Judean Hills Tasting

Notes from the Judean Hills Quartet tasting

Israeli wine has, at best, no perceptible brand awareness. And yet the quality of the wines from this quartet of producers all based in the Judean Hills just outside Jerusalem was very high indeed.

These are classic, European-style, food-friendly wines that deliver finesse more than power - sophisticated and complex, they have an international pedigree but a local accent.

The Judean Hills have everything you could want for winemaking - Mediterranean climate, shallow terra rossa over poor-quality limestone or dolomite soils and high altitude. The only challenge is excess sun exposure and heat which is managed through maintaining a leaf canopy.

This region also has vintage variation and in a good year like 2015 when everything comes together, the results are spectacular.

The quality is reflected in the prices; £30+ for most, and more for the "C" Blanc. Like other emerging areas, prices are high at the bottom due to small quantities but low at the top due to lack of brand awareness.

The Whites

Tzora Vineyards Shoresh Blanc 2015 (100% Sauvignon Blanc) aromatic and leesy, pure and elegant; Bordelais in style. Substantial with good underpinnings; long, deft, textured and linear. Very Good.

Sphera White Concepts - Riesling 2015 aromatic and floral with honeysuckle and beeswax; ripe fresh yellow stone fruit, candied pineapple pieces and lime zest. Mosel-esque but with more warmth. Long and substantial, pure and deft. Very Good.

Sphera White Signature 2015 (100% Chardonnay) fresh and elegant, delicately oaked with good underpinnings. Flinty and mineral; tight yet harmonious. Very Good.

"C" Blanc du Castel 2014 (100% Chardonnay) textured and substantial Burgundian Chardonnay; ripe melon and baked apple fruit with substantial, creamy-nutty-oatmealy underpinnings. Substantial and fresh. Very Good Indeed.

The Reds
Flam Classico 2014 (Bordeaux blend plus Syrah) lifted and floral with dried green herbs, sweet spices and fresh, juicy cherries and bramble fruit; long with fine tannins and a mineral backbone. Deft and elegant. Very Good.

Castel Grand Vin 2014 (Bordeaux blend) focused and intense nose, muscular and precise with spices, black-cherry and dark berry fruit; Pure, precise, linear and mineral with very fine tannins. Complex, muscular and athletic. Very Good Indeed.

Tzora Vineyards Misty Hills 2013 (CS, Syrah) lifted and aromatic with ripe dark fruits, cool mint, minerality and peppery spice; supple and full with an inky texture. Fresh, elegant and drinkable with a balanced harmoniousness.

Flam Superiore 2006 (Syrah, CS) complex mature Medoc-esque nose of bell pepper, rosehip, old leather and spice cupboard leading to raspberry and tobacco leaf with ripe dark berries, spice and liquorice. Supple, harmonious and fresh with good underpinnings.

Drinking very nicely now, this is just at its peak.

Castel Grand Vin 2008 (Bordeaux blend) ripe bramble fruit and spice; vibrant and youthful, it is just ready; harmonious and fresh with fine tannins and just a hint of bell pepper and rosehip aromas coming through. Very Good.

The Judean People's Hills

Judean Hills tasting

- Are you the Judean People's Front?
Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979)
Watch the clip here


Ever had an Israeli wine?

These wines from the Judean Hills are superb - deft, harmonious, complex wines with a European style and, even, aging potential.

The rocky Judean Hills - up to 1,000m altitude and around 50 miles inland from the Mediterranean sea - have the soil type, altitude and climate to make great wines. What they don't have is any brand awareness - of Israeli wines, of the Judean Hills area or of the four wineries that make up the Judean Hills quartet.

These are not volume producers, but small-scale, quality-led wineries. In that respect their challenge us similar to what Austria faced in the 90s - at best nil brand recognition, with low volumes and high quality.

The best advice I can give them would be to have a long chat with Willi Klinger, Head of the AWMB that has done so much to raise the profile and value of Austrian wines globally.

The quality of the wines is not in doubt - the challenge is more in raising awareness of why spending £30+ on a wine you have never heard of and that looks more like a mid-teens wine would be money well spent.

The four wineries are:

Tzora

Sphera

Castel

Flam

Detailed tasting notes to follow.

Leftism: Leftfield Wines

A writer, a collector and student decide to try some leftfield wines.

No it's not the opening line to a joke, it was the premise for an evening of wine tasting to help @winemarathon prepare for her first-year MW blind tasting.

A generation ago, classic wines styles were few in number and relatively consistent, making blind tasting a much easier prospect than it is today.

The MW exam recognises this by awarding marks more for methodology than for the final guess - the task is not so much to identify the wine precisely, but to identify what the key features of what is in the glass reveal about what it could be and what it is not.

