Eastern Med wines/spirits

Afternoon everyone,
I have been enjoying the newsletter for a while and thought I might pose a question here.

I have been charged with developing a beverage program focused on Eastern Mediterranean libations and was curious if anyone knows any good material that deals in these regions. I have purchased "The Wines of Lebanon" as I have heard some good things about it.
I'm exicted to learn all this new stuff, Greece will be a lot of fun.
Take care all,
David

[Robin Garr]

David, welcome to the forum! Glad you chimed in.

I don't have a lot of recent tasting experience of Eastern Med wines, but a few thoughts:

* From Lebanon, certainly Chateau Musar is the No. 1 wine, and the most widely available in the West. Our pal Otto from Finland is a great fan and expert, and I expect he'll be along soon with more advice on this and other wines of the Levant. Depending on your location, you might place a friendly call to a nice Lebanese restaurant in the Orlando area called The Cedars, which has a decent list of maybe 20 Lebanese wines.

* Greece makes a wealth of wines, but again, they're not widely distributed, so a lot depends on where you live. When we lived in Astoria, a Greek-American neighborhood in Queens, NYC, local shops had scores of Greek wines, but in most of the US, only the most well-stocked retailers will have more than a few. With the "interesting" exception of Retsina, the famous Greek wine flavored with pine resin, most Greek wines remind me a bit of Italian wines in that every part of Greece has its own local wines, most of them made from unfamiliar grapes, and they tend to go very well with food. Santorini from the Greek Islands is a famous white, a fine seafood match, and fairly easy to find. Look for red varieties like Agiorgitiko and Xinomavro and white Moschofilero (I hope I'm getting the names right, I'm going from memory rather than looking it up) and prominent wine regions Nemea, Naoussa and the aforementioned Santorini. Mavrodaphne of Patras is a widely distributed strong, sweet red, sort of a Greek answer to Ruby Port. And that's Greece in a very small nutshell.

* Malta is said to make excellent wines, including a historic sweetie called Commanderia (?) with a history going back to the Crusades. I've never seen a Maltese wine, and don't think much makes it to the U.S.

* Someone else may be able to give you a similar nutshell on Israel ... they're making a lot of wine nowadays, much of it from Galilee and the Golan Heights, mostly using European grape varieties and, in my experience, most exports being on the low-end, mass-market style. Be cautious of wines marked Mevushal, a sort of super-kosher treatment that requires the wine be heated to pasteurization.

For a small but decent selection of Greek Wines check out MacArthur Beverage at http://www.bassins.com/ For my taste the Gerovasilliou is the best producer in Greece today but I have found good stuff from Kir-Yianni and Mercouri also.

[Jenise]

David, I help organize tastings and one we did last year featured Greek wines which I purchased from K & L in San Francisco who had a fairly good selection and a wine person knowledgeable about them. A phone call to someone like that would probably get you the names of importers who would certainly have press kits that would help you understand more about Greek wine grapes and producing regions. I remember that I found some importer's websites that were quite informative.

* Malta is said to make excellent wines, including a historic sweetie called Commanderia (?) with a history going back to the Crusades. I've never seen a Maltese wine, and don't think much makes it to the U.S.

Robin,
I know nothing about the quality of Maltese wines (is Falcon Crest one of them? ) but Commandaria comes from Cyprus.

Joel Cairo (aka Mark Lipton)

[Robin Garr]

I know nothing about the quality of Maltese wines (is Falcon Crest one of them? ) but Commandaria comes from Cyprus.

Durn, you're right, that's what I get for nattering on the fly without a net^H^H^H book.

Still, both Malta <i>and</i> Cyprus would be good options for a Levantine wine list ...

I have been charged with developing a beverage program focused on Eastern Mediterranean libations and was curious if anyone knows any good material that deals in these regions.

Would it be Michael Karam's book that you're talking of? I think he gives a very good overview of the region. You might be interested in this overview by Karam also.

I love Musar, but frankly think that the other wines of Lebanon don't compete with it. Kefraya makes the luxury cuvée Comte de M which tastes more international than Lebanese. Their Les Breteches is also a rather spicy/oaky wine which is very competently made but is rather anonymous. My experience with the other producers is also similar - competent technically but lacking in spirit. But Musar is truly original.

If you can find any, try the Turkish grape Kalecik karasi - Kavaklidere makes a fair example which is exported quite widely.

From Israel, I would concentrate on the cooler areas of the occupied territories of Golan, where Yarden makes a fair Pinot Noir and a superb Gewurz Heights Wine (not a terribly fun pun on ice wine).

Avoid any wine made in Jordan and Egypt as I *think* I tried every producer in those countries a few years back when I backpacked through the area - they are obnoxious enough to kill anyone who dares take a sip - even cockroaches and Keith Richards.

Syria has some areas where good wines could be made and I did try a few passable examples, but I would still rather pass by them also.

For an after drink I would try to get hold of Ch. Musar's Arraq (quadruple distilled) which is the best anis-spirit I know of. Arraq and the Turkish Raki and the Greek Ouzo are all the same drink.

-O-

i'm not really up to date on my israeli wine. you can try stratsplace for that.

http://stratsplace.zeroforum.com/zeroforum?id=1

but i would try bordeaux varietals only. not PN. israel is a warm country. besides that. GHW also makes single vineyard wines from the unoccupied galilee.

i agree with otto about the heightswine, both that the pun is not funNY and that the wine is excellent.

from what i understand syrah/shiraz is all the rage there, currently. as it should be.

another correction - wines from the judean hills W of jerusalem and from the negev desert, which has baking days and freezing nights, can also be excellent.

as for personal preferences, i was never wowed by anything from golan heights. try the boutiques. my favourite is margalit, because he has a very distinct style. domaine du castel is v. good too. pelter, flam (for brett lovers), amphorae, clos de gat, are up there with the very best in the country. sea horse is good but has bottle variation problems. i have greatly enjoyed the reserve wines of saslove, and orna chillag's wines in the past, no idea if they're still good or not.

whites: some nice sauv blancs (pelter, and i used to like dalton), and the castel "C"hardonnay, currently available at the LCBO, but i'd rather buy 2-3 good niagara chards for the price. maybe some other chards as well. the "non-iced" GW from GHW is also decent as well as their riesling.

there is a slew of new wineries there every year. some wines are apparently being imported to the states, and the LCBO sometimes carries some margalits and castels for prices i am not willing to pay.

a muddled post but the folks at stratsplace will tell you more, including on how to source the wine in the US.

I'll back the others on Greek wines - there are a lot of good ones if you can find them. Don't forget the rose' wines, they go quite well with a lot of the eastern mediterranean cuisines. Even more obscure, I have had one or two good Tunisian reds. Another off-beat wine might be some of the Moscato wines from the Italian Mediterranean islands like Pantelleria - intense, rich and sweet and very good substitutes for port.

Here in Berkeley, Zatar is a very good restaurant serving food with an Eastern Mediterranean slant. You might want to check out their wine list or even give them a call about what works best with their food. I think their wine list is pretty good, but I usually order their superb Sangria.