A traditonal field blend is a wine whose grapes are planted side-by-side in a single vineyard, and harvested and fermented together. More typical blends are grown, harvested and vinified (fancy wine talk for “made into wine”) separately.

Here’s Eran’s response when I asked him to respond to Asimov’s article and to the concept of “field blending” broadly:

Hi Richard,

I read this post on Wednesday, I love his column and “The Pour”. I think he’s a true wine intellectual.

About Field Blends. I think it’s a real old world concept that does not go well with improvement in quality.

Even at Chateau Lafite, some of their older vineyard plots are planted with a mix of C.S., C.F., and ,Merlot. Back then, 40 years ago they harvested everything together. Of course, once you do that you compromise quality because each variety has its own ripening schedule. Today, they go through the vineyard and pick the grapes separately according to the variety. Today some old plots in Portugal are still planted in this way (even without knowing the varieties in the plot).

Again, I think each variety has to be harvested separately. Harvesting date is one of the most important decision a winemaker makes. great impact on quality and character.

As you know I do believe in blending varieties from the same plot after the fermentation, as we did in Misty Hills 2006 and 2007.

Cheers,

Eran

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Well there’s more good news out of that great state.

The fun hipster wine bar 13Celsius (get a brie grilled cheese with house-made mustard, pickles and chips on the side when you go) now carries 4 wines from our portfolio.

Please ask about these wines the next time you are there!

Flam Classico

Tulip Mostly Shiraz

Tulip White Tulip

Pelter Chardonnay

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I have recently been telling people (and it’s true!)

Israel and Texas share the Same Hot Latitude and the Same Hot Attitude

I love people from Texas. LOVE ‘ em.

I’m excited about all the progress we have made in that great state placing Israeli wines.

I don’t quite have explained the deep connection I feel between the energy of what I’m trying to do and the energy of the cool people I have met in Texas.

It’s not just religious, it’s not just political.

It’s somehow about two Big Hearted peoples with a similar Adventurer Spirit and interest in doing Big Things.

If you’re from Texas, please help me explain this, will you?

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Richard,

I believe the events tonight and tomorrow will be incredible. Tonight, your wines will be served in a Reserve Tasting along with such greats as  B.V. George LaTour Cabernet, Milis, Far Niente Cabernet, Two Hands Bull and the Bear, Gaja Surarille Brunello 2000, Gaja Conteisa Barbaresco 2001, Gaja Darmagi Barolo 2001,Gaja Costa Russi Barbaresco 2001, Gaja Sori San Lorenzo Barbaresco 1999, Rubicon Cask, Tenuta di Biserno Coronato 05and others among the finest statements of the winemaking art. Over 700 tickets have been sold to the event for tomorrow! I want to say, I am proud to represent you, and proud to represent Israel and these great wines!

I believe, as I know you do, that wine can be a wonderful Cultural Ambassador for Israel. Israel needs more “feel good” things to be associated with the country. If the world only knew all the contributions to mankind that have come from tiny Israel in its short 61 year history! The list is a long one. For example, if the world only knew that every time a friend or loved one was in the hospital, any hospital, that Israeli technology and medical devices treated them, perhaps healed them or saved their lives. It is a story easily told over a glass of wine. It is a good story of a people that have excelled and that excellence benefits all of us, everywhere.

The beauty of wine, for me, is that it comes from the earth and the sky. Man has no total dominion over the results of the winemaking process. There is a point where nature takes over. Any winemaker will tell you he does what he does as a labor of love, and for the mystery of what the wine will ultimately become. Israeli Wines have come full circle now, through the centuries, and today, Israel makes unique beautiful wine, all over the country. The vineyards of today, and the remnants in the same fields of 4000 year old wine presses. All that history, all the years and the struggles, culminating in something wonderful, that we all can share.

I have said it often, but in my Christian Faith, no less than Jesus said of wine “Drink this, it is my blood” and he said that at a Passover Seder.

How blessed am I to have the opportunity to serve the wonderful land and people of Israel!

As Rabbi Akiva first said, way back in the second century:

L’hayim!

Jim

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We have wines from our Israeli portfolio in both of them.

And on November 8 at 4pm, Lelabar is hosting a Guided Wine Tasting with 6 wines from our portfolio for $60 – all paired with food.

Andrew Hotis is a great guy and the wine director there. He’ll be leading the tasting!

I hope you will RSVP and plan to attend if you are in the area!

