israeladventure

BEERS 2013 Hot Entries

Last week on one of the stormiest days in recent years, Israel’s third annual Beer Expo, BEERS 2013 opened at the Nokia Arena.

BEERS 2013 was open from 2:00-5:00 PM to the trade, and from 5:00-11:00 PM to the general public with a modest entrance fee of 60 NIS ($16.00) for a tasting glass and coupons for 5 tastings. Coupons for an additional 5 tastings were 30 NIS ($8.00).

Craft breweries, while a new arrival in Israel, are growing in number and produce great beers. I want to share two beers, one by the oldest microbrewery in Israel and another by one of the youngest. What these two beers have in common is hot peppers. Both beers are brewed with hot peppers, a popular ingredient in Middle Eastern cuisine.

The first beer is Dancing Camel’s Leche Del Diablo or “Devil’s Milk”. Dancing Camel is Israel’s oldest microbrewery founded by David Cohen, a transported American in Tel Aviv’s commercial Hamasger district. David Cohen left behind an accounting practice in New Jersey in to pursue a passion for brewing beer and to fulfill his long-time dream of living in Israel.

Dancing Camel’s Leche Del Diablo is based on a Belgin Helf-Wit wheat beer supercharged with chili peppers. I’m not a big fan of wheat beers, but I love spicy food. The Leche Del Diablo goes down smoothly and only after swallowing does the chili pepper slap you in the face. The hotness of this beer is not overwhelming though, and if you like spicy foods, you’ll enjoy this beer! 5% Alcohol.

Hadubim (The Bears) is a young brand founded by brothers Dagan and Rotem Bar-Ilan in 2011 when they opened HaAm (the People’s) Brewery in a modern facility in the Tel Aviv suburb of Even Yehudah. In addition to their line of five beers, they offer a “One a Month” special edition. Recently the Bar-Ilan brothers opened with a partner , the Beer Market in the Old Jaffa Port’s new food market. Beer Market sells only Israeli craft beers and has hosted events for launching new beers. The Beer Market rotates two different Israeli craft beers on tap and sells a full range in bottles.

Esh or “Fire” is the Dubbim’s hot pepper beer. Esh with it’s fire fighters on the label, is a pale ale brewed from three varieties of American hops with a mild bitterness and a pronounced aroma of hops. During the fermentation shata peppers were added to the batch to achieve the hot spicy effect. The sweetness and bitterness of the pale ale is felt in the mouth and the spicy hotness of the shata peppers hits you in the throat. Hadubbim’s Esh is the hotter of the two chili beers at BEERS 2013. 4.7% Alcohol.

Both beers are available in bottles at the Jaffa Port Beer Market.

Ella Valley Vineyard’s New Relaeases

This past Friday, Ella Valley Vineyards hosted members of their Wine Club to the release of three new wines: Ella Valley Chardonnay 2011, Ella Valley Cabernet Sauvignon 2008 and Vineyard’s Choice 32/35 2008.

After a cold and stormy week, I shouldn’t have been surprised at the crowds that arrived at this event on the first sunny day this week.

Vineyard’s Choice is the premium label of the Ella Valley Wineries. In addition to varietial wines released in the VC label, Ella Valley Vineyards also releases special wines that are may be one-time releases.

Vineyard’s Choice 32/35 2008 is the last wine by the former winemaker Doron Rav-Hon to be released in the Vineyard’s Choice label. VC 32/35 is a blend of Syrah, Petite Sirah and Merlot aged for 20 months in oak barrels. Ella Valley Vineyards usually releases wines later than most other wineries, allowing for additional aging in the bottle in the winery. This allows their aging worthy wines to be enjoyed upon release. This wine was already in bottles when Lin Gold, the current winemaker arrived at Ella Valley Vineyards.

Ella Valley Vineyards is the largest estate winery in Israel with all of its grapes coming from their three vineyards all located close to the winery. Part of their philosophy is to make wines that are true to their terroir. The choice of the name 32/35 reflects this philosophy as these numbers are the geographic coordinates of the vineyards. The VC 32/35 is an elegant wine with the Syrah dominant but softened by the Merlot. Israel’s hot climate is especially suitable to the Southern Rhone varieties Syrah and Petit Sirah (AKA Durif). The wine is a deep garnet and filled with dark fruit-berries and plum as well as spices and pepper.

