great wines, they will be white.”

As Israeli vintners have honed their skills in the vineyards and cellars over the past two decades, quality has risen appreciably; wineries are also much better equipped. It’s a significant accomplishmentfor a nation of only 8.5 million people for whom survival, rather than the conviviality of wine, was paramount until recently.

Still, per-capita consumption remains low, about half that of the United States, with many Israelis forgoing wine for religious reasons. As a result, vintners must search for markets abroad. Shipments out of the country were up 10 percent in value in 2014 from 2013 and amounted to $40 million, or about 20 percent of Israel’s total production, according to the Israel Export and International Cooperation Institute; about half of that went to the U.S. It’s difficult, but not impossible, to make a living from wine in the Holy Land. Today, about 250 wineries call Israel home, the vast majority of them mom-and-pop operations encouraged by a nascent interest in wine among the locals and visitors to the country.

“Israelis are going more and more to wineries, and so are the tourists, not only to Jerusalem for the history but for a taste of Israel,” says Israel Flam, the founding patriarch of his family winery, which opened in 1998.

Flam gets its fruit from local vineyards (such as the one at Mata) and also from sources in the northern part of the country, including the Galilee. Other producers draw from the Golan Heights. But almost none own vines; the state of Israel holds title to most rural land. Even today, many agricultural operations are overseen by the collectives known as kibbutzes, which date to the earliest days of the Jewish settlement of Palestine in the 19th century.

“In Israel, you cannot own land. You lease it long-term. It’s a big problem,” says Eran Pick of Tzora winery, also in the Judean Hills. With ownership comes responsibility and ultimate oversight. A former military helicopter pilot, Pick makes some of the best wines Israel has to offer, and he is currently the only Israeli to hold the coveted Master of Wine degree. His Judean Hills 2014 white (92, $30), a luscious mix of Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc, is a revelation. Tzora’s wines have found a place at top Manhattan restaurants such as the Modern, a Wine Spectator Grand Award winner.

Tzora’s impressive whites are a seeming paradox in a land dominated by the deserts that surround it, from the Negev in the south to the Judean to the east. The prevailing wisdom is that hot climates and white wines don’t mix. But in higher elevations, the air cools, and pockets of exemplary quality can thrive if carefully nurtured. The higher altitudes favored by top producers such as Tzora help slow maturation, as do cooling breezes from the Mediterranean, off-setting the strong summer sun at this latitude. In most vineyards, harvest begins in July and is finished by August.

Pick epitomizes the new generation of Israeli winemakers. He is a graduate of the University of California, Davis, and has done stages at Château Lafite Rothschild in Bordeaux, Torbreck in Australia and J in California — experiences he shares with many of his peers. “The young winemakers are very knowledgeable and have traveled the world. There’s a lot of sharing,” Pick says. He’s also open to outside advice. Consulting for Tzora is Jean-Claude Berrouet, formerly of Château Pétrus. He’s lent a French finesse to Tzora’s wines.

Pick’s wines are kosher, as are most made by Israeli wineries, a trend that has strengthened over the past few years. However, also like most Israeli winemakers, Pick is not certified to make kosher wines without the assistance of an Orthodox observant Jew. This means he cannot touch any of the fermenting wine, barrels or winemaking equipment.

Although being kosher provides ready access to an ethnic market in the U.S., home to almost as many Jews as Israel, it doesn’t do much to sway most other wine drinkers and has little apparent bearing on wine quality, except for the burdens it imposes on winemakers such as Pick in finding good help. In Israel, the kosher designation is almost mandatory, given rising demand among the religious and nonreligious alike. More important for Pick, however, is the burgeoning reputation of Israeli wines in general. “Up until five or six years ago, [Israeli wines] were on the kosher shelf. Now they are on the Israeli shelf,” Pick says.

Just a few hundred yards downhill from Tzora, on a chalky slope in the Sorek Valley, sits one of Israel’s most unique vineyards. It covers about 7.5 acres and is home to bush-trained Carignan vines, a rarity in Israel, where modern wire-and-trellis setups are standard. Planted in 1991 by an Arab Christian grower, it today supplies grapes for one of Israel’s best reds, from Recanati winery. The 2014 Carignan Wild Reserve rated 91 points ($50).

