Wines of strength and grace
- Rabbi Barnea Levi Selavan
- 6 days ago
- 29 min read
Updated: 4 days ago
Shiloh Winery blossoms in a time of turmoil
All seems quiet on the Shiloh front. A beautiful spanking-new building sits overlooking vineyards, walls lined with bottles, cushioned seating around lovely tables and a view... yet the war has left scars and done real damage, and the iron strength and resolve to go on is hidden from view. Let us peel away those layers to understand a real Israeli story, amd what makes Israel tick... we begin...
“Wine is alive. It is constantly in motion. I love working with wine and explaining wine to our visitors. Wine records the whole history of its existence – the climate, the soil, that year’s weather, from planting, growing and picking and then the many stages of handling and treatment until you actually open the bottle. I’m also a marriage counselor and so constantly analyze and look at the world, asking is it feminine or masculine. I see wine as feminine: It is very sensitive to everything, it develops when it is hidden, it is mysterious and complex, you have to figure out what is happening to it beneath the surface – and it is extremely responsive and resilient. It will change as conditions change, and can take on different identities as life develops.” So says Hostess Aura Netzer, who greets and guides people through the Shiloh Winery Visitor Center in several languages and caters to their wine tastings and food choices. She deeply understands both people and the product at hand, and I could tell it would be both insightful and a pleasure to experience how she integrates the two.
The war is in its second year, and we will explore an in-depth slice of life in Israel through talking with chief winemaker Amichai Lurie and his staff, feeling its current impact on Shiloh Winery ‘s wine production and the opening of their new visitor center – a challenging confluence of events.
With about a quarter of the 2023 harvest left to be picked, the northern fields situated on the Lebanese border were slated for a night harvest literally hours after holiday’s end. In Israel, Simchat Torah is always the same day as Shemini Atzeret, and this year it came out on Shabbat, October 7. But in the early morning Amichai’s own son, who is in intelligence, called his parents’ cellphones. They answered because they realized he would only call on Shabbat in an emergency, and he said, “Don’t leave the house, we are under attack!” Over the course of the day people did find out something serious happened down south, but the sheer scale of the horror took days to sink in. By nightfall, after havdala, Amichai started the car. Pulling out of the driveway he called the farmer in the north, who said, “Don’t come, no one is here.” Then he discovered that his own staff was all drafted. With the help of elderly retired harvesters including an 83-year-old , amidst cannons shooting at our enemies and our enemies literally shooting at Amichai’s team, the northern harvest was completed some weeks later – by day, as the army would not let them in at night. Neighbors and two helpers aided Amichai to complete the local Shiloh area harvest.
Higher quality lines like Secret Reserve and Mosaic require more time and attention, with tasters gathered at early stages to make decisions about blending and quality levels, triggering moving vast amounts of wine between vats. Some of their production had to be sacrificed, because there were simply no people around. You can read about that situation in a December 2023 article here.
The visitor center was scheduled to open in November, a “Chanukat Habayit,” appropriately for Chanukkah 5784-2023. Different craftspeople and construction workers had but a few weeks of work left to complete, and there was enough time following the scheduled harvest to be ready for that grand opening – but as Amichai uses only avoda ivrit, only Jewish labor, they too were all drafted.
The wisdom in this approach became clarified when it was found that people who came in to work from Gaza had mapped Be’eri and other communities, supplying the names, the numbers of people, even who had a dog, house-by-house. In Jenin, papers were found detailing homes in Tel Aviv and Petach Tikva, and in Lebanon, they had all the Galilee communities and even all the way down to Haifa and Tiberius mapped out for the planned Hezbollah invasion. Other groups provided similar information on southern communities. The scope of betrayal has not yet been comprehended. Besides that, though, this is the way Amichai seeks to live in the land of Israel, and to build it as a resurrection of our life as a people with the land that God gave us. That’s why for example Shiloh’s entry-level wine is called Privilege, because of the privilege of helping the land produce fruit once again, the fulfillment of prophecies.
The Jerusalem stone structure is stunning, greeting you as you enter the road leading up to Shiloh, with adjacent parking. An outdoor deck overlooks grapevines and olive orchards; an indoor hall with magnificent décor lined with wine bottles offers seating for 140 people, even 60 people around one table, and outdoors for up to 300 people. More intimate rooms in the upper story can host private gatherings or meetings, including a cigar room. A state-of-the-art caterer’s kitchen is near completion. A full range of barbecue facilities is already in use by private chefs that work wonders for private and organizational groups. The equipment is now being installed. All this time you know you are in a winery, from the airy open courtyard where you see right into the lab, and from the tastefully labeled bottles everywhere.
