I arrived in Israel a little more than 36 hours ago and I’ve already begun to run around the country to meet with my wonderful friends in the wine business out here. I’ll be heading into the Judean Hills region today but I wanted to put together a real quick post before leaving.

A recently really an interesting piece written by Dr Vino (drvino.com) AKA Tyler Colman that I found in the NYT published on Dec 30, 2007 called Red, White or Green?

In the article Colman discusses the “carbon footprint” of a bottle of wine or as he explains it the “amount of carbon dioxide (that) is emitted in its production and transportation”. While I will not get into the politics or personal preference for saving the environment, I do want to quote some interesting facts Colman points out.

• A Napa Valley wine can emit 2.6 pounds of carbon dioxide on its journey from growing the grapes, making the wine and transport to San Francisco
• The same bottle making the truck trip to Connecticut (or elsewhere on the east coast, say New York City) would emit 5.7 pounds of carbon dioxide in total.
• Holding the growing method, winery practices and bottle size constant, it is more carbon-efficient for people in Connecticut to drink a bottle of wine from Bordeaux than from Sonoma. The short truck route on both ends of the efficient miles of container shipping means the French wine has 50 percent less carbon dioxide emissions, about three pounds.

Now, the French and many of their European counterparts are selling us wine at exorbitant prices already, and the weakening dollar is making those already expensive bottles even MORE expensive.

SO, we should not be buying wine from California because of carbon emissions, we can’t afford to be buying French and other European wines (let along wait for them to be mature, or ready to be drunk), so where does that leave us???

GOOD QUESTION! I think this is where the concept of drinking wines from lesser known winemaking regions comes into play. And I bet you know where I’m going now….yup, DRINK ISRAELI WINE!!!! Most israeli wines are made in a New World Style so you don’t have to lay them down and wait 10+ years to soften and be ready to drink. And Israeli wines are more carbon friendly than our own domestic Napa wines – at least for those of us residing on the East Coast.

Remember, drink Israeli wine!!!

Have a fabulous weekend.

WTG.