The New Israeli Regional Wine Map — Corrected Transcript

The Kosher Terroir · Recorded 15 Sept 2026 · Guest: Noa Maoz · Host: S. Simon Jacob

00:08 — SIMON: Welcome to The Kosher Terroir.

00:11 — SIMON: I'm Simon Jacob, your host for this episode from Jerusalem.

00:15 — SIMON: Before we get started, no matter where you are, please take a moment to pray for the safe return home of all our soldiers.

00:25 — SIMON: If you're driving in your car, please focus on the road ahead.

00:29 — SIMON: If you're relaxing at home, please pour yourself a glass of wonderful kosher wine.

00:35 — SIMON: Sit back, relax, and enjoy.

00:35 — SIMON: It's really a pleasure to talk to you. You're a returning guest on The Kosher Terroir.

00:46 — NOA: I am honored.

00:47 — SIMON: This is from season two — episode 45. It was September 2024 that we spoke last.

00:54 — SIMON: Things have changed so much since then. We talked about vineyard site selection, rootstock, fighting leaf-roll virus, and everything else that was going on.

01:10 — SIMON: And I was pleasantly surprised to see the release of the regional wine map for Israel, which is just amazing.

01:24 — SIMON: So I'd like to talk to you about that today, if I can.

01:27 — NOA: Yeah, sure.

01:28 — SIMON: Okay, great. Let's start with a question a skeptic in a wine shop would ask.

01:36 — SIMON: Israel is smaller than New Jersey. Why isn't it enough to just say a wine is simply from Israel? What does the map give a wine — and the drinker — that the word "Israel" doesn't?

01:50 — NOA: It's a good question. I don't know New Jersey that much, but Israel is very small. Yet the changes we get in geology, climate, and soil types all happen very rapidly in a very small area.

02:18 — NOA: I assume this is because of our location — we're sitting on the Syrian-African rift valley.

02:28 — NOA: People who know Israel know we have elevations from minus 400 meters at the Dead Sea up to 2,500 meters on Mount Hermon. From that you can see there's a lot of change. We have a coastline that is extremely affected by the Mediterranean, and then we have a desert. So in a very small area there's a lot going on that eventually influences how vineyards grow.

03:08 — SIMON: It's amazing.

03:09 — NOA: So that's why we need it.

03:11 — SIMON: It's absolutely an amazing thing. New Jersey is almost a mono-climate. It's on the coast of the ocean and it even has some hills — nothing like Israel. It's pretty amazing how diverse the climate and everything else is here.

03:16 — SIMON: Next question. People in the industry have been talking about redrawing the map for at least fifteen years. IPEVO even published its own version in 2020.

03:48 — SIMON: What finally broke the logjam, and why did it end up taking eight years?

03:57 — NOA: I don't have a really great answer for that.

04:01 — NOA: I just know it's true that people have been talking about this map for way more than fifteen years — I think at least thirty.

04:12 — NOA: And, as you know how Israelis are, we have many, many opinions.

04:21 — NOA: Every wine region or winery had its own opinion about how the map should look.

04:30 — NOA: I think what happened with the publishing of the IPEVO map is that it was the first map that looked only at terroir.

04:39 — NOA: They put aside all the interests of the wineries and the different regions — how you make blends in the winery, what you would put on the label, the more commercial thoughts — and looked only at terroir, meaning the history, geology, climate, vegetation, all the things that define terroir. They made that map, and as soon as it was out there we could talk about the map again, but from a more professional perspective. There are still things you have to consider — obviously marketing, what the options will be for wineries to write on the label, what to do if you blend areas, and so on.

05:38 — NOA: You still have to consider all of that, but I think it pushed the map to be a more professional map — more committed to terroir, let's say.

05:52 — NOA: And the idea of what we did with the sub-regions and the top regions — I don't know if you define it that way in English.

06:03 — SIMON: You're doing a great job.

06:05 — NOA: It gives the wineries options.

06:08 — NOA: If we blend two areas from one general region, you can write that region on the label. If you blend from more regions, you just write "Israel."

06:19 — NOA: You have more options in what you can do with the wines, blending-wise, and what you can write on the label.