I'd shot some of my best leftfield bolts a few weeks earlier with a Cremant de Jura fizz and a vin jaune, but a quick rummage in the samples box turned up an unusual, if entry-level, Coté Mas sparkling Picpoul to which I added a more ambitious Astelia Crémant de Limoux.

Light and citrussy, the Picpoul was a perfect aperitif; the Cremant was weighty enough to match with a starter of caramelized red onion and goats cheese tart. If they weren't the most sophisticated or obscure of wines, it lent a sense of decadence to start with not one but two different fizzes.

From here we moved on to three reds, decanted and concealed, RHCP-style, with socks and played "guess the wine".

#1 smelt aged and complex, like a classic mature Medoc; with high acidity and tannins, it was still not fully harmonious and the nose seemed older than the palate. It turned out to be a 1997 Cab from Argentina.

#2 had more ripe, primary fruit and lower acidity; a classy easy-drinker it was a Clos de Gat 2004 Bordeaux blend from the Judean Hills; the best Israeli wine I have ever had - if that's any sort of accolade.

#3 had the dark fruit, spiciness, inky texture and pencil shavings of a Rhone. Like the Cab, however, something was not quite right - an exotic, heady ripeness and Arab-bazaar spices. It was a Moroccan Syrah.

The trainee MW's choices proved to technically superior wines but lacked the offbeat quirkiness of the previous three - this affirmed a nagging reservation I have long harboured about formal wine qualifications. That said, both were relatively young and neither had been decanted and I felt were not quite showing their best.

#1 a Coonawarra Merlot led to a discussion on how to spot Merlot; for me, the hallmarks are coffee grounds and cherries, smells better than it tastes.

#2 Fox Creek Cabernet from McLaren Vale; I rarely get excited about varietal Cab, especially from the New World. Too often it seems that the blackcurranty fruit masks anything more interesting and nuanced underneath. With a couple of hours in the decanter, this might have shown better, but straight out of the bottle it was uptight and starchy.

#3 served with a dessert of roasted peaches in amaretto, this hit the spot. Ripe peaches, beeswax, honey and fresh acidity, I didn't care where it was from, I just wanted more of this nectar. It was a Torres late-harvest Riesling from Chile.

There was a final cherry on top, a 2008 Viña Alicia Malbec Brote Negro - my notes for the last red simply read; ripe and plump, dark fruit, good texture.

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Two Eastern Mediterranean Wines from Marks and Spencer

I was sent a selection of six Eastern Mediterranean wines by Marks and Spencer some time ago and thought it might be interesting for colleagues to try them at our usual after-work Wine Club.

It's taken a while, but we finally opened the first two yesterday.

Sevilen Sauvignon Blanc 2011 - Turkey (£59.94 for 6, online)

Straw coloured and bright in the glass - expressively herbaceous, aromatic and pungent on the nose with a crisp freshness.

It is crisp and zingy on the palate with ripe, citrus and grapefruit acidity, a touch of lime peel, some pineapple fruit sweetness.

Full and mineral with good depth, it is long with a persistent, minerally zesty finish.

The label says it is from the Aegean region, so presumably  western Turkey not far from Greece. It rather reminds me of a Greek SB, but is perhaps rather better value for money.

There's scant information on the back label, but I'd hazard a guess at it being grown at altitude on rocky soils, with cooling sea-breezes and temperature-controlled fermentation; it has that tri-partite mix of fullness / depth, freshness / structure and good expressiveness.

A good and interesting wine; match with something appropriately Mediterranean - light seafood with herbs, mozzarella with pesto, crostini with garlic and olive oil.

Binyamina Merlot 2010 - Israel (£59.94 for 6, online)

This Israeli Merlot is a relatively pale purple colour when I pour it into the company decanter - on the nose there is vanilla spice, dark fruit, hints of chili bitterness and coffee and something slightly vegetal and decaying that I can't quite place.

Unfortunately, that proves to be the most intriguing aspect to this wine; on the palate there is more ripe plummy fruit and a soft inky texture. It is grippy with a hint of astringency or graininess, and although not long on the palate, the finish is persistent and slightly smokey.

It is pleasant enough and well-made if somewhat unspectacular, and rather shows the general limitations of Merlot, to my mind.

The back labels declares that it is kosher and suitable for passover, but then suggests matching with beef lasagna (which is forbidden, as it mixes meat and dairy).

With prominent acidity, I'm inclined to suggest matching with salami, but that is a no-no as well, but perhaps a rich bolognese would go well.

Recommended Wine

It was unanimously agreed at Wine Club that the Sevilen SB was by far the more interesting of the two.

Both wines provided for review.

Links

Marks and Spencer - http://www.marksandspencer.com/