A bottle of Carmel tells a story most people have never heard.
Founded in 1882, during the Ottoman Empire. Its wineries in Rishon LeZion and Zikhron Ya’akov were among the most advanced in the region, introducing electricity and telephones long before they became commonplace.
Cuttings came from Lafite’s nursery, and leading agronomists from France advised the vineyards.
By 1905, Carmel was exporting wine across the Ottoman Empire, from Jaffa to Cairo, Damascus, and Beirut. In 1907, a young David Ben-Gurion even worked at the winery.
A detail many forget today: the term “Palestinian” in that era was often used for Jews living in the land:
Labels, newspapers, institutions, and businesses routinely used “Palestine” as a geographic term under Ottoman and later British administration.
These early Carmel bottles remain part of the story of modern Jewish revival in the Land of Israel.
🍷 History in a glass.