If you thought you knew Hawaiian wines or haven’t thought about them at all, then you just might want to read this. An interesting experiment is underway on the island of Maui. Tedeschi Vineyards, also known as Maui’s Winery, has been working for the past six years on an ambitious program of winery and vineyard improvement, including the planting grape varieties never before tried in Hawaii, Syrah, Syrah Noir, Chenin Blanc, Pinot Gris, and two Chardonnay clones, 4 and 74. And their hard work is beginning to pay off. Under the visionary leadership of its President, Paula Hegele, Maui’s Winery has begun a new phase in its already successful history.
The vineyards are located at an elevation of 2000 feet on the historically rich ‘Ulupalakua Ranch. 
Owned since 1960 by C. Pardee Erdman, Jr., he was approached in 1974 by Emil Tedeschi, a Napa Valley vintner. He was persuaded to lease Mr. Tedeschi about 23 acres of his considerable estate for the growing of grapes. Mr. Tedeschi, after experimenting with dozens of varieties, finally settled on Carnelian. The wine would prove rewarding, as would the exotic pineapple wine, Maui Blanc, made while waiting for the Carnelian to come into maturity. The Carnelian was first harvested in 1980. Maui Brut was released in 1983, followed by a methode champenoise sparkler, Blanc de Noir, in 1984.
And so the winery motored along until the turn of this century 
when a die-off of the Carnelian vines was first noticed, eventually taking virtually all of the plantings. Only a single acre remains today. The culprit was finally diagnosed as Eutypa Dieback, a plant fungus most common in conditions of high moisture. The aggressive pruning required for Hawaiian viticulture leaves little time for the proper healing of cane wounds, as would normally happen in a drier, seasonal climate, when a vine becomes dormant. There is, in fact, no dormancy period in Hawaii.
As you might suspect on an island chain where there is but one season punctuated by frequent rains, where tomatoes live for years, finally snaking into trees, growing grapes is no easy task. Vines experience no seasonal stress. They simply grow. Left to themselves they would cease producing a harvestable quantity of grapes and be perfectly happy to live out their lives true to their nature as vines. So, after harvest, for Tedeschi typically August to September, a considerable labor-intensive intervention in the vineyard is necessary to force a kind of dormancy on the vines, a rest, as Paula Hegele called it. Hence, the vines are starved, pruning is heavy, no irrigation, no fertilizer.
And Eutypa is just one concern for the tropical viticulturist. There are also grape root borers, fruit-loving birds, smashing rains. And these problems are quite apart from the matter of grape phenolic and flavonol concentration at the greatly accelerated rate of fruit maturation as occurs in Hawaii. Indeed, from year to year Maui’s Winery may experience a variance of grape yield of anywhere from 6 to 30 tons! One thousand cases were produced this year.
But the die-off of Carnelian vines, though a disaster, proved a short term set back. 
Paula Hegele saw an opportunity. A new plan was devised: replanting with the new grape varieties listed above. In the ground: 2 acres of Syrah Noir, 2 acres of Chenin Blanc, 2 acres of Pinot Gris, 4 acres of Chard, 2 of clone 4, two of clone 74. Four acres of Syrah (clone 877) are already yielding. 2006 saw 580 cases made of Plantation Red, a 91% Syrah, 9% Carnelian blend. New vines are being added each year. A balance of only 8 acres remain to be planted. They hope to maintain a production level, when all the new vines are producing, of 2000-3000 cases of grape wines. They are serious. They’ve sought out the services of wine consultant Chris Martell. Thirty years in the business, he has been a winemaker and consultant at celebrated wineries in California, France, Chile, Australia and Tasmania, a specialist in difficult climates.
Yet, the question has to be asked: Why do it? Why the effort? Because they are simply not satisfied with providing a satisfying but souvenir wine. Because Maui’s Winery, driven by Paula Hegele, wants to make a great wine from Hawaiian-grown grapes. I wish them well
Admin
If you’re into Pinot Noir and you haven’t heard the name Kutch then it’s time to seek it out. If you’re into Burgundian style Pinot Noir and you haven’t heard the name Kutch then it’s time to find some. If you don’t know the story behind Jamie Kutch and his love for wine then you’ve come to the right place. The story is actually pretty simple and I’m not the first to write about it.
Jamie Kutch, now 34, fell in love with wine while working on Wall Street, and while most of us get the bug and make wine a great hobby, Jaime made it a life changing experience. I’m not here to tell the back story though, I’m here to tell the results, the score, the later innings, honestly, I’m here telling you how it’s all panning out.
I was lucky enough to be invited to Jamie’s San Francisco home on a lazy Sunday afternoon. My wife and children were all welcome and we shared wine and stories with Scooby Doo blaring in the background. I found quickly that Jamie is an East Coast man at his core with a no fail attitude but at the same time his love for wine is not all that different than his love for people. There we were, talking it up amongst cases of Kutch ready for delivery and bottles of wine from California Pinot to White Burgundy laying about waiting for their turn to be consumed. There were two hours of conversation that could have turned to four had my daughter been a little more patient.
The following interview is the heart of what Jamie is accomplishing and taking his time in the middle of his second release speaks volumes to his true personality.
What was your biggest challenge coming from the East Coast to the West Coast? You obviously would have some concerns about uprooting your life, so to date, what’s the biggest challenge?
Jamie: I would say the biggest challenge in making high end Pinot Noir is getting the fruit and it still poses to be the biggest challenge today. Even after my second release and my third in barrel I’m working on sourcing fruit for my fourth. It keeps going back to the fruit and I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again about how important the fruit sources are.
When you come at it with passion and heart, not multi-millions you’ll get some sympathy from some people but the majority would rather sell to the Patz and Hall, Lynmar, and Merry Edwards so there’s huge competition to try and find those grapes.
Do you play that card?
Jamie: I play the card of attention or attentiveness whether that’s sending free bottles of wine or when I go over sending bottles of wine. I tell them I’ll send them a press pack back and I put together everything that’s ever been written and a business proposal and I’ll say where I can see their wine fitting into my brand. To show how my business is structured, how I’m that small, little, high end guy. I’m not Merry Edwards, which, she’s high end but she’s a different type of high end. When you’re 500 cases it’s different. I have the tenacity of a New Yorker so when you get the brush, I’ll call a week later. If that doesn’t work I’ll wait in the drive way for them to get home. (We both laugh)
The scare coming out was the logistics of cost. It’s hard still today making it all work without a finance person behind me. You know you’re working with nature so you don’t know your yield. They can project two to three tons but if you have three tons it’s significantly different than two tons and if you’re buying from five vineyards those costs can add up quickly. You’ll need more barrels.
