Golan Heights Israeli Settlement · Unspecified

Golan Heights Winery

Israeli cooperative winery on the Golan Heights plateau, farming 630 hectares at 400 to 1,200 metres elevation across 28 sites.

The producer

Golan Heights Winery was established in 1983 by four kibbutzim and four moshavim on the basalt plateau above the Sea of Galilee. The estate farms 630 hectares across 28 sites at elevations from 400 to 1,200 metres, a spread that allows meaningfully different ripening conditions within a single property. Winemaker Victor Schoenfeld, who trained at UC Davis and worked at Robert Mondavi and Champagne Jacquesson before joining in 1991, divides the fruit into roughly 450 blocks to track how altitude and exposure shape each parcel. Gamla, Golan, and Yarden correspond to different tiers and, broadly, different points on the estate's altitude curve.

Known for

High-altitude volcanic plateau viticulture in northern Israel

Notable facts

The story

New World of the Year

In 2012, Wine Enthusiast Magazine named Golan Heights Winery its New World Winery of the Year. The award placed an Israeli cooperative on the same list as producers from California, Australia, Argentina, and South Africa. For a winery founded by eight farming settlements on a volcanic plateau with no prior fine-wine export profile, the citation marked the first time the estate had been positioned publicly alongside producers from the established New World wine regions. The New World designation carried a specific meaning: this was not a regional category but a global one, and Golan Heights had been filed into it as a competing winery rather than as a curiosity from an unusual geography.

From the atlas

Golan Heights Winery

A cooperative winery founded by eight Israeli settlements on the volcanic plateau above the Sea of Galilee, farming 630 hectares across 28 sites from 400 to 1,200 metres in elevation.

At A Glance

RegionGalilee, Israel
AppellationGolan Heights
Main grapesChardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot
Signature wineYarden Chardonnay
Defining featureVolcanic plateau viticulture at elevations up to 1,200 metres

The Producer

The Golan Heights plateau rises sharply above the Sea of Galilee, and the vineyards planted here work at a different altitude from almost anywhere else in Israeli wine. Golan Heights Winery sits at the centre of that geography: a cooperative established in 1983 by four kibbutzim and four moshavim, eight settlements whose combined holdings gave the venture a serious land base from the start. Israel's third-largest winery by production scale, it markets its wines under three labels, Yarden, Golan, and Gamla, each representing a different range position. The winery earned recognition as Wine Enthusiast Magazine's New World Winery of the Year in 2012, a citation that reached buyers in markets where Israeli wine had little prior profile.

Place

The Golan Heights is a basalt plateau in northern Israel, sitting between the Sea of Galilee and the slopes of Mount Hermon. Vineyard elevations across the estate range from roughly 400 to 1,200 metres, a spread wide enough to produce meaningfully different ripening conditions across the 28 sites. At lower elevations the growing season is warmer and the fruit ripens with more weight. Higher up, the season stretches longer, acidity stays firmer, and the Chardonnay in particular takes on a cooler-climate character. The altitude spread is the primary reason the winery can produce both a structured Chardonnay and an approachable everyday red from the same general geography.

Soil And Site

The plateau is volcanic in origin, and the basalt-derived soils drain freely while retaining enough mineral content to influence the wines. The 630 hectares under vine are spread across 28 sites divided into roughly 450 individual blocks, a granular approach that tracks how small differences in elevation, exposure, and soil depth show up in the fruit. The Mount Hermon name on some labels points to the northern and upper reaches of the estate, where the volcanic soils are thinner and the growing season is the coolest.

Story

The winery released its first vintage in 1984, the year after its founding. In its early years it operated as a collective venture in a country without an established fine-wine culture, making international varieties on a plateau that had no track record as a wine region.

Victor Schoenfeld graduated from UC Davis in 1988 with a degree in Enology, then worked at Robert Mondavi, Preston Vineyards, and Champagne house Jacquesson et Fils before joining Golan Heights Winery in 1991. He became head winemaker in 1992. His California and Champagne training brought a focus on site differences that shaped how the estate began sorting fruit by block rather than by broad vineyard. The winery holds LODI RULES sustainable certification, a programme covering vineyard and cellar practices.

Vineyards And Cellar

The 630 hectares divide across 28 sites and roughly 450 blocks, a resolution fine enough to track what altitude and exposure do to ripeness across the estate. Elevations run from around 400 to 1,200 metres: the lower sites ripen earlier with more fruit weight, the upper sites produce grapes with firmer acidity and slower sugar accumulation. Block-level tracking lets the cellar team harvest each parcel at a different moment rather than pulling the whole estate at once.

Schoenfeld's stated winemaking principle is that a wine should convey a sense of place through flavour, aroma, and colour. For Yarden Chardonnay, oak ageing in French barrels adds texture without overwhelming the cool-climate fruit character. The winery's approach across all three labels is to treat altitude as the primary variable, assigning fruit to different range positions based on where it grows rather than blending across the elevation spread.

Wines

The three labels correspond to different tiers. Gamla sits at the entry level, offering approachable everyday wines. Golan occupies the middle range. Yarden carries the flagship wines, including the Chardonnay made from the estate's higher and cooler blocks. The label hierarchy means a buyer can work through the estate's range by climbing the altitude curve from which each tier draws its fruit.

Mount Hermon Red, bottled under the Golan label, is a red wine from Galilee built for early drinking: medium-bodied, soft in tannin, with ripe, generous fruit character. Yarden Chardonnay represents the upper tier, where French oak ageing and higher-altitude fruit combine for a more structured white wine.

In The Glass

Yarden Chardonnay opens with ripe lemon, melon, pear, and apricot on the nose, with floral notes and a background of French oak. The oak contributes texture and a light toasted quality without dominating the fruit; the cool-altitude growing conditions keep the acidity present and the finish clean.

Mount Hermon Red shows deep ruby colour with cherry, plum, raspberry, and blackberry on the nose alongside oak, vanilla, and earth. On the palate the tannins are soft, the body is medium, and the fruit reads as ripe and generous rather than tight or angular. It is a wine built around immediate pleasure rather than extended ageing.

A Bottle To Understand It

Choose Yarden Chardonnay. It is made from the estate's upper-elevation blocks, where the volcanic plateau produces Chardonnay with enough natural acidity to hold the oak in balance. The nose gives ripe lemon, melon, and apricot; French oak ageing adds a creamy mid-palate weight and a light toasted note on the finish. The wine shows what the Golan Heights can do with a white grape when altitude keeps the growing season cool and the cellar keeps the oak measured.

Anecdote

In 2012, Wine Enthusiast Magazine named Golan Heights Winery its New World Winery of the Year. The award placed an Israeli cooperative in a category that buyers typically associated with California, Australia, Argentina, and South Africa. For a winery founded on a disputed plateau by eight farming settlements with no prior fine-wine reputation, the citation was an external confirmation that the estate's altitude-driven approach to viticulture had produced wines credible outside Israel's domestic market. The New World designation was itself notable: it filed Golan Heights alongside producers from continents with established export profiles, not as a regional curiosity but as a winery competing on the same terms.

Final Word

Golan Heights Winery works a volcanic plateau at elevations few Israeli producers can match, and the wines across its three labels reflect how much altitude changes the fruit. The Yarden tier shows what that upper-elevation Chardonnay can produce when the growing season is long and the oak is kept in proportion.

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