A Celebration of the People & Wines

The last thirty years has seen the blossoming & coming of age of the Israel wine industry. This article looks at the pioneering wines & the people that made the revolution of  Israel wine a reality.

The landmark wines which charted Israel’s progress, began with the 1976 vintage. This was the year that Israel’s first international style wine was made, the Carmel Cabernet Sauvignon Special Reserve 1976. They followed with an equally successful Carmel Special Reserve 1979. 1976 was also the year that the first  vineyards were planted on the Golan Heights.

In 1983 the Golan Heights Winery was founded, changing the way Israeli vineyard owners grew vines & winemakers made wine. For the first time internationally trained winemakers were employed. The Yarden Sauvignon Blanc & Gamla Cabernet Sauvignon received immediate international credit as Israel’s first world class wines. In 1987 the first Israeli wine to win a major international award was the Yarden Cabernet Sauvignon 1984 which won a gold medal in the International Wine & Spirits Competition in London and the Winiarski Trophy for the best red wine in the competition.  The Yarden Cabernet Sauvignon 1985 followed with a gold medals at Vinexpo & IWSC in London and the Golan Heights Winery won the Grand Prix d’Honneur for the first time.

In 1989 Yair Margalit made his first wine, a Margalit Cabernet Sauvignon from Kfar Bilu – the first high quality boutique winery.  In 1992 Eli Ben Zaken’s Castel Grand Vin 1992 was found & praised by Master of Wine Serena Sutcliffe, as the best Israeli wine she had tasted.

In the meantime the Yarden Sauvignon Blanc Late Harvest 1988 became Israel’s first great dessert wine and in 1996 a champagne method sparkling wine, Yarden Blanc de Blancs 1992, won the ‘Trophy for best Bottle Fermented Wine’ at the IWSC in London. The Yarden Katzrin 1990 became Israel’s first super premium wine, followed by the Yarden Katzrin 1993, 1996 & 2000. 

Other wineries, notably Barkan Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve & Barkan Pinotage began to win gold medals in international competition.

In the ultimate compliment, Yarden was invited to the New York Wine Experience and Castel to the Decanter Fine Wine Show – both open by invitation only to the world’s finest wineries.

Carmel Single Vineyard Zarit 2001 and Ramat Arad 2000 launched a new range of single vineyard wines. Yarden launched an organically grown Chardonnay….. and so it goes on.

 Who were the key people to create the revolution?  Arguably, there are seven people who deserve most credit:

·        PETER STERN for instigating the technological revolution and for bringing New World viticultural & winemaking techniques to Israel

·        SEGEV YEROVAM for innovation, the pursuit & maintenance of high quality and setting new attention to the aesthetics of all parts of winery management.

·        YAIR MARGALIT for starting the boutique winery boom and giving an example of what was possible to young winemakers prepared to study.

·        BENI SORKIN for displaying absolute control of vineyard activity & reinventing the importance of the vineyard in winemaking

·        BARRY SASLOVE for his innovative wine appreciation and winemaking courses, which fuelled the whole boutique winery boom.

·        URI SHAKED for bringing Israel up to international standards as importers, distributors and retailers.

·        DANIEL ROGOV for giving Israeli wines a credible voice in the local & international media.

Information about these and other key people who contributed to the Israel wine revolution over the last 30 years are as follows.

Winery Managers.

Avraham Ben Moshe was the managing director of Carmel Mizrahi, who saved the company from its financial problems of the 1980’s. The collapse of Carmel would have led to the collapse of the whole industry. Ben Moshe showed strong leadership, put Carmel’s finances on an even keel, relaunched the Selected brand – which became the country’s no.1 brand and launched the Rothschild & later, Private Collection labels. He encouraged the development of the Ramat Arad vineyard & started the planting of vineyards in the Upper Galilee & Golan. These were to benefit Carmel after his retirement in 2002.