Ella Valley Vineyard’s Cabernet Sauvignon 2008 has no surprises and this is good. Cabernet Sauvignon is the most widely planted grape variety in Israel, close to a quarter of all wine grapes in Israel are Cabernet Sauvignon. This is a full-bodied elegant wine, true to the Ella Valley tradition and true to the variety with ripe dark fruit flavors. With a long finish, this wine will be a great accompaniment to a steak dinner.

Udi Kaplan, CEO of Ella Valley Vineyards is an avid mountain biker who enjoys riding the trails in the rolling Judean Hills. The large attendance at this event and the lines at the cash register kept Udi smiling.

Ilan Bezalel, VP of Ella Valley Vineyards has introduced new marketing cooperation with the importers of Ferrari, Volvo and Landrover. As a triathlete it’s almost natural that this cooperation would include Caspi Bicycle, importer of high-end bicycles.

Road bikes on display at Ella Valley Vineyards.

Best for Last

Ella Valley Vineyard’s Chardonnay 2011 is the third wine that the winemaker Lin Gold is totally responsible for from the harvest through bottling.

Ella Valley Chardonnay 2011 is made from 100% Chardonnay grapes. One of the highlights of the New Release Event for me , was my discussion with winemaker Lin Gold on the making of the Chardonnay 2011.

Ella Valley’s white wine grapes are grown in its Nes Harim vineyard at an altitude of 650 meters above Sea Level. While this wine is 100% Chardonnay, Lin used a variety of methods in both fermenting and aging the components of this wine to arrive at a Chardonnay that is elegant and refined without bombastic fruits and just a hint of butter.

Some of the grapes were fermented on wild yeasts, which is a bit of a risk at a winery of this size. Half the wine was aged in oak for 13 months, again half in new barrels. The other half remained in stainless steel. Line kept the temperatures low during fermentation and only half the wine underwent malolactic fermentation.

All of this together produced a wine that is loyal to Ella Valley Vineyard’s tradition of producing quality wines that reflect the terroir.

Yaffo Winery in the Elah Valley

On a crisp winter day, I headed to visit with winemaker Stephan Celniker at Yaffo Winery at the winery located in Moshav Neve Michael at the eastern extent of the Elah Valley. Stephen, the son of Moshe and Ann who started the winery in 1998 has a degree in agriculture from the Hebrew University and studied wine-making in Burgoyne.

Yaffo Winery is located in a row of abandoned chicken coops, a victim of Israel’s ridiculous zoning laws which define wineries as industrial rather than agricultural and prevent building beautiful wineries in the vineyards.

Yaffo Winery produces about 25,000 bottles of wine a year and is Kosher. The winery started in the basement of Moshe and Ann Celniker in Jaffa (hence the winery’s name) and moved to its current location near the vineyards in 2007.

Stefan opened a bottle of Syrah Merlot 2010.

Yaffo Syrah Merlot 2010 aged 13 months in French and American oak barrels. On opening the Syrah was dominant with dark fruit and plums with spices dominating. After opening up, the Merlot steps in to mellow out the wine a bit.

The Syarah Merlow has gentle tannins and a long smooth finish.

Next Stefan asked Yishai Mualem , the winery’s Kashrut Supervisor to pull some Cabernet Sauvignon 2011 from the vat to taste.One of the requirements of Kosher wine is that only Sabbath observant Jews can contact the wine from the time the grapes are pressed until the bottle is sealed.

The CS 2011 will be bottled next week. It is young and fruity, will grow in time but definitely approachable now. While Israel is at the Southern edge of the Northern Hemisphere’s wine growing region and is known for “hot” wines, Stephan tries to add Old World influences to his wines by lower temperature fermentation and by limiting the amount of time the wine spends on the skins.

http://yaffowinery.co.il/

A Real “Killer” Wine

Assaf Winery’s Shiraz Caesarea Reserve 2008

To be perfectly honest, I am not objective when it comes to Israeli Syrah/Shiraz wines. I believe that being at the southern fringe of the Northern hemisphere’s wine growing region gives the various Israeli terroirs a tremendous adventage with this Southern Rhone variety. This is a lovely Shiraz with a deep purple/garnet color, red berries and spices with a nice balance and long finish.