Either call Lelabar at 212-206-0594 or email Andrew to reserve a spot at andrew@lelabar.com

Here’s a review of Lelabar from earlier this year by my pal Erika Strum on her hot food and wine blog.

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Here are the wines they will be pouring:

Pelter Sauv Blanc 2008

Pelter Trio 2007

Flam Classico 2006

Tzora Giv’At Hachalukim 2006

Tzora Neve Ilan 2006

You know I love Houston.

And now if you live there you can find serious Israeli juice in The Tasting Room during the Classic and afterwards!

Stay tuned for more Israeli wine placements in Houston, as well!

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A Palestinian woman approached and smelled then tasted the wine. The conversation between the 2 of us went something like this:

Her: “This wine is good. You know we’re supposed to be enemies, right?

Me: “That’s what some people would like us to believe, but I don’t think so.”

Her: “I left Israel a long time ago and haven’t been back. I miss it. My friends are there, much of my family. Many of my best friends were Jews there. I miss them.”

Me: “I’m honored to meet you tonight. I’m glad the wine makes you remember home.”

Her: “It smells like the land there. I can smell the dirt and the breeze. It smells like my home.”

And then she bought a bottle to take home with her. To remind her.

What interests and amazes me most about wine is the magical way it has of bringing people together across countries and cultures and backgrounds. Lifting people up above their narrow particularities and colliding them together. Taking them home again.

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I recently sat for an interview with my pal Esther Steinfeld from The BusinessMakers at The Tasting Room in Houston.

We talked about wine from Israel, the spiritual dimensions of starting a start-up, advice for entrepreneurs, and Chablis!

I hope you enjoy listening to the interview as much as I enjoyed giving it!

You can listen to it here.

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Last night, I sat for an interview with Esther Steinfeld (her birthday is soon so if you see her wish her a happy birthday, ok?) of The BusinessMakers. The BusinessMakers features interviews and the personal and professional stories of entrepreneurs (our methods and our madness).

We took over a private room at The Tasting Room Uptown in Houston for our meet-up.

It took a little arm-twisting but I got her to agree to drink Chablis Premier Cru throughout the interview.

I think ultimately Esther said 5 or 6 times that this was her “funnest interview ever”. Maybe more like 11 or 12 times, actually (Esther: I’m totally messing you with you!)

Among a lot of other things, we chatted about the spiritual aspects of start-ups, the current and future state of the wine industry, why people should even care about wine from Israel, and how getting a group of women’s honest feedback on any biz idea before you act on it is hugely important (I’m serious).

I had a blast during the interview (the questions Esther asked really rocked!) and can’t wait for you to hear it!

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Mark Squires, a critic on Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate tasting & review team, recently published an article after tasting dozens of Israeli wines called “David Takes Center Stage: The Rise of the Small Wineries”.

I have often said that the future of the Israeli quality wine world is in the small wineries. Mark’s article continues to chronicle their rise to “center stage”.

Mark tasted many of the wines in my import portfolio and the following received scores of 89 or 90 – meaning the wines were deemed “very good” and “outstanding”. It’s a big deal to get such scores in the highly competitve international wine world we now play in.

If you use the promo code kawasaki during checkout you receive 11% off the regular retail price on these outstanding wines from Israel.

89pts. Flam Cabernet Reserve 2005 (SOLD OUT but enjoy the 2006)

90pts. Flam Superiore Syrah 2006

89pts. Margalit Cabernet Sauvignon 2006

90pts. Margalit Special Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon 2006

90pts. Margalit Enigma 2006

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I spent some time recently chatting with winemaker Eran Pick, the UC Davis-trained winemaker producing serious hand-crafted terroir-driven wines in the Judean Hills. A couple weeks ago, one of Eran’s wines (Tzora Shoresh 2006) was chosen as best in a trade panel blind tasting against other Israeli and California Cabernets). And earlier this month, Tzora Vineyards was selected by JNF as their first-ever exclusive winery partner. We donate $1 for every bottle sold to JNF’s projects helping the people of Sderot.

I Want to ORDER Tzora Wines!!!

What was the best wine you ever tasted?

I had many “Best Wine” experiences. It was not always due to the wine, but to the atmosphere. I’m a big fan of Bordeaux wines, and to me, the most unusual experience was to drink Chateau Lafite 1990 at Lafite’s manager’s private home during dinner.

