Month: December 2021

The cradle of wine culture was in the Eastern Mediterranean. In ancient times and Biblical times, the wine drinker would have been quite familiar with wines from places where today’s Cyprus, Greece, Israel, Lebanon and Turkey are situated.  After the golden age, the region made pretty awful wine for 2,000 years, or at least during the periods there was not prohibition. However in the last twenty years there has been a revolution in quality. Each of the East Med countries is making the best wine they have made for thousands of years and it has become a very dynamic, quality driven wine region.

One can basically tell the story of Israeli fizz in three sparkling wines: The President’s, produced by Carmel Mizrahi, Yarden Blanc de Blancs made by the Golan Heights Winery and Raziel Brut Nature, a new expression by the Ben-Zaken family. The President’s was the dominant player from the 1950’s until the late 1980’s. Yarden Blanc de Blancs dates from the early 1990’s and Raziel’s new sparkling wine has not even been launched yet!