06:28 — NOA: And of course, if you want to highlight an area you're proud of, or getting great wines from, or working in — some wineries will be in the Golan and produce only grapes from the Golan; some will be in the Judean Hills; but some wineries will be sitting in Petah Tikva making wines from the Golan and from the Judean Hills, and they can label the products by area, or not.

06:58 — NOA: They can choose what to do.

06:58 — SIMON: Got it.

07:01 — NOA: So eventually it came down to that — there were more options, and everybody could see that more clearly. That was the result in 2026.

07:16 — SIMON: You've described very well how it was built — the committee and the criteria. Walk us through who was actually in the room. I know you were there, and Shivi Drori was there.

07:36 — NOA: There were two committees.

07:39 — NOA: One was a wider one, with representatives of the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Health.

07:47 — NOA: There were some legal people — lawyers from both of those government departments. There was Adam Montefiore, for instance, who gave more of the marketing aspect.

08:02 — NOA: There were a few winemakers who used to be in the industry, like Eli Salzberg [verify]. There was the lawyer who helped create the Negev and Judea appellations. So there were a lot of people, and everyone could give their perspective — obviously from the Wine Board as well, and so on.

08:33 — NOA: That was the wider committee, which discussed more the things of regulation, marketing, the general borders — things like that.

08:44 — NOA: And then there was what I'll call the professional committee. That was only six people.

08:50 — NOA: That was me, and like you said, Shivi Drori.

08:53 — NOA: And there were actually three people from the Ministry of Agriculture.

09:00 — NOA: One whose main work is soil conservation — he gave us all the aspects of the soils.

09:09 — NOA: There was Mark Perel [verify], who is very well known — he gives the forecasts for the agriculture industry.

09:20 — NOA: He's from the meteorological side, so he gave us all the climate data.

09:24 — NOA: And there was the head of the GIS department in the Agriculture Ministry.

09:30 — NOA: His name is Omer [verify].

09:33 — NOA: And there's Shimon Perminik [verify].

09:38 — NOA: He's again from the Agriculture Ministry.

09:42 — NOA: He's a viticulturist who works for the government, basically helping wine growers all over the country, so he knows the vineyards very well. That was the professional committee. We sat and discussed — as you saw in the presentation I gave at the conference —

10:05 — NOA: very deeply: soil, climate, where the border should be, where does it change, et cetera.

10:19 — SIMON: A question — Shivi Drori is best known for resurrecting indigenous grape varieties from archaeological seeds.

10:33 — SIMON: Did that perspective — the deep past of wine in this land — have anything to do with setting borders?

10:46 — NOA: No.

10:47 — SIMON: Okay. Just curious.

10:49 — NOA: No, because first, we're looking at what's happening now — where the industry is going now. You can see from the map where the main interest of the industry is.

11:04 — NOA: Where are the grapes actually growing?

11:08 — NOA: Again, in my presentation, which you can find on our website,

11:15 — NOA: you can see the percentages of how many vineyards are grown in every area.

11:21 — NOA: So we're really looking at today, and maybe at the future — where wine will grow in Israel in the future as well.

11:28 — NOA: But Professor Shivi — you can talk to him about it, obviously — they found indigenous grapes all over the country: from the Golan, the Galil, the valleys, all the way down to the desert. So there was wine history all over Israel.

11:46 — SIMON: Got it.

11:47 — NOA: So it kind of correlates, but we did not consider that in our discussions.

11:47 — SIMON: What was the single hardest argument inside the committee — the one that took the most meetings to settle? Any of these questions you don't want to answer, you can say, "You know what, I'll pass."

12:07 — NOA: I don't know, actually. I'm trying to remember.

12:10 — NOA: I don't think we had major arguments in the professional committee, because we all know the industry pretty well, and the country.

12:20 — NOA: If there were any arguments, they were really about where exactly the line should go.

12:25 — NOA: You know — is it 500 meters, or 550?

12:29 — NOA: We discussed a lot whether the Central Mountains should end at 500 or 550.

12:36 — NOA: It was things like that. It wasn't something major. Eventually we made the decisions, but it was nothing too dramatic.

12:47 — NOA: It's not like I can give you news headlines.

12:53 — NOA: We were pretty much in agreement.

12:56 — NOA: What was important for us was that we would be able to explain every sub-region. Why was it defined?

