The 2004 Shiraz Kayoumi Vineyard is a single vineyard wine, and a nice step up on the Petite Sirah. It has those same, lush, oak-driven notes, but the wine has better balance and more of a finish. There are some modest tannins that pop out after an hour or so of aeration. There is nothing terribly complex here, but it has juicy, sweet fruit that is hard to resist. It is not likely to develop much in the cellar, but should hold well over the short term. Drink now-2013. For those interested, this wine is Kosher. Importer: Royal Wine Corp, Bayonne, N.J.; tel. (718) 534-0118This familiar and old (with roots back to 1882) winery is Israel's largest, once having controlled almost the entire Israeli wine market. Carmel got modern winemaking started in Israel and helped stake out the path to serious wine as well, although it has a bit of a checkered past. One spokesperson described it as the Gallo of Israel. It sells a wide range of products, including sweet kiddush wines. For a long while, Carmel and Israeli wine were more or less synonymous. Carmel still today has a huge market share (harvesting about 35% of Israel’s grapes), although it has declined over the decades with the founding of many competitors, from Golan Heights to the boutiques. Not surprisingly, Carmel has been reshaping itself, establishing a joint venture called Yatir (listed separately here) to turn out high quality wines, and making small production wines under its own label as well. Its single vineyard and Limited Edition wines are only about 1,083 case production runs each. Carmel is making some fine wines at the high end, and its attention to small production wines seems to be paying off.