French or American Barrels?
Jamie: All French, all new, but one new barrel is almost $900 USD. On top of the barrels you’re talking about custom crush fees, storage fees, then the glass, the capsules, and the corks. It’s a hard balance to figure out, and then you want demand.
I do everything. I’m proud I can say that, I do everything from beginning to the end with the help of some friends.
Did you write a business plan before you came west?
Jamie: I didn’t write one in New York because I didn’t really know what to write. It took until my first harvest and when I was looking for fruit my second year that I really started to culminate and write a business plan. You know there’s a curve and I can’t say enough of how great it was that Michael Browne was a mentor for a year and at least showed me the ropes enough for me to understand what was happening. He’d talk about Oak and then I’d taste it. He’d talk about fruit and then taste the wines. It was cool to watch Kosta Browne because they made a lot of wine at different pick dates and different places in the Russian River Valley and fruit from Santa Lucia, watching it grow with the Franscionis and Gary’s.
You got to go down with them?
Jamie: I did once and it was beautiful, the vineyards were immaculate. My fist vintage with Kosta Browne was 2005. I went down in 2006.
I was going to ask you if you had your own wine collection but obviously (I look around the room filled with all sorts of bottles stacked on tables and on the floor) you do!
Jamie: I have a cellar and I have some at Vinfolio. I’d say of the cellar 60% is Burgundy.
White and Red?
Jamie: Yes, although I’m cautious with Whites because of the oxidation issues. I’d say 30% is Riesling and maybe 10% is Pinot. I buy a lot of Pinots just to see what other producers are doing.
So your real love is Burgundy?
Jamie: Yeah, I like finesse and delicate balance.
There’s a lot of California Pinot you could do without.
Jamie: Yes, there are.
Let me ask you this, and you don’t have to answer this if you don’t want to. People say Kosta Browne is going “That way.” That over the top fruit bomb always looking for Parker and Spectator Scores. I personally haven’t seen that, but what’s your feeling on that?
Jamie: I think Michael makes wines that he loves and I respect that. He makes fuller wines and bigger wines, he has, I’d say a bigger hand but it’s a gentle hand. They might be bigger but they are balanced. You know, my epiphany wine was a ’02 Kosta Browne Kanzler, awesome, a great wine, one of the greatest California wines I’ve ever tasted.
The word “Cult” is a lot like the word Terroir where, I don’t think anyone really knows what that means. Do you consider yourself a “Cult Winery? Or is Boutique a better word?
Jamie: Boutique is a good word, I respect that word. Two things: when demand out does the supply there’s a pent up interest to secure those wines and then being such a small producer and not making a lot. For my second year the demand has been double from what I’m selling. That’s pretty amazing but I think people are living vicariously through my story as well. There are producers out there at 10,000 to 15,000 cases that still say the word “Cult” but at 10,000 cases I don’t know if the word boutique works for those brands because they’re filling five to ten ton fermentors. They’re using a pump to pump the wine. In any event, what I’m doing is I’m fermenting in only _ ton bins which I bring inside the cave to keep them cold and outside the cave to keep them warm. I’m using gravity flow.
What does gravity flow do for you?
Jamie: It goes back to handling the wine delicately. With a pump it seems like your forcing the wine to go to quickly which doesn’t seem delicate to me. In my opinion boutique is like a cheese monger. It’s the Kraft versus the little guy doing it out of his garage. Business is always a concern, you have to live, but it’s a big investment in capital so as the production continues up you continue to invest more money. I haven’t made money yet but if you can get to a thousand cases and stay consistent with great quality sources, I’d say one to three thousand would be great.
Next year I have 850 in barrel so it’s a big jump, but, there’s a good chance I will sell off some of those barrels. I sold off ten barrels last year dropping it to 450 to keep the quality up. The pressed wine is always a little inferior to the free run.
Pinot is your girl right now. Any Syrah, any Grenache in the future?
Jamie: As I mentioned earlier the love is delicate wines, wines that pair really well with food on a linen table cloth. Part of that goes into, what other grape would represent on the table. I have the red, so more of white interests me and the white of all the varieties would be the Chardonnay. Maybe, I’m not giving any preview that I have any but maybe someday. I’m very picky of the style of Chardonnay I like. I don’t like tons of new oak, I don’t like really ripe Chardonnay where it’s real tropical, or real buttery, so I like it with natural acidity, crisp so it cuts through the food.
You mean like Burgundy?
Jamie: Yeah, Burgundy, Chablis really turns me on, you know, I nice Corton is something I would never want to kick out of bed, but we’ll see where that goes. Maybe someday but as of now I’m really trying to focus in on cool climate sites either in the Russian River Valley and there are very little.
Do you think this whole Russian River thing is overplayed?
Jamie: I think the wines from the Russian River Valley are often times some of the best that come out of the state of California and almost next to it would be the Sonoma Coast, I really like Sonoma Coast. The differences are Russian River has pretty delicate red fruit from great soils. That said, they’re not always super intense. The Sonoma Coast fruit is intense. The berries are smaller and they struggle a little more. When I say Sonoma Coast I’m talking the true coast, within three miles of the coast line.
So what’s harder, East Coast Finance or West Coast wine?
Jamie: This is harder. I thought there was a stress to trading and a stress about market positions but my decisions now have a bigger impact. It’s wild that there is no one out there but you. It’s significantly harder and scarier and there are a lot of nervous times. This is a little different because it’s yours. It’s your baby but the rewards and gratifications are bigger. In Wall Street I was just churning money and here I’m actually producing something. I was standing with my wife when we were bottling and I said to her, “you know how many of these bottles will be across the country in another two or three months and some will end up on dinner tables and celebrations?” It’s wild to think about.
Let’s take Kutch and Burgundy out of the equation. What’s your favorite Pinot?
