Southern Israel Wineries Archives - Israel Wine Tour

An Evening with Wine Maker Yaakov Uriah

Barak Yitzhaki — Sun, 10 Dec 2017 05:45:21 +0000

Wine Maker Yaakov Uriah is an odd bird. A religious man born in the US and grew up in Bnei Brak to an Ultra-Orthodox community. A winemaker, one of the most unique Israelis in this profession, a gentleman who shows up late at night at the very non-Kosher Brut Wine Bar late with a plastic bottle of his latest creation looking for feedback from friend and owner of Brut, Chef Yair Yossefi and the wine loving staff.

Yaakov Uriah – photo: 93fm.co.il

Uriah is a winemaker with very little formal education, yet an incredible ability at projective tasting, and a keen thirst for knowledge and experimentation. A story that I had found astounding is that early in his career Uriah operating Assif as a ‘’Winery Negonciant’’, was making up possible blends in his head, having tasted mid-range wines at several different wineries. Today Uriah is the head winemaker of Psagot, having worked at Midbar and Ella Valley [to name a few] and is still producing his own line of wines.

This desire to search and test things out, led to some fantastic wines. Wines that have an incredible aging ability [we tasted a 2009 Semillon and 2008 Viognier in the course of the evening] Another thing that took me by surprise is that Uriah is completely open minded with his style of winemaking. At some point in the course of the evening, the very astute Hilik Gurfinkel who hosted, got Uriah to discuss the notion of using Oak chips in wine while in process. For some wineries, this is a total taboo and they would even be insulted if someone asked them whether they ever take part in such methodology. Uriah simply replied that the way he sees it, the same way that it is ok for a wine to be in an Oak barrel, He is not willing to rule out having Oak chips in a wine if the conditions requires such practice.

One more interesting thing about Yaakov Uriah’s wines, in the past he made the decision to pay homage to other wine regions in the world, most of which never having been there. The Hebrew naming for the 2009 Semillon is Hunter’s Valley and in a couple of red wines we had Uriah had said to his clients even before he obtained the fruit, that he would make a homage to Rioja by producing a Rioja Reserva style wine. The later two were my favorite wines of the night.

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Visiting Yatir Winery in Southern Israel

Barak Yitzhaki — Mon, 13 Jul 2015 09:35:02 +0000

Yatir Winery prides itself on the fact that all their grapes are coming from Yatir forest. After visiting the forest, one understands their source of pride even more. At a range of 600- 900 Meters above Sea Level this is the largest forest in Israel. No matter in which direction you head within the forest, you are bound to see incredible vineyards, most of which are comprised of wine grapes.

Ancient olive oil press in Yatir Forrest

These large, impressive vineyards are in the South of Israel, only a short drive from the city of Arad. This means that temperatures in the summer do rise above 30 degrees Centigrade during the day and that Yatir Winery is irrigating their vineyards. Within the forest, we still have a testament to the ancient wine production that has been taking place in the region 2300 years ago in the form of dozens of ancient wine presses as well as nicely preserved clay Amphoraes.

Yatir used to be a joint partnership with Carmel Winery and is now owned by Carmel, The largest winery in Israel at 15 Million bottles a year. Yatir only produces 150,000. According to Etti Edri, the marketing manager of this winery one thing that this partnership allows Yatir is to take its time with aging their wines both in Oak and in the bottle. Our tasting was of 2010 and a bit of 2011 vintage. Few wineries in Israel are currently selling these vintages. The boutiques in the Judean Hills are off to 2012 and 2013 for reds, we even tried a Syrah 2014 that is already on the shelf in the past week alone.

A short walk through the winery will tell you a few things, The partnership with Carmel was necessary for this winery to grow and maintain its quality. The tanks are state of the art, matching in sizes and aligned perfectly, it seems that Winemaker Eran Goldwasser is experimenting with some Concrete fermentation tanks as well. we happen to see two that were brought in from Italy.
As for our tasting, We started off with a lovely Rose made from Grenache and Tempranillo, followed by a varietal Syrah, a beautiful Cabarnet Sauvinion and finally the 2011 Yatir Forrest blend which was extremely flavorful as well. Great stop and highly recommended!

Alon outside a cave in Yatir

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Visiting Midbar Winery in Southern Israel

Barak Yitzhaki — Mon, 04 May 2015 12:11:31 +0000

Midbar Winery is located in what is now a renovated artists quarter outside the city of Arad. Ten years ago, this was an industrial area that had several large factories, one of which was a large towel factory. This area is now slowly being renovated by the city and workshops were basically given away just so they do not stay deserted. The vineyards are all located 800 meters above sea level, a short distance away from the famous Ramon Crater.

The idea behind a winery that specializes in growing only in the desert is one that takes getting used to, even though there is plenty of evidence that shows wines were produced in the Negev Desert thousands of years ago.

There are certainly some advantages to growing wine grapes in such an area. Because the area is arid and gets a lot of strong winds, that significantly lowers the likelihood of any mold or pests in the vines. The desert is well known for the significant drop in temperatures from daytime to nighttime, resulting in natural high acidity for the grapes. As irrigation is not only legal, but expected the Vintner and the Winemaker really have quite a lot of control over how much fruit and leaves will come out.

Winemaker Meital Damri, who studied both Viticulture and Oenology in Florence, Italy is currently producing 40K bottles a year at this Southern Boutique Winery. In 2014 the winery had become Kosher. Harvest is done by hand at night and the winery transports the grapes in refrigerated trucks in order to make sure fermentation does not begin before it needs to. On our wine tour and tastings which were held March 19th, we tried a lovely 2013 Rose and the 2012 Syrah, We ended up buying both to take home. Great stop for anyone who is visiting Messada or The Dead Sea and is heading back to the center of Israel through Arad!

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