Last evening, the Yarden Vintage Festival opened with the unveiling to the press of the Golan Heights Winery’s new wine Rom Yarden 2006. The wine is a blend of 37% Syrah, 34% Cabernet Sauvignon and 29% Merlot. The grapes were sourced from 8 different vineyards, seven on the Golan Heights and 1 in the Upper Galilee. The wine is aged in French barriques for 21 months and bottled unfiltered. The wine was developed from a collaboration between Zelma Long, consulting wine maker and Victor Schoenfeld, Yarden’s Chief Winemaker.
Rom is a wine combining elegance and power. It exhibits fruit forward aromas of black currants, red berries and espresso. The palate is full-bodied, velvety smooth with excellent fruit concentration and balance. The wine is still a baby and needs 2-3 years to evolve and integrate its polished tannins. It will be even more stunning than it is now and clearly takes wine making at Yarden to a new level. I would rate the wine 93 points now. It will sell for about $160, I believe, but will be hard to find as only 6,000 bottles were made.
Mike Potashnik
