Israeli wines for Tu B’Shevat and Shmittah
NOTE:
Finally finding some time to post a few of my articles here. Here is another very brief piece I wrote sometime ago for the good folks at KosherWine.com. If memory serves, it appeared in their print newsletter which gets distributed to customers — but is not otherwise online. I’ve very mildly fiddled with it here.
Wine is first and foremost an agricultural product. There are two significant calendar-based reminders of this agricultural manual labor reality in Jewish life, and most particularly in the Jewish state of Israel: the annual minor holiday of ט״ו בשבט, or Tu B’Shevat, more popularly known as ראש השנה לאילנות, or the “New Year of Trees,” and the once-every-seven-years arrival of שמיטה, or Shmittah, during which the Land of Israel is supposed to enjoy a sabbatical from agricultural work.
This year Tu B’Shevat—the 15th (ט״ו) of the Hebrew month of Shevat (שבט)—falls on February 6 [2023] on the secular calendar. Even though the day’s import is firmly rooted in millennia old rabbinic rather than explicitly biblical foundations, it has grown into something of a secular holiday.
Indeed, in place of its original Mishnaic-period (approximately 10–220 CE) focus on Jewish agricultural rules and tithes related to fruit-bearing trees, Tu B’Shevat has more recently been adopted in the modern-day State of Israel as essentially the Israeli Arbor Day, a day for ecological and sustainability awareness.
There are a variety of popular traditions and customs for celebrating the occasion, such as planting trees and partaking of fruits and nuts native to Israel. A popular contemporary custom is the Tu B’Shevat seder. Patterned after the Passover seder, though nominally rooted in Chassidic and Kabbalistic thought, a contemporary Tu B’Shevat seder typically involves feasting on fruits, nuts, and wines—at least four cups, just like at the Passover Seder.
Whether one prefers planting trees or vines and the like, hosting a seder, or otherwise promoting ecological and sustainability awareness, the celebration of Tu B’Shevat is an increasingly popular custom even outside of Israel.
Adopting the practice of imbibing four cups of wine for Tu B’Shevat, and specifically Israeli wine, seems an especially lovely custom to adopt and enjoy. As last year—5782 on the Jewish calendar—was also a Shmittah year in Israel, the choice of Israeli wines to celebrate Tu B’Shevat seems all the more significant.
Shmittah (שמיטה), meaning “to let go” or “release”, was originally mandated by the Torah (Leviticus 25:3–7) that every seventh year be designated as a rest or sabbatical for the Land of Israel itself, and the land is to lie fallow and agricultural cultivation is forbidden. As the Torah says, “…in the seventh year, the land shall have a complete rest, a Sabbath to the Lord; you shall not sow your field, nor shall you prune your vineyard...”
[See here for the original Hebrew text, or here for the original text with a wealth of rabbinic commentary.]
Just as every seventh day of the week is the Sabbath and is considered holy for the Jewish people, so too every seventh year is the Sabbath considered holy for the Land of Israel.
This seventh-year produce is thus considered by Jewish law to be imbued with an additional level of holiness known as קדושת שביעית, or kedushat shviit, “holiness of the seventh,” because the “seventh” (i.e., the shmittah year) is considered sanctified to God. While it is deemed a privilege to consume produce imbued with kedushat shviit, it is also subject to additional restrictions and regulations—it cannot be wasted, for example, and it should be consumed only in Israel.
“We miss all the export markets,” notes Gil Shatsberg, [the then] Executive Vice President of the Recanati Winery. For example, “the U.S. and France will not take Shmittah wines, and usually 20 percent of the Recanati production is for export.”
“Shmittah is indeed a very big challenge,” agrees Amichai Lourie, winemaker at Shiloh Winery, “but it is also a great mitzvah…It can be daunting, but I believe everything will be fine, of course.”
In the modern era, the laws of shmittah are considered by most scholars to be a rabbinic rather than Biblical mandate, but the challenge is no less daunting for the Jewish State.
“Shmittah is quite a difficult issue for wineries in Israel,” Eli Ben-Zaken, founder and winemaker of Domaine du Castel, put it to me, “because it’s obviously not a very economically viable thing to simply stop for the year.”
