HaRoeh Winery is located on Moshav Kfar HaRoeh and is a stones through from both Vitkin and Recanati wineries just north of Netanya. It is run by winemaker Ehud Kave and is sort of at this point a large garagiste or ultra-boutique winery. The winery was started in 2010 an produced a single barrel of Merlot with fruit sourced from Dalton, upping to 2 barrels in 2011. Neither of those releases had any sulphites added to the wine which made them relatively short lived products. From the 2012 vintage, sulphites have been added, but the winery still only uses wild yeast and makes no adjustments/corrections to the wine. With the 2012 vintage production doubled again to about 4 barrels and in addition to the 2 barrels of Merlot, a barrel of Petit Verdot and Cabernet Sauvignion were added. In 2013 production was upped again to 6 barrels and Syrah was added and so on things have progressed until today where the winery has the current lineup:

Merlot – Petite Sirah,Upper Galilee ,2017 – NIS 79Cabernet – Merlot ,Dishon & Dalton, 2016 – NIS 89 Chardonnay(unoaked), Esh Kodesh, 2018 – NIS 99Marselan ,Dalton ,2016 – NIS 140Petit Verdot – Petite Sirah ,Kfar Shamay & Dalton, 2016 – NIS 120Petite Sirah ,Kfar Shamay, 2017 – NIS 140

Of the above I was provided samples to taste of the Chardonnay, Merlot-Petite Syrah, and Single Vineyard Marselan. Notes will follow below.

Ultimately, the biggest problem boutique wineries have is creating value with such small scale. In years where you have excellent vintages in France and Spain – you can get absolutely top tier wine from all but the classed french growths and ultra-premium Napa Cabs for the same price or less than what many boutique wines cost. It becomes VERY hard to justify their purchase in all but he rarest of circumstance.

(One way the wineries try to provide value is by creating wine-clubs where members sign up in advance for subscriptions. Wines, usually of the winery’s choice, are then provided at regular intervals at reduced prices. This gives the winery the ability for guaranteed cash flow in exchange for reduced profit. While this can be OK, because the consumer has no control of which wines are received, you sometimes get stuck with wine that is simply not to your taste.)