Daniel Rogov

TEL AVIV, Israel – Daniel Rogov, Israel’s most influential wine and food critic died on Wednesday, Sept. 7 in Tel Aviv.  The cause was lung cancer.  He was reported to have been in his 70’s.
Rogov, who wrote for the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz, was born David Joroff in the United States. After graduating from high school at the age of 15, he flew to Paris and launched his journalistic career by writing articles about food and wine for American magazines and newspapers. It wasn’t long before he established himself as an expert, writing for publications in France and Switzerland, and appearing on television programs.
Rogov emigrated to Israel in 1978 and began writing for the Jerusalem Post, quickly establishing himself as the leading wine expert in Israel. He began writing for Haaretz in 1984. Through his efforts, Israeli wine eventually claimed a place in the international spotlight.
Rogov was the author of “The Rogov Guide to Israeli Wine,” an annual study of the year’s best vintner selections. He also contributed to Johnson’s Pocket Wine Book, and the Tom Stevenson wine report, and managed the Wine Lovers Page website.
A month earlier, on August 29, top members of the wine industry organized an evening in his honor at the Dan Panorama hotel in Tel Aviv.
With his health deteriorating, Rogov announced he was leaving Haaretz just three days before his death.  He then posted a farewell message to members of the Wine Lovers Page on the website’s forum.
“When it comes to food and wine… I wrote about them throughout the years out of a sense of love and devotion, both emotional and intellectual,” he wrote.  “As I hope I showed, food and wine for me are not just things that go into our bodies. They are a reflection of our anthropology, our history, our psychology, out social needs, and of course, enjoyment.”
“Like all critics who take themselves seriously, I greatly enjoyed sharing my thoughts, and in a certain sense I consider myself as the Umberto Eco of wine and culinary criticism; my writing reflects both and accurate and post-modern, that leaves the intelligent reader to come to his own conclusions. At the end of the day, this was a good life.”