Israeli Wine

How does one categorize wines from Israel? Do they warrant a dedicated section in a wine shop? Or are they forever viewed as a seasonal event brought to the forefront only during Passover? Is there non-kosher Israeli wines? Are there great tasting kosher wines or does that remain the ultimate oxymoron?

Each year I have been tasked with tasting and purchasing kosher wines that is to be enjoyed (or at least tolerated), during Pesach. Recently my eyebrows have been raised on several occasions. From the Cabernets and Merlots that are growing in the volcanic soils in the hills of the Golan Heights to the Chardonnays of the thin lime and stony soil of the Judean Hills, I no longer have to look for kosher wines from around the world. Israel has arrived.

There are quite a few wines that I could recommend but exploring on your own in your price category would be the most fun. This year I looked forward and to enjoying the 4 cups of wine during Seder and poor Elijah finally benefited from the land of milk and honey.

Except for a few large producers like Carmel or Barkan most of the 200 or so wineries in Israeli are small and the wines are in short supply. If you like to explore there’s a whole new world available.

OK, you win; a few wines that impressed me are,

Kadesh Barnea Merlot 2004
Teperberg Silver Merlot 2006
Tevel Cabernet/Merlot 2005
Tishbi Chardonnay 2007Yogev Sauvignon Blanc/Chardonnay 2006

Were there others? You bet’ cha, but I can’t give away all my secrets. Meanwhile I have to find room in my wine cellar for a new country. – Fred Horowitz – http://www.suburbanwines.com/

Suburban Goes to Italy and France - Part Three

Is the pizza really that much better in Italy? Having grown up in New York, I have been exposed to some of the best pizza that this country has to offer (feel free to argue this point, but it is simply a fact). I have come to the conclusion that a big part of the difference is the setting in which one is eating (or in this case, devouring) the pizza. The pizza itself was quite good, but the fact that it happened to be sunny, 70 degrees, and we were sitting in spectacular Piazza Bra in Verona certainly added to the enjoyment. One thing I will say about most of the food I ate while abroad is this…there is nothing processed, frozen, bagged or canned about anything. Only fresh ingredients will do, and it makes a big difference.

Nothing overly spectacular about the rest of the day. After the pizza break (and some gelato, of course) we went back to the fair for another 4 hour round of tasting. Switched to red for the afternoon and concentrated on Southern Italy and Tuscany. Went though another 60 wines or so and then off to dinner. We ended up on our own for dinner that night and it was difficult to find an open table anywhere. We ended up in a small hotel restaurant that was certainly serviceable but nothing worthy of sharing here. – Lance Cerutti – http://www.suburbanwines.com/

Suburban Goes to Italy and France - Part Two

Sure, being in Verona is great. It is a beautiful city and it would be wonderful to be able to be a tourist for as few days. But my time there is short and there was work to be done so….off to the fair! The scene is like this – hop into a cab and get to the convention center (Verona Fiere). Then once you get through the turnstiles you begin to see how big this event really in (the above picture is helpful, but really doesn’t give you an idea of the scale). The pavilions are separated by regions (Piedmont, Tuscany, Veneto, etc). My plan for the day is to head to a designated place in Piedmont. Oh, by the way, that’s a 20 minute walk.

Once in Piedmont, one of the distributors that we deal with has a large area set up with offerings from all over Italy. On day one I concentrate on the whites. Most of them are 2007’s that are either just bottled of tank/barrel samples. I truly loved the 2006 whites, and find an awful lot to like about the 2007’s as well. After tasting though about 50 assorted whites…it’s time for some lunch.
Back to the Piazza for some pizza….. – Lance Cerutti – http://www.suburbanwines.com/

Eating Out

I went into a restaurant the other day for a nice dinner and a bottle of wine. The dialogue with the waiter went something like this (some paraphrasing),

Hi, I’m looking for a good Gamza.
Huh!
OK, how about an Auxerroix!
What?
Maybe a Bobal? Or an Alicante Bouschet?
(Raised eyebrow)
Maybe I should go with a white ---do you have an Rkatsiteli? Or a Moscophilero?
(There goes the other eyebrow)
Fine….I’ll have a good Axina.
(Waiter just closed his eyes and began shaking his head.)
OK. What do you recommend?
(Now the waiter brightened up.) We have great Burgundies from California and New Jersey.
Burgundy from New Jersey?
Yeah, and its good stuff.

I looked at my wife for help.
She looked at the waiter and said, “What kind of beers do you have?”
Now the waiter smiled. Before he could answer though, my wife added, do you have Duval?
How about Dinkle Acker? Or maybe Ommegang?
With a deep sigh the waiter finally interrupted and began, “Bud, Bud light, Miller,…..