“We had a soft opening on Sukkot 5785, September 2024. Tours are going on regularly of the center and of the winery, including jeep trips into the fields – but only 150 overseas tourists have come since Sukkot, when the norm would be easily 150 tourists a day, let alone in high season. We just had a One Israel Fund donors’ group with food and music on the deck, we had the Benjamin Regional Council. It will still take time until everything is in place, but caterers are already using the services, and when the full installation is complete, they will be delirious with joy for what they can create here,” says Yossi Kransdorf, center manager and an American oleh.
But you catch what that means – the center is ready for business, with a full staff, but where are the people? The Israelis who would come for wine, mainly men in their twenties through fifties, are in the army or helping their families and businesses stay afloat, they’re not free to come imbibe and to bring their spouses and families. The tourists have generally been afraid to travel to Israel during war, and the cost of travel is still relatively high with few flights – and even people who come to Israel are not coming often to the Shomron. Israel’s tour guides such as myself are mostly out of work, but for solidarity missions to the Gaza Envelope and to the northern communities – very important, critical; some camps for students bravely come, and some parents do visit their children in schools here – but that’s where the attention is, not visiting adjacent Tel Shiloh, the site of the Tabernacle with wonderful multi-media and excavations – they are not yet exploring new things.
Last year, with only two workers and the help of friends, the physical labor of handling barrels and boxes and packing cost Amichai personally, as he ruptured a disk in his back and everything went slower. A very expensive filtering machine, recently arrived before that holiday, was accompanied by a trainer from Italy, who spent days training a staff member charged with operating it. It sat gathering dust, because that staff member was doing full combat duty in both Gaza and Lebanon, and continues to do so even today. During the year Avinoam Lurie attacked the operating program, called the company and said, “I can make this work” – they did not believe it. After a Zoom call in which he demonstrated his skill and they answered several questions, he got the green light, and this year, the filter is doing yeoman work, particularly with younger wines and white wines.
Young wines have a lot of sediment and debris during the first months of producing wine and this machine is very effective at getting them out. When making a young wine, like the Privilege wine, it must be ascertained that it is well-filtered before bottling. That is one very beneficial use of this machine, a specific application. The other affects the entire gamut of production. Over the course of alcoholic and malolactic fermentation, wine accumulates a lot of lees – remnants of seeds, of skins, tartaric acid, dead yeast and more. It becomes a yogurt-like sludge in tank bottoms. However, these lees contain a lot of wine. Normally it is squeezed a little bit, which gets some wine out, but that is usually wine of low quality. This machine extracts a lot of wine while retaining the wine’s high quality, so it produces a tremendous saving. It missed the 2023 vintage which it was scheduled to help, a direct cost of the war, but the 2024 vintage benefitted from this investment.
I examine the white and rosé wines, as I did not recognize the labels – each one has a different fisherman with a fish, very artistic and detailed. I was recently in Tunisia where ancient mosaics portray fish in stunning colors, in motion, and could therefore appreciate that these drawings are of very high quality. Winemaker Matanya Popper explains the line to me, and that the fish represent Jacob’s blessing to Joseph, that his children should multiply like fish, and Shiloh lies in Joseph’s portion. Matanya got his hands dirty and produced wine here on a day-to-day basis. Now he is the host for aficionados and VIP tours who want to learn and appreciate – and taste! – more in depth. When he shows you the tanks and barrels, it is he who cleaned them and filled them; when he shares the wines with you to taste, he worked on them and knows their history and processes. You can gain a real appreciation of what it took to bring this liquid to your lips and palate, and you savor it all the more – exactly what the visitor center experience is meant to share.
As I admire the labels, Assistant GM Itai Metzger stops to thanks me for appreciating Pinny Mizrachi’s work, a creative artist who shares his talents with Shiloh Winery. “I really tried to keep things moving with this year’s production even while I was in the army. Any time I could, I was on my laptop and in touch with the graphic artists and the wonderful staff at Scheller Printing – but at some point you have to actually go in to see it with your eyes and make sure all the colors work and you’re happy with it, and I couldn’t. So you can see the labels that we made, they are beautiful, but that took time, and that held up the bottling.” Yossi smiles. “That’s when Itai was outside, he could work at night. When he was in the fighting zone, no phone, no laptop, no contact.” These men are in units where they cannot talk about what they do. (Incidentally, in the interim while this article was being prepared for publication, Yossi went into the battlefront for a few days to serve so that one of those fighting nonstop could spend the Passover Seder at home).
