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Ido Lewinsohn MW
head winemaker of Barkan-Segal, the Israel’s largest winery,
and owner-winemaker of Lewinsohn Winery, one of the leading
boutique wineries in Israel. Ido studied viticulture and enology
in Milan, and gained experience at different wineries in Tuscany,
Languedoc, the Rhône Valley and Tasmania. He interned at San
Guido’s Sassicaia, a great name in wine, and also worked
a harvest at Margalit Winery in Israel. His Recanati Wild
Carignan sums everything up. When Barkan’s veteran wine-
maker Ed Salzberg retired, Ido was head-hunted and became
head winemaker of this 13-million bottle winery in 2017.
ISRAEL

Kosher wines are made both for the obser-
vant and the non-observant Jews, and any
other wine consumer out there as a matter of
fact. What makes a wine Kosher is the produc-
tion process that follow certain ancient rules,
such as the exclusion to work on Shabbat (Sa-
turday) which is sacred for the Kosher Jews.
The vast majority of wine made in Israel is
indeed Kosher; Observant Jews will only drink The Barkan Winery, photo Eliran Avital
Kosher wines while non-observant Jews (such
as myself) pay little, or no attention at all to the baskets or other „take away“ offers. These last
„Kosherness“ of the wines they are consuming. two wineries are non-kosher, and their Satur-

COVID-19 have caused a lot of damage to the day offerings attracted many wine lovers and

local industry, mainly in the HORECA sector. foodies that cannot travel abroad to their wee-
However, even COVID-19 brings some oppor- kend tastings.
tunities along. Others, large wineries such as Barkan – Se-
Some small wineries such as Vitkin, Sphe- gal, Israel‘s largest operation have closed their
ra and Amphorea, prestigious small operati- cellar door over a year ago since the tastings
ons started offering alternative experiences are hosted indoors and were not permitted
in their tasting rooms, mainly through picnic under the current COVID-19 restrictions.
And what about imports? It is the policy of
the Government of Israel to adopt interna-
tional standards whenever possible, and to
implement mandatory standards related to
safety, health, and the environment. In practi-
ce, however, many products are still subject
to mandatory standards that could have been
designed to favour domestic producers over
importers.
Alcoholic beverages containing more than
ϵϬϬ ŵ ĂůƟƚƵĚĞ ǀŝŶĞLJĂƌĚ Ăƚ 'ŽůĂŶ ,ĞŝŐŚƚƐ 15,5% vol. alcohol require a warning label.
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