British sanctions will impact wine imports and Israeli wineries in the short term, but will have little negative impact in the long term, two wine businesses told The Jerusalem Post.
On Tuesday, UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband announced an import ban on goods from "illegal" settlements in the West Bank. He was joined by 11 other countries that all introduced varying import bans or sanctions.
One of the most affected goods, if the ban goes into effect, will be wine from settlement wineries because they are well-labeled and exported in high numbers.
The Post reached out to Aaron Schapiro of London-based Arele's Kosher Wines, which stocks one of the biggest selections of Israeli and kosher wines in the United Kingdom.
'I'm imagining it will go very hard on us'
"We don't know [the impact] as long as things don't go into effect, but if it does, I'm imagining it will go very hard on us," Schapiro told the Post Tuesday.
He said that many Israeli wines stocked by UK stores are produced in settlement wineries - for example Psagot, Gush Etzion and Shiloh.
"If we can't import them, we will lose more than half of our inventory," he told the Post.
"The thing is, the consumers of these wines specifically want Israeli wines," he explained. "I don't know how far they'll go to find the substitute and to go to the French or go to the Italian. Maybe they will choose to buy just the Israeli wine that is not sanctioned, but that will be a very small amount of wineries.
"So in terms of the effect on our business, then then then then the turnover will be less sales - that's a massive impact."
Schapiro mentioned a friend who stocks Israeli wines in Belgium, which already announced a goods ban in July 2026.
"Some of the wine he is bringing in is from so-called occupied territory, and no one has stopped him. But it's a very risky situation."
Schapiro also raised the question of how Britain and the other boycotting nations will determine what wines to sanction and which are acceptable.
He explained that there are wineries that are situated in internationally recognized Israel, but which grow or obtain their grapes in the settlements, and vice versa. For example, commercial giants like Carmel and Barkan source substantial portions of their grapes or operate industrial park facilities in the West Bank and Golan Heights.
"So, how are you going to know what is coming from where? It's very tricky."
If it does go into effect, Schapiro thinks that importers of kosher settlement wine will be able to exempt it from sanctions by empathizing the religious necessity of having it.
Religious exemptions yield further complications for businesses
Miliband mentioned a religious exemption for imports, and kosher wines and grape juices are required for many Jewish practices and celebrations.
As a result, unfermented kosher grape juice for use at Jewish rituals like Seder or Kiddush is zero-rated for VAT, provided it is prominently marked in English as "for sacramental use only".
Schapiro suggested that kosher wine could be deemed 'for sacramental use' and therefore exempt from the ban. In fact, the same could be said for many, if not all, kosher products exported from Israel.
For these reasons, Schapiro told the Post he is not overly worried about the impact of the sanctions, and thinks it was mainly a political stunt.
"I believe it's something good is gonna come out of this," he told the Post.
The Post also spoke to Psagot Winery CEO Yaakov Berg. Psagot is the largest settlement winery, and exports about 60% of its wines, or around 350,000 to 750,000 bottles a year. Kedem Europe imports Psagot wines into the UK, and major supermarkets such as Tesco also stock them, along with smaller kosher stores like Arele's and Kosher Kingdom.
Berg told the Post on Wednesday that, in the short term, "it will hurt our business" but "in the long term, everything will be okay."
Berg acknowledged that wine is easier to sanction than other products because wineries directly label their products and where they come from, unlike a tomato, which could have been grown anywhere.
But Berg said he has been boycotted many times before, and has survived each time.
"When I started the winery 20 years ago, the first harvest was 3,000 bottles. Last year's harvest, we produced more than 1 million bottles. We really don't care about the boycotts; it's not going to affect us."
"We are proud Jews. We are not afraid of them. We are not going to change anything," Berg added.
Berg nevertheless lamented the sanctions for what they represent for him: pure antisemitism.
He told the Post that he has traveled much of the world, and almost everywhere he has been he has found British history - and "it's not such a nice history."
"Usually the British conquered the place, and then they took everybody as slaves, and it's [relatively speaking] not such a long time ago. The Jewish people, we have a history of 4,000 years here. The land that I'm growing my grapes on, and on which I have my winery, we have been here 4,000 years, and the British people did not even exist yet."
"Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob stood here 4,000 years ago. King David built his kingdom here exactly where I'm standing now, 3,000 years ago."
"And yet this is the only place the British people boycott. It is pure antisemitism. Antisemitism always starts like this. First, they say, we just want to mark the Jews. Then they say, " It's forbidden to buy from the Jews."
"We need to stand up and say: 'You just hate Jews. You just put it in a very nice package."
The longevity of the Jewish people is exactly why Berg is not worried. To those who wish to single out and harm the Jewish people, he has one message: "We are not afraid of you. We are much stronger than you. In 100 years, I'm not sure if England will exist, but I am sure that we will exist here."