The wine that impressed me the most was a 1997 Brunello from Soldera Case Basse tasted in the winery’s cellars. It was such a velvety and delicate wine with wonderful aromas. Wine like that is not made. It is clearly a creation of “God”.

Do you remember a moment you fell in love with wine?

I owe my first love to wine to a German Riesling Trockenbeerenauslese. During a vacation in Germany, a friend suggested we visit a small winery in the Mosel. At the winery, we were offered a TBA from the 60s. When the wine was poured into the glass, the wonderful flowery aromas filled the entire room. A true love from the first smell.

What’s unique about Tzora Vineyards?

We want our wines to reflect the Judean Hills unique Terroir. In order to achieve this goal, we make wine only from our estate’s fruit, grown in three vineyards. We work very hard in the vineyard and do minimal intervention in the winery.

We are the only winery in Israel that focuses on Single Vineyard wines.

Is it difficult to grow grapes in Israel? What makes the process different from anywhere else in the world?

I think it is difficult to grow good grapes anywhere in the world. You need to work very hard to achieve greatness. Every place has different problems according to its terroir. In cool climates, wineries are struggling to reach ripeness of sugars, and have horrible, rainy vintages from time to time. In warm climates, like Israel, the biggest challenge in the vineyard is to reach sugar ripeness, phenolic maturity and good flavor profile at once. In some vintages sugars come too fast without total phenolic ripeness.

What is your strategy of vineyard management?

We are looking to find the correct balance for each plot in the vineyard. We grow 80 acres in three vineyards of different Terroirs. In order to achieve this balance we use two main tools: Selection and Differentiation. We select merely the best fruit by shoot thinning, green harvest etc… We also grow each plot differently, according to its needs. For example, plots with high vigor we perform the shoot thinning late so the berries won’t get to chunky. In low vigor plots we perform an early thinning. We also learned that by leaf pulling near the grape bunches, we can slow sugar ripening and increase the rate of phenolic maturity.

Tell me about terroir. what is terroir? Can you really translate your country and region into a bottle of wine?

To me Terroir is the most interesting and important concept in wine. Without it, wine would be just a beverage. Wine of Terroir (not all wines show their terroir) must reflect their time (vintage) and place of origin (Terroir).

When you spend time in the vineyards, it is obvious to notice that some plots produce better fruit then other plots constantly, year after year. The only difference among the plots is the total environment of vines; soil and climate.

My goal as a winemaker, together with our vineyard manager, is to bring the unique environment of the vineyard into the bottle. To find the right balance for the vines. All our work is focused on this goal.

Do you think Tzora Vineyards wines are best described as Old World or New World wines?

I’m not a big fan of these definitions. I don’t think they will exist much longer.

Our wines reflect their origin, which is an “Old World” concept. However, we don’t like faults in the wines that were once attributed to terroir, a “New World” concept.

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Here are the Israeli wines we entered into the mix:

Flam Cabernet Reserve 2006

Margalit Special Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon 2007

Tzora Shoresh 2006

Pelter, T-Selection, Cabernet Sauvignon, 2007

And here are the California Cabs in the mix:

Caymus Cabernet 2007

Benziger Tribute Cabernet Blend 2006

Murphy-Goode Terra A Lago Cabernet 2004

St. Supery Elu Cabernet Blend 2004

You can buy all 4 smack-down wines at a DISCOUNT here. And (here’s a little secret) if you then check-out and use the promo code kawasaki you’ll end up getting about 20% off of the retail price.

Here are the top wines with the most “#1″ votes from the trade tasters:

Tied for 1st:
Flam Cabernet Reserve 2006

and

Tzora Shoresh 2006

2nd:
Pelter, T-Selection, Cabernet Sauvignon 2007

3rd:
Benziger Tribute Cabernet Blend 2005

I’m not going to list the last 4 wineries but you get the point.

All I have ever wanted is for Israeli wineries to have a seat at the table.

I want YOU to help me find the next town for an Israeli Wine SmackDown. Tell me when and where.

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Meet Asaf Margalit (right), winemaker and co-owner of Margalit Winery. We sat down with Asaf and asked about his life, his wines and his thoughts about the future of the Israeli wine industry.

You can Buy Margalit Wines Here Now

You can Visit Margalit Winery’s Website Here

About Asaf

Q:  Tell us about yourself and your family.

