2 Best Sights in Beit Shemesh, Around Jerusalem and the Dead Sea

Winemaker Eyal Rotem puts a premium on quality at this boutique estate winery that produces 100,000 bottles a year. While it's not kosher, the winery prides itself on its ancient and modern Jewish history: it houses a 3,000-year-old-winepress, and during the 1948 war it served as the base for Itzhak Rabin and his Har'el Brigades. Many Clos de Gat wines age beautifully, including the Sycra series, which has garnered international accolades. 

Family-owned, this well-regarded winery sources grapes from the Judean Hills and the Upper Galilee. Many of its bottles, including the Bordeaux blend called The Noble, have garnered international praise for their complexity. Wine-and-cheese tastings are held by appointment only at an elegantly rustic communal table indoors or outside on a wooden deck overlooking the vineyards that are surrounded by pine forests.