The Vintages
Five years of harvests. Each wine a chapter.
The Home Vineyard Harvest
The 2025 vintage is rooted in family and community. The grapes were donated by two neighbouring vineyards — my parents' home vineyard, and the vineyard of Uri and Orital Agmon, who grow next to them. Both families donated their harvest for the cause.
Two wines were made: a Malbec and a Viognier. Both are fully natural — no added yeast, natural fermentation only, and no preservatives. The wine expresses the land exactly as it is.
These wines form the heart of the Lasting Echoes project — a memorial for 18 young female soldiers who fell on October 7, 2023.
The bottom two photos show the 3 Vines Estate Winery Malbec vineyard.
The Winemaker's Turning Point
The 2022 Viognier was the vintage where everything changed. For the first time, I approached the harvest with a fully formed vision — I wanted to make a natural wine, free from added yeasts and chemicals, and let the grape speak entirely for itself.
Ten percent of the wine was made as an orange wine: the juice was left in contact with the grape skins, then blended back into the main fermentation and left to mature in barrel. The result was a wine of surprising depth and character — and the vintage that made me feel, for the first time, like a true winemaker.
Above is the harvest of the Viognier grapes for the 2022 vintage, beautiful grapes and amazing blazing Galilean August sun.
The Beginning
Everything started here. I harvested two varieties — a Petit Verdo and a Cabernet Sauvignon — intending to blend them. But when I tasted them separately, each wine had its own distinct voice. I decided to let them stand alone.
The proceeds from this first harvest were donated to cancer research. It was the inception of the Ben Barak Wine Initiative — the moment the idea became real.
The label of the Ben Barak Wine Initiative.
✦ Fun fact: I had originally set out to recreate Keren Naftali — a blend my father Yossi made in 2013, named after the mountain peak overlooking the Hula Valley, the Golan Heights, and the Hermon. The wine took a different path, but the inspiration remains.