Jamie: New Pinot, referring to a producer, wines I have a high respect for would be Ted Lemon of Littorai. He studied in Burgundy, he makes great balanced Pinots and he has a very delicate hand. He’s in tune with vineyards. I look up to him as a little bit of a mentor. With regards to old Pinot I would say conservatively I’ve drank 100 plus from 1985 and back. Last night I had a ’76 Chalone and the wine was made with 100% inclusion and was mind boggling. The sommelier was flabbergasted. Chalone from the late seventies to the very early eighties made these incredible wines by Dick Graff.
’06 has obviously had some good press and you don’t know about ’08 yet, so how do you feel about the ’07 vintage.
Jamie: I don’t want to be that guy that says this is the greatest vintage ever, you know, the new guy trying to sell wine but that said I thought the 2007 vintage was absolutely incredible.
Well you’re safe in saying that it’s the best vintage that YOU’VE been involved in?
Jamie: So far, yes, but you give me twenty years of wine making and that will change an enormous amount.
End
If you give us twenty more vintages Jamie, we will be pleased. I can’t wait to taste that Chardonnay!
Brandon Miller
On the occasion of Rudolf Steiner’s birthday, February 27.
Biodynamics (BD) apppears on course to become the next ‘big thing’ in viticulture and wine marketing. ‘Organic’ no longer seems quite enough. Witness on the web site Fork & Bottle (F&B) which maintains perhaps the only Master List of biodynamic wine producers. F&B’s list currently numbers 425. Actually, that’s not quite true. Despite the title the list also includes wineries “practicing very sustainable agriculture”, “practicing Organic with some BD practices”, making wines “from BD grown grapes”, “a mix of Organic and BD”, “converting to BD”. Which is to say the actual number of BD producers cannot, in fact, be learned from the list. Be that as it may, it is telling of Biodynamic’s popularity that F&B, as of this writing, offers has no comparable list of Organic producers. Has Organic become irrelevant or, at the very least, a mere servant to BD? And just what is “practicing very sustainable agriculture” besides a very general orientation? The list’s ambiguities are actually the consequence of Organic and BD certification requirements (including “converting to BD”) by the USDA and Demeter-International respectively. But the list also points to a wider debate between forms of certification and, too, the practice of “very sustainable agriculture” without benefit of a trademark.
One of the odd consequences of the Biodynamic movement as shaped by Demeter-International, its proprietary arbiter, has been the fixing of a date, 1924, for the birth of any and all sustainable agricultural practices. It was in that year Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) delivered his Agricultural Lectures, Demeter-International’s founding texts. A modern reader could be forgiven in thinking agriculture before Steiner was poorly practiced, misguided, devoid of ’spirituality’. But that is far from accurate. Virtually all of Steiner’s practical ‘innovations’, in fact, precede him. (With a notable ‘exception’ I’ll get to in a moment.) Take the multi-volume Encyclopedia of Practical Farming published in 1916 under the direction of Sears, for example. We read in the chapter “How Poor Soils May Be Improved” the following advice under the heading: How to Keep the Soil Fertile
- Raise Live Stock
- Rotate the Crops
- Grow Clover, Alfafa, and other Legumes
- Save Barnyard Manure
- Pasture Rolling Lands to Prevent Washing
- Add Humus-Don’t Burn the Stocks
- Supply Needed Elements
Or review the holdings of USDA’s National Agricultural Library under the title “Tracing the Evolution of Organic/Sustainable Agriculture”. There we find American texts from the 19th century forward dedicated to composting, growing cover crops for green manuring and nitrogen fixing, soil improvement through the incorporation of cow manure, Henry David Thoreau’s, ‘Walden’ (1854), among other volumes. Not included on the library’s page, but available for the dedicated researcher, are the thousands of agriculture-related essays, pamphlets, the serial run of the Farmer’s Almanac, and so much more, all printed on behalf of the US farmer.
And such historical farming bibliographies exist in the libraries of other nations, of course. The French periodical Annals comes to mind. 
And on the British list must be included the work of Sir Albert Howard (1873-1947). Howard was raised on a farm in England, was a mycologist, taught agricultural science before leaving for India where from 1905 to 1931 he conducted ag research. Though he is generally credited with founding organic farming, he did not coin the word. He called his approach Nature’s farming: “Mother earth never attempts to farm without livestock; she always raises mixed crops; great pains are taken to preserve the soil and prevent erosion; the mixed vegetable and animal wastes are converted into humus; there is no waste; the processes of growth and the processes of decay balance one another; ample provision is made to maintain large reserves of fertility; the greatest care is taken to store the rainfall; both plants and animals are left to protect themselves from disease.” From his An Agricultural Testament, 1940.
The term ‘organic’ was coined in 1940 by Walter Northbourne, and he meant it in its philosophical sense, “Having a complex but necessary interrelationship of parts, similar to that in living things”. Look to the Land, 1940. So, strictly speaking, we cannot really say the greater part of the history of agriculture before the modern era, before the environmental calamities of the Green Revolution or Intensive farming, was ‘organic’. (Or even ’sustainable’ for the word is ‘post-modern’, a shuffling of past and future without a decidable present.) Perhaps we can call it ‘custodial’ agriculture: the exercise of the principle ‘farm today so that you may farm tomorrow’. In any event, the most successful historical agricultural practices, from China and India, and from a host of researchers preceding Howard, all were gathered together, enriched by Howard’s own work, but only later placed by others under the concept ‘organic’, and with a small ‘o’. The point here is that Howard situated himself in an ongoing, informal world-wide research program. Any new development would be welcomed.
With Steiner, as read by Demeter, it is a bit different. Unlike Howard, Steiner himself knew little of farming. He admitted as much in the Discussions of June 11th in the essays. “I myself planted potatoes, and though I did not breed horses, at any rate I helped to breed pigs. And in the farmyard of our immediate neighbourhood I lent a hand with the cattle.” That’s about it. Yet, throughout his prolific body of writings he will often return again and again to the same few bucolic farming visions of his childhood. Of his younger brother, Gustav (1866-1941), born deaf, or his sister, Leopoldine (1864-1927), a seamstress, both with whom he gardened as a child, we read virtually nothing. Rarely has the potato been so fixed in a mind.
Of course its true, Steiner wrote and delivered his 1924 essays (at the insistence of others) as a response to the perceptible decline of soil and livestock vitality brought about by the increasing use of technology, of chemical fertilizers, and especially by what we might popularly call the ’scientific/materialist’ mindset. Still, his concerns, it is clear, were already shared by farmers, philosophers, and agricultural researchers decades earlier. Work on the subject was already well under way by the time he stepped into the matter.
