Israel's desert wines gain appellation, offering tourism a reason to look south

For Dreyer, the announcement marked the culmination of years of work.

For those behind the initiative, however, the recognition is about much more than wine. It is about giving Israelis – and eventually visitors from abroad – a reason to discover a part of the country that has long been overlooked.

The recognition did not begin with wine.

The answer, she concluded, was jobs. And to create jobs, you need growth engines.

“If you don’t have a good job there, you’re just not going to last,” she said. “That’s not sustainable growth.”

The turning point came during a tourism conference in Yeruham, where Hod-Stroh overheard Israeli wine expert Guy Haran describing the growing international interest in wines produced under extreme conditions.

“He explained to me that in the wine industry there’s a lot of interest in unique wines that are very related to the terroir,” she recalled.

The idea immediately resonated – not because of the bottles themselves, but because of what they could bring with them.

Unlike many established wine regions, most Negev wineries are small family businesses producing only a few thousand bottles each year. Their future depends less on exports than on visitors willing to drive South, stay overnight, eat locally, and leave with a few bottles.

The wine, Hod-Stroh realized, could become the attraction that fuels the wider regional economy.

When the project began in late 2020, there was no unified Negev wine industry.

The Merage Foundation began mapping wineries and vineyards across southern Israel before establishing the Negev Wine Consortium, which encourages producers to work together rather than independently.

Not everyone was convinced.

“Some of them said, ‘I moved to the Negev because I wanted to do agriculture in the middle of nowhere and you’re coming to add me to a WhatsApp group?’” Hod-Stroh recalled with a laugh.

Gradually, attitudes changed.

The consortium grew from just over a dozen wineries and vineyards into a regional network. The 81 members received business support, marketing assistance, and opportunities to collaborate. A study tour to Italy’s Piedmont region proved particularly influential, exposing producers to one of Europe’s best-known wine regions and showing them what a unified regional identity could achieve.

“They came back as a family,” Hod-Stroh said.

Researchers were later brought in to document the Negev’s distinct terroir, establish formal boundaries for the wine region, and demonstrate its historical connection to viticulture. The process took roughly four years before the GI designation was approved.

Today, the Negev is only the second Israeli wine region to receive official appellation status after the Judean Hills.

For Dreyer, the recognition also challenges long-held assumptions.

“Up until now, the North and the Galilee area have been the recognized wine areas,” he said. “But a lot of those wineries in the North get their grapes from the Negev, which is a fact that not many people know.”

For Dreyer, the desert is not simply where the wine is grown. It shapes the wine itself.

His vineyard is biodynamic, planted on what was once a sand dune. No chemical fertilizers, herbicides, or pesticides are used. Instead, the focus is on building healthy soil and allowing nature to do the work.

“We attend to the ground, which in our case is a sand dune, and we turn the sand dune into soil.”

He believes the environment leaves its mark on every bottle.

“The desert has a very specific addition to the wine,” he said. “It has its own fingerprint.”

That sense of place is central to the new appellation.

The recognition follows research showing that wines produced in the Negev possess a distinctive profile linked to the desert’s climate, soil, and growing conditions. The region has more than 300 days of sunshine each year, with high temperatures, low rainfall, demanding soils, and dry air.

Researchers found that the Negev’s dry climate, abundant sunshine, and significant differences between daytime and nighttime temperatures create a unique terroir. The conditions allow grapes to ripen fully while preserving acidity, producing wines with a crisp, balanced profile distinctive to the desert.

Modern growers now combine that history with advanced irrigation and agricultural technologies to produce wine in one of the world’s most challenging environments.

For Hod-Stroh, that combination of history and innovation is precisely what gives the Negev its appeal.

“If we can prove to the world not only that we know how to grow food in the desert, but that we can create a whole tourist experience that cherishes the desert and protects the desert, that’s incredibly powerful,” she said.

The recognition comes as Israel continues trying to rebuild tourism following years of war and regional instability.

Hod-Stroh believes the Negev’s greatest opportunity lies closer to home.

Dreyer says he is already seeing more locals searching for Negev wineries and making the journey south.

“Because of the appellation, people are looking for us and finding us,” he said. “It’s now worthwhile coming to the end of the world.”

For Hod-Stroh, success will not be measured simply by bottles sold.

She hopes the designation encourages people to experience the Negev itself.

“Five years ago, if we said ‘Negev wine,’ people would ask, ‘What’s that?’” she said. “In five years, I want people to say, ‘I was there.’ That’s what I want to hear.”■