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wine tour recommendations
wine tour recommendations
Tue, 06/16/2009 - 11:32am | Report Abuse
I'll be visiting Israel in the middle of November and would like to spend 2 or 3 days visiting different wineries. Please post suggestions on sample itineraries for those days - or just what you've done. I definitely want to get to the Yatir winery this time and I believe Psagot, Recanati, Ella Valley, Castel, Gush and others are close by. I'm guessing I'll need a car to get to each one, but ideas regarding alternative means of transportation would be great. Also, any advice on how to maximize my time to be able to visit as many as possible would be great.
Re: wine tour recommendations
Tue, 06/16/2009 - 1:07pm | Report Abuse
Hi Eddie, with 3 days to tour wineries I would suggest that you do them in parts. Yatir Forest is in Tel Arad which is the Southern end of Israeli and should be one day. Then on the second day you can visit Psagot, Ella Valley, Castel, Gush & Recanati which is central Israel. And on the last day you can go North to the Golan and visit the Golan Heights Winery, Dalton, & Galil Mountain. Wine drinking can be tiring though, so if this is for pleasure I would limit yourself to 2-3 wineries per day.
I have a contact in Israel who does a great job with wine tours. I will try to get him to respond to your question as well.
Username : Dan
Forum Posts : 44
Location : United States
Re: wine tour recommendations
Tue, 06/16/2009 - 3:09pm | Report Abuse
I think you'll discover that there is an issue in Israel called Traffic Jams which you will always be a part of. Why do I say that? Because all the places you've mentioned are in the basic same area(except Recanati-Emeq Hefer-Hadara) nowhere near Jerusalem.Even Yatir in the Southern tip of the Judean Hills is 1 hour and 40 minutes from Jerusalem and that's if somebody doesn't hit a camel crossing the road on the way!!(it has happened to me with guests-1 hour wait)
Dan is right and remembers well the 1 day 5-6 winery trip(tradgedy) we did together. Too many wineries makes for bad visits.
Take an hour to an hour and ahalf in each winery. Yatir then Ella and then Gush is a 7 hour day already, and unless you're the spitting type, YOU'VE BEEN DRINKIN" Not an easy drive!!! So that's one day and take it easy.
Psagot,Castel and Tzora and then a drive up north to Recanati and onto Safed and a sleepover in the Safed area at a great new Israeli Wine bar in the hotel Ruth Rimonim. The Wine Bar has one of the best wine menus around and it's rasonably priced-20/25% more than the shelf/store price in Israel.The Hotel sits 15-30 minutes away from Gush Halav,Meron,Dalton.Galilee Heights Kerem Ben Zimra,and more. Good for an early morning run to taste some of the wines of the wineries in the region.You can do an early morning if you don';t have a hangover from the wine bar from night before!!
Lunch break and up to the Golan for a visit to Bazelet ha Golan and if only boutiques is what you want then you have Har Odem(recently turned Kosher) and GHW is always a great way to end a 3 day LUSH RUSH!!
If you need a guide or help there is a company that does exactly what you asked, gives you a wine tour: contact israel.wine.exp@gmail.com
Username : israel.wine.experience
Forum Posts : 2
Location : Israel
Re: wine tour recommendations
Tue, 06/16/2009 - 3:38pm | Report Abuse
sounds like really good advice to stay and savor a few wineries...Dan, how long were you and Gary hanging out at Tishbi, like 6 hours?
Username : Scott Shu
Forum Posts : 43
Location : United States
Re: wine tour recommendations
Tue, 06/16/2009 - 4:43pm | Report Abuse
Thanks for reminding me. I would highly recommend stopping off at Tishbi. Last August I spent all afternoon at the Tishbi Winery enjoying the company of Jonathan & Golan Tishbi. They built a beautiful outdoor patio and restaurant and people from the area come by to fill up their jugs with wine and eat gourmet pizza. Its a beautiful place and very relaxing. Plus it is right by the train station, so I just hopped on the train and within 15 minutes I was in Tel Aviv.
Username : Dan
Forum Posts : 44
Location : United States
Re: wine tour recommendations
Thu, 06/18/2009 - 2:08pm | Report Abuse
Thanks for the replies. Very helpful.
Username : Eddie
Forum Posts : 7
Location : United States
Re: wine tour recommendations
Thu, 06/18/2009 - 3:49pm | Report Abuse
Tishbi is lovely. We were there mid-day and had a mixed cheese plate with fresh bread for lunch. This is a hands-on family enterprise and you will almost certainly meet the owners. I'm hoping to see more of their top quality wines available in the States. They only export 30% of their product.
Username : skuritzky
Forum Posts : 5
Location : United States
Sharon K.