Here again the war took its toll. The new labelling was one factor, but transferring the wines from the barrels, checking quality all the time, and bottling the wines is a greater task; and preparing them for shipping takes much physical labor. The skilled workers were in and out of the frontlines, so the 2023 vintage Shor and Legend lines could not be bottled in time, and did not arrive in the market for Purim. Shor reached both markets in time for Pesach, but Legend only reached the US after Pesach. These wines sometimes even sell out upon arrival; that opportunity has been missed for this year.
The new Shiloh Winery hosts an in-house state-of-the-art laboratory, including several machines that analyze wine at all stages quickly and frequently so that ongoing adjustments can be made. One uses both infrared and UV light, and turns samples into gas, to test an entire range of ethanol, pH, malic acid, glycerol and more, and especially the amount of sulfite, SO2, which must be checked frequently since it is constantly being consumed by the wine but is needed retain its preservative action, and no more should be added than necessary. The level of control over the contents and the product at every stage is tremendous. An earlier article which you can access here describes at great length the range of innovative techniques that Shiloh Winery has come up with, but they are always progressing. From this same room and even from the vintner’s phones they can control the temperature in each room, in each tank, of the water in the chilling system, and adjust processes in advance for the course of the Sabbath, and even for a three-day holiday of Rosh Hashana and Shabbat. They make sure that the wine is treated properly without a break.
As the wine ferments in the tanks a “cap” develops of solid material, especially the skins of the grape, that rises to the top. It used to be that you would open up the vat and physically pound it down every so often to mix it. Now, special pumps regularly mix the contents. And the machinery, and the computer applications, also do something else. Even without punching everything down, wetting the cap with wine regularly, sometimes even every few minutes, promotes fermentation by having maximum skin contact with the liquid, and extracting flavors, aroma and color from the skins. This was never before possible. The computer program Avinoam Lurie runs now makes the vat do this as much as needed, even every few minutes if desired. This flexibility enables the perfect extraction of benefits from the skins without the risk of damage their presence harbors and which always had to be accepted. It is a new world.
I finally sit down with Amichai himself, which means moving from room to room to learn each facet, pausing here and there in different types of seatings and ambiances, watching his interactions with staff and workers, and staying out of the way of a security briefing for army officers behind closed doors in the visitor center’s main hall. This will be a wide-ranging conversation, with his reflections on the past year and a half, the challenges and the future. He gets right into it before I say a word.
“I go back and forth to the States during the year, and communicate with the communities there all the time, and welcome visitors here. I sense a qualitative difference in the appreciation, the impact, and the vitality of the words of the Torah here, and it hurts me deeply. Let me try to explain.”
“In the best conditions, we only stop learning Torah for something that is immediately incumbent upon us to do. So we stop learning in order to put on tefillin. Here in Israel, the people of Israel, the Torah of Israel and the Land of Israel are one – the land is a living force that responds to the people and how they live with the Torah, in it and on it. Moshe was distraught for he would not have the ability to fulfill the commandments of the land that are involved in the land. For those mitzvot to happen, for this relationship to grow, to be able to bring bikkurim, the first-fruits to the Temple and declare our hakarot hatov to God for giving us this land, one has to stop learning in order to work the field. The Hatam Sofer in the tractate of Sukka says working the land is just as important as putting on tefillin, “hee gufa mitzva”. You can’t say I am learning, I cannot work the land. You cannot do these mitzvot outside of Israel. And even the mitzvot doable outside of Israel like Shabbat and tefillin, as the Ramban says, Hazivi lach zionim, are being done to get us ready to do them in Israel which is their full expression. When I travel, I sense how this perception is lacking. So I seek to share it through wine.”
BLS: “When I last came here you were in physical pain, in emotional anguish from what was happening, and in a shell of an unfinished building with almost no one here. The biggest shopping day is traditionally the day after Sukkot when stores restock, the country was in upheaval fighting that day so no one bought last year, so there was no new income to cover the harvest expenses. Today you look healthier, upbeat even. But we are still in a difficult, challenging situation. I want to understand your current feelings, and how the war has affected you this year.”
