Derivation of the botanical name:
Vitis, vine, grape vine.
vinifera, latin, vinifer, wine-producing from vinum wine.
The Hebrew word: גפן, gefen, from Ugaritic, גפנ, gefen; Aramaic, גופנא, gufna (Greek: Άμπελος, Ámpelos).
Other words are translated “grape” (Hebrew: עינב, einav), “wine” (Hebrew: יין, yayin), and “vineyard” (Hebrew: כרם , kerem).
- The standard author abbreviation L. is used to indicate Carl Linnaeus (1707 – 1778), a Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist, the father of modern taxonomy.
See the list of Medicinal herbs in Israel, the parts used and their medical uses to treat various diseases.
Raisins are produced from grapes of the Vitis vinifera.
The word wine comes [from Latin vinum (source of English vine and vinegar). Ultimately from a pre-Indo-European word that also the ancestor of greek oinos (source of oenophile)].
Winemaking is very much constrained by the grapevine itself, even given the necessary container and the means of preservation. The wild vine is dioecious (meaning it has unisexual flowers on separate plants that must be pollinated by insects). Only the female plant produces the fruit.
Vintage
Vintage is the process of picking the grapes and transferring them to the winery at the exact time in which the grapes have reached optimal ripeness. The time of harvest is of crucial significance to the quality of the wine. The exact time of harvest depends on many factors, including the amounts and balance of sugar and acid in the berries, their physical condition and the weather. Harvest commences when the winemakers decide that the grapes have ripened to the right stage for a particular style of wine.
Vintage lasts around 80 days, from mid-July to early October. The common vintage order in Israel is, from the first to last: Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Emerald Riesling, Semillon, French Colombard and other white varieties. Among red varieties, the first harvested are Merlot and Shiraz, followed by Petite Sirah, Cardignan and Cabernet Sauvignon. Fruit harvested from southern regions usually precedes fruit grown in the northern regions.
Wine
Wine is fermented fruit juice. Generally, the term "wine" refers to fermented grape juice; while wine produced from other fruits is labeled with the name of the specific fruit (e.g. apricot wine). Grape wine, as well as grape juice, is subject to specific rules of Stam Yaynam, which dictate that in order for it to be considered Kosher, Torah observant Jews handle all aspects of its production through final bottling.
Any pouring or handling of opened bottles of grape thereafter be handled as any other product. Grape wine (and juice) is the only alcoholic product subject to the rules of Stam Yaynam.
What is a kosher wine?
Kosher is an ancient Hebrew word meaning "fit" or "proper" and many of the rules for food and drink go back to Biblical days. However, modern rules for preparing kosher wines do not make a kosher wine inferior in any way; simply stated:
- Equipment used to make the wine is used exclusively for the production
of kosher wines, or must be rigorously cleaned before it can be used
for kosher wine productions.
- The grapes are handled only by observant Jews from crush to serving.
(see the term "mevushal" below)
- Only certified kosher products (yeast, fining agents, etc.),
can be used in the production of kosher wines.
These factors and these alone, strictly applied, make a wine kosher. Many kosher wines are given one step further - making the wine mevushal.
A mevushal wine is one that can be handled by the general public, like a non-Jewish waiter and still remain kosher.
History
The earliest known evidence of a fermented wine-like drink is from the Chinese village of Jiahu dated from ± 6000 BC. The wine found in jars contained millet, rice, beeswax (from honey) and hawthorn fruit or wild grape. The word wine by itself means grape wine. This terminology is often defined by law.
In Haji Firuz Tepe (Iran) pottery jars were found indicating that wine was produced about 5500BC. It is believed that the name of the Shiraz grape originates from the Persian town of the same name.
In ancient Egypt wine was used for ceremonial life. Although wild grapes were never grown there, a thriving royal winemaking industry had been established in the Nile Delta. The industry was most likely the result of trade between Egypt and Canaan [The region roughly corresponding to present day Israel/ Palestine, southern and coastal Syria and Lebanon].