Indeed, Israel must not only maintain its agricultural sector and its economic health, but also ensure produce is available for consumers, keep its defense forces fed, and, of course, the Israeli wine industry also needs to continue to quench the collective thirst of the kosher wine consumer.
To cut a long story short, Israel has managed to cobble together a handful of approaches to meeting the challenge of Shmittah.
The earliest approach, developed in the late 19th century when commercial agriculture was returned to Israel, is known as היתר המכירה, or heter mechira, meaning “permission to sell”. This entails the temporary sale of Jewish-owned lands in Israel to non-Jews under the novel and still contentious supposition that the transfer of ownership removes the prohibitions of shmittah, thereby enabling agricultural activity to continue without restriction.
Though still widely in use today, heter mechira was always subject to terrific rabbinic debate and was even in its inception considered a necessary evil of sorts.
The most popular alternative solution to heter mechira, particularly when it comes to wine production, is known as אוצר בית דין, or Otzar Beit Din, meaning “storehouse operated by a rabbinical court.”
The way this works is straightforward enough. As Ed Salzberg, the [now long] retired chief winemaker at the Barkan Winery, currently Israel’s largest producer, once explained it to me,
“a beit din [rabbinical court] organizes people to care for the fields, harvest the crops, produce the wine and bottle it… Halachically [in Jewish legal terms] there is no buying and selling of fruit or wine here; rather, people [are] being paid by the beit din for their time and effort by people who haven’t the ability to do it themselves.”
“Of course,” Salzberg pointed out, “the people hired by the rabbinical court are the very same grape growers, winemakers and laborers who do the work during the non-shmittah years. So, this is a very attractive option for some.”
The various workarounds “work” in the sense that folks in the industry have kosher options beyond simply taking a commercial break and refraining from working with Israeli produce for the year. These options allow the industry to continue to work within a kosher framework without suffering as big of a potential loss. Most wineries will also adapt their production schedules accordingly so that they arrange to maximise their options during the vintage before shmittah, so that they’ll have enough finished wine available to still meet consumer demand.
“It’s going to be a struggle,” explains veteran Israeli winemaker and wine consultant Lewis Pasco, of the Pasco Winery, striking a sobering but refreshing note:
“But look, the wine business always has people struggling—a certain percentage of the producers will always be struggling and have cash-flow issues—it’s a tough business to begin with. It’s not like everyone is making a fortune interrupted only by shmittah. The wine business is not a guaranteed thing by any measure, but then that’s not why most of us are in it. That’s not what it’s about.”
Indeed. Just as most wine lovers pursue wine for so much more than the ephemeral joy of intoxication, most winemakers enter and stay in the wine business for so much more than the uncertain pursuit of a quick buck. Good wine of any sort is an important part of enjoying life, and great wines the world over elevate the moment, sometimes offering astonishment, posing wonderful questions that linger.
If you are planning to celebrate Tu B’Shevat this year and take the opportunity to ponder ecological matters and the pursuit of sustainability, please also consider the mighty challenge that Shmittah brings to Israel every seventh year. Raise a glass of quality Israeli wine to spread a little joy, and maybe also sanctify and elevate the moment.
L’chaim!
About me:
By way of background, I have been drinking, writing, consulting, and speaking professionally about kosher wines and spirits for more than 20 years. For over a dozen years I wrote a weekly column on kosher wines and spirits that appeared in several Jewish publications, and my writing generally has appeared in a wide variety of both Jewish and non-Jewish print and online media. A frequent public speaker, I regularly lead tutored tastings and conduct wine and spirits education and appreciation programs. Those interested in contacting me for articles or events can do so at jlondon75@gmail.com.
In what seems like a lifetime ago, I also wrote an entirely unrelated slice of American history: Victory in Tripoli: How America’s War with the Barbary Pirates Established the U.S. Navy and Shaped a Nation (John Wiley & Sons, 2005).
These days I live in London (UK) and, when not focused on wine and spirits, serve as the CEO of the Anglo-Israel Association which is focused on advancing the UK-Israel relationship, and promoting education about Israel.