Wannabe Wino

*Disclaimer: I received this bottle as a sample from Israeli Wine Direct.

A trend has formed here at Wannabe Wino. In the last 20+ days I've only reviewed one bottle of red wine. But the weather has changed slightly and it's not so sweltering, so in the last week, we've actually had 3 big red wines, a Malbec and two red blends. So fear not dear readers, I have not abandoned red wines!

However, the wine for the night was a white, a 2007 Pelter Sauvignon Blanc. The wine came from Israeli Wine Direct, a fairly new company whose mission is to import boutique wines from Israel and introduce them to US consumers. It had a real cork closure, clocked in at 13.1% alcohol by volume, and can be purchased from Israeli Wine Direct for $23.99. The winery is located in the Golan Heights, is family owned and operated, and produces about 30,000 cases of wine a year.

On the nose I found wet stone, grass, lemon grass, lemon custard, lemon drops, herbs, green apple, and peach. I realize that it sounds strange to pick out all those different lemon flavors, but I promise, they were there, and each was distinct. And my lemon drops, I mean those little yellow hard candies that used to come in tins....does anyone make those anymore? In the mouth I got flavors of lemon, green apple, peach, and pineapple. The green apple was particularly strong. I also noticed minerality running through the wine, perhaps connected to the wet stone I found on the nose.

Overall, this wine had nice acidity and good structure. It's a completely different kind of Sauvignon Blanc than the ones I drink from New Zealand. If I had to compare it, it tastes like some of the excellent Sauvignon Blanc coming out of CA. I served the wine with fresh snow crab legs, drawn butter, and fresh lemon. A perfect match! I love Sauvignon Blanc with sea food, and this bottle had the acidity to cut through the butter and the citrus that pairs so nicely with sweet crab. I'd never had a bottle of wine from Israel before, so I was very excited to get to try this!