Winemaking scenes on tomb walls, and the offering lists that accompanied them, included wine that was produced at the deltaic vineyards. By the end of the Old Kingdom (2650-2152 BC) , five wines, all probably produced in the Delta, constitute a canonical set of provisions, or fixed "menu", for the afterlife. Christianity included wine in its rites where it takes the place of the blood of Jesus in the liturgies of Orthodox, Catholic and Anglican Christians. The advent of wine in Europe was the work of the Greeks who spread the art of grape-growing and winemaking in Ancient Greece and Roman times. The Golden Age of wine making lasted until the fall of the Roman Empire, when Islam forbid the use of alcohol and the Middle East wine industry began to wither on the vine. Centuries would pass before wine making saw a comeback, when the first wineries in the area was led by Baron Edmund de Rotschild.
Today
Nowadays wine regions cover all of Israel.
The coastal regions of Shomron and Samson (Dan) are Israel's traditional grape growing areas where vines were originally planted.
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Galilee
This area (Upper Galilee, Lower Galilee and Golan Heights) is generally accepted as Israel's finest wine growing areas because of their cooler climate and higher altitude. The Upper Galilee is a mountainous area of plunging peaks and stony ridges, and the soils are heavy, graveled but well drained. The Golan is a volcanic plateau with basalt, tuff soil. Both have snow in winter.
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Shomron
This is Israel's largest wine growing region, benefiting from the Carmel Mountain range and breezes off the Mediterranean Sea. The main concentration of vineyards is the valleys surrounding the winery towns of Zichron Ya'acov and Benyamina. Soils are heavy, limy and the climate typically Mediterranean.
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Samson
The central coastal plain (known as Dan) and the rolling hills of the Judean Lowlands make up this region, which is the second largest in Israel. The soil are limestone, alluvial clay and loam and the area has a coastal Mediterranean climate: hot, humid summers and warm, mild winters.
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Judean Hills
An under developed but quality wine region. The central Judean Hills, west of Jerusalem and the southern Judean Hills have proved to be wine growing regions of the highest quality. The region is characterized by warm days and cool nighttime temperature. The soils are thin limy, stony and the higher mountains receive snow in winter.
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Negev
A popular area for vine growing in ancient times has recently planted with vineyards in the higher regions. These range from the southern Negev Hills, which is dessert, to the semi and north east Negev Hills. Soils are sandy to loamy (loess). The temperatures range from very hot during the day, with cooler evenings and cold nights. The vineyards are often shrouded in mists during the morning hours.
LINK:Tree resins - Resin was added to wine as a preservative and for medical benefits.
Bible resources:
- Gen. 9:20
Noah, a man of the soil, proceeded to plant a vineyard.
- Exodus 22:5
“If anyone grazes their livestock in a field or vineyard and lets them stray and they graze in someone else’s field, the offender must make restitution from the best of their own field or vineyard.
- Exodus 23:11
but during the seventh year let the land lie unplowed and unused. Then the poor among your people may get food from it, and the wild animals may eat what is left. Do the same with your vineyard and your olive grove.
- Leviticus 19:10
Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the foreigner. I am the LORD your God.
- Leviticus 25:3
For six years sow your fields, and for six years prune your vineyards and gather their crops.
- Leviticus 25:4
But in the seventh year the land is to have a year of sabbath rest, a sabbath to the LORD. Do not sow your fields or prune your vineyards.
- Numbers 16:14
Moreover, you haven’t brought us into a land flowing with milk and honey or given us an inheritance of fields and vineyards. Do you want to treat these men like slaves ? No, we will not come!”
- Numbers 20:17
Please let us pass through your country. We will not go through any field or vineyard, or drink water from any well. We will travel along the King’s Highway and not turn to the right or to the left until we have passed through your territory.”
- Numbers 21:22
“Let us pass through your country. We will not turn aside into any field or vineyard, or drink water from any well. We will travel along the King’s Highway until we have passed through your territory.”
- Numbers 22:24
Then the angel of the LORD stood in a narrow path through the vineyards, with walls on both sides.
- Deuteronomy 6:11
houses filled with all kinds of good things you did not provide, wells you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves you did not plant—then when you eat and are satisfied,
- Deuteronomy 20:6
Has anyone planted a vineyard and not begun to enjoy it? Let him go home, or he may die in battle and someone else enjoy it.
- Deuteronomy 22:9
Do not plant two kinds of seed in your vineyard; if you do, not only the crops you plant but also the fruit of the vineyard will be defiled.
- Deuteronomy 23:24
If you enter your neighbor’s vineyard, you may eat all the grapes you want, but do not put any in your basket.