A:  My name is Asaf Margalit, and I am the winemaker of Margalit Winery and co-owner. I am happily married to my wife Naomi, and we have a wonderful 5-year-old son by the name of Jonathan.

Q:  Do you remember a moment you knew you would be a winemaker?

A:  I started learning physics at the university parallel to my work in the winery as my father’s apprentice. At the end of that year I decided I wanted to be a winemaker.

Q:  If you were not a winemaker what profession would you be in?

A:  Probably working in hi-tech. A good friend and I used to program computers when we were teenagers. He went on to become a big shot in Computers Associates LTD, and I became a winemaker. We see each other every week at the basketball court.

Q:  What are some of your favorite foods, and what wines do you like to pair with them?

A:  In general, I like everything, and I eat everything. I adore cool white wines that express characteristics of fruit, spring, flowers and spices (the less wood, the more the varietal characters). With them I like a light dish of rich food, like ceviche or my wife’s delicious quiche or good pasta.

Q:  How can a wine beginner get better at tasting all the stuff that experts say they taste in wine?

A:  Tasting and evaluating more and more to make your palate more sharp – drink, drink, drink. Taste and evaluate the wine with experts, talk to them, listen to their analysis of the wine and, while they do, smell and taste the wine to understand their breakdown.

About Margalit Winery and Israeli wines

Q:  What has made your winery so successful?

A:  Enjoyment – we love what we do.

Knowledge – my father wrote some of the best winemaking and wine chemistry textbooks.

Experience – we are now entering our 20^th year of professional winemaking.

Ownership – we own our vineyards and we make the decisions in the vineyards.

Small and humble – we prefer to think of ourselves as winemakers rather than businessmen.

Q:  What are you trying to achieve with your portfolio of wines? What do you want people to experience or take with them from the wines you make?

A:  We love the Bordeaux varieties, so our portfolio of wines is Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Cabernet Franc. They are rich and have a big spectrum of flavors. They grow beautifully in Israel, and we get wonderful grapes to work with.

We are somewhere between the New World and the Old World. I am influenced by both sides and try to implement what I like in my wines if it is possible. We make powerful fruity wines like the New World, and we make them with the finesse and elegance of the Old World. Our wines are rich, complex and powerful, but they are also elegant.

Q:  What is terroir?

A:  Looking in Wikipedia for terroir, you will find what the public thinks “terroir” is: “Terroir…was originally a French term in wine, coffee and tea used to denote the special characteristics that geography bestowed upon particular varieties.”

This is one way to look at it. I think it is much more than this. To explain my perception, I will tell a story.

When visiting Domaine de Chevalier, a friend and I were accompanied by Vice Director Mr. Remi Edange. While we toured the winery and vineyards, Mr. Edange kept saying over and over, “It is the terroir of this place.” At the end of the tour we were summoned to a big room with only a few antiques of wine equipment on the walls. Beside a big window facing the vineyards stood a big, old farm table. You could feel and see the years of work that was done on it. It added character and personality. On this beautiful table there were ten glasses forming a triangle and a bottle of wine from the winery. Mr. Edange opened the bottle, poured three glasses and handed them to us. From that moment, he stopped talking. This fine-looking, “unnecessary,” big room and the landscape outside were for that bottle of wine. In this bottle of wine there was the essence of the culture, heritage and the traditions of this place. This is terroir.

Q:  So terroir isn’t just about geography.

Terroir is well-connected to soil, climate and agriculture, but it embraces many more things, meanings and the essence of the culture and heritage.

For example, when you meet a Texas-born man, he greets you with “Howdy.” He talks about The Lone Star even though he knows it is a part of the United States. The same goes for the New Yorker with his unique accent. They all speak English and have much in common, but they want to save their own heritage, which is unique to that place only. It is not better or worse; it is different. Sometimes we love it, sometimes we laugh of it, but we all have it. In Hebrew we use the term “hatara le yoshna” – עטרה ליושנה. It means going back to our roots, to our heritage.

Q:  Why should Americans care about Israeli wines?

A:  Pure curiosity. I am sure they will be surprised by the quality of the wines, and they will start drinking them on regular basis.

Q:  What will the next 5 years hold for the Israeli wine industry?

A:  Israelis learn fast. Many of the winemakers have toured all over the winemaking world, many managers toured all over the wine business world and so on. We adapt many things we find and like. We explore our own terroirs and try many ways to improve our wines. I believe that in five years, the Israeli wine industry will be well-know and drunk all over the world. (The industry is certainly trying to market and brand itself to the world).

