Wine Review: Yarden Cabernet Sauvignon

If you are looking for a great tasting, full-bodied wine, you should consider trying Yarden Cabernet Sauvignon. This wine, made in central Golan and Upper Galilee in Israel, was aged for 18 months in French oak barrels. The taste is tremendous.

It smells like blackberry, but also has a woodsy odor and the taste is smooth and includes blackberry, cherry cassis and plum notes with toasty oak, vanilla and a nuance of spice and tar. It’s a 2009 bottle, but the longer you wait the better it tastes. I would say that the 2009, a 9-year bottle was definitely worth the wait.

I’ll be honest, I was reluctant to try this wine. I never heard of wines from Israel, how good could they be?

But I was open, especially since one of my former students asked me to try it and review it on the blog, I couldn’t resist. And, you know what, this is a wine I would buy again. It really was superb!

The PR firm sent me a small book with all of the Yarden brand wines. The company, founded in 1983, grows their grapes in Golan Heights because of the conditions of the volcanic basaltic soil and the high altitude, which makes for the perfect atmosphere for growing grapes. Each year they harvest approximately 6,000 tons of harvest. If you flip through their brochure, you will notice that many of their wines have won awards.

The Cabernet Sauvignon paired well with chocolate, but it also pairs with full-flavored foods like steak, goose or lamb.

The Yarden Cabernet Sauvignon is Kosher and retails for $32.99 a bottle. I don’t say this about many wines, but this one is definitely worth buying!

Hilary Topper