How do wineries deal with the Sabbatical year? Well, the answer is complex.
Wineries that wish to observe Shmita properly, by all accounts, will indeed not harvest grapes at all, since it is forbidden to harvest enough for more than three meals, and in any case there is no possibility of making wine this way - not even homemade wine. Indeed, one of the fundamental components of the quality of wine is the considerable quantity of grapes that will ferment together, and will impart their flavor to each other.
There is no point or smell in fermenting a kilo of grapes in a bottle of Coke. Not even for domestic use.
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Many wineries use a controversial patent called the 'sale permit', but this has additional problems, such as mixing a secondary wine from a sale permit with another secondary wine, especially since there are some wineries that, after a year of sabbatical with a sale permit, require the vessels, containers, and barrels to be sanitized.
Another solution facing wineries is to receive the grapes through the Otzar Beit Din.
This solution is also not very practical. In this way, the goods must be sold at the base price, the grapes in the vineyard do not cost money, and only the harvest and transportation must be paid, much less than 10 NIS per liter of grape juice. Since it is forbidden to make a profit on the holy fruit in the seventh holy season, it is not possible to give this juice all the long and expensive treatment that could increase its price 10 times or more.
No winery that produces quality wine and respects itself would buy grapes to sell pressed and filtered juice. Therefore, the simple solution is to stop the harvest for a year and focus on maintaining the winery and the wines stored there.
Meet: The Sorek Valley Winery
But at the winery we're visiting this time, they won't turn off the lights, and yet they won't let the outrageous prices of the Otzar Beit Din run the business, and they won't even use the sales permit. At this winery, they'll harvest quality grapes from the vineyards they own and make excellent wine, and for all of this, they'll receive exquisite kosher certification.
Is it possible? To heighten the bewilderment, another detail was added: the winery is not outside the country, but within the Holy Land. How is this possible? The answer lies in the pair of words:
""Moni Winery".
This winery is located on a hilltop in the Sorek Valley, and belongs to the Ertul family - an Arab-Christian family. All the grapes that the winery collects are grown in their many and diverse vineyards, all nearby.
The patriarch of the family, Shekib Artul from the village of Ma'ar in the Galilee, was an 'olitologist' - an expert in olives for their diverse uses and in the olive oil industry for its various types.
The father of the family arrived in the Sorek Valley in 1980, and after leasing about 2,000 dunams, he decided to plant about a thousand dunams of grapes of various varieties; Cabernet, Merlot, Shiraz and more, and in the remaining thousand dunams he planted olives of the Syrian variety.
Son Noor is currently the owner of the winery and, incidentally, was also the first winemaker there. This is how Noor tells us: In 2000, we established the winery and called it 'Muni Winery', after our brother Dr. Muni Ertul, the late, who died in 1995. The winery's development was rapid due to the high demand, and two years after its establishment, there were 20,000 bottles in the cellar.
Three years later (2005), they had already produced 60,000 bottles with exquisite kosher certification, and today they produce over 150,000 bottles a year.
The winery inside the caves
On the way to the winery, after passing Kibbutz Tzora, open spaces with rows of vineyards on the right and left already open up before our eyes, and there - right at the end of the road, after the climbs and twists (Route 3835), the winery is hidden, beneath an ancient monastery called Deir Rafat.
The hidden part of the winery is located inside two caves carved into the rock. These caves have the natural and optimal conditions for storing and preserving the wine, which are approximately 17 degrees Celsius and approximately 60% constant humidity.
The large, long cave stores wine barrels for aging. This cave is closed to visitors due to kosher restrictions. At the entrance there is a door with clear glass, through which you can see the row of barrels along the entire length of the cave. In the second, smaller cave, there is a small, intimate, cool, and somewhat dim event hall.
Access to these cellars is through the winery store, where the farm and winery's produce is sold, which includes cold-pressed olive oil, olives of different varieties made in different shapes, spices, honey, and of course the winery's variety of wines - a total of 13 types!
At the entrance to the winery is an impressive grape arbor, overlooking the winery's grape and olive vineyards, and overlooking the Sorek Valley and Givat Yoav. There are also plenty of benches for resting.
In this sukkah I sat with Noor's son, Nissim, who runs the family store. He let me open and taste their wines, all of which are excellent. In the store you can also see the many medals that the winery's wines have received in various competitions.
Two series of wine
The simpler series is table wine, albeit popular but still high-quality.
The Cabernet Sauvignon I tasted was not aged in barrels, is deep red in color, and has a berry aroma with a little body.
35 NIS. Did we say popular? That's definitely the price.
The prestigious series is called the 'Reserve Series'. The grapes intended for this series are all from Muni's vineyards in the area, with over a ton of grapes usually growing in a dunam of vineyard. For this series, the vineyard is thinned out in the spring, when the buds of the grape clusters are just emerging, leaving no more than 700 kg per dunam, so that the few grapes are concise and of high quality.
The harvest is done exclusively at night, before the sun rises and the heat accelerates fermentation. Although it is difficult to harvest in the dark, this series strictly adheres to hand-picking.
The harvest is collected in small containers, in order to prevent damage to the fruit as much as possible.
Fresh, well-preserved goods arrive in the wine tank. There, the crushed grapes undergo the first fermentation, at a low, controlled temperature, a fermentation that lasts a little over two weeks.
After pressing, the wine is transferred to age in barrels in the cellars.
The Chardonnay is aged in oak barrels for about six months. The color is yellowish, clear and beautiful, balanced, with a clear aroma of melon, peach, vanilla, butter, and a long residual taste.
The Cabernet Reserve, aged for 14 months in French oak barrels, is a dark velvety red, with flavors of red fruits such as strawberries and raspberries, good body, and a subtle touch of barrel.
The last one I tasted was the Shiraz Reserve, its red color tends to purple, medium to full body, a typical Shiraz aroma with some plums and cinnamon, and a few good tannins that remain in the mouth after the finish.
All three of these reserves cost 80 NIS - definitely worth it.
The wine review section was written by Shraga Gebhard, a consultant in the professional and kashrut field of wine.
