Month: December 2018
Categories
A BLEND OF TRADITION AND MODERNITY
Yossi Shor comes from a long line of winemakers. His family have been making wine since 1848. They started in the Old City of Jerusalem, moved to Beit Israel and settled in Mishor Adumim. Generation after generation they continued making wine as a profession….for over 170 years.
When they started, wine was made in small casks from Arab grown grape varieties in Hebron. As wine developed in the country, bottles replaced casks, and then grapes like Alicante (pre State) and Carignan (post State) replaced the Hebron varieties. The family at one stage owned five or six wineries at a time when there were not many wineries in Israel. However, if truth be told, the Shor family still made liquid religion, which is a term to describe kiddush wine and grape juice, along with inexpensive, good value table wines, mainly sold in supermarkets. In the meantime, a quality revolution was happening in Israeli wine. The use of classic varieties, planted in high altitude vineyards, the introduction of new world technology and the employment of internationally trained winemakers, changed the face of Israeli wine.
Categories
BORN IN A BOTTLE
Imagine a family journey lasting 170 years, which leads from Haggai Street in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, travels via Rappaport Street, Beit Israel in Western Jerusalem and arrives in Haruvim Street in Mishor Adumim, east of Jerusalem. I am referring to the Shor family, which opened their winery way back in 1848 and is today still making wine. This is Israel’s oldest existing wine making family.
Initially it was called Shor Winery, then it became AM Shor Bros and over time as the family grew, it split into four different wineries: Arza, Hacormim, Shimshon and Zion wineries, each with exactly the same roots. Shimshon Winery was eventually sold and is today known as Jerusalem Vineyard Winery. The surviving Shor wineries continue to be owned and managed by the family. What is unique to Zion Winery though, is that it is not only owned by the Shor family, and managed by the Shor family, but also after all these years, the winemaker is still a member of the family!
Categories
Israel With a Sparkle
Categories
GOOD DAYS AT LASCOMBES AGAIN
Chateau Lascombes is a grand, ivy colored, turreted building in the village of Margaux in the Haut Medoc. It looks grand and imposing, just like a Bordeaux French Château should. The first known owner was Chevalier Antoine de Lascombes, born in 1625. In the famous 1855 classification, Bordeaux wines from the Medoc were ranked in an order still respected today. Fifty eight wineries were classified into five levels of Classed Growths, (Grand Cru Classe in French.) Chateau Lascombes earned the honorable description of Deuxieme Cru Classé, that is a Second Classed Growth. The First Growths include the likes of Chateau Lafite Rothschild and Chateau Haut Brion, so to be second was not bad positioning.
Categories
WINE ROOTS & ROUTES
Succot, the festival for celebrating the grape harvest, is a time for touring Israel’s wine country. Many wine lovers will be planning visits to the Golan Heights, Galilee, Mount Carmel, Judean Hills or Central Mountains regions, but my mind is elsewhere. I recently discovered a fascinating tour of the ‘Jerusalem Wine Route’ by Dani Biran, under covering the hidden roots of Israeli wine in the mid-19th century. There is a misconception that from the time the Marmelukes ruled, wine was outlawed and there was no wine made in Israel or the Holy Land until Baron Edmond de Rothschild founded a modern Israel wine industry starting in 1882. In fact, the first call to plant vines and the first recorded winery were a long time before that.