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hard to understand even for experi-
enced wine drinkers (what, after all, is
the difference between an 86 and an
87? What is an 87, anyway?), Rogov
can be amusing. Of one lowly regard-
ed bottle, sarcasm overflows. "Drink
up," he writes, proving how brevity is
wit.
Stuart Wise
(248) 763-8059
stuart.b.wise@chase.com
CHASE
A History
The introduction, though, is worth
the book's price. For all the effete and
inaccessible talk that wine sometimes
seems to invite, wine is fundamentally
about the land.
Wine roots in the Land of Israel
extend back to ancient times, and they
laid the foundation for the Zionist
enterprise. The Torah notes that Noah
planted the first vineyard and how
Moses' spies in Canaan brought back
immense clusters of grapes.
Deuteronomy lists wine among the
blessings the Promised Land will yield.
Ezekiel even makes reference to wine-
growing methods, specifically trellises
winemakers used to train vines.
There's a considerable archeological
record to back up the Bible, too, with
remains of ancient wine presses and
other winemaking paraphernalia across
the entire Land of Israel.
The only interruptions of wine pro-
duction were during certain periods of
Muslim rule, since Islam forbids alco-
hol.
That vines, like people, need strong
roots was a metaphor that wasn't lost
on the earliest pioneers in Palestine,
the Chalutzim, who saw a prospect to
meet the Jewish world's demand for
kosher wine.
In 1882, with backing from the
Baron Edmund de Rothschild, who
owned the Chateau Lafite, one of the
most esteemed wineries in Bordeaux,
the early settlers planted vineyards in
Rishon Le-Zion. Rothschild sent
experts, supplies and grape varieties
from Europe and funded wineries in
Rishon, as well as in Zichron Ya'akov,
which opened its wineries in 1890.
Heat killed the first harvests, fol-
lowed by a plague of insects, and the
ventures failed. Even so, Rothschild
subsequently organized a collective to
manage the two wineries in 1906
called Carmel Mizrahi — and that
entity dominated the Israeli wine
industry through the 1980s.
Quality improved dramatically in
the 1990s and early 2000s, especially
with the rise of dozens of boutique
and artisanal producers. Some produce
fewer than 1,000 bottles, some more
than 100,000 bottles.
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The challenge for small wineries is
distribution.
The challenge for small wineries is
distribution, and various efforts are
under way, including one by Carmel,
to organize boutique producers and
help them reach a wider market. The
big producers dominate shelf space in
most U.S. metropolitan areas,
although in New York, selection is
somewhat better.
The question now is the future, and
where, given the competition, Israeli
wine will go from here.
Because it's Israel, wine also faces
political pressures, especially because
some of Israel's best wine-growing
lands are in disputed areas, most
notably the Golan Heights but also in
the hills of Judea.
That aside, Rogov looks to the niche
success of places such as Sicily and the
Penedes region of Spain, which suc-
ceeded by appealing to wine drinkers
in search of novel, high-quality wines,
as examples Israeli winemakers should
look to for guidance.
As niche wines, Rogov writes, Israeli
wines "will move off those shelves lim-
ited only to kosher holdings and begin
to appear in a special Israeli section.
"Their appeal to the broader popu-
lation will come from their unique
qualities, reflecting their
Mediterranean and specifically Israeli
source. Those that prove their excel-
lence will find themselves in greater
demand by both Jewish and non-
Jewish audiences."
❑
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