Like making lemonade from lemons (or fermented lemons which are even better) Russian scientists have found the best way to use an invasive weed brought from America – and called hairy beggarticks or Bidens pilosa officially. Its other names are black-jack, cobbler’s pegs and Spanish needle. The Russians found that the leaves of the plant […]
Use up the pods left over from shelling peas and beans to make - wine!
Napa Valley is one of those places you have to visit. For many families, the escape into wine country nestled in the heart of nature. Napa Valley is easy to get into, offers you a proper chance at living high like the richest of the rich with home rentals Napa and with many places for […]
An ancient Christian wine press 1500-years-old was uncovered in Israel, telling more about the customs of the people in the Holy Land of days gone by. It may not have yielded a prize-winning bottle, but excavators in Israel are excited about uncovering an ancient wine press, probably used for making low quality wine and vinegar, […]
Jesuit brothers at the Ksara wine press in 1910: Lebanon’s oldest wine growing domain Following the footsteps of a wine trading tradition started by Phoenicians, modern Lebanese wine-making re-starts in 1857 when French Jesuit missionaries at Ksara (today the site of Château Ksara) introduced new viticulture and viniculture methods as well as new vines, from French-governed Algeria. Sixty years […]
Lebanese don’t usually need an excuse to party but they might need an incentive to recycle. Albeit one of the only countries at the COP18 climate change negotiations to commit to reducing their greenhouse gas emissions, Lebanon has a shoddy recycling record – mostly because it lacks the necessary infrastructure. Which is why the NGO […]
An Israeli company makes a mini-sewage plant to help small wineries, olive oil and cheese-makers deal with the pollutants from their industries. Waste from small olive presses, cheese factories and wineries is not good for the water or soil. Organic farming and the 100-Mile Diet have influenced new college graduates to establish farms instead of seeking […]
This man singlehandedly produces up to 5,500 bottles of delicious red wine each year, despite living in a frequently drought-stricken region Dave Levitan from Onearth, one of our favorite environmental blogs, traveled to Israel to meet with a hardy winemaker in the Negev desert and came away gushing. No, not from all the red wine […]
During the Sukkot holiday, visitors will be able to learn how to make olive oil, sweet wine, bread and cheeses the old fashioned way. Sukkot, the Jewish harvest festival, is a time when Jews attempt to get closer to nature. They live in make-shift huts covered with thatched roofs, sleep outdoors, and celebrate fruits of […]
A visit to Israel’s Goats with the Wind organic farm is delicious and not at all baa-d for the environment. With the summer months upon us, some of you may be looking for an alternative activity to beach volleyball, matkot and tanning in the sun. For those of you living in or visiting Israel this summer […]
Green Prophet has already reported on Kibbutz Tzuba switching to wine production because of the decreased water needs of grapes. Now Israeli wine is going even greener, with solar power. This past Monday, Sunday Energy Ltd. (Isra’el’s leading solar energy service provider) announced that it had completed installing a 50 kW Peak solar system on […]
Nestled into the Jerusalem Hills, Kibbutz Tzuba has decided to scrap its apple orchards and grow more grapes to save on water during the current crisis. According to the Jerusalem Post, Tzuba once grew kiwis that guzzled an outrageous 1,000 cubic meters of water per dunam (dunam=1/4 acre). Then the farm switched to apples, which […]
We’ve seen that environmentally conscious tourism is becoming more than a buzz word, what with government initiatives stepping in, and the various alternatives in eco-tourism that Israel now offers–including Kazakh yurts! Australian-born tour guide Zel Lederman customizes personal tours for groups and families with Israel Travel Company: Israel Off the Beaten Track, including tours with […]
(Israeli winemaker Golan Flam inspects his wine) This is a guest post by Israeli wine expert Richard Sheffer from Israel Wine Direct. Last week he talked about the connection between wine, man and the land. This week he talks a little more about the history of wine: In spite of what some Californians believe, wine […]
(Image credit: Micah Vaadia, winemaker at Galil Mountain) After reading and enjoying Green Prophet’s post on biking the Israeli wine scene, Green Prophet was kind enough to invite me to guest blog a short series of posts about the re-emerging Israeli wine phenomenon and about what’s new with organic winemaking in Israel. I blog about […]