We think of wine as a luxury product but it's just another kind of agricultural business, a farmer tending his vines and trying to earn his or her living. There are many wineries and vineyards all over Israel, with many in the northern Galilee, close to the Lebanese border in what has become a warzone since Israel was attacked on October 7th.

Hizballah has escalated their assault on Israel in recent weeks, firing anti-tank missiles across the border on a daily basis, along with larger rockets, small arms fire and regular attempts at cross border incursions in to Israel.

In kibbutz Menara and other Israeli border communities more than half the homes have sustained damage from Hizballah missiles. Kiryat Shmona, one of the larger towns in Israel's far north has likewise suffered a great deal of damage.

Just a few days ago volunteers helping to collect eggs in a northern moshav were wounded by shrapnel when a Hizballah anti-tank missile scored a direct hit on the chicken shed. A farmer in the north-west Galilee was killed by a Hizballah anti-tank missile while he checked on his orchards.

While thousands of Israelis from that region are now refugees in their own country, the farms that they tend cannot be moved and a small number of farmers have had to stay back just to ensure that someone is caring for the chickens, livestock, vineyards, orchards and fields.

Among the agricultural businesses in crisis on the northern border are Dalton winery and several other wineries located in the same agricultural industrial zone among the vineyards. Vineyards and wineries are among the facilities that have been damaged by Hizballah attacks.

Wine sounds frivolous especially in the middle of a war, but it represents the livelihoods of many Israelis who for so many weeks now have been watching their years of toil systematically destroyed by Hizballah.