This afternoon my friend Charles from fave wine bar + retailer + killer restaurant Block 7 Wine Company in Houston held a tasting of 7 wines I import from small wineries in Israel.

I was again amazed by the overwhelmingly positive response top these wines from the great people of Houston.

We have (as I had hoped) gone well beyond a Jewish audience with these grand wines,

I focused on very basic talkpoints as usual (as Winnie the Pooh said, I have a small bear brain!).

Like the fact that wine was born in Israel.

And that Israel is smaller than New Jersey but long and narrow like Chile or California or Italy and therefore contains within itself multiple microclimates, the best of which for wine grape growing are the Galilee and the Judean Hills.

Or the fact that there are today more than 250 wineries in Israel, while 20 years ago there were a mere 20 wineries there.

Towards the end of the event, Charles and I held a blind tasting of 8 wines, 4 from Israel and 3 from California and 1 from Washington state.

People tasted them all and ranked them.

Here are the rankings…

(And listen to me – NONE of these wines were “bad” – I thought all of them were “good”)

The punch-line of all this is that Israel took 3 out of the top 4 places in the competition!

WINNER: Tzora Shoresh 2006 (Israel)

2nd Place: Amavi Cellars 2007 Walla Walla WA

3rd Place: Margalit Cabernet Sauvignon 2006 (Israel)

4th Place: Flam Cabernet Reserve 2006 (Israel)

5th Place: Lail Vineyards Blueprint 2006 (California)

6th Place: Pelter T-Selection Cab Sauv 2007 (Israel)

Tied for 7th: Cloverdale Ranch Cab Sauv 2005 (California) and Volume 2007 Cab Sauv (California)

The best part of pouring great Israeli wine for people is the look of surprise and discovery.

I can’t wait to come back to Houston again soon!

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