Jerusalem Winefest 2009: Don't Be a Hater

This year's Winefest was awesome as usual - over 35 wineries, some of them introducing new bottles, excellent jazz, great people (especially Benji Feuer - you go girl! ;-) - it's always one of the highlights of the Jerusalem summer calendar for me and Simone. This year we scored free tickets via Simone's gig for Jerusalem.com - all I had to do was pretend to be Ben Jacobson (Yaacovson). Was great also kicking it with Israel, Oren B., Emory and Zelda, Ashkie and her lady friends and of course, Roee. Also there was co-worker Rachel Tova who I saw on back to back nights now - she's friends with some people we know from Nachlaot (a drunken gchat session followed at 1 a.m. or so). One notable absentee was Bron - he'll be back in force next year I'm sure.

Special standout bottles: A newbie (just 3 weeks old) from the Galil Mountain Winery - Meron. Aged in French Oak similar to their Yiron, it's a smooth blend of at least 3 different reds. This winery gets better every year if you ask me. Other highlights included a Binyamina Tarshisha - another blended red that spent 18 months in French Oak. I was also partial (very) to Tabor's sparkling wines - there was a red based with a Merlot and the better of the two was a white based with Gewurtzemeiner. These only had a 9% alcohol content but the pourers were very generous, shall we say, making up in quantity what they may have lacked in quality.

At the Binyamina stand, I had a rather unpleasant experience with a supposedly religious person, who seemed to feel some chumra is more important than the feelings of a fellow Jew, who just happens to have finished up a 3-year stint defending his sorry ass along with the rest of this country's inhabitants.

The story went like this This young man - let's call him Reuven - asked our friendly wine pourer, who we'll call Shimon - if this particular wine was kosher. When Shimon answered in the affirmative, Reuven replied, 'Yes, but is it really kosher?' By this, he meant that since Shimon wasn't wearing a head covering of some sort, Reuven feared Shimon may have secretly sacrificed the bottle of wine he was serving to an idolatrous god.

First of all, the wine was mevushal so Reuven is a moron right out of the gate. But to me, that's completely besides the point so I butted in in my usual fashion, this time armed with a belly full of delicious wine. I explained to Reuven in as uncalm a manner as I could muster why his question was so offensive. 'Shimon just gave up three years defending this country and now you wanna know if he's Jewish enough to pour your wine?' A heated debate ensued. At one point Reuven told me he used to think like me before he saw the light. I responded that I'm no longer stuck in his small-minded box, I've seen the light, and would never go back to being like him (I'm pretty sure I never actually was in that box - my parents raised me better than that ;-)

When it was over, I went back to tasting with Shimon explaining the intricacies of each wine before he poured. I could tell he appreciated my stand - his job didn't permit him to be confrontational. Simone pointed out to me that I was the only one being aggressive and confrontational. She's definitely right about that and there was probably a better way to make my point. That being said though, we at the Common Sensorium hate ideologues. Here was a perfectly nice individual being judged not by the content of his character but simply by his outward appearance. And the judgement being made was a twistedly misguided one. I refuse to allow people to be that offensive without getting a piece of my mind - that's just the way I am.

On the way out, I told a couple that was getting married in a month that maybe they should push the wedding off a bit, make sure they were really 'sure'. As they left, Simone told me it was the guy's second marriage - he had a few kids from the first all of whom got 'dumped' on the wife. If I was Larry David and this was Curb Your Enthusiasm, the guy probably spent a sleepless night considering what I said and broke off the engagement the next morning. It was the drunken rambling part of the night. Maybe I was the hater after all ;-)