Celebrating new appellation, Negev winemakers uncork plans to take their bottles global

With the arid Negev now officially recognized as a wine appellation, local wineries are looking to appeal to as wide a swath of wine drinkers as possible, as some combat the scorching heat to produce desert rosé and others add kosher labels to their lists.

The designation gives the Negev region — stretching from Kiryat Gat to Eilat and home to some 60 winemakers — its own internationally established winemaking identity, placing Israel’s south and its distinctive desert terroir on the global wine map.

It’s a heady achievement for a region that has worked hard to grow distinctive grapes in its sandy ground.

The recognition follows a four-year process in which a consortium of Israeli wine experts demonstrated that wines produced in the Negev have their own identifiable profile.

The Times of Israel recently visited three leading Negev-area wineries to explore how the region’s special soil and unique climate influence their exciting new blends.

Yatir Winery

“The desert is an extreme place, and I think you sense that in the wines as well,” said Eran Goldwasser, who has been Yatir Winery’s vintner for the last 26 years.

Yatir Winery, not far south of the Hebron Hills, has been planting vineyards 500 meters (1,640 ft.) above sea level since 1981. Its name is ancient, stemming from the Bible.

“We have one foot in the Negev and one in the Judean hills,” said Ya’acov Ben-Dor, one of Yatir’s founders and its CEO, as he poured Yatir Forest, the winery’s flagship wine.

Named for Israel’s largest planted forest, it is a rich, strong blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Petit Verdot and Cabernet Franc known for its intense forest fruit notes.

Yatir began bottling its wines in 2000 and now produces some 300,000 bottles annually from its own grapes. It makes a mix of reds and whites, each aged in vessels specifically chosen to bring out a wine’s particular flavors — from Austrian and French oaks to newer ceramic barrels.

Darom Rose — Hebrew for Southern Rose — is their newest wine, and the “key for the future of Negev wines,” said Goldwasser. “You have to harvest it early, and leave the skin on a little longer for flavor and color.”

“It’s the minerals in the Negev soil that offer a certain saltiness and peppery flavor in wine,” he added.

Yatir Winery is open every day of the week except Saturdays. A visit can include tours of the winery and wine tastings, with bread-and-cheese platters, in the visitor’s center, which seats up to 20 people.

Carmey Avdat

The ancient winemakers of this region may not have known that the soil’s minerals were the source of their flavors, although this stretch of land once held long stretches of vineyards, said historian Shahar Shilo, one of the experts involved in documenting the Negev during its appellation process.

An hour’s drive away, at the UNESCO World Heritage site of Avdat, a green swath of vineyards grows alongside the ruins of an ancient desert city that once controlled part of the Incense Route between Petra and Gaza.

The heritage vineyard, planted in 2023 by the Israel Nature and Parks Authority and other partners, includes ancient grape varieties known as Sariki, Be’er and Dabouki, which were grown in the area 1,500 years ago.

“They’re recreating the Avdat vineyards,” said Shilo. “Vineyards stretched as far as the eye could see.”

The plan is to eventually make wine from these ancient grape varieties and market them as part of the Negev appellation.

Avdat is one of the stops along the Negev wine map, and the ancient site is a 15-minute drive from Carmey Avdat, one of the first wineries established in the Negev.

Eyal Izrael, who founded Carmey Avdat with his wife Hannah, says the couple came from Haifa and had no idea if their grapes would grow in the desert. They also didn’t know much about wine back then.

“These wines are different,” said Izrael, who first grew Cabernet Sauvignon grapes and later moved into white wines, now bottling a total of 10,000 bottles each year of their six labels. “We really had no idea if it would be drinkable wine.”

Carmey Avdat has always felt remote, but even this distant outpost has expanded its reach over the last few years.

While the Izraels thrive on intimacy and authenticity, with 14 rentable cabins and a vegetarian cafe on their property, agrotourism has changed, and Izrael has added features that work for his clientele amid the country’s recent struggles.

Since the bloody Hamas onslaught of October 7, 2023, Carmey Avdat offers a 24-hour stay free to reservists and their spouses, including a picnic of wines and cheeses from Kibbutz Be’eri, a Gaza border community devastated in the assault.

“We take care of them for that day,” he said.

As a non-kosher winery, Carmey Avdat has also expanded its wine list, adding three kosher wines from the nearby Ramat Negev winery, and opened a separate kosher kitchen that is not open on Shabbat, appealing to its kosher clientele.

All of their wines are sold only on-site, in the barrel-shaped visitor’s center that also offers a brief look at ancient wine casks.

“I pretty much meet everyone who buys our wine,” said Izrael.

Carmey Avdat is open Monday through Saturday, and visits can include tastings in its visitor center, meals at the vegetarian Cafe Mona, and stays at one of the cabins, which are only available to adult couples.

Pinto Winery

It’s a different experience at Pinto Winery, established in the up-and-coming desert town of Yeruham.

The philanthropic Pinto family initially put down roots in Yeruham to bolster tourism efforts in this tiny town on the rim of the Great Crater, the smaller cousin of the better-known Ramon Crater located in Mitzpe Ramon.

That vision eventually led to establishing the Pinto Winery, partnering with local growers and planting vineyards near Yeruham in Wadi Shu’alim, or Valley of the Foxes, which explains the black-and-white fox etchings on each of its wine labels.

Tanya and David Pinto didn’t grow up in Yeruham; they’re from the country’s center, but moved to the desert town in 2023 with their family to run the winery and its nearby vineyards.

“We make the wine because of the Negev,” said Tanya Pinto.

Some 90% of the grapes in Pinto’s wines come from their vineyards, and winemaker Ya’acov Oryah, a veteran name in Israel’s wine industry, bottled Pinto’s first wine in 2021. They’re now averaging about 170,000 bottles each year and are working hard on creating a Moscato.

The Pintos’ wine is currently sold in 10 countries worldwide, said David Pinto, including in Assaf Granit’s Michelin-starred Paris restaurant, Shabour.

“The appellation is a selling point,” said Pinto, who had to delay opening the new visitors center, a roomy space for tastings and groups, when he was called up for some six months of reserve duty on October 7. “It creates a brand, and that makes a difference.”

Pinto Winery hosts groups Monday through Friday and can accommodate groups of up to 200 people in their vineyards, as well as coordinated tours and tastings in their visitor center.