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A Dalton Winery worker arranges bottles at the winery in Kerem Ben Zimra, in northern Israel near the border with Lebanon, Tuesday. (AP)
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| By Associated Press August 23, 2006 |
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Last week's cease-fire ending the war with Lebanon came just in time for the wine growers in northern Israel.
Prevented from tending to their grapes and threatened by rocket fire during the 34-day conflict, wine growers are racing to salvage their crop and confident that the current season will be a huge success.
"Beautiful, beautiful. Everything is perfect," gushed Moshe Haviv, manager of Dalton Winery, before uncorking his newest favorite joke -- whether guests would like to sample the "Katyusha special reserve." Dalton was among the hardest hit wineries during the conflict, suffering a direct hit from rocket fire that set part of the vineyard on fire.
Like many growers and winemakers in the Upper Galilee region, Haviv could not be more pleased by the cease-fire, which came on the first day of the grape harvest.
With the help of great weather, a 20 percent increase in harvested land and growing international interest in Israeli wine, Haviv said he is expecting his best year ever, despite the war.
Other winemakers are also relieved, but some say it is too early to know the extent of damage to a small but growing industry that is just starting to make a name for itself abroad.
Wine critics say kosher wine has improved greatly since the days when a thick, sweet vintage was the only option.
The volcanic soil in northern Israel, a relatively cool and stable climate with low temperature differentials between day and night, and an altitude of 870 to 980 yards above sea level are ideal conditions for growing grapes, which more and more enterprises here are turning into good wines.
The Israeli wine industry generated about $175 million in sales last year, but exports totaled just $13.8 million, according to IsraelWines.co.il, a Web site devoted to the local wine scene.
Hanan Bazak, chairman of the Israeli Wine Board, said some 15 to 20 percent of the Galilee's grape crop is expected to be unusable after Hezbollah guerrillas fired thousands of Katyusha rockets into Israel's best wine-growing region. But he said he expects the damage to be offset by the good growing conditions this year.
"It will be a quality year, because the climate and the grapes were very, very good," he said. He said he expects a 10 percent increase in Israel's wine production this year, to 50,000 tons.
Strikes on vineyards were few, and spreading fires were quickly extinguished by firetrucks and water-dropping airplanes, wine makers said. Some of the largest vineyards, in the Golan Heights area claimed by Syria, emerged from the war unscathed.
Instead, the real damage came from the difficulty growers had in reaching their crops to prune and treat them during the 34 days of fighting. Bazak said it's too early in the harvesting season to know exactly how much of the crop will be lost due to neglect.
Winemakers will also have to make up for lost sales in July, though they're optimistic this can be achieved with the help of a renewed patriotic impulse encouraging Israelis to buy local wine, and by upcoming promotional campaigns to be launched in the United States, the largest export market.
Meanwhile, however, wineries are scrambling to make up for lost time and salvage the vines that were unreachable during the war.
Dalton hired an improvised crew of about 30 people to harvest and ship its grapes, and the crew was working 18-20 hours a day to prevent any further losses, Haviv said.
Uri Spiegel, 24, a paratrooper who last week was marching 12 miles from the Litani River in Lebanon back to Israel after the cease-fire, was one of those helping.
Haim Abrgel, 40, a chain-smoking rabbi who wandered the Dalton premises shouting, "Don't touch that!" was too. Like many of the wineries here, Dalton is kosher, and there are strict rules, the rabbi warned.
Noam Jacoby, 43, said one of his main vineyards at the Recanati Winery was declared a closed military zone during the war, and three rows of his vineyards were plowed by tanks. But like most in the wine business here, he considers himself lucky to have emerged relatively unscathed.
"The cease-fire was exactly on time, at the last minute," he said. "Each day that would have passed, we would have lost part of the Chardonnay -- you can't miss the harvest time."
"The wine will be very good this year," he added. "They say when you do bad things to the vines, it's good for the grapes, so maybe that's it."
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