It averages about once a wine tasting that someone inevitably asks about sulfites and wine. It’s a natural question since there’s a lot of chatter about wine and headaches and why exactly that is. It turns out that sulfites aren’t the only thing that might get added to wines and, believe it or not, not everything that gets added during the process of making wine is evil.

We decided that this quarter we wanted to give you, our Members, an inside look at wine additives and what may or may not be in your glass. So we did a BUNCH of research, combined it with our knowledge of the wine industry and wines from Israel, to educate you to know better why “quality over quantity” is so key when it comes to wine.

This video isn’t short… In fact, it’s just over 15 minutes long. That’s intentional because we wanted to give you a full look at wine additives and what makes a “clean” wine.

Here’s a glimpse at what you’ll see in the video and if you feel like you want to skip ahead to a certain part, you certainly can!

• For the first third of the video, we talk about what’s “normal” in wine additives… Things like sugar, yeast, and acids that winemakers all over the world might use to balance their wines or help the grapes to actually become wine.
  
  
• For the second third of the video, we discuss where things have gone crazy and some of the surprising, and frankly unsavory, additives that producers (especially in the West) add to do one of five things (don’t worry—we explain why they do it and there’s some comforting things when talk about Israeli wine!)
  
  
• For the final third of the video, find out why Israeli wine is different… And no, it’s not just some marketing slogan: “Hey! Israeli wine is so different and better because it’s cleannnn!”. There are actual logical reasons why Israeli winemakers—both Kosher and non-Kosher—approach their winemaking process and the reasons they purposefully avoid a bunch of extra additives. We dive right into what differentiates the wines you’re receiving in your subscription or on our website from the wines you’d get in a store or restaurant.

One of the things that we’re really passionate about at Israeli Good Wine is not just having great tasting wines in the box you receive, but having great QUALITY wines. It’s really hard for the average consumer to know what’s in the bottle when they’re shopping. Is the wine truly good quality or does it just look and taste pretty good? Unless you’re used to tasting a lot of wine, it’s hard for the average consumer to know… That’s why we do what we do.

Because we’re so passionate about bringing quality wines and knowing the winemakers who make them, that’s precisely why we spend time scouting all across Israel before bringing wines to you. If a wine isn’t up to our standards, we don’t carry it, even if we think it might taste good or is unique. This quarter, the wines in your subscription box — including Jezreel Valley and Tishbi Estate Winery — typify clean wines from Israel. And we’re proud not just to bring you quality wine, but to share with you behind-the-scenes of WHY it’s great quality wine. We hope that you enjoy this video and learn a little something more about why Israeli wine is really good… and clean!