🇳🇱Achttien jaar geleden ontmoette Elizabeth Gabay MW de Israëlische wijnmaker Eli Ben Zaken van Domaine du Castel, en ze was onder de indruk van zijn wijnen. Terugkijkend op haar proefnotities van die tijd beschrijft ze de ontwikkeling die het land heeft meegemaakt en proeft ze 0pnieuw de wijnen. Lees met haar mee…

🇬🇧Eighteen years ago, in May 2002, at a dinner in London, I met Israeli winemaker Eli Ben Zaken from Domaine du Castel, and I was impressed by his wines, grown on the Judaean Hills. Looking back at my tasting notes at that vertical tasting of vintages throughout the 1990s, it was possible to see how his wines had evolved.

I did not know much about Israeli wine until January 2015, when I was able to spend ten days touring round Israeli vineyards. With an image in many foreign markets for only producing sweet religious wines, it came as a shock to taste fresh whites and serious dry red wines and to learn about the enormous advances in the quality of wine being produced. The four main vineyards –  Carmel, Barkan, Golan Heights and Teperberg – control 70% of the local market and wine exports, and there are about fifty commercial wineries.

Rosés were not so visible on my 2015 visit. I learnt that in the 1970s and 1980s, Grenache rosé was a big brand, a deep-coloured, semi-dry, verging on semi-sweet, wine. By the 1990s, with the start of the boutique winery boom, tastes began to change and wine making improved. Victor Schoenfeld, a UC Davis graduate, arrived at the Golan Heights Winery in 1991 and helped pioneer a wine making revolution in Israel. However, it was not until around 2007 that rosé started, in a small way, to be taken seriously, even if only as a simple light, fresh, summer wine.

By 2017 when I was researching my book Rosé: Understanding the pink wine revolution, a growing number of rosés were appearing. The majority were increasingly lighter in colour and structure compared to the heavier, sometimes off-dry traditional style. A wide range of varieties is used, including Barbera, Cabernet Franc, Carignan, Cinsault, Grenache, Malbec, Marselan, Merlot, Mourvèdre, Pinot Gris, Pinot Noir, Sangiovese, Syrah, Viognier and Zinfandel. As production increases, some winemakers are looking at more complex styles, with a few ageing in oak. The styles are extremely diverse, as each producer makes rosé in his own style, searching for the best rosé to suit terroir and varieties and an Israeli rosé style is still evolving…

…read more on Elizabeth’s website about the three regions which stand out as being successful at producing  high quality wines and her tasting notes of wines from Domaine du Castel, the Galil Mountain Winery and the Golan Heights Winery.

Dutch importers:

Domaine du Castel: Well of Wine
Golan Heights: De Monnik Dranken
Galil Mountain: Well of Wine

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