HaKerem: The Israeli Wine Blog

Here is an interesting article from the Canadian Jewish Independent on Israeli wine and my favorite part - the business and export side of quality wine. Nice focus on Carmel and Flam, including quotes from the legendary Adam Montefiore of Carmel and also Golan Flam of Flam. Nice to see Israeli wine getting noticed as Israeli - and not just kosher - wine and learn some history of the Israeli wine world.
Nice quote from Montefiore about ‘liquid religion’ as people I know today still talk about selling Israeli wine to religious Christians as ‘Wine from the Holy Land’ — totally the wrong tactic and not reminiscent of the great wines coming out of Israel!

“For 100 years, Israel made what I call ‘liquid religion,’” Adam Montefiore of Carmel Winery told the Independent in an e-mail interview. “This means kosher wine for the Jewish community or communion or altar wine ‘from the Holy Land’ for Christian communities.

“In the 1980s, a quality wine revolution started with the Golan Heights Winery bringing expertise from California. In the 1990s, there was a boutique winery revolution, which continues until today.”

Montefiore said, “Carmel responded to this by planting new vineyards in cooler, high-altitude areas of the Upper Galilee, Golan and Judean Hills. Building three new state-of-the-art boutique wineries and recruiting young winemakers with experience in France and Australia, their wines have received many awards recently and somehow Carmel best symbolizes the Israel revolution: a journey from sacramental to single vineyard wines.”

Golan Flam of Flam Winery said that, “at the beginning, the wineries produced mainly sweet sacramental wines; during the sixties, noble varieties such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Sauvignon Blanc were introduced in the vineyards and dry table wines were starting to be produced.

“In the early ’80s, Golan Heights Winery was founded with the vision of producing quality dry kosher wines. From the beginning, the winery was recognized as a quality winery. Since this era, the wine industry of Israel has improved. In the mid-’90s, the boutique wineries [began and] small wineries started to rise, with quality and premium production as their main agenda.”