AL: “Well, let’s start with right now, two weeks before Pesach. We bottled part of the 2023 vintage. Because of my staff being on the frontlines, in and out, the process took longer, and the first shipments just left. So we missed Purim overseas. More than that, when you consistently produce an excellent wine that sells well, the local store gives you what is called the ‘prime real estate’ on its shelves where people find you more easily – Shiloh wines have earned that level, but we were not there before Purim, so it was given to others, and therefore when they do arrive, our bottles will get less attention. Some stores even canceled their orders altogether, because they needed the wine when the customers were buying. Some newly-bottled wines are arriving there just now, others are on the way, which means we also largely missed Pesach – it means we missed this high season of sales, and yes, took a financial loss due to the war. I’m hoping that the 18-months in the barrel wines we will soon bottle make it in time for the Rosh Hashana season overseas – but I can’t be sure about it until it happens.”
“On the other hand, looking at the bright side, and hakarat hatov, not only does our wine have a long shelf life, they age very well. This is a product that just gets better all the time, and does not spoil. So you will enjoy it even more when you get these bottles. And our distributors at Royal Wine Corporation do everything they can over and above to put our wines in front of the stores and the consumers. That gives me great peace of mind.”
“Another way in which the war affected us is that many of the growers were in the army. To make sure a vineyard ‘sings’ and produces all it can requires ongoing care, attention and handling, and the growers were simply away. In this second year of the war, the 2024 harvest, we lost about 30% of our grapes. So for example, consider your overall costs divided by 400,000 bottles of wine instead of by 500,000 bottles of wine. This follows Shemita year where we produce very little, and then come two years of the war impacting the productivity of the winery. And yet baruch Hashem we are in business! We are making excellent wines, including some new ones we’ll talk about soon, and most important on a different level altogether, we are very much a part of the family of the people of Israel fighting this war. And it’s an honor to have that role.”
BLS: “Could we talk about the Shemita Sabbatical year for a moment? I know you accept whatever halachic approach your various growers choose. By encouraging growers to leave their fields fallow, hundreds of tons of grapes rot on the vines, because people cannot pick it all. You also told me you are therefore offering to process wine with just costs covered, and give it for free to the needy. But Matanya was starting to tell me about a Heroes’ Edition from the sixth year?”
AL: “When it comes to the Torah’s blessing in the sixth year (Vayikra 25:21) it has become almost a joke around here – we see it. You know the tank produces 26 bottles but 29 come out; you know that this type of grape and this type of treatment should produce a certain quality level; the quality comes out higher. In this and many other areas we sense the blessing of God, the blessing of the Land, the blessing of keeping the Torah in the Land. The Torah, the people and the Land are a three-legged table, if you take out one of the legs it falls over.”
“The Heroes’ Edition celebrates the brave growers who follow the Shemita Sabbatical year laws in a simple straightforward fashion – they stop their business for a year, they let their vineyard go fallow and let anybody who wants come and take grapes to eat or to make wine or grape juice. More than that, there is an extra layer here – they trust in the Biblical promise that in the Sixth year, the year preceding the Sabbatical year, will have a special bounty. Shiloh Winery picks one or more growers to invest extra effort in the sixth year and make a special wine. However, what the growers and we have found is that God also invests that effort.”
“The three Heroes’ edition wines from 2014 were exquisite, and so too, the newly released wine of the 2021 vintage has been a smashing success. The palette of 900 bottles kept for Israel were sold out within two hours to dealers and stores. The US palette was shipped, and suddenly I was getting phone calls all day long from overseas dealers asking for the Heroes’ Wine, and I said, ‘Call our distributor!’ I finally called the distributor and said ‘What’s going on, I am deluged with calls, you can release it!’, and the distributor said, ‘It arrived, we sold out yesterday….’ (The store has a few cases; I sent a picture and a note to a friend who right away ordered 3 bottles).”
This Shemita year’s choice was the vineyard of Avery (Avraham) Ron, of the Giva’ot Olam mountaintop farm, in the Shomron Itamar community. This Cabernet Sauvignon came out under special conditions, as Avery lost his son Ohr Yosef, a top fighter and commander, in Kfar Aza just as this war began. Avery is such a strong person that he was even comforting Amichai. “So there’s a higher appreciation of fruit produced with this love of the land of Israel. This edition is therefore named ‘Heroes’ Edition – Kerem Avraham, the Vineyard of Avraham’.”
BLS: “Let’s talk about the visitor center. You used to be a builder and you were involved in every aspect here from start to finish. It was ghostly last year, except for the room with vats and barrels. Now each room has a sign on the door and is in use. I saw a meeting going on in the tasting room . What else is going on here, how has your vision come to fruition?”