Recanati winemaker Ido Lewinsohn stumbled across the vineyard by chance. “I was driving here, and I was working in the Languedoc [in southern France] at the time with bush vines. I said, ‘There are no bush vines in Israel,’ but here they were,” Lewinsohn recalls.

Today, the Recanati team, under the ownership of successful financier Lenny Recanati, is carefully nurturing and replanting the vineyard vine by vine. There’s no supplemental irrigation for the vines; a paltry 16 inches of rain falls annually at the site.

“We are going to make much taller gobelet,” says Recanati CEO Noam Jacoby, using the French term for bush vines. “We are one of the few wineries with dry-farmed surface in Israel. We think this is a good way to stress the vines and make the roots go deeper. The vines are hardier as a result.” Production is naturally controlled as well. “The growth rate of Israeli vines is very, very high,” given the warm and generally beneficent climate, he explains.

Recanati made news last year with a white wine made from the Marawi grape, native to the West Bank, where it is grown by Palestinian villagers for eating, not winemaking. Its lineage dates to the Roman era; when the new wine was released, it was billed as offering a taste of what may have been drunk in biblical times. Israel was a major source of wine production for the Byzantine Empire, and wine has deep roots in Jewish culture.

“We are the first to make Marawi as a mono-variety. It’s a small Jurassic Park type of research project to try and find lost varieties,” Lewinsohn says. “The Arabs who were here from the 12th to 18th centuries banned alcohol and winemaking, so the hundreds of native varieties were reduced almost to none.”

Enologist Eliyashiv Drori of Ariel University, also located on the West Bank, discovered Marawi’s ancient origins. He and others have tentatively identified dozens of ancient varieties in the region, sometimes from seeds discovered at archaeological sites.

“We are 100 percent certain [Marawi] is a local variety and it is an ancient variety. The grower is a Palestinian Muslim whom we don’t have much contact with,” says Lewinsohn, who worked for a time at the Italian icon Sassicaia. The grapes are grown near Bethlehem, in the Occupied Territories of the West Bank. Lewinsohn says the grower was found through Drori.

The wine’s label is printed in Hebrew, Arabic and English in a bid for cultural harmony and accommodation. The 2014 vintage (90, $35) is labeled Judean Hills. “It was important to put the three languages on the label. It doesn’t belong to anybody. It’s from the land of Israel,” says Recanati’s head winemaker, Gil Schatsberg, a graduate of the viticultural and enology program at U.C., Davis.

Still, wines made by Israelis from West Bank grapes will probably remain part of a broader political battle, as pressure grows externally and domestically to boycott products made by Israelis from sources within the Occupied Territories.

“It’s stupid to boycott when it’s hurting the growers more than us [through lack of sales],” Schatsberg says. “We are looking for identity. We are a new Israeli wine. We want to offer something new to the world.”

The West Bank provides fertile ground for discovery. With its high altitudes, limestone-rich soils and wealth of long-overlooked grapes grown by local farmers, many of them Palestinians and Israeli Arabs, the region may prove to be the proverbial Garden of Eden for indigenous varieties. “This is just the beginning,” Lenny Recanati says. “When I travel abroad, I try the local varieties. I’m tired of Cabernet, Merlot and Chardonnay. To get noticed, you have to do something different. We make decent wines, but so do many other wineries.”

Adds Lewinsohn: “The environment now is ready for locality and identity. I think we are living in exciting times in Israel.”

The wine industry was integral to the founding of the modern state of Israel. This springs mostly from the efforts of Edmond de Rothschild, son of James de Rothschild, who purchased Château Lafite in 1868. Edmond was a strong supporter of the movement for the return of Jews to Israel, known as Zionism.

In 1882, he helped establish Carmel winery, which until the 1980s accounted for 60 percent of Israel’s total output and today is the nation’s second-largest producer after Barkan, near Tel Aviv. Carmel makes just under a million bottles a year, and its growers farm 3,500 acres, 25 percent of Israel’s vineyard total.

