A Rishon Lezion exhibition revives the Carmel Winery’s historic beginnings.
By BARRY DAVISUpdated: DECEMBER 1, 2016 18:11A Rishon Lezion exhibition revives the Carmel Winery’s historic beginnings(photo credit: RAN PLOTNIZKY/STUDIO TUCAN)
Growing up in the “British Diaspora,” one of the enduring images of the faraway Holy Land was a bottle of Carmel wine from Rishon Lezion, with its biblically distinctive logo of two figures carrying an enormous Children of Israel spy-style bunch of grapes. Fast forward half a century or so, and the said alcohol is no more, at least no more at its original, historic, location.The demise of the winery at its original home is a momentous occurrence, not only for my childhood memory bank, but also in the entire history of the Zionist movement and the establishment of the Jewish Yishuv. The Carmel company continues to do brisk business elsewhere, with wineries at Zichron Ya’acov, Yatir and Alon Tavor – the current plant operates from the latter Galilean spot – and the administrative offices are in the process of relocating to Shoham.But, Rishon Lezion and Carmel wines will remain indelibly etched in the collective Zionist psyche and, fittingly, the Rishon Lezion Museum is currently running a delightful exhibition by the name of “Hallel Carmel Bezalel” dedicated to the iconic venture.Museum curator Yona Shapira notes that her hometown is, indeed, synonymous with the production of wine and the very beginnings of the Yishuv’s industrial life. “Work started on the winery in 1887-1888, which was the very first modern industrial plant in Eretz Yisrael. It was very large and very advanced, and produced large amounts of wine.”That history is clearly displayed in the nostalgiainfused exhibition, which includes various marketing items from bygone days such as a charmingly designed advertising brochure from 1906, a French language color postcard with a scenic picture of the winery and adjacent vineyard, also from the beginning of the 20th century, and a highly evocative monochrome bottle label, in French, from 1900.Shapira has assembled a collection of original artifacts, photographs and copies of historic documents that manages to convey a palpable sense of the times, and how the winery went about its business in those distant days when Jews were just starting to rediscover their feet in the Middle East. Naturally, much of the Carmel Winery’s initial success, indeed survival, was down to the very hands-on support of Baron Edmond de Rothschild, a.k.a. “the Baron.”“The Baron built the place and brought lots of things from abroad,” Shapira continues. “The winery had very powerful steam engines, which he provided, and which drove all the machinery in the plant. The entire winery was mechanized.”Hallel Carmel Bezalel provides photographic evidence of that with, for instance, a grainy print of the machinery hall, completely with a staged worker lineup, taken in 1897. Naturally, there were certain logistical challenges in the Holy Land, which the Baron’s French-based wine producing plants did not have to deal with. “There was an ice-making machine, which produced cold water, which kept the spaces of the winery cool. The fermentation had to be cooled down and, of course, the climate here is much hotter. If the temperature inside rose too much the wine would spoil.”Shapira is full of admiration for the work of the pioneers in Rishon, a century and a quarter ago. “Eretz Yisrael, back then, was on the margins of the Ottoman Empire, and the Turks didn’t build much here at all,” she notes. “They used modern construction methods, with iron beams. There was nothing like that here beforehand. That was a really advanced way of building, like the Eiffel Tower,” jokes Shapira.The winery buildings were constructed in phases, starting with a two-story structure, in 1887.However, it soon became apparent that more spacious premises were required. Part of the dimensional shortfall was due to the rapid increase in the planting of vineyards around the country, and the resultant growth in the volume of grapes that had to be processed. The next stage, in 1894, saw the construction of a three-story winery building partly set into a hillside. Ventilation shafts were built into the large wine cellars, which helped to maintain a temperature of 17°. Further facilities were built between 1895 and the early years of the 20th century, to house additional machinery and for storage.The statistics make for impressive reading. The winery, all told, covered an area of 15,000 square meters, and processed grapes produced from 1,600 hectares of vineyards. To put the enterprise into local proportions of the day, at the time the nearby Mikve Israel winery was around 2,000 sq.m. in size, and was fueled by 30 hectares of vineyards. The Carmel plant even had telephones and electric lighting, and had a storage capacity of 7.3 million liters of wine. Besides the locally grown fruit, grapes were delivered from vineyards in Petah Tikva, Ness Ziona, Rehovot and Gedera. From 1893 only Jewish workers were employed at the winery, and staff included a young David Ben-Gurion. The current exhibition features a group photograph of some of the Carmel personnel, with an aproned 20-year-old Ben-Gurion very much front and center.The Rishon company was progressive in all sorts of ways, although not all the innovations worked out quite as desired.In 1904 an ecologically forward-looking waste-processing plant was built near the winery, by a chemical engineer called Dov Klimker. Klimker purchased yeast and tartar residues from the winery and used them to produce tartaric acid, lime salt and alcohol. Sadly, the plant soon encountered ready cash issues and had to shut down in 1908.There were more energy-saving ideas in the Carmel can. In 1895 a flour mill was built and leased to an external contractor.The mill utilized the energy generated by the winery’s engines to drive its millstones and other appliances. The wine production process also became increasingly scientific, and a research laboratory was established, to facilitate enhancements in the plant’s products.That, and the other important events and endeavors along Carmel’s long time line, are put across succinctly in Hallel Carmel Bezalel. The exhibits include original bottles of wine, brandy and other alcoholic beverages, a microscope used by the aforementioned lab, and an example of a kashrut stamp from the early 20th century. And there is documented evidence of at least one aspect of the kashrut duties being met, that of dispensing with part of the product as a tithe. A 1920s print shows the winery’s rabbinical authority, Rabbi Yosef Halevi, supervising a couple of workers manning taps on giant wine vats.And, in case you wanted to know how much you’d have to shell out on Carmel Mizrahi products in 1913, the exhibition includes a price list correct to July 1 of that year. A bottle of Orient Red, for example, would set you back the princely sum of three grush, a white table wine cost six grush, and if you really felt like splashing out you could go for a bottle of cognac, for 20 grush, or even an Arak Extra for an extravagant 45 grush. I have no idea what the average worker in Eretz Yisrael in the early part of last century took home a month, but presumably the latter product was way beyond most breadwinners’ means.The last name in the exhibition titular triad refers to the display of contemporary works by Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design students, which incorporates an eye-catching and highly inventive array of wine and kiddush drinking receptacles, curated by Dr.Shirat-Miriam Shamir and Ido Noy. The works were conceived by artists and designers from the Jerusalem institution of higher education. The exhibition catalogue notes that the confluence of the two exhibitions is a natural one as the product of both facilities “wine in Rishon Lezion and art in Bezalel, symbolized the regenerated Jewish settlement [in Eretz Israel].”Meanwhile, the Rishon Lezion Municipality is said to be working on preserving all the original winery buildings. When that eventually comes to fruition, and with the current exhibition hopefully being visited by all and sundry, the winery’s place in the state’s formative history should be well and truly sealed.Hallel Carmel Bezalel will run until March 28, 2017.
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