The late Daniel Rogov, who is sorely missed as Isreal’s leading wine critic, writing and scoring thousands of Israeli wines wrote tasting notes for this wine before it was released. His review appears in the Israel Wines website: Assaf, Shiraz, Caesaria, 2008 (Advance Tasting): Oak-aged for 20 months but showing a gentle influence of the wood, a full-bodied, round and soft wine, with a generous array of plum, wild berry and raspberry fruits, those supported nicely by notes of saddle leather and earthy minerals. Generous and elegant. Best from 2012-2017. Score 90. (Tasted 8 Nov 2010)

We tasted this wine at the new visitors’ center opened by Assaf Winery as the beginning of the Kedem family’s “Wine Village” to include the winery, a visitors’ center with tasting rooms, a gourmet restaurant and a Bed & Breakfast. The “Wine Village” is located next to Moshav Kidmat Tzvi on the Golan Heights, home to the Kedem family.

The New Visitors’ Center

The New Winery

Assaf Winery was founded by Assaf Kedem in 1997 after raising grapes for other vineyards since 1990. Assaf Kedem has served as the winemaker at other vineyards and currently provides laboratory services and consults other wineries. Recently Assaf’s son Oren has joined the winery as winemaker and manager.

Assaf and Oren Kedem

So What Makes the Shiraz Caesarea a “Killer Wine”?

Assaf Kedem named the wine “Caesarea” to honor his father who served for many years as a warrior for the Mossad’s Casarea’s unit which is tasked with “planning and carrying out special operations beyond Israel’s borders”.

The Caesarea unit purchases Shiraz Casarea wine and reportedly gives everyone who finishes their training course a bottle. Bottles are also given as gifts from the unit as appreciation for help and services. And bottles are opened and members of the unit toast “Le’haim” , “To Life” following successful missions.

Casarea’s Appreciation to Assaf for His Father’s Service and the Wine

A big thanks to Assaf and Oren Kedem for a great wine. And a special great thanks to the unsung warriors of Caesarea who allow us to sleep better at night and make the world a better place by helping evil people meet their maker earlier than they planned.

www.assafwinery.com

Behind the Green Door-Negev Brewery

Hidden away in the sleepy industrial zone of the Southern city of  Kiryat Gat I encountered this Green Door at the end of a dead end street that is otherwise deserted. 

I came here to see Inga at work. Inga is a forty-year old German, big and noisy as well as hard to please if everything isn’t just right.

 

Inga is a mechanical wonder, a fully mechanical beer-bottling machine that needs to be greased more than a battle tank in order to work. Inga needs hours of set-up before going to work and is a real pleasure to see when everything is right.

 

Gilad Dror

And once Inga is ready, bottling is beauty in motion!

Negev Brewery, one of Israel’s leading microbreweries, bought Inga used in Germany mostly because of the low cost, but also due to her allure.  Negev Brewery opened it’s current facility in 2010, but its history begins in far away Alaska. In the early 2000’s Yochai Kudler was on his almost obligatory post-army trip in Alaska where when not working he was introduced to home-brewing beer. Yocahi’s next stop was Colorado where he worked for a while in a local brewery to see if this is really what he wanted to do.

 

Yochai Kudler

Yocahi returned home to Kibbutz Orim in the Negev Desert and continued brewing beer, at first on a rather small scale for friends before expanding and founding Negev Brewery in 2009. Wanting to expand and build a modern facility, Yochai found an empty building in the industrial zone of Kiryat Gat where he opened in 2010. In the summer of 2011 Norman Premium, an Israeli importer and distributor of premium beers purchased Negev Brewery.

Today Negev Brewery is run by CEO Sagiv Karlboim, Gilad Dror and Tomer Ronen. Gilad is responsible for brewing the beer, but all three pitch in with the physical work involved in making and packaging the beer.