So how, then, does Biodynamics differ from the centuries of farming that has gone before, whether custodial, sustainable, or organic? We shall never know from Demeter for they do research solely from 1924 forward. However rich and creative historical agricultural practices world-wide may have been, whatever instruction they might provide us, they are of limited interest to Demeter for a very simple reason: recognition of historical precedence would erode the centrality of Rudolf Steiner.
Demeter has its origins in the ‘Experimental Circle’, a group inspired by Steiner and ratified by his presentation of the Agricultural Lectures before them. They were largely gentlemen farmers of a decidedly aristocratic bent, hence, their ‘natural’ inclination was high-minded, exclusive. Of the peasantry they had little to say. Indeed, Steiner was aware, to his lasting credit, not only of the limits of his own farming background but, more importantly, of the danger the Experimental Circle posed to the preservation of what we might call ‘peasant memory’. Steiner, following the discussion of June 11th, 1924 (op.cit.) made very clear that he was of both the ‘high-minded’ and of the peasantry, however remote. He cautioned his host, Count Keyserlingk, that one must never forget what was called by the circle “peasant stupidity”. Steiner insisted we must draw from their agricultural efforts: “Then this stupidity will become — “wisdom before God.” Demeter and their trademarked Biodynamics, however, neglects this implied research program. Instead, after assuming organic agricultural principles, they take as their start and end point Steiner’s sole practical innovation: The Preparations.
The Preparations, numbered 500-507, are as follows: for spraying, 500-Horn manure, cow manure that has been fermented in the soil over winter inside a cow horn, and 501-Horn silica, finely ground quartz meal that spends the summer in the soil inside a cow horn. For the compost, preparations 502-507, yarrow, chamomile, stinging nettle, oak bark, dandelion and valerian. Specific formulations described in Steiner’s words may be found by clicking the Preparations link above. More modern expressions, with a few supplemental preps created since Steiner, may be found on the Josephine Porter Institute web site and that of The Biodynamic Agricultural Association, respectively Demeter’s US and UK distributors.
The Preparations are meant for any and all manner of agriculture. But of Viticulture, do they work? I mean, above and beyond organic methods? Here are three voices: The first from Red White and Green, an Australian web site dedicated to biodynamic viticulture. The second is a video testimonial from grower/producer Steve Beckman out of Santa Barbara. And the third is of special interest. Jennifer Reeve is a scientist from Washington State University, yet also well-versed in Rudolf Steiner. She grew up on a biodynamic farm, attended a Waldorf school and worked at the above-referenced Josephine Porter Institute. She has perhaps done the most detailed research on the actual benefits BD might bring to the vineyard. Now, if you think you already know what she would write you would be wrong. Here is her report, first published in the American Journal of Enology and Viticulture, 2005. She later published an addendum of sorts wherein she writes, “I have to be blunt because it was a shock to me when I first started reading the small amount of scientific literature on biodynamics and conducting my own experiments: the dramatic results I had heard about simply were not there. Statistically significant effects in flavour [sic] of the preparations can be seen some of the time but not all of the time, and perhaps most telling is that the differences are very small.” Wisdom before God, perhaps.
[see comment #1 above for a correction. Admin]
Rudolf Steiner needs better readers. That is not to say I have done much here. The blog format has a significant weakness: brevity! The point is that Steiner wrote hundreds of books, thousands of essays, lectured daily for years, most have been recorded. He was afflicted with the dreadful German impulse to build a philosophical system to swallow the world. His work is as demanding as it is inconsistent and contradictory. But you’d never know from the texts of his acolytes and defenders. Similarly is his biography fraught with discontinuities and omissions. He forgets his siblings. Though married twice he had no children. Whenever ‘women’ were under discussion they quickly vanished, buried under a ton of ‘cosmic’ elocution. I read in vain the Ag Lectures for a single comparison of soil fertility to women, a pregnancy motif. Nope, not there. But it is to his childhood, even in the Agricultural Lectures, delivered a year before his death in 1925, that he returns to…potatoes.
Johann Steiner, Rudolf’s father, worked for the Southern Austrian Railway. He was the telegraph operator. Little Rudolf, maybe six, was in the train station with him one day. While his father sat in another room a few feet away, indifferent to the boy, silently transcribing electronic pulses into language, Rudolf had his first clairvoyant experience. Father and son, together they pluck messages out of thin air.
Happy Birthday, Mr.Steiner.
Admin
Dir Rafat Monastery, Beit Shemes, Israel
When I visited the Mony winery this month I knew nothing of its story, but it would appear to have one of the more interesting backgrounds around and is hopefully a sign of what is possible in this troubled region.
Mony is set in the grounds of a Christian monastery, is owned by an Arab-Christian family and makes Kosher wines. For years wine was produced by the resident monks of Dir Rafat, famous for its painted ceiling with the words “Peace” written in hundreds of languages. The Artoul family worked in the winery until Shakib Artoul leased the land and established Mony in 2000. 
The winery is named for Dr Mony Artoul, Shakib’s first son who tragically died of a heart condition in 1995 – a plaque dedicated to him hangs over the entrance to the tunnels and cellar at the back of the winery. Nur Artoul is the winemaker and with his father and two remaining brothers they oversee the winery operations.
I tried the line up of Reserve reds, all from 2003 – a Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz. The Merlot was well balanced with a mix of mild oak and berry fruits - I’m not much of a Merlot fan but this was a pleasant drink, although probably at its best and unlikely to age further. I moved onto the Cabernet Sauvignon, and again it was an easy and balanced drink, but much lighter than I was expecting, medium bodied at best. Finally the Shiraz, and I was looking for something with a bit of depth, but unfortunately it was very similar to the first two, uncomplicated. 
Now don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed all three, but for a Shiraz and Cabernet my hopes were higher, particularly after just having tried a couple of very good wines from the Agur winery. It was therefore with a little surprise that the bottle I chose to buy was the Merlot, since it gave me exactly what I was expecting from the grape, and I plan on drinking it on a quiet weekend sometime in the next 6 months.
