Ancient terraces still shape the land where wine has grown for thousands of years
In the Jerusalem Hills and Judean plains, where stone-carved winepresses predate written history, Israel's Mateh Yehuda region opened its 28th annual wine festival on June 4th — inviting visitors not merely to taste, but to step into a living continuum of cultivation. Across 40 wineries and 64 communities, the festival has grown into something the ancient terraces themselves seem to anticipate: a gathering where heritage, agriculture, and human ingenuity are poured into the same glass.
- A region of half a million dunams is throwing open its doors across three June weekends, and the demand is for more than wine — visitors want immersion in a landscape shaped by millennia of cultivation.
- Forty wineries ranging from boutique family farms to operations producing 400,000 bottles annually are competing for attention, each offering a distinct entry point into the region's character.
- Beyond the glass, the festival is anchored by a widening ecosystem — armored history at Latrun, monks tending monastery vineyards, organic mushroom farms, Colombian coffee roasted in a moshav, and kosher burgers built entirely from Israeli ingredients.
- Overnight stays in vineyard cabins signal a deliberate pivot toward the wine-country hospitality model of Tuscany and Bordeaux, positioning Mateh Yehuda as a destination rather than a day trip.
- The festival is landing as a proof of concept: that an agricultural community can welcome the world without surrendering the working rhythms that make it worth visiting in the first place.
The Mateh Yehuda wine festival opened June 4th at Yad La-Shiryon in Latrun, drawing visitors into a region that has quietly become one of Israel's most compelling culinary destinations. Now in its 28th year, the celebration spans three weekends across the Jerusalem Hills and Judean plains, with 40 wineries offering tastings, winemaker meetings, and live music — but the real invitation is to something larger.
The region's half-million dunams hold 64 communities and a winemaking tradition that predates modern statehood by millennia. Ancient terraces still scar the hillsides; stone winepresses and cave cellars remain as evidence that today's vintners are working within a continuum stretching back to biblical times. That depth of history gives even a casual tasting a different weight.
Latrun itself anchors the experience. The Armored Corps Museum — housed in a former British police station that saw fighting in Israel's War of Independence — displays over 150 tanks, including a Cromwell stolen from British warehouses in Haifa in 1948, among the first vehicles in the IDF's armored corps. Across the road, a 19th-century monastery surrounded by vineyards still produces wine, brandy, and vinegar for its monks.
The wineries span a wide range. Ella Valley produces 400,000 bottles annually and draws Friday crowds with food and a DJ. Underdog Vineyards offers intimate tastings with bread and cheese in the heart of a blooming vineyard. Mettler, a boutique family farm in Moshav Agur, goes furthest — five overnight cabins overlooking the vines bring the Tuscan model to the Judean plains.
The surrounding food culture has grown to match. A Srigim coffee roaster sources beans from Colombian and Ethiopian family farms through a knowledge-sharing arrangement. A hobby distiller now produces liqueurs from dates, figs, and pomegranates. An organic mushroom farm sells home-growing kits. A backyard Argentine grill and a locally sourced kosher burger joint round out a food scene built on the same principle as the wine: rooted, particular, and quietly serious.
What the festival ultimately offers is not a theme park version of agricultural life but access to a community that has learned to share itself without losing its essential character — ancient terraces, working monks, young entrepreneurs, and all.
The Mateh Yehuda wine festival opened on June 4th, drawing visitors into one of Israel's most productive wine regions with a promise that stretched far beyond the glass. Forty wineries across the Jerusalem Hills and Judean plains were throwing open their doors for the 28th iteration of an annual celebration that had grown into something closer to a full regional experience—part harvest festival, part heritage tour, part culinary pilgrimage.
The region itself is vast and varied. Mateh Yehuda's half-million dunams encompass 64 communities, a patchwork of moshavim, kibbutzim, and Arab towns that gives the landscape its particular texture. What draws most visitors, though, is the wine. The terroir here is excellent, and the tradition runs deep. Ancient terraces still visible on hillsides, some built during biblical times, speak to how long grapes have grown in this soil. Winepresses carved into stone, caves that once stored wine before electricity existed—these aren't museum pieces but reminders that the current generation of winemakers is working within a continuum that stretches back millennia.
The festival itself unfolded across three weekends in June, anchored by an opening event on June 4th at Yad La-Shiryon in Latrun. The program mixed tastings, guided winery tours, meetings with winemakers, and live music. But the real draw for many visitors was the chance to build a full day—or several days—around the region's expanding ecosystem of food, agriculture, and heritage attractions.
