This article is reprinted with permission from Wines-Israel
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Arguably the most famous wine family in the world are the Rothschilds. This Jewish family originally were owners just of Chateau Lafite Rothschild, Chateau Mouton Rothschild, and Chateau Clarke, all situated in Bordeaux. Since then, they have expanded to all parts of the wine globe with their respective negociant businesses. Now through Domaines Barons Rothschild (Lafite), Baron Philippe de Rothschild SA and Compagnie Vinicole de Edmond & Benjamin de Rothschild, they have wineries in the South of France, Argentina, Chile, Italy, Portugal, South Africa and, the latest initiative, in China. The connection with Israel was that the family also founded Carmel Winery in Israel and renewed the Israel wine industry after 2,000 years.
The Israeli Wine Families
Israel also has some wine families of its own. The Shor, Teperberg and Tishbi families all played a part in the modern history of Israeli wine. The Shors and Teperbergs had their roots in the Jerusalem of the Ottoman Empire. The Shors had a winery & wine shop in the mid 19th century at about the same time that the Teperbergs were distributors of alcoholic drinks. The Tishbis were farmers cultivating vineyards under the rule of the Turks.
The Shor family opened the first recorded winery in Jerusalem in 1848. It was called Shor Bros. it was situated in the Old City in an alley backing onto the Western Wall. In 1925 the British Mandate decreed that businesses could not remain in the Old City. So the Shor family moved to Beit Israel, near Meah Shearim. In the 1940’s the winery was known by the name of the two brothers that ran the business, Avraham & Moshe. In 1947/8 as the respective families grew, they decided to split. Avraham Shor stayed in Beit Israel and it was agreed he would produce only wine and grape juice. He named his winery Yikvei Zion. Moshe opened Tel Arza winery, focusing on spirits and liqueurs. Later Tel Arza split again and Hacormim Winery was formed.
Today there are three Shor owned wineries. Zion Winery is managed by Moshe Shor. Arza Winery is owned & managed by Motti Shor and Hacormim is managed by Yechiel Shor. The three wineries are all situated in the same street in Mishur Adumim. In 2010 the Shor wineries harvested 2,210 tons of grapes giving them over 4% of Israel’s harvest. So far the three companies mainly sell to the strictly religious market, though there have been signs of a mini revolution.
Zion Winery in particular have recently started to focus more & more on quality & good value table wines. Marketing manager Yossi Shor, the ninth generation and winemaker Zvika Shor are breaking the mold and bringing the winery into the general wine market. So maybe this most traditional of wine families is gradually moving into the 21st century. It is still remarkable that the Shors represent 163 years of uninterrupted winemaking, primarily to the religious Jewish market, under the auspices of the Ottoman Empire, the British Mandate and finally the State of Israel.
The Teperbergs left Russia due to anti-Semitism in the 19th century and moved to Austria for a period of time and from there, they first came to prominence in 1852 in the Old City of Jerusalem. They were drinks distributors, initially specializing in the Christian market. In 1870 Zeev Zaide Teperberg joined his father, Rabbi Avraham, to found a company in the Old City called Efrat. They began to produce wine in a minor way and continued with a retail and distribution business. There was a period when the winery ceased to operate, but with the founding of the state Efrat Winery reopened in Romema in Jerusalem and in 1964 moved to Motza, just outside Jerusalem. In the mid 1980’s, the fifth generation, Motti Teperberg, took over management of the winery. It was a small operation, in cramped surroundings, producing 200,000 bottles a year, primarily to the Jewish kosher market. Fast forward to the 2000’s and Moti Teperberg now owns the fourth largest winery in Israel and the largest family winery. He has renamed the winery Teperberg 1870, to stress the family ownership & the company’s roots. Teperberg Winery now produces over 3 million bottles a year in a brand new winery situated at Tzora. The focus is now on quality table wines and recent competition awards show that Teperberg 1870 is now producing excellent table wines.
Teperberg was the last of the large wineries to focus mainly on the religious market. With the change of focus of the winery to quality in the 2000’s, they symbolized the change that had occurred in Israeli wine as a whole.
If the Teperberg and Shor families came to wine through the importance of supplying wine for religious ritual, the Tishbi family first settled as farmers, tilling the land. In the 1880’s Michael Chemiletzki made aliyah and planted vineyards for Baron Edmond de Rothschild in Shefaya, near Zichron Ya’acov. In 1925 Chaim Nachman Bialik, the national poet, renamed the family ‘Tishbi’, an acronym for ‘A Resident of Shefaya in the Land of Israel’. Roll on to the fifth generation. Yonatan Tishbi, was a grower, working the family vineyards. In 1985 he decided to found his own winery. He initially called it Baron Wine Cellars, in honor of Baron Edmond de Rothschild, and later changed the name to Tishbi Estate Winery. They today produce one million bottles a year. It is the 6th largest winery in Israel and the second largest family winery. Furthermore, it still remains totally a family run operation. Yonatan Tishbi manages the winery. His wife Nili manages the visitors’ center. His son Golan is the winemaker. His daughter, Oshra, markets a line of food products called Tishbi Fine Foods. The other son, Micha is a lawyer. He looks after the vineyards and the labeling. Yonatan Tishbi was the first wine grower to decide to form his own winery. He was a pioneer and many growers would follow his example. They opened small wineries of their own in the boutique winery boom that was to follow.