I then noticed a Muscat of Alexandria Dessert wine and asked for a taste of that. Although, for me, it was much too light to be considered a true dessert wine I still bought a bottle as it reminded me of something semi-sweet from Alsace, with a rich mouth-feel and a nice dry bitterness on the finish.
Before leaving I had a quick look at the tunnels dug, over the last hundred years or so, into the hillside at the back of the building. Walk down some steps and you see ahead a short tunnel containing 3 large wooden benches used for events, group tasting and festivals . I can imagine some great parties here, drinking their wine with a generous selection of the olives, goats cheese, honey and olive oil they also produce and sell. To the left a door is locked with a Hebrew notice indicating a Kosher environment 
(all Mony wines have been Kosher since the 2005 vintage) but you can look through the glass and see barriques stretching away in the distance.
I enjoyed my visit here, the people were friendly and accommodating and although they couldn’t speak much English I had my colleague Yaron with me to translate. The wines were reasonably priced - together the Merlot and Muscat I bought came to 95 Shekels, so about £13 ($26) - and the history of the winery added an extra level to the visit.
Greybeard.
Moshav Agur 17, Judean Hills
In the foothills west of Jerusalem, about half-way to Tel Aviv and a touch south, is Moshav Agur. Moshavim are cooperative communities where, unlike in the collective Kibbutzim, property is privately owned and Agur was originally settled in 1948 by Kurdish Jews fleeing Northern Iraq and Iran.
In 1997 Shuki Yashuv, 
master cabinetmaker and history graduate, left Jerusalem with his wife and 2 daughters for Agur and in 1999 set up his winery, briefly working with Ze’ev Dunie (who then set up Sea Horse Winery in 2000). Since then Shuki has been steadily increasing the wine production, from a modest 1,800 bottles in the first vintage to 14,000 a couple of years ago and increasing. Agur has local vineyards and also in the nearby Ella Valley, where the Biblical story of David and Goliath is believed to have been played out.
When I visited the winery this month it was Shuki’s wife, Evelyn, who met us at the gate because the man himself was giving a presentation to a group of guests elsewhere on the property, I wonder if it was the “Winemaker Dance” I’ve read about? The more I hear about Shuki the more I’d really have loved to have met him, however Evelyn was the perfect hostess and offered tastes of the 2 main labels from the winery, the 2005 Kessem (Magic) and the 2005 Shmira Meyuchedet (Special Reserve).
Kessem may be Hebrew for Magic but it is also a phonetic acronym, CSM, for the blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot (with a little Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot for good measure). The wine was well balanced with plenty of berry fruit, and nice firm tannins down the sides of the tongue. It was while tasting this that I picked up on a Scottish accent from Evelyn, and we had a brief chat about my early years in Scotland. As we talked she poured a taste of the Special Reserve, 100% Cabernet Sauvignon aged for 18 months in new oak barrels. This was a much deeper drink, strong tannins on the top of the tongue which make me think of at least 2 years on this before enjoying to the full, but the abundance of fruit hiding behind the oak should be worth waiting for.
As I only had room for one bottle in my bag this trip it had to be the Special Reserve, but the Kessem is a lovely wine and for early drinking would be the better choice. The Judean Hills has been called by some as Israel’s winemaking frontier and, with over 28 wineries at the start of 2007, a wine route of sorts is developing there. These are mostly boutique style enterprises, many producing non-Kosher wines for the discerning drinker and, more increasingly, the export market. Agur started exports to the U.S. in 2006 and, with wines like the ones I tasted, I hope they will find a following, and also that one day I get to meet Shuki in person.
On a final note, the Agur web-address is www.agurwines.com, but Evelyn said it wasn’t on-line yet but hopes it will be sorted out soon!
Greybeard.
On February 11th I posted GREEN MANAGEMENT OF PIERCE’S DISEASE. In it I discussed UC Riverside’s effort to find a more environmentally friendly, a greener approach to combatting the Glassy Winged Sharp Shooter (GWSS), a newly arrived vector for an indigenous bacterium, Xylella fastidiosa, responsible for Pierce’s Disease. UC Riverside has been in the forefront of new research, especially in southern California. As previously mentioned, the Western Region of Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (WSARE) project is hinged on two principles, the participation of established organic grape-growers Bella Vista Vineyards and Sun World, and that grape growers throughout SoCal, in all counties affected, answer the base-line survey (see below).
Dr. Nic Irvin, PhD, of the UC Riverside Department of Entomology, has provided the following update: Sun World has left the program. They’ve decided to rip up the balance of their organic table grapes. But Bella Vista Vineyards troops on!
Further, here are the results provided by Dr. Irvin for the 2007 survey for the Western SARE project: “This project includes a comprehensive outreach plan to extend the results of this research to growers in Temecula, Lodi, Coachella Valley and Ventura grape growers. As part of these outreach efforts, a survey was mailed out in June 2007 and this will be repeated in June 2010 after this work and associated outreach are completed to measure the rate of adoption and percentage reduction of pesticide use resulting from utilization of our study cover crop plants.
In June 2007, this survey [click ‘project’ above] was mailed to 100% of growers located in Ventura (5 growers), Lodi (740 growers), Coachella Valley (30 growers) and Temecula (45 growers) with help of cooperative extension specialists Phil Phillips and Carmen Gispert, and Cliff Ohmart (Lodi Woodbridge Winegrape Commission) and Linda Kissam (Temecula Winegrowers Association). We had 225 replies from growers which is a 27.4% response rate. The surveys are currently being collated and information transferred into an Excel spreadsheet. The field work funded by WSARE will be conducted over the next 2 years and results will be extended to growers in Ventura, Temecula, Lodi and Coachella Valley following the comprehensive outreach plan detailed in the grant. In June 2010, the survey will be mailed again to determine rate of adoption and the percentage reduction in pesticide use.
Results:
Preliminary results show that 43% of growers that responded to the survey had maintained a cover crop in the previous season. The main reason for maintaining a cover crop was for dust control, while the main reason for not maintaining a cover crop was the extra irrigation required. None of the growers that maintained a cover crop in the previous season irrigated to ensure it continued growing over the spring and summer. The aim of the Western SARE research is to investigate the effect of using extra irrigation to maintain a cover crop over the spring and summer, and on the abundance of grape pests, their natural enemies, vine vigor, fruit quality and yield, and the abundance of weeds.”