Latrun itself offers a natural starting point. The Armored Corps Museum, housed in a former British police station that saw fierce fighting during Israel's War of Independence, displays more than 150 tanks and armored vehicles spanning from World War II through the Lebanon War. The collection includes M4 Shermans that formed the backbone of the early Israeli armored corps, captured Russian T-series tanks from multiple conflicts, and a British Cromwell—one of only two stolen from British army warehouses in Haifa in 1948 by pro-Israel soldiers, making it among the first vehicles in the IDF's armored corps. Admission runs 20 to 30 shekels depending on age, with family tickets at 100 shekels. Just across the road sits Latrun Monastery, built in the late 19th century and surrounded by hundreds of dunams of vineyards that still produce wine, brandy, and vinegar for the monks.
The wineries themselves vary widely in scale and approach. Ella Valley, founded in 1998, now produces around 400,000 bottles annually from 800 dunams spread across three communities. Their tasting room offers four wines for 80 shekels, with Friday afternoons drawing crowds for a fuller experience that includes food and a DJ. Underdog Vineyards, newer and smaller, sits in the heart of a vineyard at peak bloom and offers tastings with bread and cheese for 140 to 160 shekels per person. Mettler, a boutique operation run by Heinz and Lea Mettler on their family farm in Moshav Agur, goes further—visitors can stay overnight in one of five cabins overlooking the vineyard, a setup that mirrors the wine-country hospitality of Tuscany or Bordeaux.
Beyond wine, the region has cultivated a reputation for agricultural innovation and artisanal food production. Agrocafe, based in Srigim, roasts coffee beans sourced from family farms in Colombia and Ethiopia through a knowledge-sharing arrangement that improves farming practices in exchange for part of the yield. Even-Ram Winery, started as a hobby 15 years ago by Itzik Even-Ram fermenting fruit from his Jerusalem garden, now distills liqueurs from dates, figs, pomegranates, cherries, and other Israeli produce. MUSHROOM, an organic farm in Moshav Tzafririm, grows specialty varieties under sterile conditions and sells home-growing kits. The Argentine Grill in Srigim, run by Yael and Avi Rosenboim, serves grilled meats and vegetables from a professional parrilla in their home's yard. Burger Road, opened by two 27-year-olds, sources entirely from Israeli ingredients and operates as a kosher restaurant.
What emerges from this landscape is less a wine region in the traditional sense and more a working agricultural community that has learned to welcome visitors without losing its essential character. The festival serves as an entry point, but the real draw is the chance to spend time in a place where ancient terraces still shape the land, where monks still tend vineyards, where young entrepreneurs are building food businesses rooted in local sourcing, and where you can taste wine made from grapes grown in soil that has been cultivated for thousands of years.
Notable Quotes
Visitors can stay overnight in cabins near the winery, just like in the wine regions of Tuscany, the Rhone Valley or Bordeaux— Description of Mettler Winery's overnight accommodations
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why does a wine festival in the Jerusalem Hills matter now, in 2026? What's changed?
The region has always made wine, but it's become something more intentional. Forty wineries operating together, plus all the farms and restaurants—it's not just about the product anymore. It's about showing that you can build a life here, that agriculture and tourism can coexist without destroying what makes the place worth visiting.
The source mentions ancient terraces and biblical wine-making. Is that just marketing, or does it actually shape what happens today?
It's real. Those terraces aren't decoration. They determine where water flows, how grapes ripen, what the soil composition is. A winemaker in Mateh Yehuda isn't starting from scratch—they're working within a landscape that's been shaped by thousands of years of the same activity. That's terroir in the deepest sense.
You've got monks making wine, young entrepreneurs making burgers, coffee companies working with farmers in Ethiopia. How do those pieces fit together?
They don't, really—not in any obvious way. But they all exist in the same place, and the festival creates a reason for people to encounter all of them in one trip. A visitor might taste wine at Ella Valley in the morning, tour the Armored Corps Museum at Latrun, have coffee at Agrocafe, stay overnight in a cabin at Mettler, and eat at Burger Road. It's not a curated experience so much as a landscape where many things are happening at once.
The region covers half a million dunams and 64 communities. That's enormous. Why does it work as a single destination?
Geography helps—it's compact enough to drive between places in an hour or two. But mostly it works because the communities have decided to participate. The festival isn't something imposed from outside. It's local people opening their homes and businesses because they want to share what they've built.
What's the risk here? Does tourism change a place like this?
It already has. But the question isn't whether tourism happens—it's whether it happens on terms that the people living there can accept. A winery that opens for tastings on weekends is still a working farm. A couple hosting an Argentine grill in their yard is still living their life. The festival creates structure around that, which can actually protect the place from more invasive forms of development.