AL: “I wanted the visitor center to have the feeling of being in a 5-star hotel. That’s why you see scented candles even in the bathrooms and their décor, the range of furniture here offering different ambiances, and the attention given to the lighting and the lighting fixtures in each room. Mothers and families come for gatherings and activities here too, but I wanted this to be a venue for high-end meetings, leadership gatherings, honoring donors to organizations, and for the people who really appreciate fine foods and fine wines to truly enjoy luxuriating in this building. We are open, and these groups are coming.”
“I built this building so that there would be a number of different venues and experiences. You might have come for a party on the deck overlooking the vineyards with 150 people and said to yourself, ‘Look at that cigar room, I’m going to come back with a couple of my friends and we’re going to be there with this beautiful view overlooking sunset, and have our cigars and whiskey and wine in that cigar room.’ Or, ‘I’m going to bring my staff here to the hall for our preseason sales preparation. They’ll have a meal, they’ll have a great time.’ Or, ‘We’re going to bring our cousins from overseas and have a wine tasting and a little meal, it’ll be great!’”
“Soon guests will be able to descend down into the vineyard and have a picnic or a meal served among the vines. You can already go for a jeep ride among the fields and the vines, and feel the land, and then come back up for a wine tasting and a meal in the visitor center. We cannot have a full restaurant here to prepare raw food from scratch, by Health Ministry restrictions, because we’re on the edge of an industrial zone. That is why the kitchen is designed as a caterer’s kitchen. We are experimenting with various menus, and we do serve meat platters with cold cuts, spreads and the like – and our wood platters are actually made from used wine barrels by the amazing hands of one of our workers, Matan Roza (who has served over 400 days since the war began), adding to the ambiance (the presentation is beautiful, I saw it being served – BLS). We host regular tours of the visitor center where you directly enter the rooms with the vats and the barrels by catwalk, viewing them from above with no separation, as opposed to watching things through a window. So you’re smelling the wine, you feel the air, you see the people working and can talk to them. It’s a unique experience. On our VIP tours you descend into our deepest cellar with Matanya or another one of our winemakers and taste wines they (and they alone) draw directly from the barrels. Some rooms have chairs, others have couches or lounge chairs, a swinging hammock chair, or you’re outside on the spacious deck. There’s a range of environments to choose from, and to enjoy the wine, and the menu of meals and complements.”
BLS: “So you have a visitor center with staff largely sitting empty between events because there are far fewer visitors, less wine being made than the potential, and actually the investment in growing, infrequent manpower, and delays costing even more loss. What keeps you going?”
AL: “Let me give you the most recent example. Yes, because our staff are in and out of the army everything takes more time. That is directly attributable to the war effort but we wouldn’t change a thing. I was working and an officer came in. I said, ‘I am Amichai, I am very busy because no one is around, how can I help you?’ He said, ‘You have been sending care packages to the wives and families of your staff member’s units, and I had to personally come and thank you.’ ‘That’s very nice,’ I said, ‘but give me my worker back!’ He said, ‘I can’t spare your worker back. Units from Gaza to Lebanon fight to have his attention and time, and fly him back and forth. He solves challenges that no one else can.’ And he showed me some classified images of how my worker has saved lives, helped recover hostages, and find solutions on the battlefield. That keeps us going.”
You can see the pride on Amichai’s face as he says it, but that’s why he is ready to continue absorbing what it takes to pay full salaries to all of his staff. Although the government covers part of the core salary, it does not cover all the ancillary aspects of a paycheck, like pension plans, the cost of having a car and so on. Amichai says, “So I should keep the car here and it does nothing? Let him get use it to get quickly to Gaza and back so he can at least spend some time at home with his wife and children!” The level of ongoing faith in this business’ operation is inspirational to say the least, and deeply moving and cause for much thought.
BLS: “From a business perspective, again, a spanking-new visitor center is open and not realizing its potential. To me, it is a sad story. What is the hope?”
AL: “There’s so much to do around here. Visiting Tel Shiloh is an unforgettable experience; you feel the presence of the Mishkan through the archaeological remains and the media they have created all over the site. Shimshon and Boaz at next-door Shiloh ATV have reopened, and Shimson opened a spa and pool nearby. There are craftspeople here like Suri Prowisor who does workshops and her husband Marc who paints and hosts people in his studio. There are hikes here in Nachal Shiloh and the area, there are springs here. The adjacent industrial area has tefillin making, an escape room experience, the Achiya olive oil factory and other eateries. The nearby hilltop communities around Shiloh offer a range of experiences and lodging, and the valleys and hills covered with vines and olive trees are simply stunning.”
