Owned by a branch of the Shor family, the Arza winery was founded in 1847 and until recently produced primarily Kiddush wines for the ultra-orthodox. Despite producing several million bottles of wine annually, these wines had little if any interest for sophisticated wine consumers and because of that the winery has not, until now, been included in my books. Nor have their wines been reviewed by me in my columns in HaAretz.

The Golan Heights Winery has just officially announced the upcoming Golan Vintage 2010. This is the sixth celebration of this event which in past years has drawn a sophisticated crowd for wine tastings, culinary demonstrations by Israel's top chefs and a gala dinner. The festival is scheduled to take place on 28 and 29 April.

On Wednesday, 3 March, I made my way on the 6 a.m. train to Beer Sheva, there to be picked up to make the rounds of seven Negev wineries. Before getting into the wines, let me comment that although demanding and even exhausting, the trip was a treat in every way. During the course of the day I saw literally tens of thousands of wild red tulips that grow in the dessert. More than that, after a particularly wet winter, literally dozens of varieties of wild flowers in full bloom.

Many have asked for comments and tasting notes of the wines of the Domaine du Castel in magnum format. Alas, these are not tastings that come on a regular basis even to the most dedicated of critics. This evening, though, the opportunity arose and thanks to the courtesy of Eli and Ariel Ben Zaken of the winery and of chef Meir Adoni of Tel Aviv's Catit restaurant, I attended a dinner at which we tasted a variety of the Castel wines from magnum format.

On Thursday, 25 February, I visited the Yaffo Winery. I recall the first time I visited Yaffo and met Moshe and Anne Celniker who were then making their wine in their Ramat HaHayal home. Today, with a far more formal winery located in the Ella Valley and with their son, Stephan Celniker acting as winemaker, Yaffo is producing about 25,000 bottles annually and has plans to grow to 40,000.. Grapes, primarily Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Shiraz, Cabernet Franc, Carignan and Chardonnay come largely from the winery's own vineyards on Moshav Neve Micha'el in the Jerusalem Hills.

On Thursday, 25 February, the Israeli Railroads delivered me comfortably to Beit Shemesh, from where I made my way to the Agur winery for my annual visit. Set on Moshav Agur in the Judean plains, this small winery, owned by winemaker Shuki Yashuv, has grown from releasing 1,800 bottles in the 2000 vintage to between 25,000 – 30,000 in the 2008 and 2009 vintages. The winery has its own vineyards on the moshav and also draws on grapes from the Ella Valley, those including Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot.

At my request this early afternoon and thanks to Eli Ben Zaken, I received a bottle of the 2008 Petit Castel of Domaine du Castel. I normally set such bottles aside for a minimum of a week or so to give them a chance for "rest and recuperation". Later today, however, partly because of tasting note requests and partly out of personal curiosity, I set up a blind tasting of nine wines, all young Bordeaux blends, four from Israel, four from France and one from Tuscany and there, by heaven went the Petit Castel, my tasting note for which follows.

Located in the foothills of the Jerusalem Mountains on the grounds of the Dir Rafat Monastery, the Money winery was operated for many years by the resident monks. About eight years ago, control of the vineyards and winery passed to the Ertul family, long-time vintners for the monastery. Grapes in the vineyards include Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Zinfandel, Shiraz, Carignan, Argaman, Petite Sirah, Chardonnay, Semillon, Emerald Riesling and other varieties. Annual production is close to 185,000 bottles.

Today found me still during the relatively early hours of morning at the Tzora Vineyards winery, there to do do tastings from the 2007, 2008 and 2009 vintages.

This morning (Thursday, 18 Feb 2010) found me at the Carmel winery in Rishon LeTzion, there to do primarily advance tastings. During my return to Tel Aviv, I reflected on the reality that for the last five years or so I have been saying some very good things about Carmel. Today's tasting gave me no reason to take back any of those positive thoughts and statements. In fact, it remains clear that the Carmel revolution is moving apace and doing just fine.

Not all that long ago (2 February) I visited the Recanati Winery and posted my tasting notes at

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On Monday (15 Feb 2010), I paid my annual visit to the Binyamina Winery for barrel, advance and re-tastings. Let me start my comments with the suggestion that all of us forget just about everything we thought we knew about Binyamina of the past, for this is now a winery well worth taking very seriously indeed.

On Tuesday, 9 February, I attended the opening day of the Israwinexpo exhibition in Tel Aviv. As I have written earlier, my overall impressions of the event were very positive. From overall organization to the display of individual wineries, to the people staffing the booths, nearly all went smoothly.

On Monday (7 Feb 2010), I left Tel Aviv at about 06:30 to make my way to do my annual tasting at the Golan Heights Winery.

Like many others, I today received a notification from Domaine du Castel to the effect that they have formally released their 2007 Grand Vin. The wine is now making its way to wine shops in Israel and in other countries. The wine may also be ordered directly from the winery and deliveries can be arranged both in and out of Israel. Those outside of Israel who want the wines for Passover should order as soon as possible.