Shimshon Welner was the first general manager of the Golan Heights Winery from 1983 to 1989. He showed immense determination, chutzpah and good sense in starting the project. It was him who approached California for assistance, introducing Israel to New World winemaking techniques for the first time. He appointed Peter Stern as consultant, employed a series of American winemakers, trained at UC Davis and moved the winery to its final home at Katzrin. He had the drive & personality to shake up the old fashioned Israeli wine industry and would not be deterred from creating Israel’s first world class wines.

Segev Yerovam was the general manager of Golan Heights Winery from 1988 to 1998. He built the winery from a small kibbutz operation into a major international award winner. He showed immense attention to detail and nothing was spared in the search of quality from the vine to the bottle. It was during this period that the Golan Heights Winery set the standard for the industry in terms of style, quality & innovation. Yarden became a well-known, world -class wine. He created Israel’s first interrnational style visitors center, started the idea of the Golan Vintage Culinary Festival, and later when he left Golan, was the first general manager of the new, stylish Galil Mountain winery.

Schmuel Boxer was the general manager who took over Barkan in 1990,  after the old Stock owned company went bankrupt. He created the second biggest wine company, which by 2004 had grown to receiving 8,000 tonnes at harvest. He built a new winery at Hulda, alongside the largest vineyard in the country and bought the family company, Segal. In 2004 he sold his controlling interest to Tempo. His was the most meteoric business success during the period.

Shalom Blayer was managing director of Golan Heights Winery from 1998 to the present day. He took Golan from being an elitist, high quality, pioneering winery to becoming a large winery (7,000 tonnes in 2004) with its own distribution in Israel and its own marketing & importing company in the United States. Despite advancing in a big way into the mass market, the winery was able to maintain its quality. During this time, Yarden Mount Hermon Red became the biggest selling wine in Israel. He also invested in the new winery in the Upper Galilee, which was to become Galil Mountain.

David Ziv was CEO of Carmel from 2002 to 2005. During his short tenure, he was able transform Carmel’s image. This he did by employing new, young winemakers, investing in new wineries at Zichron and in the Upper Galilee and  launching the new Yatir Winery. He also launched Carmel’s single vineyard wines as a concept – a first for Israel.

Winemakers

Freddie Stiller was the winemaker who made the famous Carmel Special Reserve wines of 1976 & 1979. He started working with Carmel in 1955 and became chief winemaker, producing 30 million bottles of wine, spirits & grape juice, in 1973. During his time the first varietal wines from Cabernet Sauvignon & Sauvignon Blanc were produced & exported in the early 1970’s.

Peter Stern was the winemaking consultant who worked for the Golan Heights Winery from 1983 to 2003 and for Carmel from 2004. He was brought in by Shimshon Welner & assisted with the building of the new state of the art winery and created the viticulture & winemaking standards not previously seen in Israel. He set the bar higher and advised a series of UC Davis trained winemakers, who implemented this new New World approach.

Victor Schoenfeld joined Golan Heights Winery in 1990 and became chief winemaker in 1992 until today. He became the Golan’s first permanent winemaker and soon gained a reputation as Israel’s finest. He made the Yarden Katzrin wines, which became Israel’s most expensive sought after wines. It is greatly to his credit that the quality and the spirit of innovation has been maintained during a period of vastly increasing production. His Pinot Noir, champagne method sparkling wines & dessert wines (icewine & botrytis style) were examples of the winery’s leadership in the industry.

Yair Margalit was a chemistry professor who opened the first serious boutique winery 1989. Margalit found time to write internationally distributed books on small scale winemaking and chemistry in winemaking. He found time to be a consultant to some of the new boutique wineries. He lectured on wine & winemaking. However, it is as a winemaker he is best known. As all the boutique wineries around him have grown & expanded, he has remained small & true to his principles, which includes not irrigating vineyards. He, more than anyone, represents the boutique winery boom.

Eli Ben Zaken created what became Israel’s finest winery. Self taught, with painstaking attention to detail, he brought Domaine du Castel to the attention of the wine world. His contribution to the Israeli wine revolution was not only the quality of his wine but also aesthetics. He built the country’s most beautiful winery alongside the vineyard he planted at Ramat Raziel, where he lived. He gave the same attention to the presentation of his product as he did to the wines themselves.

