Meet Gabriel Israel, the Canadian connection in Fusion Global Winery, a wine company founded with 4 Israeli men at its core. They are bringing tastes from global wineries under one “fusion” label. I wrote a piece about the company on ISRAEL21c and was pleased that one of the Israeli partners is living in Canada. Read more about what Gabriel has to say and learn about why this wine sold out in Ontario in less than 48 hours:
Throughout the last 20 years I have been working in different industry verticals such as IT, telecommunications, healthcare and manufacturing, both in Canada and abroad. Handling large scale budgets (US$ 200M) and projects with international and worldwide responsibility. I’ve been a Director at Amdocs, a Vice President at a large American IT solutions company and I’m now a Principal at an international consultancy firm.
In 2001 I have relocated from Israel with my wife and two daughters Danielle, 18, and Mai, 12, to Toronto.
I know Doron [a founder of Fusion Global Winery] for more than 20 years now. I was his training instructor in the army. Before moving to Canada, Doron and I were neighbours in Timrat for 7 years.
The Fusion Global Winery was born while Doron was in Australia. Ofer, Roy and I sat together at a restaurant after we talked to Doron about the idea of creating “Fusion” and we were thinking of ways to make sure that Doron will continue to use his immense talent and produce wine.
We put together a business model on the restaurant’s napkin (we have kept the napkin and recently framed it…) and decided to give it a try. The concept was global while the product was local – The idea was to produce wine without owning a winery. This way we can significantly cut operational cost and provide value for money to the end customer.
While the Australian winery from which we made our blends from sell their wines for more than $100 in the US, Fusion blends are sold for $29, again, due to lack of overhead cost.
When we made the Fusion Spain blend, I joined Doron and Ofer to the process in Spain. The selection of the preferred region/winery and then the actual barrels is very intense and requires focus and determination – we had to decide on a winery (out of four different ones located in different areas in Spain), chose the best barrels’ wine-juice and then craft a blend and all that within 4 days!
We drove over 2,500 km during these days before we concluded the process. Working closely with Doron to make the Spanish blend just reinforced the reason why we’re all in this project. An unbelievable experience.
My role in the company is to drive everyone else crazy… I’m responsible for the NA market as well to make sure that our brand will be perceived and maintained as a Global/international brand.
My Canadian and American friends are extremely supportive of this project. They have all bought the wines. All the bottles that were brought to Ontario were sold in less than 48 hours.
My friends and family in Israel are extremely supportive. They are all serving as Fusion consumers and ambassadors in Israel. They all love the Fusion wine (and not because it’s ours) – they find it easy to promote it when it’s simply so delicious.
I specifically liked what Ms. Robyn Asimov said about our wines (she’s the daughter of the world renowned science fiction writer, Isaac Asimov) - ”Fusion is how I like my men. Bold, passionate, elegant and leaving you wanting more. Both in concept and in practice Fusion celebrates the delicious aesthetics of wine.”
My wine passion started relatively very late in my life… before I was 28 years old, I’ve never had any alcohol (not even a beer). Once I started to learn about it, there was no way back… I have never stopped learning about wine since. I have started my own wine collection. Unfortunately, because my wife is allergic to wine, I collect more than I drink.
My wine cellar contains almost 800 bottles from all over the world mainly from France, Spain, Australia and Italy.
A few years ago I started a wine blog http://www.gpci.blogspot.com/ – I provide my friends and colleagues a bi-weekly advice as to what to buy at the LCBO stores in Ontario.
Regarding the Canadian wines – that’s an entire discussion by itself…. maybe for another time… Red wine in Canada is starting to get “there”, but it’s still far a way from the high quality reds you have access to these days.
Bringing the Fusion wine to Ontario-Canada wasn’t simple. The Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) has a rule that they only ship in wines from their country of origin. Since our business model can never meet this criteria (once our wines are bottled they are shipped to the US and Israel), we initially got pushed back.
I had to explain the uniqueness of our project to convince them to treat our wine as an exception to the rule. Which they eventually approved. Currently, they wines entered to Ontario via “Private Ordering” i.e. a person ordered the wines for its own use and they get it via a personal shipment. The next step will be to bring the wines either directly to the stores or via the LCBO on-line website.
To read more about Fusion Global Winery, see their website.
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