Wine Tasting in Zikhron Ya'akov

By: Rebecca

Our latest Fulbright adventure was a half day trip to go wine tasting in the nearby town of Zikhron Ya'akov. The Haifa contingent met the our tour guide, Irma, and she drove us to meet the rest of the group at the Rothschild gardens. The gardens are apparently quite beautiful, but we did not go in. Instead we took a tiyul (hike/nature walk/excursion) in the nature reserve adjacent to the gardens.

View of the valley from the edge of the Carmel Mountains

Pomegranate tree in bloom

It was a gorgeous day and it was nice to be outside. Much nicer than Monday when we had yet another dust storm. There is a very cool aqueduct  which brings water to the nearby city of Caesarea. Irma told us there is a hike that follows the aqueduct underground.  I've put that on the to-do list especially when it is hot out this summer.

After the tiyul, we went to the Tishbi winery. Tishbi – an acronym standing for “a resident of Shefeya in Israel” in Hebrew: Toshav Shefeya b'Israel. We had purchased their wines previously so we were excited to see behind the scenes. We had a great tour of the winery itself. Our guide was excellent and taught us many things about wine making that we didn't know. After the tour was the best part, the tasting. A flight of 6 wines, each paired with chocolate!!! 

The tasting room and store - so many wines!

Oak barrels (made in the USA) in the aging room

Wine and chocolate - what more
could you want

After the wine tasting we had a nice lunch and were on our way back to Haifa. For anyone thinking of visiting, another trip to Tishbi is on our list :)