The flavor of musk in wine of Negev
Discover the of Negev wines revealing the of musk flavor during the olphactive analysis (nose) and during the gustative analysis (mouth).
Negev desert wine region of southern Israel is one of the warmest and driest Vineyard areas in the world. It Lies at a latitude of between 31 and 29 degrees North, on the fringes of the Syrian Desert. For a northern hemisphere wine region, this is remarkably close to the equator; just a few degrees closer and it would be deemed a tropical wine region.
Negev only receives about 100mm (4 inches) of rain per year, much of which disappears in flash floods.
Modern computer-controlled irrigation is a necessity and water usage is understandably a major issue and is one factor why the wines of the region must reach a quality level to justify premium prices.
Despite its unlikely macroClimate, the Negev has been a vine-growing area since ancient times. It may well have been one of the world's very first wine regions – if an area could be seen as such 6000 years ago – and has been enjoying something of a minor renaissance since the 1980s, though it accounts for less than 5 percent of Israel's total vineyard area.
As demonstrated in the Judean Hills immediately to the north (and Galilee beyond that), high altitude is the viticultural antidote to low latitude.
Temperatures in the Negev reach great heights during the day but drop significantly overnight, which allows the vines some recovery time. High diurnal temperature variation is almost invariably a bonus for vineyard zones, but if the days are so hot and the nights so cool that the vines actually shut down, the chances of growing grapes with balanced sugars and acids are dramatically Reduced.
Thus the quality demands of modern wine consumers have driven Negev viticulture up into the hills, away from the extremes of the desert climate. Even at higher elevations, humidity is low in the Negev, but the vineyards nonetheless enjoy a morning blanket of mist before the heat of the day sets in.
With the signing off by the Austrian minister of agriculture, sustainability and tourism, Elisabeth Köstinger, Wagram becomes Austria’s seventeenth DAC (Districtus Austriae Controllatus), following Wachau and Ruster Ausbruch in 2020, and Carnutum in October 2019. ‘This was not an easy nut for the winemakers of the Wagram region to crack,’ said Chris Yorke, CEO of the Austrian wine marketing board, Austrian Wine, ‘but after comprehensive discussions and much thought, the Wagram ...
The largest-ever year for entries, an incredible 18,244 wines were judged at the 2022 Decanter World Wine Awards – with just 163 wines awarded a Platinum medal. ‘Winning a Platinum medal is something really exceptional’ said Decanter World Wine Awards Co-Chair Sarah Jane Evans MW. ‘Platinum is like the stratospheric level’ she commented, ‘so it’s really saying to the winemaker: this is a great wine.’ Making up just 0.87% of the total wines tasted at the 2022 c ...
The focus of the symposium, unsurprisingly, was on the challenges posed by climate change. As if to illustrate the immediacy of the threat, the symposium took place during a heatwave, with temperatures of over 40°C in Bordeaux and extreme weather events recorded across the coountry: parts of southwest France saw violent storms and winds of 112kph on the evening of 20 June, while vineyards across the Médoc and St-Emilion were damaged by hailstones ‘the size of golfballs’. As Olivier Bernard of D ...