Israel Wine

The history of Israel and Wine is rather a foggy one, there isn’t a lot of documented evidence of the suspected long history of winemaking in the country, we have to look inside the Old Testament to find the words ‘Wine’ and ‘Vine’ written various times throughout, if we consider that the book was written between 1200 and 165 BC, it’s safe to say that is at least how old Israeli Wine is.

One of the reasons it got foggy for many years was during the time period of the Ottoman Empire when Muslims ruled the land of Israel and banned any form of alcohol, as they see it as harmful to the body and spirit, so they decided to uproot and destroy all the vines in the country, so for hundreds of years, Israel didn’t produce any Wine.

We have to fast forward all the way to 1848 to find the first winery opened by Yitzhak Shor called Zion Winery which is still in operation today, it was first used only for religious purposes.

Then in 1882, Frenchman, Baron Edmond James de Rothschild deployed the foundation for what is now the modern Wine industry in Israel by creating the Carmel Mizrahi Winery.

The country of Israel has 35 commercial wineries and over 250 boutique wineries. It has over 8,000 hectares of vines and produces 40 million bottles per year.

The 5 official wine growing regions of Israel:

• Galilee
• Shomron
• Samson
• The Judean Hills
• The Negev

The grapes used in wine production:

• Cabernet Sauvignon
• Merlot
• Sauvignon Blanc
• Chardonnay
• Marawi – Hamdani
• Jandali
• Dabouki
• Baladi Asmar
• Bittuni
• Argaman