Rothschild financing helped plant vineyards and build Carmel’s historic winery near the village of Zikhron Ya’akov, south of the city of Haifa, which operates to this day and serves as the firm’s headquarters. Carmel was set up as a cooperative venture to turn the grapes into wine for collective economic benefit. Carmel had the first electrical system and telephone in Palestine. Three men who would later become Israeli prime ministers worked in its vineyards, including the nation’s first, David Ben-Gurion.

But as with most wine cooperatives, quality largely took a backseat to quantity so that the firm could make and sell as much wine for its members as possible. “Carmel kept the wine industry going for 100 years, even if there wasn’t quality,” says Adam Montefiore, two-thirds are red, reflecting the population’s preference for Bordeaux-style blends. There is also a nascent movement for vinifying southern French varieties such as Syrah, which is yielding impressive results. Whites are coming on strong with terroir-driven wines from higher and cooler terrains that are rich in limestone. Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc dominate this category, but there are noteworthy bottlings of Marsanne and Roussanne, as well as some fine blends. (A free alphabetical list of scores and prices for all wines tasted is available at www.winespectator.com/101531. All wines reviewed are kosher unless otherwise noted.)

Many of the most flavorful releases come from the Judean Hills region, near Jerusalem, where cooling breezes from the Mediterranean help moderate the intense Middle Eastern sun. A growing number of small- to medium-sized wineries have become established in this area, spurred by some of the best terroirs this small nation has to offer.

Two other leading regions are the Galilee and the Golan Heights Both are located in northern Israel but have little else in common. East of the Jordan River, which flows into the Sea of Galilee, the Galilee proper is filled with limestone-, clay- and iron-rich terra rossa soils. Some of the top vineyards are located in sight of the Lebanese border. The Golan Heights rises west of the Jordan and comprises a basaltic plateau; winter often brings snow to its highest elevations. Because Israel has no officially sanctioned appellation system, the boundaries for all regions are diffuse. It’s up to the vintner to ensure the origins of the wines.

The Judean Hills produced most of this report’s top wines, led by the Tzora Misty Hills 2013 (93 points, $55), an elegant blend of 55 percent Cabernet Sauvignon and 45 percent Syrah, with dark fruit and berry flavors, rich savory notes and silky tannins on the finish. Made by Eran Pick, Tzora’s talented winemaker, and famed French consultant Jean-Claude Berrouet, Misty Hills sets a new standard of quality for reds from the country.

Grapes for Misty Hill are sourced from a north-facing slope overlooking the main Tel Aviv–Jerusalem highway at about 2,000 feet in altitude and are hand-harvested at night so that they are cool for fermentation. The 2013 bottling macerated for 18 days, with only a few pump-overs to soften tannins, and then was aged in 40 percent new 500-liter French oak barrels for 16 months. For Pick, the grapes in the blend complement each other well.

“Although Cabernet Sauvignon is not a great-performing grape in Israel, it gives good backbone and structure. The Syrah then brings spice and soft tannins,” Pick explains. “Cabernet is spikier and helps bring Syrah’s aromatics upward.”

When it comes to the future of Israeli wine, Pick puts his faith in terroir more than in new grape varieties. “We are a small, boutique winery in the Judean Hills that’s kosher too,” he explains. “We should stop looking for a native variety and just be known for the region and the terroir.”

Tzora also delivered a well-priced red, the Judean Hills 2014 (91,$30). Minerally and pure-tasting, with red berry flavors and white pepper accents, it combines Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Merlot and Petit Verdot. Another standout blend in the same vein is Agur’s Special Reserve 2012 (90, $40), with beefy overtones to the dried berry and cherry flavors.

In a slightly different mode, Clos de Gat’s Cabernet Sauvignon Har’el 2013 (90, $30) is muscular but supple, with firm acidity and good structure. It is made by the iconoclastic Eyal Rotem, who routinely produces some of Israel’s best Chardonnays and Bordeaux-style reds, all of them non-kosher. “There are still people in Israel who drink nonkosher wine. They find us,” Rotem says.

