The Wine Advocate, owned by Robert Parker, the world’s most famous & influential wine critic, has again tasted wines from Israel.

This is encouraging because Israel now seems to appear at least once a year in a formal tasting. It was not so long ago that Israel was off the Parker radar. However today that has all changed. In Robert Parker’s Wine Buyers Guide No. 7, Israel receives more pages than South Africa and the same as New Zealand.

The important scores from the most recent tasting were:

• Clos de Gat Sycra Syrah 2007 92 points
• Yatir Forest 2004 91
• Yatir Forest 2006 91
• Castel Grand Vin 2007 91

A Recanati wine also scored 90 points for the first time. However, the full list of results are available only to subscribers to the Wine Advocate.

The specialist on Israeli wines in Robert Parker’s team is Mark Squires. He has visited wineries in Israel and also has now completed a number of formal tastings of Israeli wines. His efforts must make him arguably the leading international expert on Israel.

Since the first tasting in December 2007, the following Israeli wines have distinguished themselves by scoring 91 points or over.

• Yatir Forest 2003 93 points
• Castel Grand Vin 2004 92
• Clos de Gat Sycra Syrah 2007 92
• Tzora Or 2006 92
• Yatir Forest 2004 91
• Yatir Forest 2006 91
• Castel Grand Vin 2007 91
• Castel Blanc du Castel 2005 91
• Yarden Katzrin 2003 91
• Yarden HeightsWine 2005 91

Yatir and Castel each appear three times in the list. The best score in the Israeli category remains Yatir Forest 2003, with 93 points.

The following is the list of Israeli wineries which have succeeded to get 90 or more points from the Wine Advocate on more than one occasion:

• Castel 8 times; Yatir & Carmel 7 (together); Clos de Gat 6; Margalit 4
• Golan Heights & Galil Mountain 3 (together) and Tulip 2.

There is always a question whether Robert Parker himself tastes Israeli wines. The answer is yes. In Business Week, after writing tasting notes on wines from Yatir, Castel and Carmel, he wrote: “The wines are getting better all the time, and some of them are superb.” Coming from the great man himself, this was about the best compliment Israeli wines have received to date.

(The preceding post first appeared in wines-israel.com and is reprinted with permission – note that the Israeli wine tastings in the Wine Advocate are not officially done by Robert Parker but rather are tasted by Mark Squires, who is in charge of wines from Israel)