Re: wine tour recommendations
Thu, 06/18/2009 - 3:53pm | Report Abuse
We stopped at Yatir on our way to Yerushalayim from Eilat. I had e-mailed them before we went to Israel and the info exchanged said they were open until 4. When we arrived a little before 3, nobody was around to show us the place. Someone from the office found someone to pour for us and we had a delightful time. Be sure to taste their olive oil! They will also make you a cup of espresso before you leave.
Remember to call ahead for all your winery stops. Some require reservations for tours, others have hours that don't exactly match their website info.
Username : skuritzky
Forum Posts : 5
Location : United States
Sharon K.
Re: wine tour recommendations
Thu, 06/18/2009 - 4:59pm | Report Abuse
Up north, don't miss Tabor at the base of Mt. Tabor. We stayed at the Kibbutz Lavi Hotel (not our first visit) and this location is perfect for the northern wineries. It's a short trip to Galil Mt, then catch Dalton on the return. On our way back to Tel Aviv area, we went west and stopped at Tishbi.
A must-do recommendation for dinner is "A Place in Sejera". This restaurant is located about a kilometer south of Golani Junction on Moshave Ilaniya right off the main road. Don't be turned off by the parking lot! It's a 19th Century house and the food is grown on the Moshave. Wine list is not extensive, but adequate. The food is awesome! Eluna.com has reviews and discount coupons.
Username : skuritzky
Forum Posts : 5
Location : United States
Sharon K.
Re: wine tour recommendations
Tue, 11/10/2009 - 12:11pm | Report Abuse
Hi - thanks again for all your responses. I've done some additional research and just wanted to run a few things by all of you before I leave next week. It seems a tour guide is clearly the easiest way to go, but pricey. If anyone is in Israel the week of the 22nd and wants to split then let me know. Otherwise, I'm looking into places that are easily accessible by bus or train from Jerusalem or Tel Aviv. I do not know the bus and train schedules, or how close they are to the wineries, so please let me know your thoughts:
South: I'd go down to the dead sea or be'er sheva for a day and in the morning catch a bus to tel arad and find the yatir winery. It looks like it should be a quick bus from either area.
Slightly north: I'll be saving the golan for another trip, but it looks like tishbi, binyamina and recanati all seem to be close to stops on the nahariyya line on the train. thoughts? any others around there?
Central: psagot, katlav, tzora, tzuba, castel, gush, ella valley - hoping some of these are easily accessible - I don't expect to get to them all.
Eddie
Username : Eddie
Forum Posts : 7
Location : United States
Re: wine tour recommendations
Thu, 11/12/2009 - 2:17am | Report Abuse
HI Eddie,
I'm a wine writer/educator living here in Israel. I'm available on Sundays if you want a wine guide while in Israel.
Next Thursday night there's a great event at Tishbi celebrating their Junior wine ( a Beaujolais Noveau type celebration with a free-run Carignan wine being bottled this Sunday after being just harvested and fermented a few weeks ago)
the party which draws about 600 people is 150 NIS (about $40) is all you can drink all you eat (meat caterer for this event) and dj with music (event starts at 8PM)
i went last year and this year I am leading a bus of twenty from Ra'anana (we'll be drinking on the bus each way too)
I have a lot of premium Israeli wine if you want to meet up and I have given lectures to israeli tourists
maybe we can meet up while your here
I moved to Israel on a Zionist mission to help promote Israeli wines
when will you be in israel? where are you staying? are you looking for kosher wineries? I've been spending the last year making friends with winemakers and finding a lot of these wineries which are off the beaten path (and pretty tricky to find)
I also have some hook-ups for some wineries to get the wines far less than retail
David Rhodes
israeliwineguy@gmail.com
052-702-WINE (9463) in Israel
my most recent wine blog
http://www.travelujah.com/blogs/entry/A-Profile-in-Israeli-Wine-Roni-Sas...