Sagiv Karlboim

Sagiv Karlboim

Negev Brewery is environmentally conscious with the waste water collected to irrigate the garden which is being developed to host tastings of their wonderful beers.

Negev Brewery produces three beers: Amber Ale, Porter Alon and Passion Fruit. Like most microbreweries Negev does not filter their beers or add preservatives. This means that the beer is best when fresh and don’t think that sediment in the bottom of your glass is anything but a positive indication of unfiltered beer.

 

Negev Amber Ale is a nice traditional amber ale with an amber to brown hue. The flavor is fruity with malt, overall nicely balanced and a great beer for a hot Israeli summer. 5% alcohol.

Negev Porter Alon is a classic English Porter beer aged with oak chips to give it a creamy texture and rich flavor, with hints of chocolate, coffee and vanilla. The Porter Alon has a nice dark color and is my favorite. The international web site ratebeer.com rates the Negev Porter Alon as the number one beer in Israel. 5% alcohol.

Negev Passion Fruit beer is brewed with a generous amount of fresh passion fruit from a nearby farm to produce a beer rich in tropical fruit flavors. This is a special beer and quite often a favorite. 4.9% alcohol.

Negev Brewery http://www.negevbrewery.co.il/

Somek Winery

(entrance to Somek Winery)

Barak Dahan is the fifth generation of farmers growing wine grapes in the area of Zichron Yaakov. His great-great-grandfather came from Romania in 1882 with 51 other families to settle the farming village of Zamirin. The first pioneers were a failure at farming when Baron Edmond de Rothschild decided to support their efforts to settle the Land of Israel.

 

Rothschild decided to build a winery for the settlers to help them support themselves. As the owner of the Premier Crux Chateau Lafite, he fully intended the new winery to produce world-class wines, especially for Jews throughout the world. In fact, Rothschild invested more in building the wine cellars in Zichron Yaakov than he did in purchasing Chateau Lafite. Ever since, Barak’s forefathers have been growing grapes for the Carmel Winery.

While Baron’s Rothschild’s quest for quality wine was unsuccessful, 120 years later the winery he started - Carmel Winery - has achieved international recognition for its world-class wines. Israel today has over 250 wineries, although 90% of our wine is produced by the five largest wineries. Somek Winery is one of the smaller boutique wineries that are producing first-class wines.

Barak and his wife Hila decided to establish their own winery in 2003. Hila has a masters degree in oenology from University of Adelaide. Somek Winery’s vineyards are located in the valley Beqat Hanadiv, a valley named after Baron Rothschild. While most of the grapes are sold to other wineries, mainly Carmel, Barak and Hila chose their finest grapes for their own wines.

Our Visit

Barak welcomed us in the farmyard that his family has lived in since the late 1800’s. Barak and Hila have converted the old farm buildings into their estate winery. On our way in, we noticed some renovations at the entrance. Barak told us that he is building a small visitors’ center and tasting room that will be inside, air-conditioned and heated and comfortable no matter what the weather.

(Barak Explaining Pressing the Must)

Since we’re in the middle of the harvest, we were able to see the chardonnay fermenting. Barak explained the wine is moved from the crusher to the fermentation vats by bucket and not pumped. This is gentler on the wine and Barak and Hila believe that this gives them better quality wine.

(Fermentation Room)

(Chardonay Fermenting)

(Barak demonstrating how to press down the yeast)

Next we saw the barrel room. Hila ages Somek’s wines in a mixture of new and used French Oak barrels. While Hila’s education is very New World in Adelaide, she uses an Old World approach to her wines. Barak and Hila harvest their low-yield vines by hand in the early morning hours and bring the grapes to the nearby winery to be crushed before the heat of the day.

 

The Wines

During our visit we tasted three of Somek’s wines: 2009 Adom, 2006 Bikat HaNadiv and at my request 2006 Carignan.  Carignan is thought to be an inferior grape, used mainly for bulk wines. This is primarily because of its large yield of up to four times that of Cabernet Sauvignon. But under the right conditions, with low-yield old vine vineyards Carignan can produce excellent wines.

