Month: February 2022

I learnt this week that Adv. Gabriel Ginio had passed away in Jerusalem at the grand old age of 97. He was the 6^th generation of the Ginio family. Why did this strike a chord within me? This was because it was the Ginio family, who founded the first recorded winery, in the Old City of Jerusalem in 1840. Gabriel Ginio may have been a lawyer, not a winemaker, but to those that met him, he was able to reminisce about the family wine business. May his memory be a blessing.

The Shor Winery was founded by Rabbi Yitzhak Shor in the Muslim Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem in 1848. Israel’s oldest winery was situated alongside ‘Ha’Kotel Hakatan’ – the Little Western Wall. One of the Shor family’s inspirations was Sir Moses Montefiore, who had encouraged Jews to return to agriculture and work instead of living off charity. One hundred and seventy years later, the Jerusalem Vineyard Winery opened a tasting room, at the Montefiore Windmill in the heart of Jerusalem. A connection between the Shor Winery of 1848 and the Jerusalem Vineyard Winery of 2019, was Tsippora Mendelsohn, née Shor, who has just passed away, aged 93 years old.