The Varietals

When the vineyards of Kerem Ben Zimra were first planted in the 1970's they were planted predominantly with sauvignon blanc and a little cabernet sauvignon, unfortunately little thought was given at the time towards the economics or suitability of the varietals or the size of the vineyards planted. Vineyards were planted in small uneconomical blocks with a variety that wasn’t particularly suited the Israeli climate, but that is little surprise when you consider that the planting decisions were taken by bureaucrats with little accountability. Since then times have changed a little, wineries have become more pro-active in the planting decisions and have begun planting larger blocks of more commercial and site appropriate varieties.

At Dalton we began new plantings in the year 1996 by subsidizing farmers in the area to plant vineyards which we were then contracted to buy. This project had limited success as it faced two major problems. The first being the conflict of interest between the grower and the winery, the grower always wanting to maximize yields and thus revenue at the expense of quality and the winery wanting the opposite. The second problem was the honesty of the grower. As the Israeli wine industry began to find new impetus, new boutique wineries began to emerge. The boutique owners needing an immediate source of grapes would come up to the region during harvest and offer our growers cash to buy grapes. Tempted by the extra income the growers would sell our grapes to these cash buyers in preference to us. For many years our yield would be inexplicably low until we discovered we were being fleeced by the farmers whose vineyards we helped to plant.


As time passed we realized that individual contracts with small holding farmers did not work. In 1997 we began leasing land from some of the moshavim in the area and planting vineyards which were totally under our control. The two largest sites currently in our control are in Meron and Safsufa where we have planted Cabernet, Merlot, Shiraz, Sauvignon Blanc, Barbera and Zinfandel. The Barbera and Zin were small experimental plots and won’t be expanded. In addition we have some Chardonnay in Kerem Ben Zimra. 2006 and 2007 saw a further expansion of our vineyards and new varietals, after the shmitta (sabbatical) year of 2008 we will resume planting in 2009. In the years to come we will shed our weaker growers whose contracts come up for renewal and build stronger links with our better growers who have consistently brought us good quality at a reasonable cost.

The current varietals that the winery processes are: Cabernet, Merlot, Shiraz, Barbera, Zinfandel, Petit Sirah, Cabernet Franc Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Viognier and Muscat. Future additions will include Mourverdre, Grenache and Semillon.