Desert Winemaking ‘Sounds Absurd,’ but Israeli Vineyards in Negev Show the Way

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https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/07/world/middleeast/israel-negev-desert-wine.html

By Isabel Kershner, The New York Times. 

Excerpt: ...While these Negev [desert] vineyards are new, making wine here is not. The area was famed for its locally produced wines in ancient times. But the climate then was probably more forgiving than it is now, and the area’s wineries are developing farming techniques that might soon need to be replicated around the globe, as the effects of climate change worsen. “To succeed in the Negev, you have to be bold and experiment,” said David Pinto, a vintner who planted his family plot with vines about three years ago. ...With some 325 days of sunshine and little annual rainfall, the desert vines depend on drip irrigation, an innovation developed by another Negev collective in the 1960s that allows the farmer to tightly control the amount of water. ...in a global wine industry that must adapt to climate change, Israel could be a role model, said Aaron Fait, an expert in desert research and agriculture at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.…

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