- Deuteronomy 24:21
When you harvest the grapes in your vineyard, do not go over the vines again. Leave what remains for the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow.
- Deuteronomy 28:30
You will be pledged to be married to a woman, but another will take her and rape her. You will build a house, but you will not live in it. You will plant a vineyard, but you will not even begin to enjoy its fruit.
- Deuteronomy 28:39
You will plant vineyards and cultivate them but you will not drink the wine or gather the grapes, because worms will eat them.
- Joshua 24:13
So I gave you a land on which you did not toil and cities you did not build; and you live in them and eat from vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant.’
- Judges 14:5
Samson went down to Timnah together with his father and mother. As they approached the vineyards of Timnah, suddenly a young lion came roaring toward him.
- Judges 15:5
lit the torches and let the foxes loose in the standing grain of the Philistines. He burned up the shocks and standing grain, together with the vineyards and olive groves.
- Judges 21:20
So they instructed the Benjamites, saying, “Go and hide in the vineyards
- Judges 21:21
and watch. When the young women of Shiloh come out to join in the dancing, rush from the vineyards and each of you seize one of them to be your wife. Then return to the land of Benjamin.
- 1 Samuel 8:14
He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants.
- 1 Samuel 22:7
He said to them, “Listen, men of Benjamin! Will the son of Jesse give all of you fields and vineyards? Will he make all of you commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds?
- 1 Kings 21:1
[ Naboth’s Vineyard ] Some time later there was an incident involving a vineyard belonging to Naboth the Jezreelite. The vineyard was in Jezreel, close to the palace of Ahab king of Samaria.
- 1 Kings 21:2
Ahab said to Naboth, “Let me have your vineyard to use for a vegetable garden, since it is close to my palace. In exchange I will give you a better vineyard or, if you prefer, I will pay you whatever it is worth.”
- 1 Kings 21:6
He answered her, “Because I said to Naboth the Jezreelite, ‘Sell me your vineyard; or if you prefer, I will give you another vineyard in its place.’ But he said, ‘I will not give you my vineyard.’”
- 1 Kings 21:7
Jezebel his wife said, “Is this how you act as king over Israel? Get up and eat! Cheer up. I’ll get you the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite.”
- 1 Kings 21:15
As soon as Jezebel heard that Naboth had been stoned to death, she said to Ahab, “Get up and take possession of the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite that he refused to sell you. He is no longer alive, but dead.”
- 1 Kings 21:16
When Ahab heard that Naboth was dead, he got up and went down to take possession of Naboth’s vineyard.
- 1 Kings 21:18
“Go down to meet Ahab king of Israel, who rules in Samaria. He is now in Naboth’s vineyard, where he has gone to take possession of it.
- 2 Kings 5:26
But Elisha said to him, “Was not my spirit with you when the man got down from his chariot to meet you? Is this the time to take money or to accept clothes—or olive groves and vineyards, or flocks and herds, or male and female slaves?
- 2 Kings 18:32
until I come and take you to a land like your own—a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive trees and honey. Choose life and not death! “Do not listen to Hezekiah, for he is misleading you when he says, ‘The LORD will deliver us.’
- 2 Kings 19:29
“This will be the sign for you, Hezekiah: “This year you will eat what grows by itself, and the second year what springs from that. But in the third year sow and reap, plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
- 2 Kings 25:12
But the commander left behind some of the poorest people of the land to work the vineyards and fields.
- 1 Chronicles 27:27
Shimei the Ramathite was in charge of the vineyards. Zabdi the Shiphmite was in charge of the produce of the vineyards for the wine vats.
- 2 Chronicles 26:10
He also built towers in the wilderness and dug many cisterns, because he had much livestock in the foothills and in the plain. He had people working his fields and vineyards in the hills and in the fertile lands, for he loved the soil.
- Nehemiah 5:3
Others were saying, “We are mortgaging our fields, our vineyards and our homes to get grain during the famine.”
Nehemiah 5:2-4 (in Context) Nehemiah 5 (Whole Chapter)
- Nehemiah 5:4
Still others were saying, “We have had to borrow money to pay the king’s tax on our fields and vineyards.
