Fine wine, superb dining

Eating well in land of milk and honey

Some of Domaine du Castel's vineyards are on the slopes of deep valleys, where they enjoy excellent summer breezes and shorter hours of sunshine

In this story: Mahane Yehuda Market Eucalyptus 'Israel's finest' RELATED STORIES, SITES

By Randall H. Harber
CNN

TEL AVIV, Israel (CNN) -- One of the joys of being in the Middle East is its food with all it exotic combinations of herbs and spices. And now, Israeli wines are becoming a pleasure as well.

There are now more than 20 wineries in Israel, the Israeli government says. Tours are available at many of them.

At the Carmel winery at Rishon LeZion just south of Tel Aviv, tours and tastings are offered daily. With reservations -- and if you arrive during the right time of year -- you can even stomp grapes in a sort of public-relations gimmick to show how wine once was made.

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The Golan Heights Winery, another large producer that bottles some its best vintages under the Yarden label, provides tours for a fee -- wine tasting included -- at its facilities at Katzirin in the Golan Heights.

While the Golan Heights wineries have gotten the most press, other boutique wineries offer exquisite products, too. Perhaps the best of these is Domaine du Castel in the Judean hills west of Jerusalem.

The winery began in 1988 when owner Eli Ben-Zaken planted a vineyard near his home. Four years later, in 1992, the winery made its first vintage. Today, Ben-Zaken, his son Ariel and son-in-law Arnon Geva, make about 100,000 bottles a year.

That's a mere drop when compared to the big California wineries, but it's enough for Ben-Zaken, who is something of a perfectionist. The wine is a pure Bordeaux blend -- Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc. The winery's oak barrels are made by Seguin Moreau, one of the best barrel makers in Cognac, France, and the method of winemaking is just as French as the winery's barrels.

Geva removes the plug from a barrel of 2000 vintage and with a "wine thief," a long glass tube, draws out enough to give visitors a taste.

It has only been in the barrel for three months, Geva tells us, but already the nose is big and full of fruit, not tannic as I expect. The wine itself is young and still raw, but obviously has great promise. "This is our best vintage yet," he says.

Back in the tasting room we sample the '97 vintage. It was picked recently by the British wine magazine Decanter as its wine of the month.

It is easy to get caught up in the technicalities of microclimates -- the fact that the vineyards are at an average height of 700 meters (almost 3,000 feet) above sea level; that some face west toward the sea and get extra rain; and that others vines face northwest and mature more slowly as a result. What impresses me, however, is the depth the '97 vintage already has at such an early age. The taste is complex and oak-like, with smooth tannins. There is a lot of deep rich fruit laced with spice.

Making the wine, says Ben-Zaken, has been far more difficult than drinking it. Israeli banks don't understand the wine business, he says, nor is the nation a particularly sophisticated wine market. But the situation is improving, says Ben-Zaken, who notes that his operation makes enough wine so that some is exported to Britain, with a little coming to the United States.

Does he want the winery to grow? Yes, he says. Like his grapes on the northwest slopes, Ben-Zaken wants his business to mature slowly. He has no ambition to be another Carmel.

Mahane Yehuda Market

Another pleasure of the trip was dining at Eucalyptus (4 Safra Square, Jerusalem, telephone 02-6244331, www.the-eucalyptus.com), a downtown restaurant where chef Moshe Basson is something of a magician with local herbs.

The restaurant is just off Jaffa Street, not far from the gates to the old city. To get there we have to walk past the Mahane Yehuda market -- and of course, it is practically impossible to pass without going in.

We stand in a bakery lined with bins and bins of breads and pastries. They come out of wide gas ovens on baking sheets that look 2 meters (6 feet) wide. The bakers dump the hot pastries into bins and people grab them up, stuffing them into plastic shopping bags.

At a fish stall down the way, fresh carp are literally jumping in the bins. "Now that is fresh," says my friend. He points out another fish -- "St. Peter's fish," he calls it. This is fish that St. Peter is supposed to have caught, the type Jesus was supposed to have used to feed the multitudes in the famous parable. They are tilapia, I learn, and they still come from the Sea of Galilee.

At another stall an old man cuts chunks off of a smoked tuna loin. It's meaty and pungent with smoky flavor.

But underlying the pleasant scenes is a grim reality. Car bombs have gone off here, with the last one occurring in November, when an explosion killed two people in an alley nearby. The worst killed 16 people in July 1997.

