You may not have heard much about this winery but is is quietly yielding some of the best Israeli wines with little fanfare. The Frenchman and Morocco-born Michel Murciano started this
The winery is located in a very ancient agricultural region, and the 31 km road (19 miles) between Jerusalem and Hebron winds through a very scenic and hilly landscape (see picture on right) with a patch geometry of small terraces and tiny walled fields dotted here and there with large houses, whith grapes, fruit trees and other crops being grown on a still very artisanal way by local arabs. Many of these terraces and walled fields may have already been in place in the biblical times I guess.
The region is also known for its shaky inter-religious relations, with strong views about who-should-or-should-not-be-allowed-to-live-there expressing themselves sometimes by other means than words.
There has always been grapes grown in the area going back several millenium, just that for a few centuries the only allowed varieties were table grapes. The Hevron Heights winery which represents today a timid rebirth of this ancient wine region should be taken into account for the qualty of its wines as they are undoubtly among the best of the country.
Like you may see on the picture above, the vines are trained high with a maze of wires holding horizontally the branches and foliage so that the grapes will hang underneath in the shadow.
Michel Murciano, whom I met a couple of times in Paris at wine tastings, has been setting up this winery in 2000 with the backing of several French investors intended to revive the long wine history of the area. While we drive from Jerusalem to Hebron, Michel Murciano tells me that vines have been grown in this area for 6000 years and that this is undoubtly the best terroir for vine growing. The mountainous settings have this altitude between 850 to 1000 meters and a rich soil with good nutrients for the vines. The climate while hot and dry has big temperature differences between day and night which is excellent, and the desert bordering the south of this area takes all moisture away, making these vineyards almost disease exempt. Before the muslim conquest here the area was known as one of the best for wine with several quotation of the bible or other ancient texts naming it in that regard.
The lot is still a large piece of unused, rocky land shaped like a small hill. They found it 7 years ago now, but it took an additional 6 years to get the administration green light and to get the papers. They plan to take advantage of the slope on this small hill and build with gravity in mind so that the different stages of the winemaking make as little use of pumps as possible, from the harvest reception to the fermentation vats and to the cask room. They will dig underground cellars too for the élevage.
Before showing me the facility where they have been making the wine until now near Kiryat Arba, Michel Murciano warns me that it’s messy and not really nice but what I saw seemed to me very correct and clean, and I’ve seen more mess in many of the best wineries in France (I've told him repeatedly). After driving through a passage outside of Kiryat Arba (which is actually a modern suburban community with fences all around to prevent from terror attacks) we park along a group of aging cement wharehouses with few signs hinting at a winery except a few pallets of empty bottles and a few vats. The presses which have been stored outside are protected from the scorching sun by a light roof. Hevron Heights winery employs 10 staff, among them Ouajdi who poses here with Michel in front of the winery.
The Hevron Heights winery is kosher, which means that the staff allowed to manipulate the wine and touch the vats and casks must be observant jews. Eleazar who is pictured here was born in Hebron
and he is in charge with doing the
cellar and chai tasks. The vats on this picture are from Slovenia and manufactured by a company named ŠKRLJ Kovinska Oprema, they are also temperature regulated and they brought them in in 2007. What is great with these vats is that they have an in-built punch-down system to to the operation on a very precise and soft manner (see this picture on left, shot from the opening in the bottom). They can also control the time and frequency of these punch-downs and repeat them without hazardous variations. They make the high-tier wines here. Otherwise, They have been buying additional vats whenever they needed more capacity.
Another great vat, Michel Murciano says, is this special vat (pictured on right) used for very long fermentations. With this vat, which also comes from Slovenia, they can take the seeds out without moving the wine. One must know first that grape seeds are a potential danger during long fermentations because they release greenish, undesirable notes into the wine.
They also have a flash-pasteurization tool for the niche market of mevuchal wines, sacramental wines. This machine made by Gilson in France brings the mevushal wines to a temperature of 85 ° C for a few seconds then cooled back to normal. Of course the best cuvées are not pasteurized, only the lower wines. The market for meshuval wine is going down anyway as the jewish public becomes more demanding.
Speaking of tools, there is also this special vat that they bought in Beaune (in a winery) : this is an horizontal vat with a system inside which is moved slowly by chains and reproduces a punching down : the grapes move smoothly up and down and the result is very nice. See the picture on the right.
They bottled everything here with a Costral Comet machine. But an important thing to say is that their high-tier cuvées are stored in the cellar for a minimum of 8 months after bottling in closed (dark) pallets, without the labels, in tiré bouché like the vignerons say in France. For example when I visited they were in the process of putting the labels on a batch of Hevron Heights, Jerusalem Heights 2005 which stayed in casks two years that is until the spring of 2008 and is only going out from its bottle élevage now.
Here on the right you can see a wall of bottles stored in the dark (except when we drop in the room for acheck...), these are Hevron Heights, Jerusalem Heights Cabernet Sauvignon 2007, it spent 14 months in casks and is still having its bottle élevage now.
These olive trees seem really extremely old. We have also old olive trees in France (although many froze in the big frost of 1956), but I nerver saw such big and old-looking olive trees there. That's why they could indeed be 800 years old. Otherwise, in the History-of-Hebron document linked at the bottom of the page, I found these lines speaking about olive trees on Tel Rumeida, but it's not clear if they were planted then (200 years ago) or if they were already planted since long time ago :
In 1807, the Hebron community, by means of its agent, Rabbi Hayyim Yeshua Bejano, purchased additional parcels of land in two locations: the area abutting the Jewish quarter (the “market”) and a large area including Tel Hebron (Rumeida). The acquisitions are identifiable to this day by the olive trees that were planted there. The heads of the Muslim Waqf confirmed the purchases by means of signed kushans (deeds).
