Binyamina
Binyamina Winery was founded in 1952 by Joseph Zeltzer. He immigrated to Israel from Hungary infused with a passion to continue being a winemaker, as he’d been in his country of birth. Zeltzer originally named the winery Eliaz, after his son who fell in battle during Israel’s War of Independence in 1948. He soon began making wine in the center of what was then considered Israel’s official wine region. It was finally purchased in the early 1990s by movie industry executives, who gained full control in 1996. Wasting no time, they invested enormous resources to transform Binyamina into one of Israel’s leading wineries. Over the ensuing 14 years, they invested in upgrading the vineyards to obtain the best quality raw materials, purchasing the finest wine production equipment and establishing one of Israel’s finest barrel cellars. Under the supervision of Chief winemaker Yonathan Shotts (diploma from the University of Florence), Binyamina is now the fourth largest winery in Israel and produces around 2.8 million bottles a year. The grapes for the various wines come from vineyards across the country.