Admin
Wine has a long history of involvement with religion - from the brooding Greek wine god Dionysus to his tamed Roman version, Bacchus, through the red wine used in the Eucharist as a symbol for the blood of Christ, to the complete rejection by Islam of any fermentation of grape & grain (abstinence is also part of the Mormon “Word of Wisdom”). The Jewish faith has a long documented association with wine - the Bible states it was Noah who planted the first vineyard after the great flood, and it plays a key role in the Sabbath (Shabbat) meal with the Kiddush blessing recited over a cup of wine.
On my recent trip to Israel the religious links to wine were very apparent, from the bottles opened and served by ourselves in a Kosher restaurant (as the waitress did not observe the Shabbat), the warning signs on the cellar door at the Mony Winery in the Judean Hills to the wines produced by the several Christian monasteries in the Jerusalem area.
The laws of Kashrut are the main association with Israeli wines, what makes a wine Kosher.
The main rules, as they affect the production, look simple;
- Grapes cannot be used until the vines are 4 years old – the law of orlah.
- Every 7th year the vineyard must be left fallow – the law of shmita
- Tools and equipment must be certified Kosher and cleaned accordingly.
- Only Jews who observe the Shabbat are allowed to be in contact with the wine - which is why many wineries employ only haredim (Orthodox Jews) and have special Kashrut supervisors to liaise with any non-observant Jews.
- All yeast, additives and fining agents must be certified as Kosher.
All of these are not contradictory to the production of fine wine, and in the Israeli domestic market such wines are equal in quality to a typical non-Kosher bottle. Unfortunately there’s another key point which has the biggest impact on the export market. Jewish law (Halachah) states that if the bottle is handled (in practical terms opened or served) by anyone, Jewish or otherwise, who does not observe the Shabbat then the wine becomes yayin nesech (idolatrous wine). In ancient times the worry was that pagans could take good Jewish wine and debase it by using it in their profane rituals. The workaround? Simple – make the wine Mevushal and boil it. Ouch! The idea is that boiled wine would not be wanted by the pagans, and you could see why!
Today a wine is made Mevushal by flash pasteurisation at approx 87 degrees Celsius (190F) for about half a minute, but while the effects on the wine are not as drastic as in years past there are still compromises. Daniel Rogov, in his Guide to Israeli wines states such wines are “often incapable of developing” and impart “a cooked sensation to the nose and palate”. He finishes with “none of the better wines of Israel fall into this (Mevushal) category” and his guide references many Kosher, but no Mevushal wines. It is unfortunate for us that Mevushal wines are destined for the overseas Kosher markets, to observant Jews in Europe and the U.S. and, by default, the rest of us. Only the smaller boutique wineries who are not reliant to making Kosher wines for domestic supermarket sales can offer us the chance of tasting the best of what Israel has to offer without having to visit in person.
The Christian aspect to wine from “The Holy Land” is apparent through the several Monastery wineries dotted around the landscape. I visited the Mony Winery at Dir Rafat Monastery, but the winery itself is now run by an Arab-Israeli family producing Kosher wines so I’ll post a separate visit report on them.
Of the monastic wineries still run by their respective brotherhoods there is the Latroun Trappist Monastery which produces wine in “the French Style”. However possibly the most intriguing is Cremisan , founded near Bethlehem in 1885 by the Italian Salesian order. The winery that has been run by the monks since that time has the dubious honour of being the only one in the Palestinian Territories, and at times Cremisan has become part of the unfortunate political tensions in the area. 
As such visiting and trying the wines on-site is difficult, but they also offer tastings and sell the wines at the Monastery of Bet Gemal, just south of the town of Bet Shemesh, which was where I ended up on my mini-wine tour of the Judean hills.
The wine shop was manned by an ancient man happy to show the bottles and offer a tasting of what he had open. When I said “Vecchio Rosso” with a slight Italian accent he beamed at me and started off in Italian, and nothing I did could persuade him that I could only understand a few basic words of what he was saying! 
Of the red wines I tasted they were, as he told me, in the “Italian style” – although I would say the “Sacramental style” as they had a tendency for sweetness and simplicity. The white Messa had “Altar Wine” on the label and was equally sweet, while a “Port Extra Doux” was light, at 14% abv. but pleasant. I ended up coming away with a bottle of the Cabernet Sauvignon 2006 “Vin Nouveau” for £3.50 ($7).
As a keen student of history and current affairs I’ve always enjoyed my business trips to Israel, and this time round I’ve had a welcome expansion to my wine knowledge and experience. It should come as no surprise that this region, known for its political issues, is also a melting pot of wine traditions and production - historical, cultural and religious.
Greybeard.
Fruit wines, wines other than from grapes, have been the mainstay of the home winemaker for many hundreds of years. Indeed, agricultural histories of the temperate zone of any continent always include references to fermentation done around the hearth. Of course, wine made from vitus vinifera has long been the world’s preference. And winemaking from grapes has taken up residence, virtually within living memory, in the University, in Viticulture and Enology programs, so technically complex and commercially-driven has its practice become. But fruit wines remain, linking the contemporary home winemaker to a pastoral tradition, knowledge with a small ‘k’ passed down through generations. A wonderful list of the bewildering assortment of fruit-derived wines may be found on Jack Keller’s very fine web site.
So, what is a winemaker to do when presented with extremely challenging climactic and environmental conditions well beyond the temperate zone? The history of winemaking in the ‘frigid’ zone is very thin. While we wait for global warming to recalibrate degree-days, for Greenland’s first pinot harvest, there have recently appeared two fruit winemaking concerns, one very near the Arctic Circle, in Húsavík, Iceland, the other well within it, in Lakselv, Norway.
The fruit used for both concerns is the Crowberry as it is called in the states. Naturally, the fruit has other names. Crowberry grows wild throughout Alaska, the Yukon Territory, Canada to Labrador, Newfoundland, Greenland, Iceland and northern Scandinavia, but also south to New England, the Great Lakes states, and along the Pacific Coast down to northern California. And it has considerable health benefits, containing far higher levels of antioxidants than red wine grapes, for example. Indeed, according to a reliable source, Crowberry’s regenerative strength’s were very early recognized, 1000 years ago, in old Icelandic texts wherein is recorded wine having been made of the fruit for more than sacramental purposes.
