When you think of Garagiste wineries, I would suppose that many would think of small wineries like Four Gates Winery, or the Weiss Brothers, and/or Jonathan Hajdu. Actually, the smallest winery I have visited recently, is the Katamon Winery. The winery gets its name from the fact that the winery is actually IN Katamon – an historic neighborhood in south-central Jerusalem. The wine maker Avital Goldner, started his winery in 2002 with some 300 or so bottles. Since then, he has grown the garagiste winery to some 1,800 or so bottles a year.

This is my 11th article on the wineries in the Judean Hills, and the Katamon winery may well be in the heart of the Judean Hills. The winery can be found in Jerusalem city proper, and may well be the only winery in the city limits proper. The Jerusalem Winery (newly opened), does exist, but it is on the outskirts of the Jerusalem in the industrial zone.

I called Avital and he was very kind to allow me to come and visit his winery. I got off the bus that took me to a park across the street from his home. I walked through/by the park and knocked on his garage door. Avital was there varnishing something for his daughter’s wedding – if I remember correctly. He grabbed some glasses and I followed him down into his machsan (storeroom/basement) which he has turned into his barrel and wine storage room.

This entire setup reminds me of another garagiste, in the Upper Galilee, called Nahul Amud, which is also a very small kosher wine producer. We visited them some 7 years ago, and the winemaker also had his entire winery is his home’s machsan

As we walked down to the storeroom, Avital showed us the steel tanks, in which he does his wine fermentation. As he opened his machsan, you could see the barrels and bottled wine aging in a humidified bliss. He laid out the machsan in a very ingenious manner to maximize every available square inch of the room. The barrels are stacked upon each other (using a barrel stand) and on top of that and to the left are bottles neatly stacked upon each other aging away until it is their time to meet their buyer. Read the rest of this entry →