- Nehemiah 5:5
Although we are of the same flesh and blood as our fellow Jews and though our children are as good as theirs, yet we have to subject our sons and daughters to slavery. Some of our daughters have already been enslaved, but we are powerless, because our fields and our vineyards belong to others.”
- Nehemiah 5:11
Give back to them immediately their fields, vineyards, olive groves and houses, and also the interest you are charging them—one percent of the money, grain, new wine and olive oil.”
- Nehemiah 9:25
They captured fortified cities and fertile land; they took possession of houses filled with all kinds of good things, wells already dug, vineyards, olive groves and fruit trees in abundance. They ate to the full and were well-nourished; they reveled in your great goodness.
- Job 24:6
They gather fodder in the fields and glean in the vineyards of the wicked.
- Job 24:18
“Yet they are foam on the surface of the water; their portion of the land is cursed, so that no one goes to the vineyards.
- Psalm 107:37
They sowed fields and planted vineyards that yielded a fruitful harvest;
- Proverbs 24:30
I went past the field of a sluggard, past the vineyard of someone who has no sense;
- Proverbs 31:16
She considers a field and buys it; out of her earnings she plants a vineyard.
- Ecclesiastes 2:4
I undertook great projects: I built houses for myself and planted vineyards.
- Song of Solomon 1:6
Do not stare at me because I am dark, because I am darkened by the sun. My mother’s sons were angry with me and made me take care of the vineyards; my own vineyard I had to neglect.
- Song of Solomon 1:14
My beloved is to me a cluster of henna blossoms from the vineyards of En Gedi.
- Song of Solomon 2:15
Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes that ruin the vineyards, our vineyards that are in bloom.
- Song of Solomon 7:12
Let us go early to the vineyards to see if the vines have budded, if their blossoms have opened, and if the pomegranates are in bloom— there I will give you my love.
- Song of Solomon 8:11
Solomon had a vineyard in Baal Hamon; he let out his vineyard to tenants. Each was to bring for its fruit a thousand shekels of silver.
- Song of Solomon 8:12
But my own vineyard is mine to give; the thousand shekels are for you, Solomon, and two hundred are for those who tend its fruit.
- Isaiah 1:8
Daughter Zion is left like a shelter in a vineyard, like a hut in a cucumber field, like a city under siege.
- Isaiah 3:14
The LORD enters into judgment against the elders and leaders of his people: “It is you who have ruined my vineyard; the plunder from the poor is in your houses.
- Isaiah 5:1
[ The Song of the Vineyard ] I will sing for the one I love a song about his vineyard: My loved one had a vineyard on a fertile hillside.
- Isaiah 5:3
“Now you dwellers in Jerusalem and people of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard.
- Isaiah 5:4
What more could have been done for my vineyard than I have done for it? When I looked for good grapes, why did it yield only bad?
- Isaiah 5:5
Now I will tell you what I am going to do to my vineyard: I will take away its hedge, and it will be destroyed; I will break down its wall, and it will be trampled.
- Isaiah 5:7
The vineyard of the LORD Almighty is the nation of Israel, and the people of Judah are the vines he delighted in. And he looked for justice, but saw bloodshed; for righteousness, but heard cries of distress.
- Isaiah 5:10
A ten-acre vineyard will produce only a bath of wine; a homer of seed will yield only an ephah of grain.”
- Isaiah 16:10
Joy and gladness are taken away from the orchards; no one sings or shouts in the vineyards; no one treads out wine at the presses, for I have put an end to the shouting.
- Isaiah 27:2
In that day— “Sing about a fruitful vineyard:
- Isaiah 36:17
until I come and take you to a land like your own—a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards.
- Isaiah 37:30
“This will be the sign for you, Hezekiah: “This year you will eat what grows by itself, and the second year what springs from that. But in the third year sow and reap, plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
- Isaiah 61:5
Strangers will shepherd your flocks; foreigners will work your fields and vineyards.
- Isaiah 65:21
They will build houses and dwell in them; they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
- Jeremiah 5:10
“Go through her vineyards and ravage them, but do not destroy them completely. Strip off her branches, for these people do not belong to the LORD.
- Jeremiah 12:10
Many shepherds will ruin my vineyard and trample down my field; they will turn my pleasant field into a desolate wasteland.