13:04 — NOA: Why did we choose to give it a sub-region?

13:07 — NOA: What are the characteristics of that sub-region?

13:10 — NOA: That was the work that was done.

13:13 — SIMON: Is there a way you can give us a tour of this — the eight regions and the eighteen sub-regions — and take us from north to south, and tell us for each region what makes it different from its neighbors?

13:27 — SIMON: Is that possible?

13:29 — NOA: That is like a forty-five-minute lecture.

13:38 — NOA: It's not in front of me, but I can try to do it from memory.

13:43 — NOA: So the general areas: the Golan, the Galil, Carmel, Central Mountain —

14:00 — SIMON: The Valleys, you call them — like the Jezreel Valley.

14:04 — SIMON: Then Carmel — the hilly Shomron and the Nadiv Valley — then the mountain slopes.

14:10 — NOA: No — Nadiv Valley is a sub-region.

14:14 — NOA: Carmel is the main region.

14:17 — SIMON: Carmel. Exactly.

14:18 — NOA: And then the mountain slopes.

14:21 — NOA: Then the coastal plain, the Central Mountains, and then the Negev.

14:30 — NOA: So those are the general regions.

14:35 — NOA: If you open the presentation and the maps, you'll see that every area has its own characteristics. Mostly we considered elevation. For example, the Golan and the Galil

14:50 — NOA: end on their lower sides at 300 meters.

14:55 — NOA: In the Golan it's the south and west sides; in the Galil it's the east and west sides. The Central Mountains end at 550 meters on all sides.

15:07 — NOA: The foothills are 550 down to 150.

15:12 — NOA: Then the coastline is the coastline — the coastal plain, we call it. And the Negev is mostly where it starts to be extremely dry, with minimal rain. The soil is obviously different as well, but that's the most dramatic issue there.

15:31 — NOA: And then the sub-regions — again, it's not a fast conversation.

15:37 — NOA: Every sub-region has its own characteristic, whether it's soil, climate, or elevation. We looked a lot at what we call, in professional language, Penman — it's like humidity, basically, but it's a combination of humidity and wind, and that gives the potential of the vine to lose water.

16:12 — NOA: So that's a main issue as well.

16:15 — NOA: You can look at the map and it's all written there —

16:19 — NOA: all the main characteristics. And in the presentation there are the specifics for every sub-region.

16:29 — SIMON: I'm going to pick one specific winery to ask a question about.

16:36 — SIMON: And I'm sure you'll realize which winery right away.

16:40 — SIMON: Yatir. It spent something like twenty-five years telling the world that its wine comes from the southern Judean Hills and from the Yatir Forest.

16:51 — SIMON: I guess one of the reasons you broke it into two regions — the Central Highlands and also the Negev — is so they could still talk about the Judean Hills if they wanted to, or the sub-region of the Negev if they wanted to.

17:15 — NOA: Well, no — the Negev is not a sub-region.

17:18 — NOA: The Negev is a region, but there's a Yatir Forest sub-region inside the Negev.

17:24 — SIMON: So they could either group into the Judean Hills or into the Negev, whichever way they decided?

17:31 — NOA: No — they can't go into the Judean Hills. They can go Central Mountain.

17:38 — SIMON: Central Mountains. Okay.

17:43 — NOA: The other thing that happened with this map: before it was published, there were two appellations that were already established and defined in Israel — the Negev and the Judea area.

17:58 — NOA: And we had a discussion about whether we were ignoring them or not.

18:04 — NOA: Eventually the decision was to leave those regions as they were — to adopt them, let's say — so that we wouldn't confuse the consumers, and actually the wineries as well.

18:24 — NOA: They could find themselves in a situation where they don't know what to write — should we use this or that?

18:29 — NOA: The consumers were the leading factor here — that we don't confuse the consumers.

18:36 — NOA: So basically the Negev borders are exactly the same as the Negev appellation borders. And the same for the Judea appellation, which is divided in two — Judean Hills and Judean Foothills. We adopted those borders as well. So they are identical on this map and in the appellation.

19:08 — NOA: And then all the rest just goes around them.

19:13 — NOA: But it's still very loyal to the principles of defining the area.

19:23 — NOA: So even in Yatir, we have Yatir Forest and Yatir Highlands — it's divided in two, and the border there is the border of the Negev.