“Now that more airlines are flying again, we hope that this summer we will be packed with visitors and that people include a visit with us, a celebration, a moment for a lechaim with us in the visitor center. Our hostesses Revital More and Aura Metzger do a fantastic job of putting people at ease and ensuring they have a great time. Want to be hosted by a winemaker? That is what Matanya does. And we will of course have a sukkah and enable people to come and enjoy Sukkot in Shiloh!”
“But let me give you also an ideological answer? We are part of a continuum of Am Yisrael. A popular saying in Israel is Am HaNetzach lo mefached mederech aruka, the nation of eternity does not fear a long path, which Rabbi Yehoshua Weitzman coined based on Rav Kook’s writings. It is a very empowering view, and even secular Israeli politicians have adopted it when they want to broadcast our resilience. Coupled with that is a principle rooted in a story Jews learn in early childhood, that the more the Egyptians afflicted us, the more we multiplied. So handling financial challenges as part of being a nation on that path? Bring it on, we only become stronger.”
BLS: “I am not on that operating level personally, but I hear you, and more importantly, I see it in action over time. Now tell me about new wines that are forthcoming?”
AL: “This past year was the worst drought that I can remember! And yet, the produce has been amazing! On our Legend line of blends, we had earlier named them Honi and Fiddler. For some time now, we have wanted to introduce a broader set of names that would resonate and be educational as well. While we were thinking of it beforehand, seeing the people of this country respond as one together, steadfast against our enemies, joined by the Jewish people around the world; but especially seeing those who go into the battlefield and come back out to manage their private lives and businesses, to advance in society and in their education – and then go back in to fight – literally having to change their identities back and forth – perhaps that was the final touch that made us move to the courageous brave fighters and entourage of David, King David, who are enumerated in the books of Samuel and in Divrei Hayamim/Chronicles (I 11:11ff). The Rabbis explain the underlying intent and meaning of their names and the lives that they led. Adino HaEtzni (Sam II 23:8), a name attributed to characteristics of David himself (Mo’ed Katan 16b), made himself soft and flexible to learn in the study hall and then tough as wood on the battlefield.”
“So Adino HaEtzni is the former Fiddler blend of Petite Syrah, Petit Verdot, and Shiraz, and very full-bodied and aromatic. Ittai ben Rivi (Sam II 23:29) is what people knew as the Honi blend, made of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Malbec, 16 months in the barrels, very rich and spicy. Ira HaYa’iri was a cohen to David (Sam II 20:26), a great scholar (Gitin 59a), and his Torah teacher (Eruvin 63a, Moe’d Katan 16b). Our Ira is a totally new wine, a complex blend of Carignan, Grenache and Barbera. What I wanted to accomplish here was to make a nice, elegant, complex and multileveled wine, yet light and not heavy, without being big and powerful. So this is the first new addition to the Legend line, with more to come.”
“It’s hard for people outside of Israel to understand the transformation that has happened in now our society. The youth that we thought was the shallow Tik-Tok generation wasting their lives, pulling themselves off of mountains in Asia and getting on planes to come and fight. The risks that people took to save people under fire. The strength of the wives and even the male spouses at home, because sometimes the wife is in the army in various positions, and what the children go through. Regular people suddenly being battlefield heroes or saving people from terrorists at home; world news and Time Magazine featuring relatives of hostages and freed hostages – the nations of the world saying look at this people, look how they speak!”
“The nature of the Jewish people is such that since Abraham, who had to fight and save Lot, Yaakov, who had to fight, David HaMelech, whose learning was legendary and whose fighting was legendary, and Matitiyahu who was the high priest, together with his sons, not one of whom died in their beds – all went to fight with all of their spiritual power, because they understood that life was not worth living without the Torah, and without the ability to have the Torah actualized in life. People have an impression, like the character in Chaim Nachman Bialik’s poem ‘HaMatmid,’ that somebody who learns by definition is pale, does not see the sun and has no force and energy. And yet even such a person has to fight! The rabbis say in the Talmud (Sotah 10a) that Shimshon, Samson, was lame in both legs, and yet did what he had to do. I find that when somebody works very hard in the study hall, they work very hard and are energetic at work, and when somebody’s very devoted to work, they’re very devoted in the study hall, and that’s part of the message that I want to share. This is bravery, it’s Magen David, the protective shield of David, and that’s part of Pinny Mizrachi’s artistic work on these bottles, to have that message. Safra veSaifa, the book and the sword (Avoda Zara 17a). That is a Jewish value, that is a value of the people of Israel. The builders of Nehemiah built Jerusalem’s walls, but had their weapons ready to defend against any attacks. To live here in Eretz Yisrael now, we need Gevura, we need that constant courage, that resilience, that staying force and steadfastness, and that readiness to stand up. And our people on the whole have shown that we have it.”