Further afield is the Cabernet Franc Judean Hills Shor 2013 from Shiloh (90, $32), adding notes of dried mint and sage to the richly spiced dark fruit flavors. And the singular Carignan Wild Reserve 2014 from Recanati (91, $50), from non-irrigated bush-trained vines on a chalk-rich slope, shows a fresh, juicy character with red fruit flavors.

Though diverse in their varietal composition, Judean Hills reds typically offer remarkable freshness and vibrancy, qualities too often missing from Israeli reds of years gone by. The turnaround is evidence that Israel’s vintners are growing beyond the protocols of the past, which placed undue emphasis on long oak aging.

Outside of the Judean Hills, however, quality is more hit-or-miss. A fine offering from the Galilee is the Matar Cumulus 2013 (90, $40), a Bordeaux blend that is powerful and fresh, with a finish loaded with spice, smoke and subtle paprika notes. For a riper style, try the Or Haganuz Cabernet Sauvignon Galilee Marom 2012 (90,$27), with meaty notes to the dark plum and dried cherry flavors, accented by forest floor hints. The Syrah-based Tulip Espero Galilee 2013 (90, $27) features plenty of meaty notes to its concentrated black olive, dark plum and dried currant flavors; it’s 55 percent Syrah, 30 percent Merlot and 15 percent Cabernet Franc.

White bottlings represent the most striking improvements in the Israeli wine scene over the past few years. Eran Pick at Tzora leads here as well, with the Judean Hills White 2014 (92, $30), which comprises a well-structured mix of 84 percent Chardonnay and 14 percent Sauvignon Blanc. The wine spent nine months aging on the lees, lending a seductive lushness to the mineral and tropical fruit flavors.

A well-priced example of Chardonnay comes from Israel’s largest winery, Barkan, whose Judean Hills Special Reserve 2012 (91,$25) is big and rich, with creamy lemon meringue, apple cobbler and roasted peach flavors and a long, spicy finish. Barkan, which produces about 1 million cases of wine a year, is located on a kibbutz in the village of Hulda, less than 20 miles southeast of Tel Aviv in the central plain of Israel, which is home to orchards and wheat fields as well as vineyards. It draws on 2,250 acres of grapes from throughout the country. The winery itself is a beautiful limestone structure that features a tasting room and an impressive video presentation on the history of wine in Israel.

“I thought for a few years that I preferred the Judean Hills,” says Barkan’s Irit Boxer-Shank, one of the few female winemakers in Israel. “Every variety gives more elegance in the Judean Hills. In the Galilee, the wines are bigger. Now I can’t say I have a favorite. I like them both.”

Boxer studied at the University of Adelaide in Australia, and for a time made wine Down Under. “When I was in Australia, I thought Oz was the best. But then I went to Vinexpo [the biannual trade fair held in Bordeaux], and I saw a whole new world. I started traveling and seeing more and more of the wine world, and tasting as much as I could.” Experiences such as Boxer’s have helped the Israeli wine industry mature in recent years.

Recanati contributes a high quality white with the Roussanne-Marsanne Galilee Special Reserve 2014 (91, $50), featuring rich and well-crafted flavors of dried apple, pear tart and apricot. The Cremisan Wine Estate Hamdani-Jandali West Bank Star of Bethlehem 2012 (90, $20), an intriguing blend made up of two indigenous West Bank grapes (Hamdani and Jandali), is produced by a monastery near Bethlehem and delivers apple tart, custard and lemon curd flavors. Italian enologist Riccardo Cottarella consults at the winery.

For value, consider the Gamla Chardonnay Galilee 2013 (88,$15), which adds plenty of buttery notes to its white fruit and spice flavors, and the Golan Heights Sauvignon Blanc Galilee Yarden 2014 (88, $18), sporting juicy and supple grapefruit, lemon and white peach flavors.

As Israeli vintners continue to hone their expertise in their vineyards and cellars, look for improved quality and diversity from the country. The future of this resurgent winemaking region is still being written.

By Kim Marcus in "Wine Spectator", October,15, 2016, vol.40, n. 8, New York, excerpts pp. 37-49. Adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.

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