19:33 — NOA: So they're divided in two because of the Negev border —

19:35 — NOA: but they do have differences. The Highlands are higher, there's no forest there, obviously, and the soils are a bit different. So it still made a lot of professional sense to divide them.

19:51 — NOA: So it wasn't just because of the Negev borders.

19:51 — SIMON: What about wineries that are in the Negev that don't seem to be covered by it?

20:04 — SIMON: I guess they fall into the Negev.

20:06 — SIMON: But it seemed like the map was focused on Arad and that area of the Negev.

20:15 — SIMON: What about something like Yeruham?

20:17 — NOA: Yeah — that still didn't get a sub-region. For sub-regions, the definition was, first, that it has at least 500 dunams planted in that sub-region.

20:32 — NOA: And again, that you can define the character of the region.

20:37 — NOA: We know there are still more developing areas in the Negev — in the area of Be'er Sheva there are some; Yeruham, like you said, a little bit; and now there's some planting in the western, north-western Negev, like the Otef Aza area.

21:00 — NOA: So things are still going on.

21:01 — NOA: The map was defined as not static, so sub-regions can be added.

21:10 — NOA: Of course, we have to write the criteria for that.

21:14 — NOA: But there will be an option to add more sub-regions. And the next step is to make — I don't know how to define it in English — sub-sub-regions.

21:26 — NOA: For example, we know that in the Judean Foothills there's a famous area called the Ella Valley.

21:36 — NOA: That can be defined as a sub-sub-region of the Judean Foothills.

21:43 — NOA: Or in the Galil, you can look at the Kadesh Valley, or whatever.

21:48 — NOA: Every region has its own examples of unique terroir inside that region.

21:54 — NOA: So that will also be the next step in the development of the map.

21:59 — SIMON: So is the group still together, developing?

22:06 — NOA: Yeah. We didn't set a timeline, but after the chagim — after the Jewish holidays — we will sit again, mostly to define the criteria for sub-sub-regions. And the idea there is that it won't come from the committee — it will come from the farmers, from the growers, from the wineries.

22:32 — NOA: If, in the Galil, there's a group of farmers — or wineries, or winemakers, it doesn't matter — who say, "Kadesh Valley is unique,

22:40 — NOA: and we want to make a petition for a sub-sub-region named Kadesh Valley" — or Ella Valley, or whatever.

22:56 — NOA: That is the idea.

22:57 — NOA: I don't know the timeline, but we're supposed to meet after the holidays to define that more, and publish it, of course.

22:57 — SIMON: How did the rule of 85% come up?

23:10 — SIMON: Why isn't it 100%?

23:12 — SIMON: Why isn't it 75%?

23:14 — SIMON: Is there somebody who actually checks it?

23:17 — NOA: They're supposed to check it.

23:19 — NOA: I think it's just a common number.

23:22 — SIMON: It matches the US.

23:22 — NOA: Yeah, exactly.

23:25 — NOA: It goes into a lot of GIs, and also in varietal wines — when you define a varietal wine, it's also 85%. Other countries that have similar systems are also using it.

23:40 — NOA: So I think they just adopted it.

23:42 — NOA: In the professional committee we didn't talk about that — it was more in the wider committee. But it just makes sense.

23:42 — SIMON: Got it. When a shopper in the United States is looking at a wine, or a shopper in Jerusalem is looking at a wine —

24:06 — SIMON: what should this map be able to do for them?

24:09 — SIMON: What is going to be different this week from a year ago?

24:19 — NOA: What we're hoping is that the map will encourage the wineries and the professionals — the winemakers, the viticulturists — to discuss the place more.

24:32 — NOA: It was already happening.

24:34 — NOA: Negev, Judea, the Golan — obviously most of the wineries in the Golan

24:40 — NOA: use grapes from the Golan and say it on the label.

24:43 — NOA: It was already happening with people in the Western Upper Galilee.

24:48 — NOA: People were writing it on the label.

24:50 — NOA: So it was already happening as is. But now it's also a legal thing — if you say it on the label, you will be checked, and you have to be committed to the truth, let's say.

25:04 — NOA: That's the first thing.