Asaf on the business side of winemaking

Q:  What is your strategy of vineyard management?

A:  I am no expert, but our winery owns two vineyards. First, Kadita Vineyard in the upper Galilee Mountains, which is planted with Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot grapes and a very small lot with Petite Syrah. The second vineyard is Binyamina Vineyard and is planted with Cabernet Franc grapes.

Although Israel is dry in summer with no rainfall at all, we choose to rely only on the winter rains and not to irrigate the vineyard at all. In order to do so, we irrigated the young vines during the first two years of growth and then gradually reduced the water quantity to force the vines’ roots to dig deep down and look for water resources there. After several years, the vines are able to grow and to produce excellent grapes by relying only on the winter rainfall.

We maintain only organic fertilization in the vineyard once every few years just before the winter rains. We use anti-fungicides and biological anti-insecticides to keep the vineyard free from specific harmful factors. The grapes are harvested when they reach full maturity according to our specification of ripeness. Harvesting is done by hand, in small buckets, in order to ensure the perfection of the grape clusters until they reach the winery.

Q:  What is your approach to yeasts in your winemaking?

We use cultivated yeasts – we use BDX ( Bordeaux red ). We like what we get in terms of flavors and colors. We did play with others out of curiosity, but we found that Bordeaux red is the best for what we like to express in our wines.

Q:  What does it mean to “filter” wine? Do you filter your wines? Why or why not?

A:  Filtering a wine is a necessary practice of wine making – everybody does it. Nobody wants to find a small creature in his bottled wine. The question is, what is the filter density? Sterile filter or coarse filter? A sterile wine filter will remove all yeasts and bacteria that may cause sediment and possibly re-fermentation, which is very important in most of the white wines. To be on the safe side, it is a common practice in commercial wineries for all wines, reds and whites.

The disadvantage of filtering is the possible reduction of color and tannins. Yes, some color molecules and tannins bond to the filter, but in my opinion, this is insignificant.

In some very big wineries who have lots of wine to filter, they mostly use a prefilter (mechanical separators ) – machines like kieselguhr light soil consisting of siliceous diatom remains which on one hand filter roughly and on the other hand bond color, smell and taste molecules in considerable numbers which do effect the quality of the wine. Then they use the filter machine.

Wineries use the term “unfiltered” for marketing reasons if they do not use a sterile filter. I can claim that my wines are “unfiltered.” But, of course, you would never see this claim on a bottle of Margalit wine.

Q:  How do you feel about synthetic corks or screwcaps versus natural corks?

A:  I am in favor. Most of the wines the world produces are cheap and good wines that have no aging potential—oxidation is not good for them. Therefore, they don’t need natural corks. In fact, screwcaps are better. They are 100 percent sealed, and they are 100 percent homogenous, cheaper and don’t have TCA.

For good wines with aging potential, I prefer natural corks because micro-oxidation is good for them. It matures them, but there is only a small portion of wines that are made for aging.

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Five of the hand-crafted wines from Israel I import are in a reefer right this moment on their way to leading retailer Wine Library in NJ, owned by Gary Vaynerchuk and his family, where they will fill a shelf in a new ISRAELI category (!!).

I took representatives from Flam, Margalit, Pelter, Tulip and Tzora wineries with me to the store for a nearly 3-hour tasting and discussion in February and have enjoyed a great dialogue with the Wine Library team ever since.

As soon as our new vintages arrived we prepped an order for them and sent it on its way this week.

We’re honored to have hand-crafted wines from the Original Wine World in this amazing store and I want to thank Dennis Bulluck, a Wine Library buyer, for his great partnership!

Here are the 5 wines on their way now:

Flam Cabernet Reserve 2006

Margalit Cabernet Franc 2005

Pelter Sauvignon Blanc 2008

Tulip White Tulip 2008

Tzora Shoresh 2006

This is serious juice. If you live in the area please stop by and support us by trying these wines!

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Tzora Vineyards‘ winemaker Eran Pick, who trained in winemaking at UC Davis, sent me this picture today.

He calls it Harvest at Dawn.

I love the way this picture captures a mood and a place.

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I hope you can join us for the second in a series of friendly “blind” wine competitions we are hosting between a handful of Israeli Cabernets I import and some well-known California Cabs.

The first (you may recall!) was with some good friends in Houston!

