Nissim Srussi (not to be confused with the French Jewish singer!) is a pioneering agronomist and wine maker who has spent his life helping agriculture to thrive in Israel's arid south. He grew up on a moshav in the Negev, his family were among the founders of Gush Katif and then decades later had to start from scratch after losing everything in the destruction of Gush Katif. He rebuilt his life in the Negev, creating the Carmei Mevurakh winery and vineyard.

The saline soil in the desert near Beer Sheva where his vineyard is located was so salty that no one believed it possible that anything could be grown there, there were barely any weeds or native wild plants growing there when Nissim decided that this would be the sight for his newest project. Today it is home to a thriving vineyard which is going from strength to strength against the odds, an island of vivid green in the midst of the barren yellow-brown of the dry season desert.

The abundant rains of the most recent winter/spring rainy season have produced a bumper crop this summer, flushing out more of the salts from the ground and nourishing the vines, making them stronger and healthier than ever.

It's been a long road for this small family run and owned kosher winery and vineyard to get to this point. In summer of 2014 Nissim and his family were getting ready to plant 12,000 grape seedlings before Tu B'Av, a crucial planting date the summer before a shmitta year. But then the 2014 Gaza war, Tzuk Eitan, erupted and overnight all the young men in his family who were going to help with the labour intensive task were drated. He was left alone with his wife and two daughters - and the 12,000 seedlings. He thought he was about to lose everything again but his daughter put a post on social media and it was seen by someone from Hashomer Hahadash, one of the organisations helping farmers in need. The next day they sent Nissim 135 volunteers aged from 8 to 80 and within three days the vineyard was planted, just before Tu B'Av.

His extended family are very involved in helping out. During the summer you can meet young and old relatives in distinctive red family Carmei Mevorakh t-shirts coming and going at the vineyard, helping out however they can at this critical time of year.

Since October 7th he has once again suffered from labour shortages, especially during the busy harvest period when he has found himself needing to rely on volunteer help to pick all the grapes.

It was our honour to join the Southern Exposure agricultural volunteer group to help out this summer and learn more about quite literally making the desert bloom.

Grapes of love

The grape harvest is in full swing, incredible how in the middle of our bone-dry yellow-brown summers so much of the countryside is still vivid green because of all the vineyards, growing numbers thriving around the country, even deep in the desert, as they did in ancient times, but more about that later.

Last week was the festival of Tu B'Av, 15th of the Hebrew month of Av. It's a festival dating back to biblical times, a celebration of the grape harvest but also described in ancient sources like the Talmud as a day on which single women would wear borrowed white dresses (so as not to shame anyone who couldn't afford one) and go out dancing in the vineyards to attract a potential suitor. That custom has mostly faded over the centuries, but instead it's kind of morphed into a Jewish festival of romance, lots of music events out in nature (especially in the vineyards of course), wine festivals, romantic dinners, heart shaped cakes in the bakeries, love in the air.

The morning of Tu B'Av was by chance all the first grape harvest I volunteered at this summer. It was in the middle of the Negev desert, wilderness all around and then a vivid patch of green on a couple of low hills - vineyards and even more surprising, right below it a lush field of tall corn. Grown with recycled water.

The Negev region has recently received a wine appellation designating it a distinct wine growing region, as it was in ancient times. There are dozens of successful wineries in the area today, many, like the one I worked at last week, inspired by research into historic grape growing techniques uncovered in archaeological digs. Later in the week I had a chance to learn more about that too, but I think that will have to be another post.
This was the first batzir (grape harvest) of the season at this small family owned and run kosher vineyard winery in the Negev desert.

We were so lucky to have gorgeous weather, part cloudy, a gentle cooling breeze to mitigate the summer sun, all of which made it easier to appreciate the stunning views. Despite the mid-summer heat it was actually quite pleasant in the vineyard, at least for most of the morning. There was a breeze in the hills and the lush vines gave a little shade, especially if you sat on an upturned bucket to pick, low enough to be shaded by the greenery. We started work around just after 6am and finished before 11am, just as the sun was high enough in the sky to produce a fiercer heat.

We were picking Chardonnay grapes, among the earliest to ripen. The Negev is known especially for its white and rose wines, though this vineyard also had some red varieties like Malbec, Marselan, Cabernet Franc and Barbera. I'm not a big wine maven but I'm learning so much from working at vineyards around the country. I think vineyard work has become some of my most favourite agricultural work, from the shaping and maintenance of the vines while they are dormant during the winter to the exuberant summer harvests, there is something so magical about grape vines, whether for wine or table.

Much of the work has a meditative quality to it, wending your way along the long, often extremely long, rows, sometimes in terraces on rocky hillsides, sometimes among lush lowland farmland or plateaux of rick dark soil left by long extinct volcanoes or rocky desert wilderness or even sandy desert dunes. It's stunning to me the variety of environments in which vineyards can thrive, and that's just in my tiny corner of the world. Grape vines are truly remarkable. Picking grapes is very social work, you meet people working the other side of the vine across from you, next to you, conversations naturally strike up, stories exchanged over the gentle clip clip of the pruning shears and the plop of grape bunches into the waiting crates.
We were a diverse bunch that morning, a group of local young people doing a year of post-high school volunteering, volunteers mostly from the Jerusalem area from pensioners to primary school kids, mostly Orthodox Jews, a few Christian tourists from Europe and east Asia, and a group of veiled Bedouin women from a nearby village.
But what about the wines you ask? Well we have been promised tastings next time we come to help with the harvest at this place, hopefully in another couple of weeks. The grapes fresh from the vine are incredibly sweet and delicious.