“And then there are the people who the moment they grasped what happened simply dropped everything and now live and breathe Israel – even at the cost of managing their business and losing customers because of their stand to help and support Israel: Gabriel Boxer of Kosher Guru, Jamie Geller using her fame from the world of cooking, actor Michael Rapaport constantly here instead of Hollywood, Glen Golish of G Wealth Strategies, Elizabeth Savetsky, Yehuda Honickman, all the people coming through the One Israel Fund team with Scott Feltman and Eve Harow, Aba and Pamela Claman of Thank Israeli Soldiers and Momentum, and other groups that have sprung up out of nowhere ,like Terri Wortzman Ackerman, who created Terri’s Angels sending duffel bag after duffel bag of equipment, Boots for Israel raising over two million dollars’ worth of boots so far – they are anonymous on their website so I will not reveal their names – and many others, and many more friends and family that worked with me that prefer to stay anonymous. Am Yisrael Chai, everyone standing strong, they are the Magen David. We need both the shield of David and the slingshot and sword of David, all together. Everyone I hope that sees these bottles on the shelf, whether here in Israel or overseas, will absorb that message of Safra veSaifa. We need the people with great learning to express those values, and to be with real Torah values in the battlefield and off the battlefield, and making judgments and decisions based on their learning, and their ability to stand up for and share the values they understand more deeply than others.”
“The Rambam talks about how the king of Israel goes out with a Torah scroll everywhere (Melachim 3:1), including when he fights. He has to uphold the truth, ferret out injustice and evil and break down the power of evildoers, do justice and lead us in war (4:10). We have to stand up, not to look for how we’re going to pass things by and keep everything quiet. And we’re on the front lines of history today, we are the players on stage representing these values, invited to speak to and with heads of state. That’s what this line of Giborei David, the brave people of David’s entourage, that’s what this line is meant to express. Legendary indeed.”
BLS: “Thank you. I have to digest that. Could you review with me the structure of Shiloh wines, so I can better follow the conversation?”
AL: “Let me first say that this past year was the worst drought that I can remember, and yet, the produce has been amazing! ‘Privilege’ is our entry level, followed by a wonderful series of white wines and a rosé. Then comes the single variety Shor series, the bull, the blessing of Joseph. Next is the Legend blend series who bear the names of David’s heroes. The Secret Reserve series is above that. I have a wonderful problem with this series – the Cabernet Sauvignon has won such renown that people call that the Secret Reserve and lose track of the other wines in the series which are as good or better in my humble opinion, like the Cabernet Franc and Merlot Secret Reserve. I have to constantly correct my dealers and many individuals. We then come to Mosaic and Mosaic Exclusive – Mosaic is the winery’s current flagship wine series which demands exceptional quality grapes and more time and workhours to process.”
BLS: “Seven levels, not every year, and another once every 7 years. But tell me what you have planned for the future; you hinted and I sense that there’s something else on your mind?”
Amichai leans back in the lounge chair and looks out with a gleam in his eye, then turns to me and shares his heart:
“For years and years, I have been wondering what makes a wine expert award a wine with a grading of a 100 score. No Israeli wine has yet gotten 100. I have gone to Napa Valley to vineyards and wineries, not through the front door but around back with the winemaker, and tasted wines (professionals are allowed in Jewish law to taste and spit out), and speaking to wine experts. I even hired outside consultants. We hit a 96 and have been getting 90+ locally and internationally for some time (see some awards here). I heard an Israeli wine made 97, but none 100.”
“In 2019 I thought I had it in some barrels, I put them to the side”—I interrupted, “You started production in 2005, this is 14 years in?” He thought for a moment. “Yes, yes, true. So I bottled them without labels and they’re waiting. In 2020 I thought some barrels had it, and I bottled those also without labels and they’re waiting. In 2021 and 2022 I didn’t have anything but I learned a lot. You learn from failures, you learn from constant experimentation, you learn from it even if it isn’t ‘successful’. Remember that Thomas Alva Edison found tungsten on his 800th try. In 2023 I felt that some of it had it, and I put those aside, but I’m not sure yet; 90% it looks like it. In 2024, this past season, I think it’s possible I also have some that are on this level; we’ll wait and see. But in the meantime, if everything works out before the Rosh Hashana season starts, this summer I will label and release the 2019 and 2020 special bottles with a new name. They are definitely an eighth quality level. And we shall see….”
