It’s been one month to the day since I left my job to travel, since I left the States for Israel. At the start of this trip, I was one of a cohort of 48. Now I’m on my own. I’ve traveled solo before, but always in a structured context: for a wine conference in Lisbon, or on my way to meet my school’s ornithology team in Borneo. Absolute freedom is new to me, and while I have money and brain cells to burn, I intend to enjoy it. Still, there are things I miss on the road—the facets of my life back home. Namely, wine and family.
Fortunately, I got to enjoy a bit of both last Shabbat, which I spent at my friend Batsheva’s house in Rehovot, a quiet city, home to the Weizmann Institute, and just southeast of Tel Aviv. Before sundown on Friday, we drove to Bravdo Winery, a family-run estate outside Rehovot, which specializes in French varietals and doesn’t cook their wines to make them Mevushal (über-kosher impotable plonk).
Bravdo’s wines, the Chardonnay in particular, are far from plonk. This one was minimally oaked (1/3 aged in new-through-four year French for 12 months) and light on its feet: bright acid, ripe fruit, and strong minerality—owing largely to the vineyard’s limestone soils. I’d pair it with a picnic at the nearby Tel Gezer, where Canaanite ruins compliment a gorgeous view of open farmland and where the Gezer calendar, a limestone tablet bearing the oldest surviving sample of Hebrew script, was discovered. Alternatively, I’d pair Bravdo Chardonnay with Shabbat dinner at a good friend’s family home. It will lend some normalcy to the crazed life of the traveler. And besides, no one can cook like a mom.
Visit Bravdo Winery online at http://www.bravdo.co.il/home
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