- Jeremiah 31:5
Again you will plant vineyards on the hills of Samaria; the farmers will plant them and enjoy their fruit.
- Jeremiah 32:15
For this is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Houses, fields and vineyards will again be bought in this land.’
- Jeremiah 35:7
Also you must never build houses, sow seed or plant vineyards; you must never have any of these things, but must always live in tents. Then you will live a long time in the land where you are nomads.’
- Jeremiah 35:9
or built houses to live in or had vineyards, fields or crops.
- Jeremiah 39:10
But Nebuzaradan the commander of the guard left behind in the land of Judah some of the poor people, who owned nothing; and at that time he gave them vineyards and fields.
- Jeremiah 52:16
But Nebuzaradan left behind the rest of the poorest people of the land to work the vineyards and fields.
- Ezekiel 19:10
“‘Your mother was like a vine in your vineyard planted by the water; it was fruitful and full of branches because of abundant water.
- Ezekiel 28:26
They will live there in safety and will build houses and plant vineyards; they will live in safety when I inflict punishment on all their neighbors who maligned them. Then they will know that I am the LORD their God.’”
- Hosea 2:15
There I will give her back her vineyards, and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. There she will respond as in the days of her youth, as in the day she came up out of Egypt.
- Amos 4:9
“Many times I struck your gardens and vineyards, destroying them with blight and mildew. Locusts devoured your fig and olive trees, yet you have not returned to me,” declares the LORD.
- Amos 5:11
You levy a straw tax on the poor and impose a tax on their grain. Therefore, though you have built stone mansions, you will not live in them; though you have planted lush vineyards, you will not drink their wine.
- Amos 5:17
There will be wailing in all the vineyards, for I will pass through your midst,” says the LORD.
- Amos 9:14
and I will bring my people Israel back from exile. “They will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them. They will plant vineyards and drink their wine; they will make gardens and eat their fruit.
- Micah 1:6
“Therefore I will make Samaria a heap of rubble, a place for planting vineyards. I will pour her stones into the valley and lay bare her foundations.
- Micah 7:1
[ Israel’s Misery ] What misery is mine! I am like one who gathers summer fruit at the gleaning of the vineyard; there is no cluster of grapes to eat, none of the early figs that I crave.
- Zephaniah 1:13
Their wealth will be plundered, their houses demolished. Though they build houses, they will not live in them; though they plant vineyards, they will not drink the wine.”
- Matthew 20:1
[ The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard ] “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard.
- Matthew 20:2
He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.
- Matthew 20:4
He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’
- Matthew 20:7
“‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered. “He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’
- Matthew 20:8
“When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’
- Matthew 21:28
[ The Parable of the Two Sons ] “What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work today in the vineyard.’
- Matthew 21:33
[ The Parable of the Tenants ] “Listen to another parable: There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a winepress in it and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and moved to another place.
- Matthew 21:39
So they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.
- Matthew 21:40
“Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?”
- Matthew 21:41
“He will bring those wretches to a wretched end,” they replied, “and he will rent the vineyard to other tenants, who will give him his share of the crop at harvest time.”
- Mark 12:1
Jesus then began to speak to them in parables: “A man planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a pit for the winepress and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and moved to another place.
- Mark 12:2
At harvest time he sent a servant to the tenants to collect from them some of the fruit of the vineyard.
- Mark 12:8
So they took him and killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard.
- Mark 12:9
“What then will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and kill those tenants and give the vineyard to others.
- Luke 13:6
Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree growing in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it but did not find any.
- Luke 13:7
So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, ‘For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?’
- Luke 20:9
[ The Parable of the Tenants ] He went on to tell the people this parable: “A man planted a vineyard, rented it to some farmers and went away for a long time.
- Luke 20:10
At harvest time he sent a servant to the tenants so they would give him some of the fruit of the vineyard. But the tenants beat him and sent him away empty-handed.
- Luke 20:13
“Then the owner of the vineyard said, ‘What shall I do? I will send my son, whom I love; perhaps they will respect him.’
- Luke 20:15
So they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. “What then will the owner of the vineyard do to them?
- Luke 20:16
He will come and kill those tenants and give the vineyard to others.” When the people heard this, they said, “God forbid!”
- 1 Corinthians 9:7
Who serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat its grapes? Who tends a flock and does not drink the milk?
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