Update ahead of The Judean Hills Wine Festival

Barak Yitzhaki — Sat, 24 Nov 2018 16:01:37 +0000

The Judean Hills Wine Festival is set to start at Yad Hashmona Hotel Thursday November 29th with the traditional wine tasting event in which Tzora, Sphera, Agur and Castel are set to participate alongside over 30 other Judean Hills wineries.

Tzuba Winery has gone through re-branding. Paul Dubb is still stirring the ship at this estate bottled winery. The winery has started taking in a darker clone of Cabernet Sauvignon starting at the 2016 vintage and the Metzuda blend which did come out from this vintage is showing a lot of potential. In a recent tasting Paul described the 2016 vintage as “off the harts” in the level of fruit that he was getting.

An additional change for Tzuba is that their Chardonnay that for many years spent time in both Oak and Stainless Steel, is now fermenting and aging in Oak only. The winery is presently producing 60K bottles a year, selling roughly 40% of its wine to the French and the American Kosher Market. As the long term agreement Castel Winery had with the kibbutz was not renewed, this winery will have more fruit in the coming years and will look to produce more.

Update for Nevo Winery

In 2018 the winery produced 12K bottles. As the only winery IWT works with that fully did not produce any wine on the Sabbatical year, Nevo had to come up with varieties that would not need as long of an aging process [past vintages of Cab and Merlot from Nevo were aged for 24 months and upwards]. The winery currently is selling a 2016 straight Syrah, very elegant and with a medium body. Nevo is producing a Rose which sells out and in 2019 this winery will be harvesting its first vintage of Chardonnay.

Winemanship remains high and quantities remain low. This winery sells nearly 75% of its production to the North American market. A recent tasting of 2014 Blend was impressive and with further aging the wine would benefit even more.

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Post Wine Spectator issue covering Israeli Wine

Barak Yitzhaki — Thu, 20 Oct 2016 08:05:48 +0000

Please don’t get me wrong. Alon and I are very proud Israeli wines were featured in the October 2016 issue of the most important wine magazine in the world. We tour boutique wineries all over Israel on a regular basis; as a result we were simply not surprised by what Kim Marcus, Managing Editor of Wine Spectator Magazine had found out. This is the part where we mention that we wrote back in July that Tzora Vineyards remain the Judean Hills’s Best in Show. Tzora, for those who did not see the article placed the most wines over 90 points with Wine Spectator.

wine spector cover

Mony is bigger in production than our usual suspects. The winery is up to 400K bottles a year now and their portfolio is vast. Most wines are produced in both a Mevushal series and a non Mevushal. The winery has been Kosher since 2005.
Mony Winery was founded and is owned by the Artul Family, Shakib Artul from the village of Mghar in Northern Israel, named the winery after his son who passed away from a heart condition. A lot of our guests are surprised to hear that this Kosher Winery is owned by a Christian Arab family.

Mony Winery was founded and is owned by the Artul Family, Shakib Artul from the village of Mghar in Northern Israel, named the winery after his son who passed away from a heart condition. A lot of our guests are surprised to hear that this Kosher Winery is owned by a Christian Arab family.

Sasson Ben Aharon [center] and guests

Sasson Ben Aharon, Head Winemaker of Binyamina Winery for over 10 years assumed the role of Winemaker at Mony in 2014. Sasson in the past has also spent 6 years at the Israeli Wine Institute.

As we toured the facilities with Sasson, he explained that Mony acts as a host winery and that some private labels are being produced there in addition to Mony. He did not name any names. The two labels that we know are produced at Mony include Five Stones and Montefiore.

While I knew the wine is successfully distributed in the U.S by Happy Hearts Wine and is in good demand at Kosher wineries throughout the US, I was surprised to learn the US distributor of the wine is eagerly awaiting the release of the Mevushal version of “Via” which is the higher wine for this winery. There are some high end Kosher Steak Houses in the East Coast awaiting this wine.

Along with Sasson, we tasted a crisp French Colombard, some dry Gewurztraminer and in the reds the wines that stood out were a 2013 Cab Reserve and a 2015 Reserve Mallbec. The reds especially showed good value for money.

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Castel Winery Archives - Israel Wine Tour

Update ahead of The Judean Hills Wine Festival

Post Wine Spectator issue covering Israeli Wine