Vines with snow laden mountains

Golan Heights Winery

By Diann Bitker

During the Yom Kippur War in 1973, the Golan Heights was the scene of fierce battles between Israeli and Syrian troops. Today it is the prospect of a peace agreement which threatens the residents' peace of mind. Israel captured the strategic plateau from Syria during the 1967 Mideastwar, and later annexed it. The present Israeli government has indicated that it is willing to give back the heights in exchange for a peace treaty, but Israeli-Syrian peace talks, renewed last year, have stalled again.

Israelis love the Golan, a beautiful area dotted with gentle hills, the area's highest mountain, fruit groves, waterfalls and ravines. There are several dozen businesses operating on the Heights, built from scratch in a sparsely populated wilderness area: a major dairy farm, two cattle ranches and lots of apple orchards. There's a hot springs spa and alligator farm in the foothills. If the Golan were given up Israelis would also lose their only ski slopes and resort, and one of their few fine wineries.

The Golan Heights has turned out to be the Bordeaux or the Napa valley of Israel. The Golan Heights Winery is perhaps the best known brand name associated with the Golan Heights, producing some four million bottles of prize-winning vintages yearly. The winery, which is jointly owned by eight local kibbutzes and towns, (moshavim) was founded in 1983. It harvests 4,000 tons of grapes a year and produces some 300,000 cases of premium red, white, and sparkling wines under the Yarden, Gamla,and Golan labels, which win awards every year from the most prestigious international wine competitions. It boasts up-to- date crushing, pressing, and pumping equipment; 200 stainless-steel tanks thermostatically controlled by computer; and French-oak maturation barrels.

But even peace talks that have stalled or failed are an indication that some political movement is going on. This can make for a nerve-wracking life. The 18,000 residents on the Heights, generally speaking, teeter between normal life and abnormal anxiety about their future, and owners of businesses on the Golan Heights are contemplating their options.

But the Golan Heights Winery insists on conducting business as if there were no threat on the horizon. General manager Shalom Blayer says the winery has no intention of abandoning a major investment drive, despite the fact that its vineyards are likely to be handed over in any peace settlement with Syria. And they are pressing ahead with plans to expand the annual harvest and production, and increase the number of staff.

Blayer refuses to discuss what they would do should they actually have to face the unsettling prospect of having the company's home base on the Syrian side of the border in the not-so-distant future. Back in 1994, he explains, the situation was similar. Then there was constant talk of a deal, and a withdrawal from the Golan. People told him then that he had better start packing his bags, and hordes of journalists made pilgrimages north to ask him how he felt.

"I cannot tell you that we don't think about what will be doing if Syria takes over this area. We are thinking about it," Blayer declares, "but we're not talking about it. Because now we are at a junction where we are fighting to stay here and to continue to produce here. It will be a democratic fight, it will be a fair fight, but we will fight."

Golan Heights Winery Entrance	Winery Vines in an arid region

Another major firm here, the Mai Eden Mineral Water Company, is already looking towards a future outside the Golan Heights by buying European businesses, and has sold part of its company to a firm in California as a defensive move. The company reportedly has prepared alternative plans to relocate the main production facility elsewhere in Israel, or even to continue operating out of Syria. Whether a company came to the Golan for business or ideology plays a large factor in how it responds to the on-again off-again Syrian-Israeli talks. Shalom Blayer says that unlike Israelis who came to the Heights to make money, the owners of the Golan winery first settled in the Golan, and only then started looking for business opportunities. "The people who own this winery are not businessmen from Tel Aviv who came to the Golan Heights to establish a business. We built a whole life here. We are emotionally connected. This is our only home now."