There is a place called a "wine cellar" (which serves as a workplace).
There is a place called "home".
There is another circle called "family.".
Most of the wineries we are supposed to know are commercial wineries. Because something small that is made in the home warehouse doesn't reach the market.
Most of the time, the wine we see in stores is created in a winery that someone opened as an entrepreneur or hobbyist, and that he himself manages, or that he serves as the winery's winemaker. But since one person alone cannot do everything alone, he brings in partners at all levels, business people, agents, connoisseurs, as well as workers and professionals, to help him operate the winery and promote it on all the fronts that the winery needs.
Mainly in distribution and sales, which is probably the most difficult part in the entire field called 'wine'.
This is how it is in every business, but there are also exceptions - family wineries where everything is within the family.
At first, they start like any other business or hobby, but over time, all family members are drawn into it, and even those who had successful careers in other fields suddenly find themselves deep, deep inside the winery.
Each from their own field and profession.
Not because they make more money there, but because there is a soul there.
To work at a winery
I was probably born with a love for wine.
Since I was a child, this expensive drink tastes better to me than ice cream. In my parents' house, I absorbed some understanding and knowledge that not everything squeezed from grapes is called wine.
When I was a kid, my father once got some homemade wine in a delivery, and he poured it down the sink. I don't think he'd even tasted it before.
When I was growing up, I asked him why he did that. His answer was simple: "Have you ever seen how wine is made in a winery? Do you know how much knowledge, equipment, and operations are needed to make simple and cheap wine? Do you know what is written in the Sheminith about the wine industry in the Temple?"
""What do you think? They buy 'Berra' grapes at the market, what's left after all the buyers have already checked, they pay about three shekels per kilo for the leftover boxes, it's already starting to ferment at the market stall, they put it in a dirty plastic barrel with 30% sugar, so it doesn't turn into disgusting vinegar, and I have to drink that?"'
As I grew older and began to delve deeper into the field, I tasted fine things, toured wineries, met winemakers, and decided to take the subject seriously. I studied at Ariel College, now Ariel University.
My knowledgeable friends explained to me a fundamental thing: that in addition to studying, visiting wineries, and tasting occasional wines, in order to understand and know professionally, you also need to accompany the wine from the moment it is a grape - to the bottle.
For this, it's not enough to swirl a glass of wine and smell it, but you have to physically work in the winery, for at least two years. This is the minimum time for good wine at a basic level.
Just like medical school. After a few years of study, you have to do an internship in a hospital.
I had several options for which winery to work at, I trusted experts who recommended the best to me, and I went to work at the 'Palm' winery, located at the Eshtaol junction on the way to Beit Shemesh.
From South Africa to Eshtaol
The father of the family - Israel Flam, studied oenology in South Africa fifty years ago.
In those years, no Israeli had yet gone abroad to study oenology, but he, as a pioneer, did it with his wife, Kami.
There their firstborn, "Golan," was born, who was literally born into the wine business. When the couple returned to Israel, Israel was appointed winemaker at Carmel Mizrahi in Rishon LeZion, where they lived, and served as head winemaker there for about thirty-five years.
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