25:05 — NOA: And I hope that the more we put it on the label, the more consumers and wine lovers will start getting to know the influence of the place on the wine. Because with many wines in Israel at the moment, you're drinking it but you don't know where it's coming from.

25:23 — NOA: The wine can have certain characteristics, but you can't say whether it's because of the place, or because of the winemaking process, or the barrels, or whatever.

25:35 — SIMON: You're right.

25:35 — NOA: So, like in every other place, we want the place to affect the wine's taste.

25:46 — SIMON: You're a hundred percent right. Because people have a tendency, no matter where the winery is, to pull in grapes from the Golan, or from here or there. Even some of the wineries in the desert actually bring grapes from different parts of the country.

26:02 — SIMON: So being able to define that is actually really useful.

26:09 — SIMON: Really, really useful.

26:10 — NOA: Yeah. So now if someone in the Negev is bringing grapes from other places — of course that's okay, it's fine — but he won't be able to say "Negev."

26:19 — NOA: And if you say Negev and they test it and see there are grapes from the Galilee, that's an issue.

26:26 — NOA: So that's the purpose of this.

26:28 — NOA: If you say Negev, it's really from the Negev.

26:30 — NOA: If you say Golan, the grapes are from the Golan.

26:33 — NOA: And so on.

26:35 — NOA: And then we can start developing a language that speaks about the character of every area —

26:42 — NOA: what it brings to the wines.

26:44 — SIMON: So is the next step to go down to a real appellation system with quality tiers —

26:52 — SIMON: permitted varietals and yield limits?

26:56 — SIMON: Or is that not a road Israel should go down?

26:59 — NOA: I think it's too soon for us.

27:05 — NOA: Of course, wine has been made here for many, many years.

27:10 — NOA: But the professional industry — the one that's talking about varieties and terroir and so on — has basically been here for the last fifty years.

27:21 — SIMON: Right.

27:21 — NOA: And I can tell you as a viticulturist — and also as a winemaker — we are still learning what goes well where. We still haven't figured out the varieties: what are the best varieties for us, and where is the best place to grow, I don't know, Petite Sirah, or Chardonnay.

27:42 — NOA: So we're still learning it, and I think we're still a very young industry to start saying, "You can plant only this and this in the Golan or in the Galil, and you have to put it three years in barrels," and things like that.

27:56 — NOA: I think we're not at that stage. I'm not sure that we have to be at that stage. But we're far from that.

28:08 — SIMON: As an example, some of the new Israelis who have opened wineries in France are particularly not going along with the appellation system, because they're trying to do what Israel does best, which is to be creative, work on it, and innovate.

28:35 — NOA: A hundred percent.

28:36 — SIMON: It's great.

28:36 — NOA: Yeah, I agree.

28:39 — SIMON: The last time you were on the show, we talked about vineyard rootstock, site selection, and leaf roll.

28:46 — SIMON: This time it's the country.

28:49 — SIMON: Looking back, how does the map connect to that work?

28:53 — SIMON: Is a clean, healthy, well-placed vineyard a precondition for a map like this?

29:01 — NOA: I think at this point the map sheds light on what is happening in the industry.

29:11 — NOA: For instance, you can see from the data that basically half of the vineyards in Israel are located in the Golan and the Galil.

29:23 — NOA: So you can see what is happening and what the wineries are looking for — they want a specific elevation, maybe, or specific soils, or conditions that may be easier or give them better results.

29:41 — NOA: I don't want to say anything dramatic, but what we can see is where the industry is going and what it's looking for.

29:51 — NOA: And you can connect that to site selection: when you want to plant a vineyard, where do you think the best place will be?

29:59 — NOA: And what will be the characteristics you get from the wines if you plant in the Negev, or the Galilee, or the Judean Hills. So it's a start — it's the first steps, really baby steps in our industry, to try to understand where we should put what. There's still a lot of work to be done to have good answers to these questions.

30:24 — NOA: But I think it's a first step.

30:26 — NOA: At least it gives us structure to work around.

30:29 — SIMON: Which is incredibly important.

30:32 — SIMON: I know there are a number of winemakers, like Eran Pick, who are very focused on terroir.

30:39 — SIMON: And this is an ideal for that — it's a structure you can actually build things on.

30:49 — SIMON: So it's very special.