BLS:” I truly appreciate your stamina, your vision, and your nonstop hard work, and your dream of achieving higher perfection, I really do. I want to say something sensitive and I already tried once for an answer, so let me please introduce it. You took your dream to the next stage and made a center – you explained to me how the get-go decision at founding was that all profits would be plowed back in to make better wine, getting this piece of equipment, shooting nitrogen through the pipes instead of oxygen and manufacturing your own nitrogen – crazy stuff that only much larger wineries in the world would do. We covered that several years ago (here) and it keeps on going. There were not even decent chairs for visitors to sit on in the winery. When you felt a certain level was achieved, you moved to make the center to broaden the impact of the wine and to focus also on the wine country, and bring people here with a memorable impact, imbued with the love of the land and what it expresses. My compliments from the depths of my heart, really. But we are currently at war, you are paying salaries to winemakers and center operators, people are buying the wines you make, but the financial losses are real. The center is not a white elephant, it is right on target for what is needed, that I say as a tour guide – it is a Cadillac, a Rolls-Royce, it raises the bar in Israel, it fits the wonders of this location, and some events are happening. But so few people are using it in proportion to the outlay, and realizing its potential to justify the investment. How are you handling this, how can you keep going?”
AL: “It is really not my vision to start with, it is just that you’re seeing me here on the ground. About twenty years ago I was injured and could not do construction, which was my business. At a chance meeting (here), Dr Mayer Chomer of Mexico invited me to be his winemaker. I thought, what could I lose? (More on Amichai’s personal journey and vision can be found here). Mayer brought me and drew me into this, with his deep conviction and belief that this region where the Bible speaks about wine making as part of life here, and of God’s blessing, has to embody that potential, if it would only be drawn out. The Bible and Talmud see fruits growing in Israel as heralding the onset of Israel’s redemption; ‘There is no greater open [sign]that the end is in sight’, which Jews around the world are learning this very week (Sanhedrin 98a). There are specific verses about wine growing again in the Shomron (Yirmiyahu 31:4) and about the blessing in Joseph’s land (Deut. 33:13-16). The people are coming home again, it is time to rise to the potential of these promises, gradually, slowly, but to do what is in our hands. Dr. Chomer founded this winery – and put his father Simon’s name on the bottles to honor him, his own name does not appear at all. Mayer backed the creation of this visitor center, and the fact that as Elton John sings, “We’re still standing,” is a credit to his integrity and to his belief that we are making a difference here for the whole people of Israel. Not just for ourselves, not just for this region. And, we both believe our wine carries an important message –and we are certain, we have no doubt, that the visitor center will be the flagship of that message in due time.”
“We are all part of a national crisis now, we are fighting for our very lives, and we are uprooting entrenched threats and deep infrastructures that were set in position to hurt us, and actually, to eradicate us. Some have openly called it Israel’s second war of independence. I have lost friends; I have friends that have lost their children. Even as we speak in this quiet calm room, we still have family, very good friends, and workers on the frontlines in three countries – at least. People living overseas do not really see it, do not really perceive and experience the glue that binds the whole nation together, the whole people crying together at one moment and gasping in happiness at another moment because of what happened to people we have never met. Yet we are all stronger, as Avery Ron and so many others embody. We are being forged anew as a people, yes, in fire, but forged anew, with renewed strength and vision. We are all in this and we are not stopping now. We here, this little group of people working the land, the grapes, the barrels and the bottles, breaking out to wipe out evil and defend our people, or supporting the families of those of us who are doing that, we are going to go forward on the battlefield and invest ourselves in the nitty-gritty of progressing in the vineyard and in this center. And yet believe me, we smell the success percolating, like Joseph smelled the sweet smells all around him even as he was being taken captive by camelback to Egypt; there are good things coming, on the way. And it’s a pleasure and an honor to be working with such a man.”
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Rabbi Barnea Levi Selavan is Foundation Stone CoDirector www.foundationstone.org; running programs that teach Israel and its heritage in many forums, in the field, in museums, online, and overseas in schools and communities. Barnea is a licensed archaeologist and tour guide, Tel Aviv U. PhD Candidate, writer and editor. This onsite interview was conducted on Shiloh Winery’s behalf during Adar 5785, March 2025.