Winemaking between the claims of the local and the international in late Ottoman and Mandatory Palestine (1860s–1948)

Abstract

Wine-making estates in the late Ottoman and Mandatory period shed light on the relations between land, know-how and nationalism which have shaped up alongside the Arab-Zionist, then Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The dynamics explaining the growth of the estates were grounded primarily in the changing commercial settings of Palestine between the Ottoman and the British mandate periods, with a shift from more quality-oriented production to everyday, low end or mid-range production. In the process, indigenous taste was discarded as of low market value, due to the domination of the increasingly globalized wine market by European wineries. As a result, pressure to adopt European standards of vinification and quality came from various quarters. The article examines to what extent this is due to the anticipation of estate founders, global commercial dynamics, the support government and public debt administrations for the main wineries of the country, and the influence of the nascent international sphere.