The August 24th event is at The Jug Shop in San Francisco Monday August 24th at 6pm.

ALL OF YOU ARE INVITED!!

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE COME OUT TO SHOW YOUR CONTINUED SUPPORT FOR THE RE-EMERGENCE OF THE ISRAELI WINE WORLD!

Friends from Murphy-Goode and St. Supery wineries will come and enter their wines into the mix, along with other premium Cali Cabs.

You will have the opportunity to Taste, Rank, and BUY the wines at the event!

Looks like the wines from our team will include:

Margalit Special Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon 2007

Flam Cabernet Reserve 2006

Tzora Shoresh 2006

Pelter T-Selection Cabernet Sauvignon 2007

This is serious Israeli juice, don’t you agree?

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And so I got to thinking about how I came to select these particular wines and what it means to be a wine “importer”.

A couple thoughts (I’d love yours, too):

1) being a wine importer (at least the part of selecting which wines to import) is like being an “editor” – you have a lot of possibilities to work with and they need to be narrowed down into your version of “the best”, with all the dots connected and some theme(s) in mind, a sort of story to tell that emerges out of the endless possibilities and raw data (in my case, the many possible wines from Israel or any other place that could possibly be imported)

2) don’t take this wrong but…..I actually don’t think about YOU when I am selecting which wines to import. I think about ME and the wine styles I like, and then I buy those. And then people who resonate with or dig those styles tend to buy them from us. For example, if your wine thing is oaky, jammy, in-your-face, taking-my-clothes-off-before-the-first-date-is-even-over wines you will not like my portfolio. If you like fresh white wines that allow you to taste some fruit + sunshine and light-medium reds with a Mediterranean herbiness full of both fruit and dirt, then you will likely appreciate the wines from Israel I work with.

A famous sommelier in NYC (who carries 3 wines from us) once told me when I asked him how his customers liked the wines we had sent him, “I don’t care if they like them or not; I care if I like them or not. And I like them.”

GOOD POINT!

ANALOGY: This reminds me of people who talk too much – I have never understood that! I always (at least try) to do more listening than talking since (think about this)….I already know what I think, right? I want to know what YOU think. If you keep trying only the wines you have always had before, it’s like listening to yourself speak all the time. And if I try to buy wines for some vague guesstimate about what The Market will buy (as opposed to buying what I love) I’ll please no one really and you will “read” my edited portfolio and not be able to find a plot line.

So, I hope you will try these wines we have made available in the US and I hope you like them. But I didn’t exactly buy them for YOU. I bought them to Tell a Story through the wines about a place called Israel, the people there – past and present, what life is like there, what such an ancient re-born land does to Cabernet or Chardonnay, to let you experience what it feels like to taste the breeze and the sand and hills of the place that we actually all originate from, where Noah planted vineyards and David danced and fought and Jesus fished for men.

To see wine as Poetry again.

And Geography Lesson.

And Original Alchemy – as sunshine turns dirt back into liquid sunshine.

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My pal Sarah Peguine, who writes a great blog about the intriguing art scene in Tel Aviv, has written a post about why she loves street art, and what it all means, here:

*********************

People often ask me, “why are you so obsessed with street art?” or “Do you make street art?” The answer is no, I just admire it, look for it, and look at it. It is part of my daily life here in Tel Aviv. In fact it enhances my day to day experiences. When I go to the grocery shop for example, I am always surprised to see on my way a new piece of art decorating buildings, bins, pavements, light spots, doors and so on.

I also enjoy thinking about the link between the notion of “time” and street art. I find it so fascinating that street art is ephemeral, often repetitive, and that it keeps changing like most of our life experiences. In the past, I have written a post about this relation:

“The possible link between time and street art came to me when I was walking (actually cycling…) around Tel Aviv. Everyday, I see plenty of the same images and graffiti across town and I know that they are bound to be destroyed, removed or replaced at some point. We could perhaps suggest that repetition helps to overcome the images’ ephemeral nature. Maybe, because of all of these reasons, some artists seem to have chosen to record what can be read as the time of the day, next to their images (this is just my own interpretation), like in these two cases:”

Finally, it is the message behind those paintings that makes me curious and obsessed with street art.

Is it political?

Ironic?

Simply decorative?

Where did the artists find their inspiration from? What are WE the viewers, the inhabitants of this city suppose to see and understand from this piece of art. Lastly, can it be considered as art?