Húsavík is Iceland’s premier whale-watching destination, and home to Omar Gunnarrson. He’s an accomplished chef, currently working at the Fosshotel restaurant located there. He has long wanted to make his own wine. And in 2001 he released his first vintage of Kvöldsól, a blend of 80% Crowberry, 19% Rhubarb, 1%(?) Blueberry, and a secret sachet of Icelandic herbs. How does it taste? One soul who sampled his 2003 said, “It tastes just like wine made from grapes except that it’s richer in anti-aging phytochemicals”. Inventory of all his cuvées are extremely limited. Should you wish to purchase a bottle or two contact the Nordic Store.
The second Crowberry winemaker, Arnt Mathias Arntzen (sommelier), boasts of having the world’s northernmost winery, North Cape Wine, at 70 degrees latitude. The winery itself is located on the mountain plains of Finnmark. His main product is NordKapp (North Cape), 100% Crowberry with an alc. of 13%. In fact, there is no added alcohol. His first vintage was a 2000.
Crowberry, note the pic above, is a low lying shrub. Mr. Arntzen credits the diligence of the local pickers to gather a sufficient quantity of the berry for commercial production. It is labor intensive work requiring, just as with the California strawberry harvest, days spent in a stoop. Yet as a result, NordKapp may be found in most wine stores in Northern Norway. 
Though he admits to being “a little mad”, Mr. Arntzen also runs a successful wine import business, AVEC (Arntzen Vin & Cigar). The web site, http://www.avec.as/, is currently under construction.
Incidentally, for those interested in the berry and fruit-based wines of Europe you may wish to visit the Wine Information Centre in Muuruvesi, Finland, the only non-grape wines info clearing house of its kind on the continent.
Admin
In the 1930s Shmulik Cohen set up a small family restaurant serving traditional Eastern European influenced food in the South of the expanding Jewish city of Tel Aviv. At the time the Herzl street was the main North-South road through the city on the way to the ancient port of Jaffa (which has since been absorbed into metropolitan Tel Aviv). Although the area may have lost some respectability over the intervening years I am informed that little else has changed in the restaurant, and this is one place where staying the same is all important because it is so good I’d hate to see it change.
This is the 4th time I’ve been here, each time in the company of my good friend and colleague Dr Yaron Lapidot. As we both have Eastern European heritage (mine is Hungarian, his German/Polish) we both savour the food and the atmosphere. We sit at our “regular” table, the one in the corner near the counter with the picture of Ezer Weizman on the wall, I think it’s signed by him. There is a menu, but we don’t use it, instead Yaron, as somewhat of a regular, asks for the kitchen selection, and then we sit back and the food gradually arrives, spread out over at least an hour (2-3 if we take our time and talk, which we usually do). Schmulik is long gone but his daughter is the main cook, typically preparing the food during the day, which his grandson and granddaughter work the evening diners.
First are the “appetizers”, pickles, humus, olives, dark bread, egg & vegetable salads, hot grated red horseradish, cubes of pickled beets, radishes and the stars of this opening act; 2 fish dishes, small pieces of brined herring (or mackerel?), slightly pickled but so full of flavour and melt in the mouth, it is to die for.
As always they serve a small shot-glass of their homemade lemon vodka, cold and sweet it is nectar and previously has been the only accompaniment to the food on my earlier visits. However this time I am keen to expand my knowledge of Israeli wines and we open a bottle of Yogev 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot, from Binyamina and pour a couple of glasses. The wine has a beautiful nose with a hint of Bordeaux, but fruitier and with a touch of sweetness promised. The softness of the nose carries on into the first taste, this is a nice easy drinking wine which matches well with the food that continues to arrive and which we are gradually working our way through.
After a while we the waitress clears the table, since this is a fully certified Kosher restaurant the plates and cutlery used with fish have to be cleared away and replaced with new before the meat dishes can be served. A bowl of chicken soup is an intermediate, a clear broth but strong in flavour, with short trimmed noodles, ravioli and a dumpling. If you didn’t know what was coming next there’s a good chance you’ve already eaten too much and the soup would finish you off, however I’m familiar with the plan and do not finish to soup, just savouring the best bits. Yaron picks up another bottle off the wine rack on the counter (they keep a tally as you go along!) – it’s not as if we’ve finished the first, but he wants me to try a second one that night, so the cork goes back in the Yogev (the start of a decent carry-out when we finish). The second bottle is the Dalton Canaan Red, 2006 from Upper Galilee. The nose suggests a richer wine, but still a delicate fruitiness, and there’s more up-front dryness, turning into a smooth finish. Yaron suggested similarities to the semi-sweet wines popular in Eastern Europe, and I could see what he was meaning, but having only recently tried a semi-sweet red from Georgia these two do not have any of the residual sugar that was obvious in there – these two are well made, easy drinking, delicate and feminine wines, made with ripe grapes. Neither of these would have aging potential over a couple of years, but that doesn’t detract from what they are, and with the delicious food at Shmulik’s it was a treat.
Finally (it’s well over an hour since the dishes started arriving – it took that long to slowly savour the food in between conversations) the roasted and baked meat arrives, and what a selection!. A goose leg cooked to perfection, the meat falling of the bone and the skin crisp and flavoursome. A similar story for a chicken drumstick, I can’t recall tasting chicken as good as this for a long time home, some slow-cooked beef and what I think is a slice of lamb (but it had been marinated or cooked in a sweet savoury sauce and falls apart at the touch of a fork) some homemade sausage, kishka I think and a selection of vegetables; peas, potatoes and such like (I’m sorry to say I ignored these, as the meat deserved full attention).
Nearly 2 hours later we were done. Food and wine were left, but neither of us had anywhere to put it! A doggy-bag was suggested, which I jumped at (since it was primarily large chunks of meat that would go into it and I knew the next night I would not be visiting any restaurant). The wine came with me also, approx a half bottle of each which I savoured over the next 2 nights. Yaron bought a bottle of the lemon Vodka for himself, something I’ve done on my last visits to the restaurant, but this time I knew I was intending to buy some wine for my return trip home (I may regret that, it is the best Vodka I’ve ever tasted) and came back to the hotel with the remnants of the wines and a little box of roasted meats for the next night.
If this has sparked your interest in visiting this restaurant beware, the size of the establishment is deliberately small (cosy is a good descriptor) – so you have to book in advance. But if you do get in then I hope you enjoy the food and the service as much as I have.
