KOSHER, YET EXCELLENT

The Winery of the Greengrass Family enhances the Reputation of Kosher Wine

The village Beit Meir is situated on the foothills of the Hamasrek Reservation, in the Jerusalem mountains. The group of pine trees on the ridge of these mountains, during the War of Independence, was seen by the soldiers - fighting to open the road to besieged Jerusalem – as a huge comb poised against the sky.

In the nineteen fifties, the grandfather of the Greengrass family , a religious Jew, left Jerusalem to settle in the village Beit Meir. Among his other agricultural enterprises, he started producing home-made wine for Kiddush at the family Shabbat table. His grandchildren, Nahum and Hanoch Greengrass have gone in his footsteps and turned the home facility into a modern winery.

Most of the wines produced in Israel are Kosher, but due to commercial constraints the various wineries employ Kashrut Supervisors, in order for their wines to be allowed to be distributed by food chains and served in reception halls.

Hamasrek Winery does not need such supervision, and yet is approved as a producer of Kosher wines, because this is a boutique winery operated by an agricultural religious and observant family. Nahum is the wine maker and his brother Hanoch is the manager. Mother and father, and the rest of the family, are recruited to help in times of tight schedules.

The Greengrass family have been growing grapes and processing them for fifty years. Like other wine producing families they started with table grapes. Grandfather made Kiddush wine for their own consumption, which was tastier than the wines sold in the wine stores. Seven years ago, Nahum went abroad to learn from the masters how to produce wine professionally. When he returned, they established the modern winery. They expect to produce 25,000 bottles after the next harvest.

The supply of grapes comes mostly from the vineyards surrounding the village. The Greengrass family has a partnership with the Zor'a settlement which supplies the winery with the excellent grapes grown in the Shoresh and Neveh Ilan vineyards. The grapes that grow on the western slopes of the Judean mountains are processed into great wines like Kastel and Ilan Misty Hills.

The distinct Kashrut of Hamasrek wines earned them a worldwide reputation among Jewish communities. "I could have exported twice as much in consideration of hard currency", says Hanoch – the managing brother, but he knows that it is unwise to expand to fast, and that he must leave representative samples in wine stores and kosher restaurants in Israel.

This week I ate at the renovated La Regence at the Dan Hotel in Tel Aviv. The head waiter boasted that the new blend of Hamasrek wine has been added to his wine list, just like in the King David Hotel in Jerusalem.

The King's Blend, produced by Hamasrek is a result of U.S. consumers' pressure. The wine marketing distributors in the U.S. demanded a top quality wine that will be a blend of Israeli grapes resembling the Herzl Wine – a kosher wine produced by the Segal Winery especially at the request of a Swiss investor in the eighties. That wine starred on every Jewish table for many years, and was a decisive answer to those who scorned at the quality of kosher wines. Hamasrek's modern Kings' Blend blends together the Cabernet Sauvignon and the Californian Merlot Zinfandel that was absorbed well in the Judean Mountains in Israel. It is snapped off the shelves in the U.S. for $27 a bottle. In Israel it sells for about NIS 90 a bottle. The 2004 vintage is excellent, tasty and much more balanced than its predecessor.

Hamasrek's Chardonnay blends wine that was aged in both metal tanks and wooden barrels. Every three months, Nahum moves the wine to another aging container. I asked Nahum to let me taste the wine that spent most of the time in the wooden barrels, and felt a wave of Burgundy in my mouth. "The market prefers a wine that is light and green. Therefore I cultivate the part that is aged in the metal tanks. The wine with the almond buttery taste that you prefer will not sell here", claims Nahum. I invite comments from readers aimed at changing his mind.

The Gewurtzraminer is a refreshing surprise. A semi-dry wine whose sweetness does not bar it from being served at every meal.

When I visited Hamasrek Winery, I saw there another visitor - a European non-Jewish wine merchant who is a distributor of kosher wines in Western Europe. He was impressed by the rosy wine. The Rose produced by Hamasrek was also born following pressure by U.S. consumers. The children of those who grew up in the U.S. and were accustomed to the sweetened Kiddush wines of Manishewitz and the Pink Burgundy of the Gallow brothers , are excited today by the quality Rose kosher wines from Israel. The kudos bestowed by the European wine merchant for the Rose produced by Hamasrek, made me think on the way home after the visit, that maybe we were wrong. The European comes from the continent of the best wines. Maybe, we in the Middle East should stop dreaming of becoming a Bordeaux. In Southern France everybody drinks the Rose of Cote de Provence, a chilled rosy wine served in every meal. Many wineries in Israel started producing Rose wines in recent years. The Rose produced by Hamasrek made us "blush", listening to the compliments of the European merchant. This is a semi-dry wine exceptionally balanced.

It is almost summer, and we will return in a warm night to the winds of the Jerusalem mountains, and then we will change our attitudes to rosy chilly wines.

Manny Pe'er Maariv Daily Wine Section 27, March, 2006 By-line :