That hardly seems a concern now in this packed market. People jostle one another, they argue over prices, they carry bags filled with produce. Everyone seems to be in a hurry, and we join them, hustling to the restaurant.

Eucalyptus

At Eucalyptus, we meet another colleague and begin our meal with meza, an assortment of Middle Eastern dishes. The traditional ones are here -- hummus, smoky tahini, tahini with eggplant. But there are many others I haven't seen before -- mashed potatoes laced with mint, shredded beets flavored with cumin seed, chunks of roasted sweet potato spiced with ground coriander.

Among two unusual dishes are sabaneh, wilted spinach served with a yogurt cream sauce. Chef Basson tells us sabaneh isn't standard spinach but wild greens, which were eaten during the 1948 siege of Jerusalem. He plucks a tiny flower from the vase on the table.

"Here," he says, "taste the stem." It is sweet and sour with the oxalic acid bite of sorrel -- the food on our plates. "The flowers are edible, too," he adds.

Another house specialty is Jerusalem sage. These leaves, about the size of your hand, are stuffed with a mixture of lamb and rice. The bundles of rolled, steamed leaves are served with wedges of lemon that are squeezed over the top. The lemon juice adds lightness to the deep herbal flavor of the sage and the stuffing.

Next comes a round of stuffed vegetables -- potatoes, carrots, and fennel bulbs. Each is filled with a mixture of ground meat and served in a tomato sauce laced with garlic, a touch of cinnamon and allspice.

We cap the meal with figs stuffed with ground chicken breast mixed with spices. The stuffed figs are served in a sweet, tart sauce made with tamarind and laced with cardamom over a bed of white rice.

We begin the meal with a large pitcher of the house lemonade, and then proceed to glasses of Yarden Cabernet Sauvignon.

The meal ends the traditional way, with the waiter unbeckoned, bringing out two digestifs -- a caramel-colored pear brandy and the traditional arack, the pungent, anise-flavored drink of the Middle East.

The meal is also inexpensive -- $78 for three of us, not counting tip.

'Israel's finest'

Another culinary treat is visiting Jonathan Roshfeld (23 Shaul Hamelech Blvd., Tel Aviv, telephone 03-6094666), rated by one restaurant critic as "without doubt the very best restaurant in the country."

I begin with seared duck foie gras. It is laid on a bed of diced green apples with two sauces. The first is a port wine reduction, sweet and rich. The second is unusual -- a bright-green sauce. Its apple taste is intense as if the chef had pureed the peel of the apples.

My enthusiasm for the foie gras and its sauces apparently makes an impression, for soon Mally, my server, tells me the chef thinks I need to sample a second appetizer. He sends me slices of yellow fin tuna -- "a Mediterranean fish," Mally reminds me. Each delicate, pink sliver is topped with a spoonful of finely diced shallot, tomato and basil, splashed with extra virgin olive oil and, finally, drizzled with intense balsamic vinegar.

My entree is lamb shank, augmented with Domain du Castel 1997. Without telling him that I had just been in their cellars a couple of days before, I ask the sommier, Avi, what he thinks of the wine.

"To me this is the very best wine made in Israel," he says. "We've had several blind tastings and it always comes out near or at the top."

The lamb shank arrives in the enameled iron skillet in which it was cooked. The chef has braised the shank in red wine, roasting whole shallots alongside. The meat is tender and falling off the bone, the roasted shallots sweet. Their flavors are made more intense by roasting in the red wine.

The Castel is a perfect match, its complex balance of oak and fruit smoothing the rich, deep flavor of the roasted lamb.

The chef has also prepared a creamy smooth potato puree, the sort of dish made famous a few years ago by Joel Robuchon at Jamin in Paris, France.

Dessert is a pineapple creme brulee. In this case a "round" of creme brulee -- with its top of caramelized sugar -- comes atop a slice of sauted pineapple resting on a wafer made of chocolate and toasted nuts. Around it, a sauce of concentrated pineapple jus was drizzled into splashes of heavy cream.

The crunch and then smoothness of the custard give way to the intense flavor of the fruit. Then the rich, slightly bitter flavor of the chocolate and toasted nuts balances off the pineapple's sweetness.

Finally, all I need is an espresso, so I order that, too.

The bill? About 659 shekels, (US $165), including service.

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