The general public was not invited to the event which generally made it more business like and conducive to work. Having said that we did notice that on both evenings from about 8pm onwards, the focus of the visitors shifted quite obviously from working to simply getting boozed up on the free samples that all the wineries were offering. At that stage I have to say that we made a decision to pack up the good stuff and just pour the cheaper wines.

The winery was represented in full force, with myself, Moshe and Naama present on both days. We poured wines from the whole portfolio including all the whole Reserve series and we also kept some sneak preview samples of two new wines, the 2006 Matatia super premium wine and the 2008 Single Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon from the Meron Vineyard for our VIP customers. Both wines will be released in the coming months and created a nice buzz for us.

The exhibition organized by Avi Ben Ami and his Sommelier organization once again put on a well run and organized show. It is a show we like to attend because of the professionalism of the organization and the attendees. It is not often that you see may people tasting and taking notes at the same time.

I managed to find time to taste a little and it was interesting to see what was out in the market. It is good to see so many well-made Israeli wines out there, but there were a couple of things which caught my attention, the first was the sameness among many of the wineries and the lack of diversity in taste or varieties, which I am guessing stems from the fact that not having their own vineyards, many small wineries buy from the same farmers. The second issue was one of quality. There were too many high priced wines that were obviously faulty, primarily oxidation and volatility issues, these wines should never have made it to the bottle and certainly not at the prices being asked. Hopefully as consumers learn more and winemakers, many of whom are hobbyists, learn more too we will begin to see better value and fewer faults. The direction is encouraging.