Wine getaway in Zichron Ya’acov

The second annual Wine & Plenty Festival offers the best of regional food and wines.

By MIRIAM KRESH
The second annual Wine & Plenty Festival (photo credit: GUY ASSIAG)
The second annual Wine & Plenty Festival
(photo credit: GUY ASSIAG)
It was a delicious evening. Cool music blew as night fell over the grassy Rothschild Memorial Park, creating a feeling of magic. White booths, set up in a wide circle around the park, offered tastings from 24 regional wineries. For wine-lovers and beginners eager to learn, it was a great opportunity to taste vintages of regional boutique wineries, some of which don’t exhibit at the big Tel Aviv and Jerusalem expos.
The two-day Wine & Plenty Festival took place at the Ramat Hanadiv Memorial Garden last month. Hundreds of relaxed, happy people circulated on the grounds, seeking the next tasting. Every once in a while, some would stop to rock to the compelling rhythm and blues of the Lay Z Gordon Starting Five band.
As for food, appetizing smells of hot smoked brisket wafted around the line of people waiting at the BBQ Garage food trailer, while a kosher distance away, attractive young women sliced boutique cheeses onto platters for sampling. Other booths offered fried arancini rice balls stuffed with mushrooms and mozzarella, flatbreads topped with roasted vegetables and cheese, and beef stewed in wine. Tasting fine olive oils, jams, chocolates and fresh strawberries, you could nosh your way through the choicest foods of the region while sipping good wine.
In addition to wine and food, there was an art exhibition consisting of quirky pieces and sculptures set up around the grounds. The Binyamina winery donated empty bottles and corks for 33 local artists to decorate or transform, encouraging them to give free rein to their whimsy or their need for social commentary. The exhibition, called “Full-bodied,” was created especially for the festival. Some of the painted pieces were so fresh that the paint was still wet. The curator, Aya Bernhard-Ravsky, engages local people in art projects that express concern with social issues.
Another unusual feature of the festival was a bookcase full of books and magazines about wine and food, in Hebrew and English. There were comfortable chairs for visitors to sit and read up on culinary matters at their leisure.
The festival also offered culinary events in the amphitheater. On the first night, chef Alon Gonen lectured on matching wine with cheese, with tastings for the audience. On the second night, former MasterChef contender Benny Ben-Israel demonstrated how to make arancini, the fried rice balls stuffed with mushrooms and cheese.
More than 1,000 visitors roamed the festival grounds over the two nights, including a surprise group of American representatives of the Jewish Agency who had been touring the area.
The Nadiv Valley and its wine trail aren’t a well-known tourist attraction – yet. Ruti Ben-Israel – sommelier, wife of Benny and originator of the Wine & Plenty Festival – is determined to bring about changes that will draw national attention to the culinary splendors available from Mount Carmel down through the Jezreel Valley, Zichron Ya’acov, Binyamina-Givat Ada, the Alona Valley and the Hefer Valley.
“When people think of eating well and enjoying gastronomy, they automatically think of Tel Aviv,” she says. “When they think of great wine, they envision the Golan and the Galilee. But this area is only 40 minutes’ drive from Tel Aviv and offers wonderful culinary opportunities. We have a rich food and wine trail, and it deserves notice.”
Her dream, she says, is “to create partnerships between the local authorities and our farmers, winemakers, owners of hotels and makers of artisanal foods, infusing the area with funds for development. I aim to promote our food and hospitality attractions, and bring domestic – and who knows, maybe international – tourism here. The Wine & Plenty Festival is a way of showing off what we do, and it’s only the beginning.”
She adds that philanthropist Baron Edmund de Rothschild “had a vision of a thriving wine country in this area. The Wine & Plenty Festival is a link to that vision and a way of continuing to realize it.”
The organizers anticipated everything the public needed. To ensure that out-of-towners got home safely after a night of tippling, there were online tickets available for purchase that combined bus fare from Tel Aviv and Haifa with entry to the festival. Each visitor received a wine-glass pouch to hang around his neck, instead of carrying the glass in his hand. A brochure advertising local culinary tourism sites included a map and pages with spaces for jotting down notes on the evening’s wine tastings.
The participating wineries were Alona, Arens, Argov, Asambia, Eyal, Binyamina, Carmel, Dadah, Haro’eh, Gazit, Maya, Mivtsar Atlit, Recanati, Reuven, Sadot, Sagi, Saloman, Shfeya, Shirom, Shoshana, Shteinmetz, Simon, Somek, Tishbi and Vortman. The Jerusalem-based Montefiore winery also ran a booth as a guest winery, as its founding family and the Rothschilds are closely connected in business and family ties.
Food stands included Jacobs Dairy, the BBQ Garage food trailer (a creation of the Tishbi winery), Mata’im Restaurant, Ruah Shtut’s strawberries and jam, the Baronita restaurant, The Passionfruit Man (with his prize-winning passionfruit liqueur), Masik Magal olive oil, and packaged fresh herbs and spices from the Spice Way farm.
Corkscrews, drip-catchers and other useful wine accessories were for sale at one booth, a good place to shop for gifts for oenophile friends. To top off all those wine-related products, the Yama Wine Spa had grape-based cosmetics and vinotherapy products for sale.
You could even take a wine bath at the spa – who knew? Walking on the grass was a privilege of the evening, as it’s not allowed in the gardens at any other time. On leaving, my companions and I noticed a sign informing us that the Rothschild Memorial Garden was observing the shmita (sabbatical) year for the first time in its history. Paths usually lined with annual flowers sprouted colorful hand-made blooms fashioned from recycled materials.
The head gardener of the grounds told us that Zichron’s senior citizens club had made the recycled flowers.
What with the cool music, wines, a well-behaved crowd and the walk around the gardens in the pure country air, the Wine & Plenty Festival was one of the most enjoyable gastronomic events of this year.