Mark Spivak, a wine reviewer who has written for the Palm Beach Post and Palm Beach Media Group, and other Florida and national magazines, and is the host of a wine show on NPR, recently visited Israel. After not visiting Israel for over 15 years, Spivak was in for a shock.  His past experience:

To put it bluntly, wine here used to suck, and that was a shame because there was no reason that Israel couldn’t make outstanding wine. This, after all, is one of the cradles of wine history. Wine was made here thousands of years ago, long before it was made in Europe. Wine is mentioned in the Bible many times. It has always been an important part of most Jewish religious ceremonies. Noah planted a vineyard. Spies that Moses sent to the land of Canaan returned with grapes. Jesus’ first recorded miracle was turning water into wine. Ancient wine presses and vessels have been unearthed all over the country. It’s been a part of this area for a long time, yet in previous visits I was rarely offered a glass of wine in anyone’s house and almost never saw a wine list in a restaurant. The wine just wasn’t very good, and quantity trumped quality in the roughly 10 wineries that were operating then.

His most recent experience:

Today there are somewhere between 200 and 300 wineries ranging from significant operations to many garagistas located all over the country. Israel is a land of an enormous number of microclimates capable of producing all sorts of wines, much like other “long” places such as Chile, California and Italy. There is land influenced by its proximity to the sea, there is desert, there are mountains and there are plains. There is reddish, mineral rich soil known as terra rosa, there is limestone, there are chalk deposits, and there mountains formed by basaltic lava flows. There is lots of sun. Basically you have every possible combination of soil and temperature that you need to produce good wine from almost any grape, and you have it all in a country the size of New Jersey. What’s been added in the last 10 years is the desire to make great wine. Israelis have become wealthier. Their standard of living is rising. They travel around the world. They see what other people eat and drink. Many have come home demanding better wine. Some have returned with the desire to make it, and I saw the same passion in the Israeli wine makers that I have seen in people who make wine all over the world. They feel they were born to do this and they are not going to stop until they are producing world class wine. Per capita wine consumption in Israel has doubled in the last 10 years, indicating that they are well on their way.

On Mark Spivak’s recent visit to Israel, he toured Vitkin Winery, Galil Mountain Winery, Bazelet HaGolan Winery, Golan Heights Winery, Ella Valley Vineyards, Sea Horse Winery, and Domaine du Castel. To see what he thought about these great Israeli wines, read the whole article.