To view my Tuesday blog click here.
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To view my Thursday blog click here.
To view my Friday blog click here.
To view my Saturday blog click here.
To view my recap of the trip click here.

July 15th 2:40pm
I've decided to do a separate blog entry for each day that I am here to keep things more manageable. Today my day started early at Margalit where we had a barrel tasting of all their 2008 wines. Not only did I taste the Cabernet, Enigma & Cabernet Reserve, but we tasted each wine from multiple barrels. One barrel was from 2007, the other from 2008 and each barrel was either stored at room temperature or cooled. I've never had such a tasting and having the opportunity to taste such great wines made the experience so much better.

I was lucky enough to come at the right time as they do these barrel tasting only every two weeks. This private tasting was with Assaf Margalit (the head winemaker and owner), Yair (his father and part owner), Oded Shoham (Marketing Manager for Margalit and a great friend of mine) and the #2 winemaker. This was a great experience and once I have more time I will write more. Here are a couple of pictures that I took. The unassuming warehouse is the actual winery of Margalit.


July 15 6:48PM
I am just now getting back to the hotel after a long day of tastings. I was trying to finish up the last post, but then the inevitable happened... my computer stopped working. With all of the appointments I had set up I didn't have time to spend a couple of minutes to fix it, but now I back at the hotel and all is good.
I only have a few minutes to kill right now until I go out to dinner with a few people from the Yarden Winery so let me just quickly fill you in on what I did the rest of the day. After Margalit I went to Alexander which is about a two minute drive. Luckily I had Oded with me because Yoram, the owner, spoke no english. Curiously the labels were in english and he had very nice brochure in full color and all in english. I tried the following wines: Sauvignon Blanc 2008, Chardonnay 2008, Sandro 2007 (cab/merlot/sauv blanc), Sandro 2008, Shiraz 2007 and Alexander The Great 2007. The blend of Sandro is no mistake it is blended with sauvignon blanc to reduce the acidity. I thought it was a little bit strange, but I'm not a winemaker so I can't judge. I thought the whites were very good and I also like the Shiraz. Alexander The Great is their highend wine retailing for approximately $100 is Israel. I thought it was a great wine, but I don't see the justification in a $100 bottle of wine.

After Alexander I took a train out of Netanya to Binyamina and visited the Binyamina winery. A lot of change is going on in the winery now that the largest supermarket in Israel (Chetzy Chinam) bought them. They have been given a huge budget to increase their production from 2 million bottles to 4 million bottles. Time to head to dinner.


July 16th 1 am
It is now 1am and I am exhausted from the day of visiting wineries and then at night having a dinner meeting. I should say that the restaurant that I went to called Lallit is a very interesting concept. It is a kosher restaurant that just recently changed management. Their goal is to not only make money, but they also take troubled teens and teach them how to work in the kitchen. The food was great, especially with drinking the Galil Yiron 2005, one of my favorite wines. But it was even better knowing that the restaurant was working on a great cause.

Well I'm off to bed, at this point I can't even think straight. Good night.

To view my Tuesday blog click here.
To view my Wednesday blog click here.
To view my Thursday blog click here.
To view my Friday blog click here.
To view my Saturday blog click here.