La Terra Promessa
La Terra Promessa was founded by Sandro & Irit Pellegrini in 1998. A professionally trained chef with winemaking in his blood (4+ generations) Sandro originally came to Israel in 1991 to work in a restaurant – which is where he met Irit. A few years later Sandro decided to permanently settle in Israel and together with his new wife La Terra Promessa was established.
The wines of LTP are all unfined and unfiltered. Manual punchdowns and minimal intervention is the practice here. Their organic vineyards all produce very low yields (450-500 kilo/dunam or ¼ acre) and have a very high concentration
of vines per dunam (450), which both stresses the vines and forces all harvests to be done manually (like just about everything else for LTP). As Italian food and wine lovers Sandro and Irit believe that wine is made to be enjoyed during a meal, and as such keep alcohol levels down so that their wines will compliment the food, not overpower it.
The 2005 “Desert Rose” is a blend made exclusively for export (ONLY 80 cases made), consisting of 70% Sangiovese, 20% Cabernet Sauvignon & 10% Syrah. The grapes all come from their organic “Kramim” vineyards located in the Negev desert (540 meters above sea level) South of Hebron. The vineyards, with their limestone and chalk soils, reach temperatures of 40°C during the day (100°+F) and plummet to as low as 15°C (60°F) at night. The grapes are fermented on their skins for 2-3 weeks at temperatures not higher than 25°. They are then pressed and transferred to stainless steel for 1-2 months, at which point they are moved into barrel for about 24 months. The barrels used are 100% French oak barrels of which 50% is new and 50% are 2 years old. Following its approximately 2 years in barrel, the wine is aged for another year in bottle before its release to the market. The resulting wine is delicious, food friendly and unique!