you can check out my weekly radio show/podcast about israeli wines at rustymikeradio.com Israel's only English language radio station
Username : David Rhodes
Forum Posts : 35
Location : Israel
Re: wine tour recommendations
Thu, 11/12/2009 - 2:22am | Report Abuse
as much as I enjoy visiting the Tishbi winery, you're downplaying the travel time... maybe the wine is affecting your memory
if coming from Tel Aviv take the train to Binyamina and then it's about a 10 minute bus ride to the Winery and the train is more like 30 minutes the kitchen closes about 3PM and call ahead to be included on a tour (which currently includes a tasting for 15 NIS)
they also have a restuarant in Zichron ya'acov open to midnight but it's less expensive to taste at the winery before 5PM
Username : David Rhodes
Forum Posts : 35
Location : Israel
Re: wine tour recommendations
Thu, 11/12/2009 - 2:26am | Report Abuse
it's good to note that israeli wines are far less expensive in Israel than in the US
Tishbi's best/most expensive wine is their 2004 Sde Boker reserve at about $60 in the US available closer to $45 in Israel and many wines from wineries aren't exported for various reasons (they sell out here or are limited releases so in small quanites it's not as feasable to export)
israeliwineguy@gmail.com
Username : David Rhodes
Forum Posts : 35
Location : Israel
Re: wine tour recommendations
Thu, 11/12/2009 - 2:34am | Report Abuse
i'm not a tour guide but a wine expert and can give you a better price than a tour guide
I'm available on Sunday or let me know and I can bring some good wine and meet up in Tel Aviv
I have some friends who are winemakers who live in Tel Aviv who might be able to meet up
let some of the wine meet you
I know a lot of the winemakers personally and several are regualr drinking buddies
call ahead for any winery before you visit sometimes they have specail events or small staffs pre-occupied with other work or entertaining VIPS or travelling overseas
to bring costs down if on your own a combo of cabs and buses is your best bet if you're going to swallow wine and not spit
a rental car is about $40/day plus gas
did you specify if you're trying to hit kosher only wineries?
Username : David Rhodes
Forum Posts : 35
Location : Israel
Re: wine tour recommendations
Fri, 11/13/2009 - 10:35am | Report Abuse
Kosher wineries only. I've been looking online and there's surprisingly little information about how to get to most of them - I've put together what I've learned - please let me know what you think. A guide is clearly the easiest way to go.
day one: from Tel Aviv - train to Binyamina, walk to winery a couple blocks away, and then bus 70 to get to Tishbi for lunch. Then a short cab to Carmel. If there's time on the way back, I'd take the train to Hadera and head to Recanati.
day two: from Jerusalem - bus 183 to Tzuba, then find bus to Castel along route 395 and then to Beit Shemesh where I'll cab to Tzora. If there's time, maybe Katlav on way back.
day three: from Jerusalem - Bus 160 to Gush winery then try to get to Ella Valley. any others in area?
Day four: from dead sea area - I assume there's a bus to tel arad, and I'll head to Yatir
Any other suggestions or thoughts? I'm leaving next week!
Eddie
Username : Eddie
Forum Posts : 7
Location : United States
Re: wine tour recommendations
Mon, 12/07/2009 - 4:35pm | Report Abuse
Now that I’m back, I wanted to let y’all know about my trip and what I learned about getting to some of the wineries with public transportation.
I ended up spending only two days at wineries since my time was limited. One day I spent at Yatir, my favorite, which is easier to get to than I thought. I took the express bus from Jerusalem to Be’er Sheva, around 1.5 hour ride, and then immediately caught the bus from the main station to Arad (leaves often). I got off at the Tel Arad Junction, 25 minute ride about, which is where Etti from Yatir picked us up. Our tour was about 3 hours since we went to different vineyards and the surrounding area before heading to the winery for a tasting. The only disappointment that day was that the price of the wine at the winery – they charge more than most stores charge. They told me they do that so they don’t take business away from the stores. Cutting out the middle man, and rewarding your customers that make the trip to the winery seems like good business sense to me – so I don’t really get it. Maybe they just don’t want to spend their time with individual sales.
The other day I went to Binyamina, Tishbi & Carmel. I took the train from Tel Aviv and around 35 minutes later I was in Binyamina, about two blocks from the winery. I went on a quick tour and then they let us taste a few wines, including the aquamarine cab. From there I caught a ride to Tishbi, about a 5 minute drive down the main road towards Zichron Yaakov. There, we ate at the restaurant and tasted as many wines as we wanted. They had most of the Estate series and even one of the reserves. The people working there were a lot of fun and we had a great time. About 5-10 minute away is the Carmel winery. At the restaurant there I had a tasting menu of reds–which unfortunately just included the basic line, no reserves. A block or two from the winery there’s a bus that took me back to the binyamina train station.
I would have liked to get to Castel, Ella Valley and others closer to the Jerusalem area, but I found it’d be difficult to get to more than one in a day without a car – so I decided on the ones above.
Regarding wine prices at the stores – most were only slightly less than prices in the US, though Yatir I thought was one of few that had a large enough price discrepancy to be worth the hassle of bringing back home. I found the Yatir cab and shiraz (05 & 06) at different places from $25 to $35 (had my brother bring me some a few months ago closer to $20 each). In the NY/NJ area I usually find the cab closer to $50 and the shiraz I haven’t seen sold around here. As the vineyards were mostly cab grapes, I’m guessing they just don’t make enough shiraz to export.
Username : Eddie
Forum Posts : 7
Location : United States