Bein HaKramim Festival—Festival of the Vineyards—will be held during the week of Tu Be’Av, the Jewish Valentine’s Day, August 3-14 in Galilee. The multi-day event will feature outdoor music from sunset to sunrise plus vineyard tours and more.
Visit Israel’s oldest winery, Teperberg 1870, located in Kibbutz Tzora, which produces more than 100 varieties of wine and grape juice.
Golan Heights’ high altitude, coupled with its rich soil, cooler temperature and veil of sunshine, makes perfect conditions for grape growing. The Golan Heights Winery has a large visitors’ center and offers wine tours and tastings from its three labels: Golan, Yarden and Gamla.
The Negev Wine Route in the southern desert region is home to a collection of vineyards with land tended by a growing number of enthusiastic winemakers. Using drip irrigation techniques, this region’s once barren land is now fertile with the ability to produce poetry in a bottle.
On the coastal plain near Caesarea and Zichron is a former perfume factory that has been transformed into the Binyamina Winery Visitors Center. Remaining true to its aromatic roots, it was Baron Rothschild who established the Binyamina Winery. Visitors can take a tour, taste wine and enjoy a documentary about the winery.
Looking to blend wine tasting with supporting a great community? Kishor is a kibbutz for special needs adults, all of whom work to the best of their ability. Among other things, the kibbutz has vineyards and a tasting room and residents are there to help you with tastings and selections.
In Lower Galilee, where tangled vines take root on the slopes of Mt. Tabor, is a small boutique winery. Tabor Winery is situated next to the visitors’ center, which offers tours coupled with the quirky Marzipan Museum, featuring figures crafted from the sweet confection, and a restaurant.
Baron Rothschild also had his hand in establishing the Tishbi Winery along the Mediterranean coastal plain more than a century ago. Located at the foot of Mount Carmel, visitors can have their cup runneth over by filling containers with wine to bring home, take a guided tour or dine at the on-site restaurant.
Looking ahead…Wine Park received the green light to move forward with the development of 250 new hotel rooms as part of a Zichron Yaakov tourist complex. The 150-acre project will include 200 homes along with restaurants, cafes, parklands, galleries, shops and performing arts venues. Vineyards and winemaking operations will further augment this region as Israel’s winemaking capital, helping to attract wine producers, olive oil manufacturers, artists and others involved in boutique food production.
