Religious Holidays and Plenty of Fun! Part 1:

As the Easter long weekend comes to a close, many of us have been away from family and loved ones which is a tough one as it is a great time to reconnect and relax with the ones you love. However, I was lucky to find myself in the company of some great friends to experience a very different Good Friday and my first Jewish Pesach celebration. I have some fantastic, generous and fun friends to thank for both days!

Pesach, which is the start of Jewish Passover and is a meal that is based around a ritual of remembering the exodus from Egypt that the Jews made a long long time ago. Four things struck me about this evening:

The first being the warm and welcoming nature of the evening. We ate at Maayan and Tuvals home and they went to a huge effort to translate and explain all the songs, sayings and rituals to those of us who cant speak Hebrew, never once did I feel like a third wheel or a hinderance in to them on their important day.

Secondly, the importance of remembering the exodus, enslavement, suffering etc.. of the Jews is essentially a unifying factor and a reason that Jewish people and their culture, customs and resolve are so strong. The Jews are survivors, community and family orientated...we can learn a huge amount from this culture. Take time to celebrate, remember and connect with family and friends...it builds strong healthy relationships with your friends, family and significant others.

Third the food is very very good! We ate a combination of Eastern European and North African/Middle Eastern Jewish passover fair...combining the more bland with the spicey and wow it was amazing! Eran's Fish balls, Sarah's soup, amazing chicken and great salad all followed by fantastic coconut cookie dessert! Yum!

Lastly, and I am sure I have left some things out about the magical evening, the periodic drinking of wine during the Seder (ritual meal signifying the beginning of passover) as instructed in the Haggadah (text that lays out the order of events and significance of the evening/lessons involved). I have often been told by my Israeli colleagues at uni that a large chunk of wine sales occur during this time of the year in Israel and I can see why! We didnt have a complete Seder and we drank no less then 4 glasses of wine as set out in the Haggadah! Plus wine during dinner and what interesting wines they were!

Here is what we drank...this is from memory a good while after the dinner so I might be slightly off with some of the wines (Going Right to Left...In the theme of the evening, note matza in picture:):

 1) Cape Jaffa, La Luna 2006 Shiraz. Mount Benson, Limestone Coast, South Australia, $35: A biodynamic wine I chose specifically for Maayan as she is a great lover of organic/biodynamic and boutique wines. Cape Jaffa is BioD in conversion and doesnt churn too much wine out as this bottle was numbered. It is from a cooler region fairly close to Robe...Coonawarra's cousin on the coast and a town I have been fortunate enough to visit in 2010. So its cool climate stuff. It also had a pretty expensive hessian front back and mouth label (over the opening of the bottle) as well as a heavy weight bottle...so much for saving the planet! But a great wine, showing its age it had a very nice savoury palate and was very smooth! Obvious black olives on the nose and nice fruit...not as bombastic as many Aussie Shirazs...a refreshing change to a South African palate.

2) Villa Maria, Wairau Valley Reserve 2010, Sauvignon Blanc,Marlborough New Zealand, $32: Easily the most I have ever spent on a Sauv Blanc! But I am educating myself in the world of wine and these purchases have to be made, a tax write off too :) Well I expected a very showy very acidic wine that would be a tough drink...It was very different! Fantastic elderflower and passion fruit on the nose and a very floral, fruity palate with great length and fantastic acid/intensity balance it was actually medium bodied and was very quickly enjoyed by all. A good match for Erans spicey fish balls...the nicest NZ Sauv Blanc I have tried so far in this life of mine. One to look out for!

3) Noon, Twelve Bells, 2009-2008?, Grenache-Shiraz?,  Mclaren Vale, $10-$35 or in Maayan's case, Free!: Well the story behind this wine is one that is great fun. The vineyard is pretty much on the BioDynamic/Organic path way. Makes a few tons here and there and opens its cellar door for a few weeks a year till all the wine is sold out. That is how you make wine if you are opting to go small! As you can see from the wines vital signs I wasnt paying as much attention to this wine as I should have. It was given to Maayan and Tuval as a thank-you for volunteering to help the winery process a crop of Grenache...small wineries take note...this is what a cult following can do! It was pretty young and showed some nice Grenache red fruits and drink ability but the young shiraz stole the show...something to revisit as I can not remember too much more about the wine...it wasnt block buster stuff but a nice wine if you are paying $10-15 for it.

4) Miguel Torres, Coronas 2006, Temperanillo, Catalonia(insert Spanish lisp) Spain, +-$20: Torres is considered to be the man who brought modern wine making to Spain and commercialized clean varietal wines. I applaud him for doing so, faulty wines no matter how much you jump up and down and scream in my face or how many bull fighting costumes you put on are not OK. Clean wines free of yeast stress characters (Mercaptans, smelly clove, cabbage, garlic or onion characters; VA, vinegary or nail polish remover notes) and Brettanomyces (stable, barnyard, cheesey or rancid characters) are the way of the future, period. Off my high horse. This wine showed some very nice tannins and spicey fruit and was showing its age well! A good buy at $20!

5) Scarborough, Semillon(Sem-Me-Yon) 2010, Hunter Valley, Australia, +-$15: Very lemony and acidic, you can definitely taste the added acidity in this wine as you can in many young Hunter whites I find. A refreshing start to the evening. This is the starting point of Scarborough's range so you can do better and I think there is room for improvement particularly in the need for this wine to be more varietal maybe more balanced. I do need to drink more Hunter Sems though so will taste more going forward!

6) Yalumba, Bushvine Grenache 2009, Barossa Valley, South Australia, $18: Grenache is a big favourite of mine as you know! But a trick was missed with this one in the oak department, Grenache just cant handle, it seems, the oaking that is traditionally thrown at bigger reds. Here is a prime example some medium bodied fruity wine hit with toasty oak. Not much time for integration and still a young wine but awkward and a bit disappointing in its lack of balance. My Grenache quest continues!!!

A Big Thank You To Everyone Who Made The Evening So Special!