In Tel Aviv, vintners, growers and enthusiasts celebrate year’s best wines

24th annual Eshkol Hazahav awards spotlight year’s outstanding vintages, alongside words of wisdom from culinary leaders Assaf Granit, Hedai Offaim, David Kichka and others

Vintners, grape growers and wine enthusiasts gathered Tuesday night at Tel Aviv’s Heichal Hatarbut for the 24th annual Eshkol Hazahav awards, recognizing the winemakers and wines that stood out in the last year.

Three wineries — Mony Estate with 11 awards, Barkan with seven and Teperberg with six — were the big winners of the night, said organizer Avi Ben Ami, noting that the results depend on how many and which wineries enter their vintages to the contest.

This year, 276 wines were registered for the competition, and the wines were judged by a committee of 25 wine professionals.

The event is produced by Sommelier, Ben Ami’s organization, which also hosts an annual wine tasting event in February at Heichal Hatarbut.

This was the second year that Ben Ami included a speaking segment called Hamsa Hamsa, or Five Five, a TEDx-style presentation in which speakers have five minutes and five seconds to expound on food, wine, or both.

“We’re changing things a little,” said Ben Ami. “At least two-thirds of the attendees are in the wine business, but another third are people who just appreciate wine, and we’re seeing what works for them as well.”

After an hour of tasting 15 of last year’s vintages from vineyards across the coastal and Carmel region, the audience settled in for a mix of awards and speakers.

Among the five speakers, two spoke about the agricultural efforts of Israel’s grape growers and the recent addition of the Negev appellation as a recognized region and source of Israeli wines.

Grower and chef Hedai Offaim described his path to farming after growing up in the city of Haifa, the son of a Holocaust survivor.

He also offered a brief look at his Beit Avi Chai show, “Man/Land” with musician Shlomi Shaban, which chronicles the duo’s travels across Israel to visit local farmers, prepare regional dishes, and perform acoustic music, often featuring Shaban’s grand piano brought directly into fields, barns, and greenhouses.

Culinary entrepreneur David Kichka talked about the need to officially develop Israel’s various terroirs, in addition to those for wine.

Kichka spoke about the French agricultural concept that refers to a region’s particular traits and their influence on the character of a crop.

He said that the Sharon plain is the region for Israel’s strawberries, the Golan Heights is now known for cherries, beef, and blueberries, and other areas specialize in avocados, olive oil, cheese and grains, and he noted the need to establish ambassadors and official locations of these culinary traditions.

The evening ended with master chef and restaurateur Assaf Granit, who told stories about his Paris restaurant, the Michelin-starred Shabour, the Hebrew word for broken, named for the plaster walls he had to break down to access the original brick walls now featured in the eatery.

Granit, like others throughout the course of the night, related to the bloody Hamas terror invasion of October 7, 2023, after which he left Paris and his restaurant to join his army unit for a stint of reserve duty as a combat medic in Gaza. He was given the honor of lighting a torch at the official Independence Day ceremony for this effort.

Granit eventually returned to Paris and to Shabour, where he said he continues to tell his story — of Israel, the restaurant, and how the bistro is related to his hometown of Jerusalem and all that he comes from.

“That’s what we do for people,” said Granit, his tattooed hands emphasizing his words, “telling the story to make people feel at home.”