For me, it is most definitely art. Because it affects us, it brings all these questions to the fore, it moves us, and at the end of the day, or at the end of the walk to the grocery shop, it can change our mood, our perception of Tel Aviv and even our way of seeing the world.

More information:

Favorite street artists in Tel Aviv:

Klone: http://www.flickr.com/photos/klone/

Ame72: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ame72

INSPIRE: http://www.idiotthewise.com/

Know Hope: http://www.thisislimbo.com/

Tel Aviv Street Art blog: http://www.telavivstreetart.blogspot.com/

Tel Aviv street art Flickr group:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/telavivstreetart/pool/29088723@N00/

Wine and street art:

http://www.montereyherald.com/food/ci_12559416?nclick_check=1

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One of the first things I do while it is still dark out is breeze through overnight emails (often from friends and colleagues in Israel) and scan the Web and my Google Alert emails for interesting stories to share.

Earlier this week, I caught a story on (of all places) beliefnet by David Klinghoffer about why Manischewitz “Wine” is Blasphemy.

Wine is a spiritual food. It is literally alive. Like a person, it changes over time – in the barrel, in the bottle, in the glass, in your mouth.

The transformation of the grape + sunshine + yeast into wine is the world’s original alchemy.

Sunshine transforming dirt and vine back into (liquid) sunshine.

Everything the grape needs to “wine” is right there for it. Sugar (inside) + yeast (outside) = alcohol.

And we should all hope to be transformed at a personal level to the degree the grape gets transformed.

Can you imagine what would be possible for us if we would be transformed to such a degree?!

Klinghoffer reminds us that our “cup” and what’s in it is a metaphor for the gifts God gives us.

We want our cup to be full, to overflow in fact.

So to place into our literal wine cup crappy wine is somehow offensive to Him, to do so is to settle for less than what’s intended for us.

I toss out a lot of wine that tastes bad to me. It just doesn’t feel right drinking it. This is not about being a wine snob, really. It’s about the search for something that’s true and right, that makes your blood feel carbonated, that makes you sit up and say “wow, I was made for this moment, this wine made a string sing inside of me”.

Wine can be Holy Grail or Holy Hell.

I remember the feeling I have each time (Thank God) one of my kids has been born – “what’s THIS new person gonna be like?!”) And it’s similar to the expectant feeling I have uncorking a bottle of wine for the first time.

Who will this wine be?

What will it do to me?

What does it have to say to me?

Just like meeting a person for the first time.

And lately so much of the wine I have been drinking has been letting me down.

Maybe my expectations are too high.

What do you think?

Do you personalize your new wine relationships like I do?

Do you care at all about the wines you meet? Are you picky about them?

Or is wine just another beverage for you? Like Coke or OJ.

(For the record: Manischewitz is NOT form Israel!! It’s from NY!)

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Dr. Yair Margalit is the founding winemaker, in 1989, of Margalit winery. He and winemaker son Asaf have a special interest in Bourdeaux varieties and many (including me) view Margalit as Israel’s premium “cult” winery. Their insistence on low-yield, no-irrigation winemaking results in age-worthy wines that are among the best not just in Israel but in the region and internationally.

His son, Asaf, is lead now winemaker. Check out their new beautiful website.

Yair authored some of the leading texts in small winery operations and wine chemistry.

Today he spends a lot of his time educating a new generation of Israeli winemakers.

I am so proud to be their exclusive importer into the US !

I recently asked him to help me get my head around this issue of wine “filtering“.

Here’s how he responded.

And by the way, Yair (in addition to being someone I consider a friend and major advisor to me) holds a Ph.D. in Chemistry! So I figure he’s someone who ought to know a thing or two about winemaking!

Hi Richard,
In regard to your question about filtering wine, here is the issue:
Filtering is needed to be sure that the wine is clean of sediments. Is done also to prevent microbiological problems, mainly in white wines.
So, in whites it should be done in any case, and best sterile filtering (very tiny filter).
In reds it is recommended to apply at least coarse filtering to assure no flies or other bugs are in the wine.
There is no connection between filtering and wine quality — as you probably heard the oposite in the industry , namely, nothing is collected on the filter except sediments (no colour or taste materials).
Unfiltered wine as a quality criteria is a joke!
We do very coarse filtering to be sure the wine is clean from bugs.
Yours
Yair

Well…what do YOU think about wine filtering and Yair’s response?

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