It’s been way too long. I’m sorry for that. Life and work got in the way of writing. I’m still very busy, but I want to clear the decks before going out to France to taste, so I’ll briefly recap where we are in Israel wine-wise in this post and then maybe do one or two more specific posts before I fly. So here we go.

Over the last year or so, I have made it an effort to taste through as many current releases as possible. I often do this with a revolving group of people who are part of a tasting group dedicated to this purpose, but it always includes my friend Alexandre Kassel – who writes a wonderful Hebrew wine blog hosted on Facebook called הריקבון האציל (for whatever reason, WordPress doesn’t like when I link to Facebook – search on the Hebrew words and you’ll find it).  Tasting in this setting is challenging. Usually, we go through 25 bottles in two hours. The tastings are blind, and I try to have as little knowledge as possible about the wines that might be sampled. The only criterion is that the wine has been released during the current season. Due to the setting and time available I am unable to write full tasting notes and really give each wine its full due. On the other hand, it is simply not feasible to taste a substantial number of wines in a year and give each bottle ten minutes of attention. You simply won’t cover enough ground. So the point of these tastings is to give an initial impression and see what has potential. Sometimes, I return to a wine later in the evening to see what’s gone on with it or even take it with me to sample the next day. But obviously that’s a limited number. So I end up writing 2-3 sentences on each bottle and a score on the 100 point scale (rather than my 5 point scale that I publish, which takes in many other factors into consideration, including price and a full note/post, which take me very long to produce), which for now remain unpublished. While this method prevents me from writing full notes on each bottle, it has given me an excellent overview of the last few vintage years in Israel. In fact, between these tastings and various winery visits, I have tasted through more current release Israeli wines than I would have thought possible – especially in light of the pandemic situation.  I happen to believe that in recent times the importance of the vintage year in Israel has never been put in such stark relief as it has for the vintages 2018, 2019 & 2020. Sure, there have been excellent vintage years (2008) and horrible vintage years (2015). But most years are a mix. Here we have three years in a row where I can write the tale of the tape for the vintage, and it will pretty much hold true.