Father To Daughter
Apart from the main winery families that straddle Israel’s wine history, there are other families that have made a recent mark.
Shmuel Boxer bought Barkan Winery in 1990. He was a 5th generation agriculturist and viticulturist from Ness Ziona. He steered Barkan to become the second largest winery in Israel. He took the company public, bought Segal Wines and moved the winery from Ariel to a brand new site at Hulda. He then sold the company to Tempo Beer Industries. However he remained the managing director of winery. His daughter, Irit Boxer Shank, graduated from the Hebrew University’s Faculty of Agriculture and followed this with a Masters in Oenology at Adelaide University in Australia. Today she is one of the winemakers at Barkan. So whilst the father is driving the winery forward with the ambition of becoming the largest winery in Israel, the daughter has become a valuable member of the team producing Barkan wines. The number of awards and gold medals Barkan has received all over the world, shows she must be doing a good job. Barry Saslove is a Canadian who made aliyah after the Six Day War. In the 1990’s he became one of the main wine educators in Israel after undergoing a complete career change. He became known for organizing innovative wine appreciation courses and then winemaking courses. His enthusiastic lecturing style brought numerous Israelis closer to wine and many new boutique winemakers made their first wines under his instruction. In 1998 he founded Saslove Winery, which quickly became known as one of the better boutique wineries. The winery was based at Kibbutz Eyal in the southern part of the Sharon Plain. In 2002 he was joined by his talented daughter, Roni Saslove, who began to become more involved in winemaking activities. In 2008 Roni went to Brock University in Canada to study oenology and viticulture. In 2007 Saslove expanded with the construction of a new winery close to his vineyard in the Upper Galilee. At the same time he continued to maintain his kibbutz Eyal facility for barrel aging, tastings and as a visitors center. Today the two Sasloves, father and daughter, produce over 80,000 bottles a year. Barry Saslove has always been an innovator and communicator, with infectious enthusiasm. Now it appears his daughter has the same gifts. As they have just produced their first vintage as a kosher winery, it will be of interest to see what this trend setting winery does next.
Father to Son
Israel Flam was winemaker at Carmel Mizrahi for over 32 years. From 1996 he was the Chief Winemaker at was comfortably Israel’s largest winery, producing 30 million bottles a year. When he retired he moved to join the small winery run by his sons, which is called Flam Winery.
Flam Winery is situated at Eshtaol in the Judean Foothills. It was founded in 1998 by the Flam brothers, Golan and Gilad. They were bought up in Rishon Le Zion and regularly visited Rishon Le Zion Cellars as children. Golan studied firstly at the Faculty of Agriculture at Rehovot and then followed it by studying Oenology at the University of Piacensa in Milan. After this he did harvests in both Tuscany and Australia, before returning to open the family winery. Brother Gilad, a Law and Business graduate, manages the winery. Their mother Carmi looks after the finance and father Israel is now there too for an experienced shoulder to lean on. Flam is one of the leading wineries in the country, regularly ranked in the top six by wine critic Daniel Rogov. They have built a beautiful winery with the same care, and attention to detail with which they do everything from designing the labels to making the wine. They produce over 100,000 bottles a year and 2010 will also be there first vintage as a kosher winery.
Dr. Yair Margalit was a chemistry professor into home winemaking. He did a course at UC Davis in California and became Tishbi’s first winemaker in 1985. In 1989 Margalit opened his own small boutique winery, firstly in Rehovot and later near Hadera. It was the first serious boutique winery in the country.
At the same time Margalit took a pioneering lead to advance wine education. He acted as consultant to many of the new boutique wineries, conducted wine courses at the Technion in Haifa, and organized the first professional wine course at Tel Hai College. His son Assaf started early, helping his father as a child. He studied at the Hebrew University’s Faculty of Agriculture in Rehovot and then went to work at wineries in California. Now he is gradually taking over the winemaking duties and the winery is going from strength to strength. The Wine Report in 2009 ranked Margalit Winery as Israel’s second best winery. One of his wines has scored 93 points in Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate, equaling the best score for an Israeli wine.
The Boxers, Sasloves, Flams and Margalits have a long way to go to match the nine winemaking generations of the Shor family. However, it is good to see how many of the new generation, who helped create the quality revolution in Israel, are keeping it in the family to ensure Israeli wine continues to develop onwards and upwards.