Shmulik Cohen Restaurant, 146 Herzl St., Tel Aviv, Israel.
Greybeard.
Phillip Noyce’s 2002 film Rabbit-Proof Fence, based on Doris Pilkington Garimara’s book Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence, follows the true story of Doris’ mother, Molly Kelly, Molly’s sister, Daisy Burungu, and cousin Gracie Fields who, together, in 1931, were kidnapped from their home in Jigalong. They were placed in an institution at Moore River 1500 miles away, an institution, one of many, designed and maintained for decades as a matter of official Govt. policy, to break Aboriginal familial and social bonds, ‘assimilate’ them into the dominant white culture, and thereby promote the erasure of Aboriginal memory itself. But Molly, Daisy and Gracie escape. And the film details their harrowing 9 week walk home, across an inhospitable landscape, made possible by their discovery of the Rabbit-Proof Fence which passed near Jigalong. Molly and Daisy succeed. Gracie allows herself to be retaken by the authorities. But perhaps the most moving moment in the film was not an image at all but a bit of text just before the credits roll. We learn that Molly was again taken to Moore River. Again she escapes. And she makes the same journey home.
As has been widely reported, the Australian government just this Wednesday issued an extraordinary apology to all Aborigines for the laws and policies that, in Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s words “inflicted profound grief, suffering, and loss”. He made special mention of what is called the Stolen Generations, the thousands of children forcibly removed from their families. Children like Molly, Daisy and Gracie, and Doris herself.
I leave it to the reader to click the links above for more about this important development. I want now to add more good swords to plowshares news. There is one entirely Aboriginal community-owned vineyard in Australia, Murrin Bridge Vineyard. Murrin Bridge itself is “a small Aboriginal community located on the banks of the Lachlan river, a few kilometres north of Lake Cargelligo right in the heart of New South Wales.” It is a day’s drive from Sydney, so to see a movie or eat at a restaurant requires hours of travel time. It was originally founded in 1947 as a mission, and was for years entirely surrounded by barbed wire. Home to around 300 souls, the community began looking for more profitable alternatives to vegetable crops grown for several years. It was suggested by a local grape-grower and educator that they experiment with wine grapes. In 1999, under the direction of community leader Craig Cromelin, himself an Aboriginal, there began an experimental 5 acre parcel of shiraz.
Their initial idea was to grow grapes to sell to local winemakers. But the first viable crop of a few tons would have netted them a pittance for all their hard work. 
Instead it was decided to make wine under their own Murrin Bridge label. An additional 20 acres were immediately dedicated not only to shiraz vines but also chardonnay. The accomplished winemaker Dom Piromit of Piromit Wines loved the idea of a Murrin Bridge wine and the promise of the community’s prosperity, and he offered to make their first vintage. And in 2001, 1400 bottles of shiraz were produced, of which 800 were used for promotion.
And it worked! The press was favorable, if spotty. Craig Cromelin and other members of the community understood the lure of the novelty of an Aboriginal wine. Novelty is passing. So, if they were to have a successful product they would have to maintain a high, competitive quality year after year. Indeed, in addition to Dom Piromit’s generousity, winemaker Andrew Birks of Bidgeebong made for Murrin their 2004 Shiraz and 2005 Chardonnay.
Production now is well over 1000 cases of shiraz and 600 cases of chardonnay, and is growing. There is plenty of willing, qualified help. The community boasts of around 17 Aboriginal graduates of the rigorous Technical and Further Education (TAFE) Viticulture Program taught on their nearby Riverina campus, one of many throughout Australia.
As a final note, Craig Cromelin recalls overhearing a conversation at a rugby match when the idea for making wines in Murrin Bridge was first being kicked around, “These blokes were talking about the vineyard and one of them said: ‘It’s not going to work, the Aborigines will drink all the wine themselves.’ I said to my lot: ‘Let’s prove these people wrong.’ “
And they have.
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If you thought you knew Hawaiian wines or haven’t thought about them at all, then you just might want to read this. An interesting experiment is underway on the island of Maui. Tedeschi Vineyards, also known as Maui’s Winery, has been working for the past six years on an ambitious program of winery and vineyard improvement, including the planting grape varieties never before tried in Hawaii, Syrah, Syrah Noir, Chenin Blanc, Pinot Gris, and two Chardonnay clones, 4 and 74. And their hard work is beginning to pay off. Under the visionary leadership of its President, Paula Hegele, Maui’s Winery has begun a new phase in its already successful history.
Owned since 1960 by C. Pardee Erdman, Jr., he was approached in 1974 by Emil Tedeschi, a Napa Valley vintner. He was persuaded to lease Mr. Tedeschi about 23 acres of his considerable estate for the growing of grapes. Mr. Tedeschi, after experimenting with dozens of varieties, finally settled on Carnelian. The wine would prove rewarding, as would the exotic pineapple wine, Maui Blanc, made while waiting for the Carnelian to come into maturity. The Carnelian was first harvested in 1980. Maui Brut was released in 1983, followed by a methode champenoise sparkler, Blanc de Noir, in 1984.
when a die-off of the Carnelian vines was first noticed, eventually taking virtually all of the plantings. Only a single acre remains today. The culprit was finally diagnosed as Eutypa Dieback, a plant fungus most common in conditions of high moisture. The aggressive pruning required for Hawaiian viticulture leaves little time for the proper healing of cane wounds, as would normally happen in a drier, seasonal climate, when a vine becomes dormant. There is, in fact, no dormancy period in Hawaii.
Paula Hegele saw an opportunity. A new plan was devised: replanting with the new grape varieties listed above. In the ground: 2 acres of Syrah Noir, 2 acres of Chenin Blanc, 2 acres of Pinot Gris, 4 acres of Chard, 2 of clone 4, two of clone 74. Four acres of Syrah (clone 877) are already yielding. 2006 saw 580 cases made of Plantation Red, a 91% Syrah, 9% Carnelian blend. New vines are being added each year. A balance of only 8 acres remain to be planted. They hope to maintain a production level, when all the new vines are producing, of 2000-3000 cases of grape wines. They are serious. They’ve sought out the services of wine consultant Chris Martell. Thirty years in the business, he has been a winemaker and consultant at celebrated wineries in California, France, Chile, Australia and Tasmania, a specialist in difficult climates.
