Last update - 00:00 19/07/2007
48 hours in the Golan Heights Part II
It might seem somewhat strange to talk about gastronomic regions in such a small country, but Israel's geographic and climatic diversity make it worthwhile to at least check out the idea.
By Ronit Vered / Photos by Eyal Toueg
It might seem somewhat strange to talk about gastronomic regions in such a small country, but Israel's geographic and climatic diversity make it worthwhile to at least check out the idea. The Golan Heights, a region with especially distinctive geographical features, already has a number of culinary specialties identified with it - not only wines, but meat, beer and olive oil.
Wine country (1)
Victor Schoenfeld, chief winemaker of the Golan Heights Winery, will shortly mount his all-terrain vehicle and ride through the vineyards to taste the grapes and decide the day and the hour on which the harvest will begin for each lot. The Golan Heights Winery's thousands of dunams (4 dunams = 1 acre) of vineyards, which stretch from the lower areas (with an elevation of 300 meters) in the southern Golan to heights of 1,200 meters in the north, are divided into hundreds of small plots. In the south, light red wines and muscat are produced; the center produces heavy reds, while white wines come from the north.
Each one of the wines is carefully studied to determine its particular characteristics. This precision mapping is carried out with the aid of computerized maps and other advanced methods, such as scanning the grapes to measure the level of their exposure to the sun.
Modern technology is helping others catch up with the knowledge accumulated by French winemakers over the course of hundreds of years of trial and error.
In the end, it is the winemaker who positions himself next to the vineyard and decides the exact time at which the harvest of each small plot will begin. He will also taste the wine ageing in the barrels and decide on blends.
Potatoes, green garlic and cherries may try to stand out at festivals of their own, but it is hard to trump a tradition thousands of years old - celebrating the grape harvest. Once every two or three years, the winery organizes the Golan Vintage Festival - the most interesting food-and-wine festival in the country - close to harvest time.
It's fascinating because of the presence of the Golan vintners, who fomented the Israel wine revolution. Like true revolutionaries, they are always busy learning, always in pursuit of perfection. The two days of the festival, which this year will be devoted to the subject of "terroir" (special local influences on the wines), are usually days of joyful drinking where epicures meet and exchange ideas and eating experiences.
In addition to wine-tasting, Israel's top chefs will hold cooking workshops with an emphasis on local ingredients. There will also be tours of the vineyards. One can discuss terroir from morning till night, and it's delightful to sip Chardonnay Odem in a restaurant like Katit, while nibbling slices of grouper (lokus) in crabmeat cream, and shrimp risotto. But to taste this wine at dusk in the organic vineyard of its origins is something else entirely.
Vintage Festival of the Golan Heights Winery, August 8-9, NIS 900 for the two days. Details and registration, telephone 04-6963588
www.golanwines.co.il
Beer land (2)
Grapes have always been the primary source of alcohol in the Mediterranean region. Although wheat and barley were at the heart of human existence here, the culture of beer was not very popular, mainly because of frequent droughts and a permanent shortage of grain. If there is no bread, do not drink beer - this was the thinking of the Children of Israel - in contrast, for example, to the Egyptians and the Philistines, who were actually very fond of the premodern brew.
Most archaeological evidence related to the production of beer was found in the south of the country, close to the beer- making neighbors, but some was found on the Golan Heights, too, and was the impetus for opening the local brewery. Anyone who ever dreamed of installing a pipeline that would divert the flow of beer directly to his home, instead of to the giant bottle of Goldstar in Netanya, is bound to be delighted with the new brewery - despite its peculiar location in a canyon and its connection with a multi-bus tourist project called Golan Magic (Kessem Hagolan).
The brewmaster, Nicholas, a merry, red-cheeked Bavarian who wears rolled-up shorts, left his private brewery in Munich in order to make beer in this German-built facility. He makes use of the waters of local springs, another crucial element in the manufacture of quality beer. Nicholas makes four types of fresh, non-pasteurized beer, of which the best, to our taste, is Galil, a classic German wheat beer: yellow-green in color with a lemony fragrance and a cool, thirst-slaking fruity taste that makes you want to go on drinking forever. The other beers - a clear barley lager called Emek, a red lager and a dark, sweet lager - are also good. Adjacent to the brewery is an alehouse, which makes the UN soldiers happy campers and also functions as a restaurant. The menu purports to provide such classic delights as sausages and cabbage, or corned beef, but in the meantime feels rather like an odd compromise between local cuisine and that of the classic beer institutions, and the food is not yet up to the level of the beers served with it.
Golan Heights Brewery at Golan Magic (Kessem Hagolan), Katzrin Industrial Zone, 04-6963625 www.beergolan.co.il
Fleshpot (3)
William Hamilton's Madame Vache was an existentialist calf, a lonely virgin of the Hereford breed, with melancholy thoughts about the fate of humanity and of cattle. This cow, the beloved childhood friend of the author of the short story, ended her life on the family table. But the taste of Madame Vache was engraved in his memory not only because of their intimate acquaintance, but equally because of the potent, lucid and different taste of the meat of the cow that spent its whole life in the natural pasture.
Madame Vache was the finest piece of beef he tasted, he wrote. He felt proud of her for tasting so good. And, he adds, he would like to think that if the situation were reversed, Madame Vache would have taken as much pleasure in him as he did in her.
The cattlemen of the Golan Heights, where there are vast pasture areas, claim to know their meat with the same level of intimacy, from the growing stages to the serving dish. Haggai Shalom doesn't have a herd of his own, as does butcher Yossi Gilis from Moshav Nov, but he is ensconced in the heart of meat country, and his butcher shop-restaurant is, as of now, the best meat restaurant in the region. It is good to discover that not only the large hunks of meat on the grill get the proper attention - so do the appetizers and the selection of antipasti served ahead of the main course.
Meat Schoss, Katzrin Industrial Zone, 04-6963334
Olive Oil (4)
The landscape of the olive groves of Kibbutz Gshur differs from the familiar look of large olive groves, mainly due to the crowding of the trees and their hunched character. The meticulous formation of the silver-green crests is mandated by the use of a mechanical grape picker to harvest the olives, instead of a manual olive harvester or a shaker that dislodges the fruit. Yossi Friedman saw a photograph taken in Spain of a sun-baked olive grove with a grape picker mounted on its trees, and immediately thought of the pickers on the kibbutz - which just then was looking for groves that would require less work than apple orchards.
The first olive groves were planted in 2002, and the kibbutz now has 550 dunams (112.5 acres) of olives of different types. In the meantime, other olive growers in Israel are also adopting this form of harvesting, which is considered cheaper and less harmful to the trees. In the upcoming harvest season the olive oil will be extracted in an olive press that was purchased in Italy. Crushing the olives as soon as possible after they are picked is another important parameter of high-quality olive oil, but even now wonderful olive oils can be purchased here. It's not certain that any distinctively "Golani" features can be discerned in them yet, but one can certainly take pleasure in their quality.
A delicate and far fruitier oil than is typical is extracted from the local Syrian variety of olive. A wonderfully aromatic oil is produced from the Greek Koroneiki olive, which is quite small and thus especially suitable for the Spanish method of harvesting. There is also a delicate Leccino and a fine blend of the Arbequina, Barnea and Picholine varieties.
Eretz Gshur, Kibbutz Gshur, 050-5470944, www.eretz-gshur.co.il (Hebrew only).