The 2023 Reds Are Bottled

Spring Has Arrived: The 2023 Reds Are Bottled

Published: March 2025

The red wines of the 2023 vintage were bottled in the last week of January.

The 2023 vintage began with a forward-looking optimism: new red variety plots and growth in production volumes. It continued with a heatwave that was discouraging but manageable, and ended in a war that began in October and has yet to conclude. Unlike the war, the wine is now made and sealed – all of it in bottles.

Lahat's wine making philosophy does not rank the importance of the vineyard and terroir above the importance of the winemaker and technology, but rather brings the two together – which is why it is called "Personal Terroir."

I don't push the grapes toward uniform ripeness, one way or another, from one vintage to the next. The recognition that there will be differences from year to year in grape composition, and as a result in the structure of the wine, is fundamental and built into the DNA of Lahat wines. For instance, the 2021 vintage (and likely 2024 as well) has been described as producing wines that tend toward the lighter, more acidic and fresher end of the spectrum. The 2023 wines, by contrast, appear to lean more toward depth and ripeness. If the defining character of the 2022 vintage was "complexity”, then the defining character of this current vintage – 2023 – is "drinkability": an early tasting makes it clear that these wines are simply delicious. And since the decision was made this year to wait several months before releasing them, it seems that customers will receive wines that arrive at their door more ready to drink.

Rosé 2024 Update

Rosé is not a "color" – rosé is a wine.

The new Lahat rosé, about which I wrote on a previous occasion, is still aging in barrels – large, seasoned 500-liter oak. The wine is intended for bottling toward the end of June.

As a rule, rosé wines are typically fermented in stainless steel tanks and bottled young, close to the harvest. The Lahat rosé belongs to a different school of thought – one that advocates patience and takes the long view, expressed in an extended time at the winery, on the lees, in barrel. This approach deepens the wine's complexity and improves the stability of its various components – color, aroma and flavor – and is designed to produce a wine of genuine culinary value, complexity and aging potential.

As I wrote in the previous newsletter, the Lahat rosé is composed of red varieties, with a small addition of Roussanne. Its name will be GARIGGUE – the perennial scrubland vegetation that surrounds the vineyards. The garrigue is a regional hallmark and also one of the most common descriptors used for rosé wines characterized by aromas of wild herbs and aromatic plants. This is especially true of wines made from the red varieties that go into the Lahat GARIGGUE: Syrah, Grenache and Mourvèdre.

Chef Collaborations

Over the course of the past winter, a number of concept evenings featuring Lahat wines were held at notable restaurants. We collaborated with Erez Komarovsky on a project at the Per Dreier restaurant, with Chef Yuval Neria at restaurant 'a', and with the Yaina venture in Arsuf.

An evening dedicated entirely to Lahat wines at a chef's restaurant is the best opportunity I have to demonstrate how beautifully Lahat wines pair with food – what is called "culinary wines”.

The wines are arranged into two trilogies: the white is three expressions of Roussanne, and the red is three expressions of Syrah. The most rewarding and enjoyable way to experience these wines is to drink a full trilogy over the course of a meal. A Lahat wine evening of this kind is a perfect opportunity for the chef to create a complete, structured and harmonious culinary work – and for wine and food lovers to experience how wine and food complement and indeed elevate one another.