Galil Mountain Winery, one of the best new world wineries in Israel, has just launched a new wine, which is going to replace their Yiron Syrah. Called the Meron, it is a blend of 78% Syrah, 11% Cabernet Sauvignon, and 11% Petit Verdot.

It is now available in Israel’s best wine shops and, I hear, highly recommended. I have not yet had a chance to pick up this fine wine but am thinking about picking up a bottle of it in the next few weeks.

Daniel Rogov’s tasting note follows:

Galil Mountain, Meron, 2006: The term chutzpah in Hebrew is always taken as negative but in Yiddish can have quite positive meanings. It is thus in the Yiddish sense that I observe that winemaker Micha Vaadia indeed is showing chutzpah, for this is the first time I have ever encountered a blend of Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon and Petit Verdot. At first thought that might seem an odd combination of the Rhone and Bordeaux but on reflection and after tasting the wine, it is most surely neither of those but a uniquely Israeli combination and one that works very well at that. This full-bodied, softly tannic blend of 78% Syrah and 11% each of Cabernet Sauvignon and Petit Verdot most assuredly represents the terroir of the Upper Galilee. An aromatic wine, with a distinctly blueberry scented nose, opens nicely in the glass to reveal a rich array of aromas and flavors, those including blackberries, cassis, cranberries and freshly snipped rosemary and thyme, those yielding on the generous finish to hints of what at one moment seems to be spearmint at another eucalyptus. Long and generous, reflecting its 16 months in French oak with a tantalizing note of white pepper. Fully enjoyable now but best from mid-2010-2015, perhaps longer. Score 92. K

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