ABC News: Harvesting World Class Grapes in Israel
Posted on September 17, 2008 - Filed Under Israeli wine industry | 1 Comment
Harvesting World Class Grapes in Israel
Israeli Grape Harvest Produces One of the World’s Great Wines
By RACHEL LEBOWITZ
JERUSALEM, Sept. 10, 2008 —
Eli Gilbert Ben-Zaken, the founder of Domaine du Castel, one of the world’s most prominent wineries, had a gut feeling that Monday was the perfect time to harvest his grapes.
“I imagine a lot of the [...]
JTA: Israeli wines come of age
Posted on September 14, 2008 - Filed Under Israeli wine industry, Kosher and Jewish | 1 Comment
A bit behind the times, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency has the stereotypical “Israeli wines used to suck, now they are good story.” Focusing on Castel, a story I did two years ago. But, perhaps the most important as it’s the Jewish crowd that is most stuck on an image of Israeli wines from 30 or [...]
Read More..>>Mark Spivak tours the Israeli wine route
Posted on September 8, 2008 - Filed Under Israeli wine industry | Leave a Comment
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 [...]
Why Israeli Wine is World Class (My Philosophy on What is Good Wine)
Posted on August 18, 2008 - Filed Under Israeli wine industry | 4 Comments
Israeli wine is world class. Yes, we’ve heard this recently from the likes of Robert Parker, Mark Squires, Gary Vaynerchuk, Wine Spectator, Decanter, and other wine critics and trade publications. But I think they’ve all got it a bit wrong.
Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not necessarily disagreeing with their scores and I’ll take the 93 that [...]
Israeli wine doesn’t suck: Bloomberg
Posted on July 23, 2008 - Filed Under Israeli wine industry | 1 Comment
Bloomberg gets the message that Israeli wine doesn’t suck. I’m a little surprised that the article used the traditional framing of “Israeli wine used to suck, now kosher wine is good” (making the association between bad kosher American wine with great Israeli wine [which wasn't always kosher, even]). This is especially surprising coming from such [...]
Read More..>>SF Chronicle: Israel’s wine industry reveals it’s California roots
Posted on June 24, 2008 - Filed Under Israeli wine industry, Wine Events | Leave a Comment
Interesting article about Israeli wine, especially Flam - whose father was the first Israeli to study at the University of California Davis’s winemaking program and was the winemaker at Carmel for decades. In honor of the Jewish Vinter’s event in California last weekend, several Israeli winemakers were there including Golan Flam (of Flam), Assaf Paz [...]
Read More..>>Domaine du Castel
Posted on March 19, 2008 - Filed Under Israeli wine industry, Wineries | Leave a Comment
It’s quite possible that Domaine du Castel makes THE best wine from Israel. Unquestionably, they make some of the best wine in the world. I first encountered the wines of Castel only last year, when I was asked to write a story on them for ISRAEL21c, which you can read here. While there, I tasted [...]
Read More..>>Castel in the Wall Street Journal
Posted on February 25, 2008 - Filed Under Wineries | Leave a Comment
I’m up visiting wineries up north, but in the meantime read this fascinating article about Eli Ben-Zaken and Domaine du Castel from the Wall Street Journal. Why does it seem that Castel is the only winery with a good PR strategy (and, of course, one of Israel’s best!)
Israel’s New Revolution in Quality
Israel’s New Revolution [...]
Top 10 Kosher Wines for 2007
Posted on January 15, 2008 - Filed Under Kosher and Jewish | Leave a Comment
Gamliel Kronemer, the New York Jewish Week’s wine writer, has just released his Top 10 kosher wines for 2007. While missing out on many of the great non-certified Israeli wines (Flam, Margalit, Pelter, Clos de Gat, Odem Mountain [going certified starting with the 2007 vintages] and many more), about half the list is Israeli wines. [...]
Read More..>>A tour through some of Israel’s best wineries
Posted on January 1, 2008 - Filed Under Israeli wine industry, Wineries | Leave a Comment
I just found this video on ISRAEL21c’s beta site. ISRAEL21c is a great place that tells the story of Israel - it’s technology, arts, humanitarian efforts, and culture … including winemaking. Among other stories, I wrote an article on Domaine du Castel for them.
Did you know that Sea Horse Winery’s owner/winemaker was in film? I [...]
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