In vino veritas? Indigenous wine and indigenization in Israeli settlements

Abstract

In recent years, wineries have proliferated in Israel’s West Bank settlements, some of which are now producing world‐class wine. However, growing grapes and making wine in this context represents more than simply commercial viticulture. These wineries are part of a trend to re‐establish ancient Jewish winemaking practices, which fosters the imagination of returning and reconnecting to biblical sites. Moreover, high‐tech grape science is now being employed to engineer wines from so‐called indigenous varietals to create a wine identity for Israel. Some religious settlers regard these developments as the fulfilment of a messianic biblical prophecy. This pursuit of indigenous wine thus bolsters a religiously inflected historical imagination of indigeneity that naturalizes the Jewish presence in this contested territory. This article shows that claims to authentic indigeneity emerging from viticulture entangle high‐tech grape science, biblical prophecy and an aesthetic connection to the land so that indigenous wine and an indigenous identity are co‐produced in a mutually constitutive process.