WTN: Five Blind Wines From Israel

[Jenise]

With help from Daniel Rogov and Co., I ordered the five best Israeli wines available in my state (where very few are available) and invited some friends over last night to share them. I provided the bubblies, the Israel wines, a BC merlot and a port, and my guests brought the other wines that were put forth for contrast. I'd asked them to concentrate on Washington and California in order to restrict the wines to new world which I understood the Israel wines more in the style of. The wines were bagged and poured blind--my guests did not learn that they'd been drinking Israeli wines until the end of the night.

Notes are very brief and unpolished--as project manager, cook, server and scribe for ten people, there were a lot of demands on my attention.

We sipped on two bubblies to start, NV's from Tasmania (Jansz) and British Columbia (Blue Mountain), then got down to business.

Flight One--Chardonnays with various cheeses and duck-cognac pate

A) Big bodied, lots of toasted oak, butterscotchy, well balanced, needs less oak and more midpalate fruit. 06 Abeja (Washington), and last place overall of the four with 7 points.
B) Very pretty floral nose, lemony, crisp, a little smoke, good acid--really nice by itself but easily overpowered by food. 2006 Galil (Israel), and the group's second favorite with 15 points.
C) Very pale, almost clear, sweet cream and marzipan nose, bright acids, quiet power, pear, golden delicious apple and white nectarine. Very unusual and attractive, it's the 2006 Morro Bay "Sur Lie" (California). First place with the most first place votes (including mine) and 18 points.
D) Nectarine and lemon grass with a piney note like American oak in the finish. 2005 Chateau Ste. Michelle "Indian Wells". Third place with eight points.

Flight Two--Sauvignon Blancs with salad and individual cheese and herb souffles

A) Delightfully savage grapefruit, limes and grass, it's the 2007 Kim Crawford from NZ. First place by a landslide, only missing the two votes of the two participants who hate acidity.
B) Tasty and good but very unusual, not really like SB as I've ever had it before with a lot of celery in the melon notes. No citrus, no grass, some RS and a little heat (14.5% abv). 2005 Mt. Tabor (Israel).

Flight Three--Merlot

A) Minerally nose, "Nummy" said one, solid red fruit, cocoa finish, classic merlot flavors. Really quite good. One of the TN's provided me on this wine suggested some green notes, but honestly I couldn't find that in it last night. It's the 2006 Galil (Israel).
B) Red fruit, spicy, sandalwood, cinnamon, showing beautifully right now. From my cellar, it's the 2002 Kettle Valley Merlot (British Columbia). Both wines were so good it was impossible to like one more than the other, so no vote was taken.

Flight Four--Cabernet Sauvignon with pot roast in garlic gravy on grilled bread

A) Milky, "pumpkin", simple and uninspired. 2006 Galil (Israel). The group could no longer be corralled into voting, but this was everybody's least favorite by a mile.
B) Tasty, more sandalwood, good spice, black fruit, 14.7% lcohol is evident on the glass but no one complains about heat. It's the most popular cab on the table. 2005 Syzygy (Washington).
C) Concentrated, serious, inky, bl fruit, herbs, savory, dusty, parchy tannins, unfiltered?, will reward aging, more European in style and my favorite of the flight. 2005 Yarden (Israel).
D) Robust big fruit, silky tannins, very balanced; will be excellent with more development but it doesn't have the structure of the '04. 2005 Boudreaux (Washington).

For dessert, we had creme brulees (made by my guest Al Hawks) with a 1980 Fonseca Port. One of the palest ports I've ever seen, very coppery, almost no sediment, gorgeous caramel flavors, almost no tannins left. I don't normally care to pair dessert wines with dessert, but have to admit this was a great match.

A fun night--nobody had ever had Israeli wine before and they were delighted when I unveiled the secret. Conclusion: Israel's making some top drops. The wines fit seamlessly into the flights, and to the extent they were different it was normal to be different--we couldn't have had six more diverse whites so where I do believe the Tabor SB would have been more of an outlier in another crowd, on Sunday it was entirely within bounds. And with the exception of the Yarden, they all seemed like wines that could have been made right down the road.

Where in "Israel" did these wines originate? If they came from the illegally occupied West Bank, they should be designated as Palestinian wines.

David, Hello.....

A discussion that has been held many times on my side of the forum. There are those Israelis (including this citizen-critic) who would agree that indeed the West Bank territories are occupied illegally and those who would argue that the land was given by God.

Let me say that I do not visit the occupied territories and will not do so until there is an independent Palestinian state and my invitation comes from a Palestinian citizen. As a person who is interested in and who writes about wines, however, I judge not the political implications but what comes in my glass and wines, tasted blind, do not tell me whether they were produced by the nicest man or woman living within the 1967 borders or a person residing in the territories.

As to the politics and morality of the issue, that is much up to each of us as individuals. Whether or not one chooses to purchase wines made in the occupied territories is and should be a matter of conscience. That should not, however, impact on the evaluation or description of the wines.

Best
Rogov

P.S. With regard to the specific wines tasted by Jenise, all but one were produced within the 1967 borders and that one (the Yarden) was made on the Golan Heights which most people concur falls into a very different legal and moral category than the "occupied territories" in the West Bank.

Politics aside, those sound like really interesting wines regardless of where they came/should have come from. If I wasn't flooded with a great deal of wine that needs to be drunk soon ( ), I'd be hunting down one or two of those.

Also - very cool that you managed to track down a bottle of Tassie bubbly (I loved the sparklers I tasted when I visited Launceston and the Tamar Valley a couple of years ago and IMO they're making some really great values there that unfortunately I've not been able to find on these shores). What were your thoughts on the Jansz?

Daniel,
Thank you for your on the spot comments.
While I would, as a personal choice, avoid wines produced from the West Bank, unless they are produced by Palestinians and labelled as "produce of Palestine", I agree with your sentiments that this is a question of one's own viewpoint.
My comments were not indicating any anti-Israel (or indeed any ant-Israel wine) sentiment. As you have indicated that all but one of the wines come from within the pre-1967 border I will certainly look forward to tasting them and judging them strictly on their merits as wine.
Hint to Jenise - these would stump the crowd at a blind tasting lunch.

wasn't there a singing group with this name?

[David M. Bueker]

That was the Blind Boys of Alabama, but nice try.

ah, right you are.

[Jenise]

That was the Blind Boys of Alabama, but nice try.

Not unknown to me when I named this thread, you surely guessed.

[Jenise]

Also - very cool that you managed to track down a bottle of Tassie bubbly (I loved the sparklers I tasted when I visited Launceston and the Tamar Valley a couple of years ago and IMO they're making some really great values there that unfortunately I've not been able to find on these shores). What were your thoughts on the Jansz?

The Jansz is excellent. The first bottles I had a few years ago were downright amazing. So much so that I ordered a case which was a more recent release, and of course there's variation and this batch isn't quite as en pointe for French bubbly as the first was, but cellar aging has calmed down the fruit and helped it develop more character. I preferred it by far to the Blue Mountain.