This post has been a long time coming. Months actually. I returned from my last trip to the US at the very end of February and the very next open week night – I think it was March 1 – I attended another wine dinner at Herbert Samuel in Hertzlia, this time for Vitkin. I had every intention of writing about the experience, but before I could publish, the Corona pandemic hit in full force – and quite frankly it just seemed out of place especially as the restaurant was and (as of this writing) still is on hiatus. But a few weeks ago, things seemed to be going in the right direction, and I started scheduling visits to wineries to taste through the current releases – and Vitkin was of course on my list. How could it not be? Since its transition to kosher five years ago it has consistently put out good to excellent wines vintage after vintage at all price points.  So the time has come to write up both my most recent visit and the dinner I attended in March which featured some different wines.

Dinner at Herbert Samuel – March 2020

First – while I have written about Chef Mor Cohen and Herbert Samuel in the past, something has become clear to me. In the last year, I have been invited to four or five winery dinners taking place at Herbert Samuel. It is clear to me when the winery really works with the chef to tailor the menu to the wines AND the wines to the menu. I have refrained from writing about the less successful pairings as it’s really not fair. Some wineries are better at creating this type of experience than others – and neither the winery nor the restaurant should be penalized when a winery simply is not as good at others in putting something like this together. What I can say here, though, is that both the chef and the vintner were in absolutely lockstep. Vitkin produces more whites than reds – and the menu was carefully designed to highlight those whites – not at the expense of the reds but in a really well thought out progression. While there are elements of certain dishes that I had tasted before – some off their regular menu, and some at other winery dinners, each was matched to the wines perfectly. 

One other thing – the sheer number of wines that were present at this dinner just added to the absolute festive feeling here. Many dishes had two wines to accompany it. We often talk about pairing wines in two possible ways – either to counter/balance the flavors in the dish being served (for instance when someone will serve an off dry white to balance out spicy Asian fare) or to reinforce the flavors found in the dish. Here when two wines were served, it was so that one could experience both pairing philosophies with the same dish. Not an easy task for chef to have dishes that will go with this varied a selection – and of course it speak volumes about the winery and winemaker that such a deep variety of quality wines are on hand to accompany a meal like this with ease and often with multiple choices. I often talk about the absolute uniformity of many Israeli wines – especially reds. Winemaker Assaf Paz of Vitkin of course proves that this does not have to be the case.