An outpouring of love

Celebrated long before St. Valentine was around, Tu Be’av is now a mainstream holiday.

By ABRA COHEN
Winery (photo credit: REUTERS)
Winery
(photo credit: REUTERS)
Celebrated long before St. Valentine was around, Tu Be’av is now a mainstream holiday, which will be observed all around Israel on August 4 this year.
As restaurants and florists gear up for the busy day, those looking to celebrate the occasion with the company of music and mouthwatering delicacies like wine and cheese may be interested in the Music, Love and Wine event, hosted in Ra’anana next month.
Enter Israeli wine expert and connoisseur Yair Haidu, who spent the last 12 years in France, writing, teaching and working in the wine industry.
After recently returning home to Israel from Paris, Haidu is hosting the event, which bridges his passions for wine, music and culture. He says about this special day, “We’ve combined some of the most popular opera pieces around wine, celebrations and love.”
The celebration, which has happened three times in the last 15 years, is expected to draw its largest crowd this year. Event organizers are expecting over 4,000 people to attend.
Haidu, who now lives in Tel Aviv, hopes to introduce different types of wine to Israelis and illustrate that wine is accessible to all, and that enjoying wine and music together is a great way to share experiences with friends. “I think this concert opens wine, food, opera and love to the growing public,” he says.
The goal of the performance and celebration on Tu Be’av, Haidu says, is “to open the door to the two worlds,” explaining that the holiday is a great reason to celebrate and a perfect time to meld wine, cheese, music and dancing together.
Tu Be’av, which has roots in antiquity, was once a matchmaking holiday of sorts for unmarried women.
Dressed in white, young single girls would dance in the fields outside Jerusalem and look for a partner.
Along with the Golan Heights Winery’s 30th anniversary celebration at the event, Haidu is helping to welcome to the country Italian opera singer and tenor Francesco Demuro, who is a soloist in the Israeli Opera and will also be performing at the event.
Haidu believes that “wine is part of the broader picture and does not stand alone,” which explains his belief in the importance of bringing multiple aspects together for Tu Be’av. One of his goals for the celebration is to appeal to all five senses and to make the evening aesthetically pleasing.
His passion for the finer things and his desire to make them palatable for the masses started at an early age.
Haidu credits his father, famed Israel Prize laureate, composer Andre Hajdu, with introducing him to music and culture, while his French mother turned him on to wine and food. Explaining his love for all, Haidu explains, “I got the ‘virus’ a long time ago, pre military service.”
He combined his passion and hobby with tourism and started taking wine courses in his early 20s. “I never expected it to be a full-time occupation,” he says.
But a full-time occupation is exactly what Haidu ended up turning his passion into. The founder of the Israeli Academy of wine, he moved to France to work in various capacities in the wine industry, as a wine critic, teacher and writer.
Currently working in Tel Hai, Haidu is invested in Israeli wines and committed to educating Israelis so that the culture of wine will open up to the general public. Trying to change the stigma of wine being only for sophisticated taste buds is not an easy task, but Haidu believes that holding events like this will help to change the perception that wine is intimidating and only for connoisseurs.
“[Israelis] feel wine is complicated and that there needs to be a lot of knowledge involved, but wine is not intimidating,” he says.
The Israeli wine industry, which has changed greatly in the past 40 years, has undergone multiple revolutions that have boosted it into the international wine market. While Haidu believes it still has room for improvement, he has confidence in its winemakers, many of whom have studied wine-making abroad and come back to produce Israeli vintages.
Haidu’s joie de vivre and passion for fruit of the vine go hand-in-hand. As he prepares for his upcoming concert and wine event, he says he is “not driving people to drink more, but instead embracing the lifestyle of wine, good life and well-being.”
Music, Love and Wine will be held on August 4 at 9 p.m. at the Ra’anana Amphipark. Tickets cost between NIS 109 and NIS 169. For more information: *9066 or www.eventim.co.il