3 Delicious Winery Tours in Israel’s Galilee Region
December 17th 2019
Wine is a booming industry in Israel. Despite its small size, there are over 250 commercial and boutique wineries dotted throughout the country. Not least in the beautiful Galilee region, where the rolling green hills, warm temperatures and relatively high rainfall provide excellent conditions for winemaking.
Situated as it is in north-central Israel, the Galilee offers visitors a wealth of culture, history, modern attractions, culinary delights, and stunning landscapes. The wineries are an added bonus, being as they are delightful and tasty places to take a rest break when exploring the region.
Many wineries in the Galilee offer special wine tours. These include wine tasting sessions, after which you can purchase the wines of your choice. In some, there are even hands-on activities related to picking grapes and more. Some wineries also make specialty foods including cheeses and oils.
Here are three of our favorite Galilee wine tours we think you’ll really like:
- Adir Winery Tour
The award-winning Adir Winery is located just a few kilometers south of the Israel-Lebanon border, in the Upper Galilee. As a family-owned and operated boutique winery, they offer personable and charming guided tours of their renowned vineyards and winery. They focus primarily on making dry red wines, including Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon, and blush port style dessert wines.
The family also own the Adir Dairy where their scrumptious garlic and dill goat spread cheese is made, among other things. Here you can take part in a cheese workshop and discover more about the cheese-making processes. Everything is kosher, including the wines, and the local scenery is sublime.
- Dalton Winery Tour
Adjacent to the aforementioned Adir Winery is the Dalton Winery, which also provides winery tours of its vineyards and facilities. The grape grown in this area benefits from hot summer days and cool summer nights, together with relatively high rainfall by Israeli standards. The result is a grape ideal for winemaking.
On a tour of the Dalton Winery, you can partake in wine tasting sessions as well as explore the fascinating barrel room and bottling line. You can also enjoy a meal at the winery and sample the delicious local dairy products. Plus, you can browse a selection of artisanal crafts locally crafted in the Galilee region.
- Rimonim Winery Tour
The Rimonim Winery in the Upper Galilee is a little different to most wineries you’ll visit anywhere in Israel. They specialize in making wine from pomegranates instead of grapes. The pomegranate wine they produce is popular in Israel and abroad, with many thousands of visitors coming to the winery every year to sample the unique wine.
The fruit of the pomegranate shrub (“rimon” in Hebrew) has long been known to have therapeutic and medicinal properties. These healing properties are infused in the wine as well as in the pomegranate oils and jams the Winery also makes. Visitors get to see the winemaking process, the state-of-the-art winemaking equipment, the barrel room, and the pomegranate orchards, plus of course, taste the delicious wine.
All of which is enjoyed against the truly beautiful backdrop of the Upper Galilee region.