 מק

2009 Adom: A Southern Wine made up of 40% Syrah, 40% Carignan, 10% Malbec and 10% Mourvèdre.  This is a Southern Wine in the sense that these are varieties used in the Rhone Valley in the South of France. I strongly believe that the climate in Israel is well suited to Rhone varieties and that we produce fantastic wines with them. Aged for ten months in French barrels. This wine is deep red, quite fruity with black fruits and balanced tannins.

 

2006 Bikat HaNadiv: A Bordeaux style blend made from 50% Cabernet Sauvignon, 35% Merlot, 10% Cabernet Franc and 5% Petit Verdot. This is the winery’s flagship wine. The wine is blended and then aged in French oak for 24 months. The wine is then aged for another two years in bottles before being released to the market. As expected from a Bordeaux blend, we find aromas of purple plums, blueberries, tobacco, and chocolate. This is an elegant wine that will age well for a few years.

 

2006 Carignan: Carignan is the second most planted variety in Israel with 7,763 tons harvested in 2011 making up almost 17% of grapes harvested. Oz Clarke describes Carignan as “generally give very little pleasure”. This is of course true for the majority of wine made with the Carignan grape, bulk wines that use high-yield Carignan for its deep dark color. This wine is made from 100% Carignan grapes from an old-vine vineyard 45-50 years old that are not irrigated. Somek is one of the few wineries producing quality Carignan along with Carmel, Vitkin and Recanati. Recently noted Israel Chef Alon Gonen called Somek’s 2006 Carignan “the best Carignan in Israel”. While I haven’t tasted the Somek Carignan alongside the other 2 quality Carignan’s, Vitkin and Recanati, I was truly pleased with this wine. This wine has a very regal deep purple color and rich in black fruit and spices. This is an excellent accompaniment to an Israeli barbeque with kabobs and spiced grilled chicken.

 www.somek-winery.co.il

Behind the Green Door

Coming soon, what’s behind the Green Door!

Ella Valley’s New Sauvignon Blanc

If you’re not familiar with the winery then you should get to know Ella Valley Vineyards. The winery was established in 1998 with vineyards located in three areas: Nes Harim with an elevation of 700 meters, Ella Valley with an elevation of 320 meters and Aderet with an elevation of 350-400 meters.

 

This year the winery has undergone some far-reaching changes. Udi Kaplan, who was the winery’s manager, took the place of Danny Valero as CEO, Lin Gold replaced Doron Rav Hon as winemaker and the wine bottles now have new labels.

(Udi Kaplan, CEO of Ella Valley Vineyards)

Lin Gold recently returned to Israel after completing her masters in oenology at the University of Adelaide in Australia. Lin joined the Ella Valley Vineyards in the summer of 2011, just in time for the 2011 harvest.

 

(Lin Gold, winemaker at Ella Valley Vineyards)

Today Ella Valley Vineyards hosted an event at the winery to launch three new wines to members of their loyalty program. The wines released are the Merlot 2007, Cabernet Franc 2009 and the Sauvignon Blanc 2011 all from the Ella Valley Series.

 

The Sauvignon Blanc 2011 is special. First of all, this wine is all Lin’s. This is the first wine that Lin Gold has had responsibility for from the harvest to the bottle.

 

The Ella Valley Sauvignon Blanc is a great summertime wine for Israel. The grapes were harvested ripe with full fruitiness and high acidity. Some of the grapes had a pH of less than 3, which allowed Lin to forgo adding acids to the wine during fermentation.

The wine has a very pleasant crisp acidity, with nice fruity flavors of grapefruit, asparagus and lime. This wine is very refreshing and if I didn’t have to drive home I surely wouldn’t have spit out any wine!

While the 2011 harvest allowed her to rely on the natural acidity and not use additives to make the wine into something else, Lin still had many tools in her bag to influence the wine. Temperature regulation, timing, blending and more were all part of Lin’s crafting this wine. Unlike an artist painting on canvas, winemakers can’t erase and start over again if they err.

I look forward to seeing Lin’s next wines even though it will be another few years before Ella Valley will release red wines that Lin has produced from harvest to bottle.

At Ella Valley Vineyards event releasing new wines. Blog to follow