While evidence of wine production in Israel may date back millennia, the Israeli wine industry is a young but exciting one that’s starting to express itself and the secrets of this ancient land. Israeli winemakers face a task of biblical proportions to channel fine wine from such a hot climate, but they are proving to be a creative lot in the face of such adversity.
“Given the climate, it’s a challenge to make high quality wine in Israel, but Israeli winemakers excel in finding a way,” said Ya'acov Oryah, who makes wines under his own label, as well as being the winemaker for the Psagot Winery. He added that the country’s vintners have proved adept in seeking out the cooler sites.
Doron Rav Hon of the Sphera winery is daring enough to only make whites wines in a country where around 90% of the 60 million bottles of wine made per year is red and capturing refreshing acidity is a considerable obstacle. “White wine is the most complex to make and drink. Most people drink red wine in Israel but customers are now experimenting with whites,” he explained. “We harvest early but not ‘green early’ and can keep the natural acidity.” He learnt his trade in Burgundy before working as winemaker for Ella Valley vineyards. Remarkably, he even makes pure and vibrant Riesling with excellent varietal character in such a warm location as the Judean hills. Rav Hon uses mainly free-run juice with a tonne of grapes giving some 560 litres of must. Sphera makes around 16,000 bottles of wine a year. Rav Hon carries out a soft pressing at most, uses cold stabilisation and doesn’t pump the wine. He leaves the wine on lees for 6-7 months. Rav Hon has been using artificial yeast so far, but is also considering wild yeast.
Rav Hon is also one of a few brave free spirits, along with the likes of the Bar-Maor, Na’aman Winery and SeaHorse wineries, who pursue their winemaking without giving a damn for religious restrictions. They certainly take a risk in not producing kosher wines in a country where wine still plays a key role as a sacramental wine. “I have to smell it and touch it,” says Rami Bar-Maor. Thankfully, their exciting wines are savoured by secular sommeliers from Tel Aviv.
Rami Bar-Maor is a former architect who says he got fed up of making compromises, and went into winemaking instead. “In the winery there are no compromises,” he says, but what he has taken with him from the world of architecture is his love of minimalism. Accordingly, his wines do not undergo acidification, which is often practiced in the hot, dry Israeli climate, although many quality producers increasingly avoid it. Bar-Maor’s wines are only made from free-run juice, without filtration or cold stabilisation. And, he says he doesn’t need to irrigate his north-facing vineyards, maintaining that the roots of the vines have instinctively dug down deep into the white chalk rendzina soils of the Alona region, which he adds is the oldest wine region in Israel, to find water and nutrients.
Innovative Israel, innovative wine
Israel’s cutting-edge approach to everything from technology to civil engineering and agriculture is also inherent in the wine industry, which is led by winemakers educated at UC Davis and the University of Adelaide, and a whole host of creative types.
Israel’s cutting-edge software industry can be seen in all its glory at the Golan Heights Winery, which is credited for leading Israel’s quality wine revolution. Every winemaking stage, every individual barrel and tank, as well as every plot is closely monitored in remarkable detail by a multi-layered computer system that takes quality control to impressive heights. The results came across in the very high quality wines, which come from volcanic soils and vineyards as high as 1,200 metres. Golan Heights also owns two-thirds of the Galil Mountain Winery, with the other third held by a kibbutz, from which the Sauvignon Blanc, rosé and Pinot Noir impressed. Incidentally, almost a century before the Golan Heights Winery came on the scene in 1983, it was Edmond de Rothschild who got the industry rolling. He established the Bat Shlomo Winery on the southern slopes of Mount Carmel in 1889. It was revitalised by entrepreneur Elie Wurtman in 2010 and winemaker Ari Erle overseas an impressive portfolio of wines.
Ya'acov Oryah is one of those who have proven there are ways to make fine wine even in the heat of the desert. Oryah was formerly the winemaker at the Midbar Winery, where he learnt the art of making wine in the Negev desert, in the south of the country. He found that the acidity can remain in white grapes when the ripening process is ultra quick, as the acidity doesn’t have the time to drop off – and being white wine there is no problem with phenolic ripeness. Indeed, the most impressive wines we had at Midbar, which is housed in a cool art colony near the city of Arad, were the whites. Nevertheless, the reds there and at the Ramat Negev Winery, whose vineyards run right along the Egyptian border, were juicy rather than cooked. Nearby, the Yatir Winery – owned by the giant Carmel Winery, but run independently – has the advantage of the cover of the Yatir Forest close to its vineyards, situated at 900 metres above sea level, enabling it to turn out extremely elegant reds.
You can read more about Israeli wine within a few days in the second part of this article.