Growers Turned Winemakers

Yonatan Tishbi was the first grower to decide to create his own winery. The Tishbi family were growers who first planted vineyards in the 1880’s and they were members of the Carmel wine growers co-operative. In 1985 Tishbi built his own family managed winery known for its warm hospitality & good value wines.  He became the first of many owners of vineyards to decide to open his own winery.

Ronnie James was a self taught grower, who worked for thirty years in the vineyards of Kibbutz Tzora, selling grapes to Carmel. In 1992 he became a self taught winemaker & opened a boutique winery. Tzora became one of the first boutique wineries to use its own grapes and it became an unstoppable trend as more & more vineyard owners decided to make wine & open their own small wineries. In this Ronnie James was an inspiration.

Viticulture

Professor Ben Ami Bravdo from the Hebrew University, led the way with viticultural research, also  teaching the next generation of viticulturists. He in particular became involved with experiments to cultivate grapes in the hot climate of the Negev desert using saline water dug from 2,000 feet underground for irrigation.

Beni Sorkin was the first viticulturist for the Golan Heights Winery. Initially he learnt about apples but through studies, visits to wine regions and working closely with Peter Stern, he became the leading viticulturist in Israel. The concept of a winery having total control of all vineyard activity was introduced and meteorological stations to monitor information were placed in the vineyards. It was the management of vineyards more than anything else that set the Golan apart.

Wine Authorities

Charles Loinger, a Frenchman from Strasbourg, was director of the Israel Wine Institute from 1964 until 1986. The most important contribution he made was to research different grape varieties and to bring Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Sauvignon Blanc & Chardonnay to Israel.  Previously Carignan & Semillon had dominated. The gradual move from sweet to dry & semi dry wines happened on his watch. Loinger was also one of the original lecturers, giving wine courses to students learning at places like the Tadmor Hotel School.

Yehuda Zimnavoda, a veteran grape grower, was chairman of the Israel Wine & Grapes Board for 17 years. During this time, there was an enormous growth in planting in new regions with quality varieties and with new clones suitable for Israel’s terroir. The importance of Carignan declined rapidly to be replaced by Cabernet Sauvignon & Merlot.  He later became chairman for SCV des Grandes Caves – Carmel.

Wine Education

Israel Assayel was one of the first people to give wine lectures, open a wine store and import wine. In this sense he was a pioneer before his time. Self taught and fascinated by wine, he was prepared to share his interest to the few that were prepared to listen. His Rehovot shop was opened before wine stores became fashionable & he imported Concha Y Toro before others caught on to the potential of wine imports.

Koby Gat was part of Carmel’s winemaking team and their agronomist. Originally he worked at the Wine Institute. In later years, before retirement, he was involved in training & tastings for hotels & restaurants. However he was most known for the thousands of people who have been through his wine courses, held to this day at Rishon Le Zion Winery.

Yair Hajdu was the first manager of the Golan Heights Winery Wine School – which was situated at Derech Ha’Yain.  It was the first school devoted to wine & Hajdu built himself up as an entertaining lecturer. His short spell as a teacher of wine culture came at a crucial time, when wine culture was becoming more acceptable. He eventually left Israel to sell wine glasses for Riedel in Europe.

Barry Saslove is one of Israel’s finest boutique winery winemakers. However as an educator he had the biggest effect on the Israeli wine scene. Firstly his wine courses became known for the careful preparation, the enthusiastic delivery & no-one who entered a Saslove lecture failed to come out a wine lover. He also wrote one of the first wine books. He then embarked, in a series of winemaking courses. Here many embryonic winemakers learnt their craft, and this fuelled the boom of new wineries which took place in the 1990’s. His Saslove winery became one of Israel’s best.

Haim Gan – was the first person to set up his own business based on wine education & tastings without being backed by a winery. His Ish Anavim is the current hot spot for tutored tastings & courses. Haim Gan, used to work in the restaurant business before joining Carmel in wine education. Today, if there is an interesting tasting going on, it is likely to be in his beautiful premises in Jaffa.