30:51 — SIMON: I know people have been talking about this for years, and it's exciting

30:56 — SIMON: that it's come about.

30:59 — NOA: Happening. Yeah, it really is.

31:01 — SIMON: I want to say one thing about you.

31:07 — SIMON: They seem to throw the most difficult problems at you —

31:12 — SIMON: like the leaf-roll problem, and what have you.

31:14 — SIMON: I don't know whether they threw it at you thinking, "Well, at least if she can't do it, it won't reflect on me."

31:22 — SIMON: And this, as well, is something people have been talking about for years and years.

31:26 — SIMON: To see your name associated with it, and that you're one of the movers and shakers in getting it done — it's incredible.

31:34 — SIMON: It's incredible to see.

31:36 — NOA: Thank you.

31:36 — SIMON: You're really special.

31:40 — SIMON: I'm serious. People should know that.

31:42 — SIMON: People should really know your name, because it's important.

31:46 — SIMON: One last question.

31:51 — SIMON: Give us one bottle, if a listener wants to taste the idea of this map —

31:58 — SIMON: one wine that tastes unmistakably of its sub-region,

32:03 — SIMON: that they'd want to open on Shabbat.

32:05 — SIMON: I'm only asking you tough questions.

32:08 — NOA: Wow, that is difficult.

32:10 — SIMON: Is there a bottle that somebody could open and think, "Hey — that is that sub-region"?

32:18 — NOA: I definitely think whites from the Golan — Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc — and Cabernet as well.

32:31 — NOA: You can definitely taste the Golan. But the same with Syrah from the Galilee, or, I think, Merlot from the Central Mountain — from the Samaria Mountains.

32:45 — NOA: If we go deeper — I don't want to name wineries — but I can tell you there's definitely a difference when you taste these things. Wine from the hills, like you mentioned — Pick — you taste his wines, and you taste a Bordeaux blend from the Golan, and it will definitely taste different.

33:14 — NOA: So try it.

33:15 — NOA: I think it's a nice game to try —

33:22 — NOA: the challenge of trying to taste the differences.

33:22 — SIMON: One of the best ways to drink wine, at least for me, is to compare. When you just drink a wine, it's very hard — some people have an incredible memory for wines.

33:42 — SIMON: I'm not one of those people.

33:44 — SIMON: But I can compare from one glass to another what I'm tasting.

33:49 — SIMON: And this map lays out a structure that will be fantastic to actually taste through.

33:49 — NOA: I think we will see it soon — tastings in wine shops and restaurants that are doing exactly that.

34:08 — NOA: We'll start seeing it soon.

34:11 — NOA: Wine lovers will come to taste the same variety, or the same blend, from different wine regions, and I believe they will see a difference.

34:25 — SIMON: I agree with you.

34:29 — SIMON: One of the problems with wine tastings today is that you go into a winery and they give you a white, a rosé, a lighter red — like a Rhône red — and then a Cabernet. You're tasting across all of their offerings, but there's nothing really to connect to.

34:50 — SIMON: There's nothing to hang on to when you taste wine that way.

34:54 — SIMON: But if you taste two Syrahs from different areas with very different terroirs, you can taste the difference.

35:03 — SIMON: You're actually learning.

35:06 — NOA: You're right, a hundred percent.

35:08 — SIMON: I think this lends itself to being an incredible tasting tool in the future.

35:16 — NOA: So I agree.

35:18 — SIMON: Noa —

35:18 — NOA: Goodbye — I'm sorry.

35:21 — SIMON: It was really interesting to talk to you.

35:23 — NOA: I have to go — I need to get my kids from school.

35:26 — SIMON: Go, go, go, go.

35:27 — SIMON: I know — kids run this country.

35:30 — NOA: Kids run this country.

35:31 — SIMON: Please be well.

35:32 — SIMON: Thank you very much for spending so much time with me.

35:34 — NOA: Yes, thank you very much.

35:35 — SIMON: Be well.

35:36 — NOA: Have a good holiday.

35:37 — SIMON: Bye-bye.

35:37 — NOA: Thank you.

35:38 — NOA: Shana tova.

35:49 — SIMON: This is Simon Jacob again, your host of today's episode of The Kosher Terroir.

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36:02 — SIMON: If you are new to The Kosher Terroir, please check out our many past episodes.