Courtesy of Judeanhillsquartet.com

The beginning of 2017 brought along with it a new and quite interesting joint venture, issued by four well known and well credited Israeli wineries from the Judean Hills region: The Judean Hills Quartet. Formally speaking, and as is mentioned in the Quartet's website (http://judeanhillsquartet.com/), the Judean Hills Quartet is a group of artisanal wineries which provide a window into the rebirth of a beautiful wine region with a deep history. In fact, the quartet is primarily a connection between four wine makers, sharing a strong sense of terroir, especially their own region's terroir, and devotion for crafting high quality wines.

Individually speaking, both with regards to the wineries and to the winemakers in person, it would be difficult to come upon such a diverse group, a foursome owning such contrasting personalities and different styles.

Domaine du Castel a family owned winery founded and headed by Eli Ben Zaken, the quartet's veteran. Eli was born in Egypt and was raised and educated in England, Italy and Switzerland, though holding no formal wine education. Ben Zaken's evident French wine making philosophy brought worldwide recognition to Israeli wine by the quality of his then very young Castel Winery Bordeaux style reds and Burgundy style white. He was the first to put the Judean Hills appellation on his label in 1992 and to receive third party international recognition at the highest possible level for a Judean Hills wine.

Tzora Vineyards was founded by Ronnie James in 1993 with the aim of establishing a Judean Hills terroir. The current CEO and winemaker is scholarly Eran Pick, Israel's first and only MW, who studied at the University of California at Davis. Not surprisingly, Eran's MW final research project deals with Meso climates among Important Vineyard Regions in Israel. Eran, much like the winery's late and appraised founder, is highly dedicated to making a terroir driven wine from separate individual plots in a single vineyard, and this new style of Israeli wine attracts much attention around the world. Many duly refer to Tzora as Israel's most "terroiristic" winery.

Sphera founded by Doron Rav Hon is a winery devoted solely to white wine production, an almost singular phenomenon in the Israeli wine scene.  Rav Hon studied in Beaune, Burgundy. His winemaking philosophy shows minimalistic intervention, precision, and delicateness. There is no doubt between Israeli wine experts and consumers as one, that Sphera is at the forefront of the quality leap made by Israeli white wines in recent years.

Flam along with its wine maker Golan Flam is a different story altogether. In 1998, the founding family, one of Israel's veteran wine making families, chose to build their beautiful winery in the heart of the Judean Hills. They share the management of the winery, with great attention to detail and style. Golan Flam studied at the Piacensa University in Milan, Italy. Unlike Castel and Tzora, Flam produces wines also from other Israeli wine regions, albeit with great attention to terroir.

What does the Quartet aim to achieve? What are their goals? Outspokenly - to advance and promote the obvious renaissance of the Judean Hills wine region going on through the past ten years or so. Quite surely they also expect to see their joint efforts advancing and promoting their own wineries and wines on the way, which is of course quite natural and accepted.

The Judean Hills is definitely a justifiable region to promote. This is a region leading the way in the search for ongoing improvement of quality and individuality, and of production of authentic wines, expressing a specific terroir. The Judean Hills is one of the newest and most interesting quality wine regions in the world, fascinating to connoisseurs and wine lovers alike and receiving notable international recognition at the highest level. It is where Israeli artisan winemaking has taken root with numerous small vineyards and over thirty small boutique wineries making wines with character and individuality and with great passion and love for their region and terroir. The first Israeli wine road was paved in the Judean Hills, the pioneer regional wine festival was held by this region's wineries and they were also the first to unite in a regional winery organization.

The region itself is a beautiful one, engulfing within it a rich and long history of wine making, with origins in biblical times. The region lies between the Mediterranean Sea and Jerusalem. The central coastal plain south east of Tel Aviv leads to the rolling hills of the Judean Foothills, after which the elevations rise sharply and continue to rise until Jerusalem. The vineyards tend to be small in size, located in Wadih's (dried riverbeds), valleys or on sloping hills. Most vineyards lie within protected nature reserves interspersed with forests mainly of pine trees, but also oaks. There is a wild ruggedness to the surrounding area. A passing look at the mostly shallow soils, well-drained and rich in minerals, will unearth fascinating fossils, dating back hundreds of millions of years ago. This underlines a rich and varied history this same area has undergone.

The climate is also perfect for producing high quality wine grapes. It is Mediterranean: warm, dry summers and cold, wet winters. There is usually no rain in the growing season. Elevations range from 400 to 800 meters and help provide a cooler climate and a longer growing season. Temperatures are assisted by the two most notable geographical features of the area: the Mediterranean Sea lying only 40-50 km away, and the Jerusalem Mountains. The Judean Hills are backed by higher mountains. At nighttime, cool air from these mountains circulates to replace the warmer air below cooling the vineyards to a surprising extent. In Israel's scorching and humid summers, temperatures in this region can surprisingly fall to 15°C at night. Early morning summer mists also serve to protect the grapes.

As a result of all of the above, wines from the Judean Hills show quality and share elegance, along with obvious spiciness and minerality, seeming very much unique to the region.

The Quartet was founded with the joint purpose of educating and explaining about this fascinating, new quality wine region in the same place where wine was made in ancient times, and to continue the drive for creating high quality wines and for ever more recognition of this lovely growing area. The four wineries and the winemakers behind them are surely the fitting delegates for doing so. Their success shall be the success of the region in whole and of wine lovers in Israel and throughout the world.