Djaoui said that these grapes in the region are a delicacy and can be purchased well into decermber. He invited me to come again any time in Hebron next autumn to check by myself. Michel kneeled down to take some earth in his hands, saying again that the terroir in the area is excellent for many crops and fruit trees, including for wine grape varieties. As we asked about the rich villa rigt near the vineyard plot, Djaoui volunteered to help us meet the owner.
We walked the long alley bordered on both sides with gorgeous flowers and reached the terraced surroundings of the house where
a child came to us. Several minutes later a man in his early 60s' came out and Michel and himself exchanged a few words, he invited us in the open room under the house for a few pastries and tea if we wanted. We spent there a few minutes and this was an unexpected experience to witness people from the two communities speaking casually without tensions. This was also totally unplanned as I was the one who spotted this worker and suggested it might be a good idea to go see what he was doing.
Michel says that the relations are most of the time like this, he works routinely with many local muslims, be they artisans, workers or else, and things tend to be smooth when people get to know each other. But there's still a peer pressure and if the situation in the area gets tense for any reason, they can't go indivudual. This is still Hamastan over here with all the incitement in the local Arabic media, and that's also why selling land to non-muslims is too risky for them.
Some jews returned to Hebron proper in the 1970s, mostly in the vicinity of the jewish holy site of the Tomb of the Patriarchs, but they have to remain under the protection of small units of the IDF (Israeli military) as the genocidal mood is still very high among some local muslims, and the terror groups like Hamas being also very active. Most jews coming back in the area live in Kiryat Arba which is basically a new town built next to Hebron and where there's more protection. They're what we use to call West Bank settlers, a word that carries a heavy demonizing stigma including in the West. This may have compelled some wine critics to shun the wines for being made in an area which is supposed to remain Judenrein.
The road from Jerusalem to Hebron is by itself an eye-opening experience to the' extent of the random terror threat against jewish civilians driving on the road. Jews have lived here for thousands of years but toda authorities had to build these weird-looking walls (pics on the sides) to prevent shootings on the cars. This works as well as a barrier against stone-throwing by young Palestinians, as anti-jewish incitement starts from the elementary school in the PA.
__ Hevron Heights Chardonnay Elone Mamre 2010. Not on the market yet. The first such Chardonnay was made in 2002, then none until this small batch of 1500 bottles and Michel wanted me to taste it. Nice richness and gliding feel in the mouth. There's a bit of wood there, which he aknowledges and will correct for the next batch (they should have a bigger volume of Chardonnay in 2011). Marme is one of the names given in the antiquity to the city of Hebron, as you can find in the bible he says. Sometimes, the city is also named as Qiryat Arba in the bible. Elone Mamre means the Oaktrees of Mamre.
__ Hevron Heights, Judean Heights Tempranillo. I'm ashamed, no notes, even though I remember that was a nice, powerful wine (we were having lunch with Michel and his wife at their Qiryat Arba home when he opened it).
You can find my notes for the last available wines that I had tasted a few months earlier in France on this post (scroll down).
Michel Murciano and his wife have 5 children, one of the youngest, a cute little girl, brought me (as we were having lunch) a plastic mug on which she had drawn a tree and several people... 60 % of Hevron Heights wines are exported, to the United States (see also here in New Jersey and also in New York), the Netherlands, in France (here are the prices for the French market), Brazil, Panama, Mexico and Japan.
Links :
Tasting notes for Hevron Heights Cab-Merlot 2005 (including Jancis Robinson's notes)
Detailed History of Hebron
Day visit to Hebron from Jerusalem.
This winery is NOT located in Israel, it's located in an Israeli settlement built in the city of Hebron, deep inside the Palestinian territory (West Bank). This winery should be listed as part of Palestinian wineries.
Posted by: Caroline | May 24, 2012 at 01:53 PM
This is a point of view, legally speaking, this may not be "Israeli administered" territory, but this is a side issue. Jews were pushed out of town (through pogroms, again) and have otherwise always been living there, they're not foreign people coming out of nowhere, they're just back.
Posted by: Bert | May 24, 2012 at 05:20 PM
Hebron is a biblical city where the Jewish Patriarchs are burried; Marat haMachpelah; there was continual Jewish presence in Hebron until a 1930 pogrom slaughtered students and teachers in the middle of town.
The signature wine of Hevron Heights winery is named after the cave of the Patriarchs and is an excellent wine
stephen gale
Posted by: stephen gale | March 08, 2013 at 01:39 AM
just drank a bottle of TOKAJI wine from Hebron- very pleasant
Posted by: alan goldman | March 07, 2015 at 11:37 PM
Thanks for this article. I will have to try it out. Did you hear about any Carignan plantings?
Posted by: Ethan | June 05, 2017 at 10:07 PM
Isacs Ram one of the best wines in Israel Judea and Samaria is the homeland of Jews. Arabs came later and Muslim Religiin is the youngest of the.tree Mono Theistic believe. The Land belonngs the Jews.
Posted by: Asher Ernesto Meng | January 03, 2018 at 01:57 AM
How do I get in touch with the winery?
Posted by: Eli R | January 08, 2018 at 10:22 PM