Export

Adam Montefiore was responsible for exporting the wines of the Golan Heights Winery for many years and by extension, also Tishbi for a time, & Galil Mountain. He then moved to Carmel looking after the export of Carmel, Yatir and the consortium of Handcrafted Wines of Israel (inc. Castel, Margalit, Saslove & Tzora etc), which he set up. The first time wineries worked together. He represented Israel at international exhibitions, tastings, became known as the ambassador of Israeli wine and became the main contact for famous wine journalists seeking information about Israeli wine.

Wine Shops

Uri Shaked was the country’s main pioneer in the retail & import market. The Shaked family learnt about wine when distributing Yarden, Gamla & Golan wines. They were regarded as the best in the business, and continue today to distribute Binyamina & Recanati wineries.

However, Uri Shaked is best known for his wine shop, Derech Ha’Yain which opened in Tel Aviv in the early 1990’s. It was the first serious wine shop with wines laid down, a cross section of most of the Israeli wines & imports and it was a real wine shop – not like a kiosk also selling beer & cigarettes. There was a wine cellar, a tasting room for wine education – and today, when every town has a wine store, it is still the best. It has now become a chain and there are a number of Derech Ha’Yayin Wine Stores ( which translates as ‘Wine Route’).

Avi Ben became one of the new style wine retailers opening wine stores in Jerusalem. His style was to offer a wide variety of imported & Israeli wines with knowledgeable service and the opportunity to taste before purchase. His Nahalat Shiva store has become a mecca for wine lovers in Jerusalem.

Imports

Uri Shaked was also the first person to really capitalize on the import boom of the late 1990’s. This gave a challenge to local producers & was important in further educating the consumer. His company, Shaked, brought in the first imported wine to become a major brand, Gato Negro. Since then they have imported a range of wines from big brands like Gallo & Penfold’s, to First Growth Bordeaux wines for special customers. A mature import scene heralded the coming of age of the Israel domestic market.

Ariel Epstein’s family company, Hakerem, were always leading importers and distributors of spirits. When he became the first of the major importers to turn to wine, many were skeptical, but starting with Antinori, they became one of the most respected wine importers, representing wines at every price point in both the kosher & non kosher markets. Many importers followed their success.

Wine Competitions & Exhibitions

Avi Ben Ami was at one time Israel’s best sommelier. He won ‘Pras Yarden’ – The Yarden Award for Wine Service, and worked at restaurants of the calibre of Roshfeld’s & Mul Yum.  What he gave to Israel wine scene was that he organized the first wine exhibition, with Al Ha Shulchan, at the Scottish House in Jaffa. He organized the first competition – known as Eshkolot Ha’Zahav – which has become like the Oscars for the Israeli wine scene & he organized the first winery equipment exhibition.

Communication

Michael Ben Yosef, a Wine Master, wrote the first coffee table books on wine in Hebrew. His first book came out in 1990. He then published a second, and finally one in English called: ‘The Bible of Israeli Wines’. He also has written for newspapers including Maariv. He was a pilot for El Al who did much to upgrades the wines on their flights.

Daniel Rogov is Israel’s only full time wine journalist. He writes for Ha’aretrz, the serious newspaper of Israel. He also has a guru like following on his website. He is author of ‘Rogov’s Guide To Israeli Wine’, Israel’s first international style wine guide. Rogov contributes to Hugh Johnson’s Pocket Wine Book and writes for Tom Stevenson’s ‘Wine Report’. He is also Israel’s most internationally respected journalist.

Israel Preker created what has become the standard website for Israeli wines. www.israelwines.co.il .This is the most informative media for someone searching for information on Israeli wines, wineries & vineyards. All wine related events are covered, tastings & news are faithfully reported and articles are published on wine related issues. News is up to date, immediate & comprehensive due the investment in time & energy of Israel Preker, who built up the site single handed.

Adi Avissar published the first magazine devoted to wine called “Wine & Gourmet". Previously if wine had been mentioned, it was as an after thought in a food magazine. Starting in the mid 1990’s it has been going for 10 years. An international style magazine, with ratings each month from professional blind tastings, which are eagerly awaited by wineries & wine consumers alike.

Israel Wines

June 2005