Barkan Assemblage Tzafit 750Ml

The production of high-quality wines in Israel relies on a number of premises: High is good. Cool is good. Cabernet Sauvignon reigns. Wood, oak, French of course, and lots of it. Many good wines, as well as ours of course, are based on these premises. This wine upsets the applecart: it's as different as can be. 53% of this original blend is made up of a new variety: Marselan. This is a cross, created in France, between Cabernet Sauvignon and Grenache. The researchers from the French National Agronomic Research Institute wanted to create a variety that will yield large crops and large berries. In fact, they achieved the opposite result: a variety with some of the smallest grains (the average weight of a berry is only 1.3 grams!). Marselan was first planted in the south of France in the 1990's, and the variety turned out to be of very high quality. Our Marselan plot is situated in Barkan Winery's vineyard farm in Tel Zafit, in the Judea plains. The crop in the vineyard was thinned to less than one ton per dunam, in order to concentrate the flavor of the grapes and to allow full maturation of all the grapes components. Another unique variety that makes up this wine is Caladoc, which constitutes 20% of the blend. This hybrid() was created within the framework of the same research which also yielded the Marselan, with the parents in this case being Grenache and Malbec. This variety is characterized by a larger berry size, but an exceptional richness of color and tannins, as well as a unique aromatic tone. In this case as well the crop was thinned on order to allow full and uniform maturation. The Marselan and the Caladoc are joined by Pinotage, from the acclaimed Sidra plot (15%), and Carignan from an old plot, also situated at Tel Zafit (12%). The different wines were aged for 12 months in barrels, about a quarter of which were new and the remainder second use. After 12 months we created the blend and the wine was bottled, without fining and with only mild filtration.