With my Passover plans up in the air and Michael Preis’s mention of the Israeli Winery Recanati’s success in Palm Bay’s portfolio, I decided to research Israeli wine this week. Palm Bay’s website has 17 Israeli wines listed and all are from Recanati Winery in Israel. When Michael mentioned Israeli wines twice in his presentation, I had to know more. My impression of Israeli wine is quite biased by my exposure to American-Jewish wine. I don’t remember my first sip of wine, but it was most certainly at a Jewish family gathering (maybe at Passover I snuck a sip from the adult’s table). Regardless, most likely it was Manischewitz. Known for being nauseatingly sweet, for Jewish wine lovers it usually only makes an appearance at Passover seder in the name of preserving tradition. While many of us will probably never love the syrupy wine, it makes me feel warm and fuzzy any time I see it. And hey, I can say that it was a good gateway drink— it was only up from there.
Anyway, if you can get past the bias of Manischewitz, Israel is actually a super exciting wine region. Israeli winemaking goes back to biblical times; however, the modern Israeli wine industry was founded by none other than Baron Edmond de Rothschild himself (Château Lafite Rothschild in Bordeaux). Rothschild provided expertise to better understand the Israeli soil and climate and sent cuttings from his French vineyards to be replanted in Israel. Today, Israel is home to around 300 wineries, producing 40–45 million bottles of wine every year. Only 20% of this is exported as most Israeli wine is consumed in the country; however, the largest export market is the U.S.
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| https://www.palmbay.com/wine-brands#!country=Israel |
Super geographically diverse (e.g. Negev— desert wines, Judean Hills— high altitude wines), I imagined there would be many different wine regions and the potential to make a variety of wines. In fact, for such a small country, there are five different major regions and many different varietals grown. I think like many things that are different in the Jewish-American community I grew up in, our perception of Jewish wine is quite different, and I’m rather grateful that Israel’s wine industry seems far off from the grape juice tradition that once symbolized my impression of my people’s wine.
P.S. My 8 year old self would recommend pairing grape juice with challah. So I imagine this may go well with Manischewitz, too.
It's very funny that you mentioned Manischewitz in your post Sela. My paternal great-grandmother was Jewish and my dad also grew up drinking it during holidays. I even myself grew up hearing stories about this wine and was very excited to try it myself despite having no personal connection to the Jewish faith. Just like you, I didn't enjoy the taste but nevertheless get excited any time I see it because of the link to my family's history. I think the fact that they managed to establish themselves as THE Passover wine is a genius marketing strategy.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if that strategy would have been reproducible for other holidays that may allow for alcoholic beverages. I'm surprised that Catholic churches don't have a specific wine they distribute across the world for mass for example. I suppose that now with the decline or several major religions this may not be a suitable time to try to target this market, but do you think this was a missed opportunity?
When I initially read this, I had a very similar reaction to Carl -- why isn't there a "Christmas wine" or an "Easter wine" (not to mention wines representing every other cultures and religions). I was also initially introduced to Jewish wine as "Passover wine" and think it's a concept that could be quite easily extended to any other wine-friendly culture or tradition.
ReplyDeleteFor major players, this could be a pretty powerful marketing play (and perhaps some are already capitalizing on this). Make a wine for Christmas called "Santa's Sauvignon"; maybe a signature season wine for Spring/Summer/Fall/Winter. There are endless opportunities when you fully extend this idea and play out all the possible cultures and regions to which wine could appeal. Another opportunity for differentiation in one of the most differentiated marketplaces out there.