Finally, I looked at the waiter and said, “Hamburger, fries and coke, no ice”. My wife chimed in, “I’ll have the same.”
The waiter responded, “Good Choice.”

If there’s a moral to the story, I can’t find it. – Fred Horowitz – http://www.suburbanwines.com/

A Vinous Seder

I attended my 2nd ever Passover Seder on Sunday, and it may have been the most progressive and uncommon Seder ever held. But what less could one expect when the host is a Master of Wine? The 7-hour Brooklyn, NY event was attended by 20 people, mostly from the wine trade, only 4 of whom were Jewish. Woven in between an acoustic guitar folk song session, a reading of Dr ML King’s famous March on Washington speech, and the singing of a humorously-novel song about the 10 Plagues of Egypt set to the tune of The 12 Days of Christmas, was a feast like none other. In addition to gefilte fish that tasted like it was served at a Michelin restaurant, and Matzoh ball soup that had Italians begging for the recipe, there was a lineup of knockout, non-kosher wines that some people would have paid to just taste. Feel free to let me know if anyone’s Seder featured 2001 Armand Rousseau Gevrey Chambertin 1er Les Cazetiers, 1997 LeClerc Gevrey-Chambertin 1er La Combe aux Moines, 1996 Giacoma Conterno Barolo, 2004 Argentiera di Bolgheri, 1994 Pesquera Reserva, and 1992 Vintage Niepoort, not to mention 15 other 750ml thrillers. I’m glad I took the train! Thanks, Lisa and Sandy for the generosity, hard work and good humor. –Michael Koehler – http://www.suburbanwines.com/

WINE WITH DINNER – Cooking Wine

Customers ask me occasionally to help them select an inexpensive cooking wine that can also be enjoyed on its own. We have plenty of them, but my favorite (and I cook with wine a lot) is a good quality “bag-in-a- box” wine. Sound odd to you, coming from a wine merchant with one of the largest selections of wine in Westchester? Well, the reason is quite practical.

I used to buy inexpensive wines in the bottle for cooking, but pretty soon my refrigerator was starting to overflow with partially filled bottles of leftover wines from various sources, including cooking wine purchases. Box wines don’t have to be kept in the refrigerator and they have a convenient faucet on them that allows you to draw off just what you need for cooking. The 3-Liter box is quite compact, so it doesn’t take up much room wherever it is stored (preferably not in an area that gets hot).

My favorite white box cooking wine is Hardys Stamp of Australia Chardonnay, which I keep in the refrigerator, and my favorite red box cooking wine is the Hardys Shiraz, which I keep down in the basement. When I want to draw off some white wine to cook with, I just open the refrigerator, glass in hand, and there it is! Some goes into the cooking and some goes into the cook! I usually draw my red cooking wine from the basement into a small carafe.

Now comes the good part. Each box holds the equivalent of four 750 ml bottles, so, at a cost of $18.99 per box, that means my cooking wine is costing me less than $4.75 per bottle! And, since no air gets into the bag inside the box when you draw off the wine, the wine, if stored in a cool place, stays fresh for a month or longer!

Life is a compromise and I’ve found this one to be perfect for a person like me who cooks a lot with wine. - Jay Roelof

Suburban Goes to Italy - Sidenote....

There is something about the coffee in Italy that simply cannot be duplicated anywhere else in the world. Our group arrived in Venice after a very long overnight flight and the very first thing we did was get coffee in the airport. Even in the airport the coffee is better than almost anywhere here....

The picture you see was taken in Verona at an outdoor cafe on my first day there prior to heading to the fair for a full day of tasting. Few things are finer. After my time in Italy was over, I headed to France. The coffee is almost undrinkable, but France has other charms...more on that later. - Lance Cerutti

Suburban Goes to Italy and France - Part One

Each year, I go to Verona at the end of March/beginning of April for the Italian wine fair known as VinItaly. It is something that really would be extremely difficult to describe. Over 150,000 wines are available for tasting in an area that is roughly the size of 10 football stadiums. Thousands of ornate booths are set up to display just about every wine made in Italy. It’s kinda like the Grand Canyon; sure I could describe it to you, but until you have seen it, you can’t really know how big it is….

My goal each year is to taste as much as I can and buy some terrific wines for the store that we can make available for the rest of the year. This year was more challenging than ever before, mostly because of the weak dollar. Wines I had purchased for many years that were great values have become so pricey that they are no longer interesting for the price. But undaunted by this, I was able to find 20 or so wines that are tremendous values even with the current exchange rates! - Lance Cerutti - www.suburbanwines.com/

Welcome to our Blog!

For quite some time we have been posting notes and thoughts on our site for you to read. We have finally decided to make it official! Now you can tell us what you think! Our goal is for this to be update weekly with tasting notes, best buys, store happenings, and random interesting thoughts.

We hope you will check back often!