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Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 30, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Secret to Immortality
Caroline B. Glick Silencing dissent in America
Oct. 29, 2009
Lini S. Kadaba: Do tactics avert flu or reduce humanity?
JWisdom.com We Must Revamp our Religious Vocabulary With Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 28, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Atheists in Bubbleland
JWisdom.com Why what we wear impacts who we are With Rabbis Mordechai Becher, Menachem Golberger and Aliza Bulow ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 27, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The United Nations Is Outraged Again, Or: Department of Mideast Static
JWisdom.com The Science of Love With Rabbi Jonathan Rietti ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 26, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Damaging disclosures with a twist
JWisdom.com Wisdom and Wonks With Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 23, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Are you ready for the ultimate pleasure?
JWisdom.com Watermark and oneness with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick Stop using limited powers in a way that expands our enemies' advantages over us
Oct. 22, 2009
Steven Emerson: Terror Cases Share Desire to Kill Americans
JWisdom.com No More More Family Fights --- Really? By Sarah Chana Radcliffe ( 5 minutes)
Oct. 21, 2009
Tonya Alanez: Holocaust denier sues survivor, calling Auschwitz memoir 'vicious lies'
JWisdom.com Meditating Jewishly: A Panacea for Success by Sarah Yoheved Rigler ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 20, 2009
Dennis Prager: Obama and Dalai Lama: Why Israel Worries about U.S. President
JWisdom.com Abraham was not religious By Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer ( 6 minutes)
Oct. 19, 2009
JWisdom.comWhy Good People Do Bad Things By Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 16, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Perfect Number
JWisdom.com Hearing Voices By Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick How Turkey was lost
Oct. 15, 2009
Jeff Jacoby: Peace vs. the 'peace process'
JWisdom.com: Former MTV producer and stand-up comedian Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff: Taming a Control Freak (A VERY fast 15 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review Oct. 30, 2003 /4 Mar-Cheshvan, 5764

U.S. film producer rewrites the script for Israeli wines

By Fred Tasker


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http://www.jewishworldreview.com | (KRT) When Avi Lerner visited the old Eliaz Winery in northern Israel in 1992, he didn't know much about wine.


"I had no idea except that I like to have a glass of wine at lunch. I was not one of the more knowledgeable persons about it.''


But he knew what he didn't like.


"It was one of those sweet wines they make for Jewish holidays. It was so terrible I got heartburn.''


So he did what you can do when you're a big-shot Hollywood producer. He bought the rights, tore up the script and had it rewritten. That is, he and fellow Hollywood producer Danny Dimbort joined Tel Aviv businessman Itzhak Shani to buy the winery, rename it Binyamina Wines, and pump $13 million into it.


HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
• 1999 Binyamina Special Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon, Galilee: oak and cassis; powerful, intense fruit; big structure; big, ripe tannin; $17.


• 2002 Binyamina ''Fall'' Chardonnay, Samaria: crisp and lean, green apples and limes, bitter almond finish; $7.


• 2002 Binyamina ''Fall in White'' Semi-Dry White Wine (75 percent emerald Riesling, 25 percent sauvignon blanc), Lower Galilee Vineyards: soft, delicate and off-dry, with vanilla and honey flavors and a citrus finish; $7.


• 2002 Binyamina Special Reserve Chardonnay, Galilee: oak, limes and green apples; lean; $13.


• 1999 Binyamina Special Reserve Merlot, Galilee: oaky, with black cherries and black peppers, quite varietal, firm tannins; $17.


• Nonvintage Binyamina Dessert Muscat, Samaria: flowers, oranges, honey and spice; viscous and very sweet; well-balanced; $11 per 500 milliliter bottle.


Note: Binyamina's regular wines are kosher for Passover and mevushal; its special reserve wines are kosher for Passover but not mevushal.



"I knew I couldn't do any worse.''


Lerner had the bucks because he's maybe the biggest, most successful independent film producer in Hollywood. His corpus de obra at Nu Image/Millennium Films includes The Howling, American Ninja, Prozac Nation and more than 100 others. His next: an action thriller with Wesley Snipes.


Lerner took his cue in part from writer-director Francis Ford Coppola, who bought an old Napa Valley wine estate that today produces a fabulous, $140-a-bottle cabernet sauvignon blend called Rubicon.


''It's very much like making a movie,'' says Lerner. "It's an artistic endeavor. The general manager is like the producer of a film. The master winemaker is like a movie director.''


Calling the shots at Binyamina is respected Israeli winemaker Sasson Ben-Aharon.


Lerner pushes the metaphor further: "In both industries [movies and wine], you concentrate on making a good product. Then, the success or failure of the product rests on the success or failure of the packaging and marketing.''


The $13 million investment has built a state-of-the-art winery that has switched from inferior, low-altitude, hot-weather grapes to top-quality fruit produced in cool, high-altitude areas such as Mount Carmel (altitude 1,791 feet) and Upper Galilee, where Mount Tabor reaches 1,929 feet.


The product is ready now, and Binyamina's wines are in foreign syndication — that is, arriving into national U.S. distribution.


Awaiting reviews, Lerner adopts a Hollywood pro's philosophy: "Both films and wines are a matter of taste.''

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Fred Tasker is a columnist with The Miami Herald. To comment, please click here.

© 2003, The Miami Herald Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services