Month: March 2018

Passover is here again. I have for a long time associated Passover with wine. For me it is the Festival of Wine, not the Festival of Unleavened Bread or Festival of Freedom. To taste four glasses, potentially four wines, and be a good Jew at the same time is very tempting. It is like having the best of two worlds.

At some wineries, managing directors seem to change all the time. At others, they make an impact over decades. At Carmel & Binyamina for example, the managers seem to change with the seasons. At others, like Teperberg and Barkan, the same managers were in control for many years. Moti Teperberg has been CEO of Teperberg Winery for over 30 years and Shmuel Boxer was CEO of Barkan Winery for 26 years. At the turn of the century a number of new wineries sprung up with large investments and great potential. Wineries like Clos de Gat, Flam and Recanati flourished, whilst others like Amphorae and Ella Valley struggled with regular changes of ownership and managers respectively. The reason is the quality of management which is as important to a winery’s success as a viticulturist and winemaker.

There are very few truly specialist positions in the wine trade. Firstly, there is the viticulturist, an agronomist specializing in wine grapes. Then there is the winemaker, ‘the chef’, turning the precious grapes into even more precious wine. We should not forget the educators, buyers, writers and critics, each of whom has a measure of expertise. Finally, last but not least, there is the sommelier, a professional wine waiter and so much more, who is the front man when wine is opened and enjoyed.