Customers are more inclined to buy though we are certainly seeing a reluctance n buying wines over $25, which seems to be the new upper threshold for the US wine buyer. The position for Dalton is further strengthened by a more aggressive pricing policy on the part of my importer and the fact that we now are back to full strength after Shmitta (the sabbatical year) and the Canaan wines, which are a huge seller and a trailer for the rest of the portfolio, are back in full strength.

Canada was encouraging as always. Victor Arrobas from Simcha wines always comes up trumps, he organized a splendid wine tasting at the home of Eliana and Pace Goldman.

Victor managed to dig up some older wines and we had a mini vertical tasting of Cabernet reserve 2002 2004 2006 and Merlot Reserve from 2003 2004 2005 2006. He was also generously opened a bottle of the Matatia to rave reviews.  We are also working on an exciting project to introduce a large quantity of Dalton wines to the LCBO.

Next stop London; I am happy to report a strong presence in all the stores in the Jewish neighbourhoods, thanks to our new importers and distributors. Hopefully there will be decent sell through before and during the holidays. The next stage is to get wider distribution and greater acceptance of Israeli wines in the eyes of the wider wine drinking community. I’ll be back in May to deal with that issue as we have an Israeli portfolio tasting for the UK wine press then.

Last stop Dusseldorf for the Prowein exhibition. I was in two minds over exhibiting there I was asked by my German importer to take part. He said that even if we didn’t participate he would take part. I couldn’t really refuse so I agreed to participate. There was an Israeli Pavilion expertly organised by Renee and Hohey Salzman of Zag wines, there were ten wineries that participated in the stand. The show was really well run and we had a constant flow of visitors, many people interested to see wines from Israel and some interested to begin importing the wines to their countries. Was it a success? I think on balance, yes it was but I’ll be wiser in about a month once I have finished all my follow-up. Will I return? Probably, yes, we had a lot of traffic and interest and to be honest the meetings we had seemed much more constructive than any of the meetings we ever had at the “International” wine exhibitions we have in Israel.

Whilst I was away, we had our annual ceremony for trumot and ma’aserot (giving of tithes). We were honoured with the presence of Rabbi Yitzchak David Grossman from Migdal Ohr who joined us for the ceremony. For any winemaker this is a pretty traumatic event, as we have to pour a certain quantity of our new wine into the earth. Over the years I have become a little more philosophical about the whole event, I see that the winery is succeeding and sometimes against the odds and it feels as if someone is watching over us so if this is the price we have to pay then so be it. Just for clarification we also put aside a larger quantity of wines for charitable purposes that our local rabbi hands out to needy causes.

And on that religious note we lead straight into Passover, which begins tonight so it remains for me to wish everyone a very happy Passover, in an earlier post I already wrote about the wines we will be having for Seder night.  Enjoy!