Recommendations for visiting Golan/Galil wineries

[Randi G]

We are taking a family vacation to the Galil and are interested in visiting a winery or two. We'd appreciate any recommendations for a kosher winery in the Galil or Golan that would make for an interesting visit (taking into account two teenagers who find their parents interest in winetasting to be somewhat amusing).

Thanks for the assistance,
Randi

[Eli R]

Randi, Hi,

There so many options. It would help to know where about you will be staying and what part of the week.
There are the larger wineries that have a visiting center open Sunday to Friday.
The smaller ones, you need to coordinate with the people.
The really small ones, the wine maker may have a "day job" and you could visit only by appointment after work hours.

Anyway, some ideas:

- Golan Hieghts Winery in the Golan
- Galil Mountain in the upper Galili

- Bazelet Hagolan - in Kidmat Tzvi in the north part of the Golan - nice place, good wine
- Bashan - in the south of the Golan - in south of the Golan - a certified bio-organic winery

For contact numbers or visiting hours you can Google the winery name (in Hebrew).

Eli

[Daniel Rogov]

Eli's list is a good one. To add two to that in the Galilee......Dalton and Tabor.

Best
Rogov

[Ilan T]

We are taking a family vacation to the Galil and are interested in visiting a winery or two. We'd appreciate any recommendations for a kosher winery in the Galil or Golan that would make for an interesting visit (taking into account two teenagers who find their parents interest in winetasting to be somewhat amusing).

Thanks for the assistance,
Randi

Hi Randi,

I'm sure others on the forum can give you more recommendations, but here are a few for starters.

Galil Mountain has beautiful facility up in Kibbutz Yiron. Their wines are very good and the winery is surrounded by magnificent vineyards and kiwi plants. http://www.galilmountain.co.il/defaulten.asp

Dalton is located near Meron. I have never been there but I've heard very nice things: http://www.dalton-winery.com/daltonenglish2.html.

Tavar is in Kefar Tavor and owned by Coca Cola, so they should be a nice visit. http://www.taborwinery.co.il/index.html

In the Golan, everybody visits the Golan Heights Winery (http://www.golanwines.co.il/visit.asp). I would recommend skipping it just because it's so big and so much of a tourist attraction as opposed to a nice small tour of the winery given by the manager or workers that you might find in a smaller facility. I suggest you try Bazelet Hagolan just north of Katzrin. http://www.bazelet-hagolan.co.il/visit.asp.

Best of luck.

-Ilan

[Eli R]

Eli's list is a good one. To add two to that in the Galilee......Dalton and Tabor.

Best
Rogov

Hi,

Well, I agree that Tavor is worth a visit on the way to the north.
As for Dalton, it is worth a visit, especially if you can arrange to meet Naama Mualem (the wine maker).
Idid put Galil Maountain as my first choise, as it is a modern facilify with interesting architecture outside kibuz Yiron, while Dalton is in an typical industrial area and tends to be en-route of the bus tours that visit "old graves" (Kivre Zadikim), so it may be crowded at times.

Eli

[David Raccah]

If you can contact Vanhotzker it would be awesome. That is a small winery (that is not his primary day job) in or by Meron and the quality of the wine is up and coming and the winery is one of those small garage wineries.

Galil Mountain Winery and Dalton are both awesome - they are close enough and give you a real feel for how close they are to the border. Finally, Bashan is another up and coming winery and Uri (one of the owners) is a real mench.

Best Wishes

[Randi G]

We are now at Amirim in the Galil, enjoying the peacefulness and beautiful views. The grape arbor on the grounds here is filled with tempting fruit.

We look forward to trying out some of the options for winery visits

Many thanks to all of you for your suggestions.

Randi