This past weekend my good friend, Benyomin Cantz from the Four Gates Winery brought over a nice gift – a bottle of the 2011 La Fenetre Merlot, Mesa Verde Vineyard from the Santa Ynez, CA AVA. If that wine region sounds familiar, well that is because it is the same region where the now defunct California Classic Cellars used to be based out of. But before, we get ahead of ourselves, we need to jump into the semi-way back machine and set it for circa 2007 in Napa Valley, CA!

There you will find a successful and passionate Chabad Rabbi and his wife, Rabbi Elchonon and Chana Tenenbaum, two people who chose to bring Torah into the vast spiritual desert of Napa Valley. Though Napa is known world wide for its agricultural and vinicultural excellence, true Torah observance was not an ingredient readily found there. For that reason, Tenenbaum decided that Napa was just the place for the two of them and so they hopped on a plane from their east-coast religious dwellings to the west coast easy-going California.

Wine seems to be finding its way into the culture of Rabbis around the area, but much of that can be properly accredited to the insanely hard work and dedication of Rabbi Tenenbaum. You see, it was soon after he arrived that he caught the “good wine vibrations”, of course good kosher wine vibrations! Soon Tenenbaum was enjoying the joys of good dry wines, and he quickly realized that the hobby/interest comes at a price – his pocketbook! Good kosher wine is not cheap and so, in 2007 Tenenbaum set out to make some wine of his own. He had no training, but with the help of friends, and following protocols that he found in winemaking books, Rabbi Tenenbaum made a case of wine from grapes left over from a Rudd Winery vineyard, located in Oakville. He got the grapes (some 30 pounds or so), crushed them by hand/foot, and went on to ferment the wine, age it, and bottle it all by himself! With proper respect, he called the wine “King Salomon” and ode to the Hebrew name of the vineyard’s owner, Leslie Rudd, whose Hebrew name is Solomon.

Just to digress for a moment, I have not delved into the kosher wine idea here, because I have already hit that subject in my post called – kosher wine 101, and my rebuttal to many incorrect concepts in the world of kosher wine – Kosher Wine 101 2.0 and my rebuttal to many poorly written articles on kosher wine. So, with that understood, you realize that the Rabbi had to do all the work himself, even when he had help from knowledgeable non-Jewish winemakers.

Well fast-forward a year, and Rabbi Tenenbaum goes from playing with the idea of wine making to become a true vigneron (a person who does everything regarding the wine making process)! A friend of Jeff Morgan, head wine maker at Covenant Winery asked Mr. Morgan if he knew of anyone who could manage his vineyard. The vineyard was a field blend of Zinfandel, Syrah and Petite Sirah. One of the wonderful parts of this story is about a barn that resides on the same property as the vineyard. Engraved on the Barn is the following quote from Leviticus: “When you reap the harvest of your land, do not strip your vineyard bare nor gather the overlooked grapes; you must leave them for the poor and the stranger.” When Rabbi Tenenbaum saw that, it was hook line and sinker! So, for 7 months the Rabbi, with initial help and direction from a vineyard manager of David Abreu Vineyard Management, pruned and sulfured the vines, and managed them to the point of leaf thinning and fruit dropping. All of this was done on a vineyard of 400 vines, far less than an acre, but the vines were still fruitful enough to produce a barrel of wine. The wine was made in combination with Jonathan Hajdu. Jonathan took a portion of the bottles and sold it under the Besomim Cuvee Chabad label. We had the chance to taste a bottle of the 2008 Besomim, Cuvee Chabad (which is the same wine as the Pardes), and the wine note can be found here. The Rabbi bottled his wines under the Pardes Cuvée Chabad label.