NEEDLESS TO SAY, viticulture has existed in Eretz Israel for a very long time, but up until the late 1960s, Israel’s commercial vineyards confined themselves to making the sweet stuff, that we used for Passover, in an area near Haifa. Today, wines that come from Galliee, the Judean Hills, east and west of Jerusalem, the Samson and Shomron regions, and the Negev Desert have won international prizes, attention and fans with their quality and variety. Israeli wineries can be proud to produce premier wines and prime ministers— David Ben Gurion and his successor Levi Eshkol both worked for Carmel Winery.

The terraced landscape in Israel
as it appeared in the 1950s.