The discovery that fermented grape juice could not only taste delicious but produce wonderful feelings of wellbeing is thought to have been stumbled upon around 6000BC in the area between the Black Sea, the Caspian Sea and the Sea of Galilee. The realisation then spread south through Phoenicia and Canaan to Egypt.

Not only was wine an economic mainstay and, being safer to drink than water, an essential part of everyday life, it also became interwoven with religion. First with Judaism -- it is mentioned in every book of the Old Testament except the Book of Jonah -- and then with Christianity. The Arab conquest of the area in the seventh century -- and the subsequent spread of Islam, with its ban on alcohol -- saw the steady decline of the vine until, under the Ottoman Empire, it had virtually disappeared, hanging on only in the odd monastery or private garden.
Its return came with the first Zionist pioneers in the late 19th century. Men such as Moses Montefiore (Carmel Winery's Adam Montefiore's forbear, who drank a bottle of wine a day and lived to be 100), and their French backer, Baron Edmond de Rothschild, co-owner of Chateau Lafitte, believed viticulture was the way forward.
The Baron poured millions of the francs into the fledgling industry and, although he never lived to see a profit, Carmel, the company he helped found in 1882, now produces 25 million to 30 million bottles a year.

It is only in the past decade, though, that annual consumption has doubled to seven litres per head, a still modest amount by European standards but a major shift for the Israelis. For, despite the cultural significance of wine, Montefiore says, Jews have never actually been big drinkers. "Guests at a Jewish wedding will head for food and ask for a Coke. But things have changed dramatically since the 1990s, especially among young people. Wine is now seen as part of an aspirational lifestyle. For the first 40 or 50 years of this country's history we were desperate to survive. Now we are learning how to live."

The change has been fuelled by greater affluence and an increase in overseas travel, and in the wine business itself by the introduction of new technology, the hiring of expertise from both Old Europe and the New World, and the growth of 150 specialist 'boutique' wineries such as those in Carmel's Handcrafted Wines consortium. It is illustrated by the boom in wine merchants, wine bars, wine clubs, wine classes and wine publications.

Chris Burke, 'Grapes of Wrath', Financial Times,
How To Spend It, October 2005

When I first moved to Israel, about twenty years ago, most of the wines being sold were red, sweet and so coarse that one wondered why anyone would bother to drink them. The last two decades have seen a genuine wine revolution, and a host of large and small wineries are now producing wines that rival some of the best of California, Australia and other New World wine producing nations. That Israeli wines are worth sampling and even cellaring is now beyond question. So good have many of these wines become that when I travel to Bordeaux, Burgundy or California, I bring them as gifts for my colleagues.

The Israel of Biblical times is regarded by historians and archeologists alike as the "cradle of vineyards and wines," the home of a wine industry that was also much admired by the Greeks and Romans.
The word "wine" occurs in the Bible 207 times, "vine" 62 times, "vineyard" 92 times, and "winepress" 15 times. The first documented winery in modern times was established by Rabbi Shore in Jerusalem in 1848 ... . The decisive step, however, was taken in 1882 by 'Hanadiv' (the benefactor) Baron Edmond de Rothschild, owner of the famous Chateau Lafitte estate in Bordeaux, France.
The history of the Carmel estate, which currently has an annual output in excess of 20 million bottles, is also the history of the Rothschild family's commitment to the land of Israel.
Within a relatively short period, Israel's wine industry has moved from merely supplying simple, sweet wines for ritual use (Kiddush wines) to being a respected competitor on the internation wine market.
Growing and picking are nowadays carried out in accordance with the latest scientific knowledge. Stainless-steel vats have replaced concrete tanks, and computer-controlled fermentation procedures have become the norm. The use of French and American oak barrels is steadily increasing. Finally, automated bottling allows more bottles to be filled more quickly.

André Dominé (ed.), Wine (Konemann, 2001)

Large-scale plantings of many high quality international varieties and massive investment in state-of-the-art technology have enabled this tiny country to begin extracting the very best its terroir has to offer. ...
Expertise brought in, mainly, from California has also left its indelible mark, giving many of the region's wines a definite New World signature.
Israel's is still very much a fledgling industry, but it is beginning to produce winemaking talent and turn out some promising wines that will soon make other winemaking countries take note.

Wines Of The World, pp. 404-5 (Dorling Kindersley, 2004)

Sourish Bhattacharyya
Nov 04, 2005

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