The Ancient Wine Presses of Galilee

Wine making was a popular occupation in Galilee. Wine was first made in 6,000 B.C. in the region of Mesopotamia. Wine was one of the major exports in biblical times. Wine presses were made in the fields near the vineyards and cut into stone. A number of wine presses can be found in the fields, villages and cities of Galilee.

Num 18:30: "Therefore thou shalt say unto them, When ye have heaved the best thereof from it, then it shall be counted unto the Levites as the increase of the threshing floor, and as the increase of the winepress".

Wine making was a popular occupation in Galilee. Wine was first made in 6,000 B.C. in the region of Mesopotamia. Wine was one of the major exports in biblical times. Wine presses were made in the fields near the vineyards and cut into stone. A number of wine presses can be found in the fields, villages and cities of Galilee. The large demand for wine was due to the Roman legions stationed in Galilee. Each roman soldier consumed about a liter of wine. Hence, a legion of 6,000 soldiers ended up consuming that many liters of wine everyday. Wine has its advantages it is effective in killing bacteria inside one’s body and bloodstream.

The legions mixed the wine with water and kept healthy year long. This demand for wine was supplemented within a small period of time with 4% of alcohol in the wine. Most vineyards were present in the hills of lower and upper Galilee, the Golan Heights, the Sharon and the hills of Judea.

The Structure of Ancient Wine Presses

A wine press has a collection area, where all the grapes are collected to be crushed. This is normally a large flat area near the winepress. The treading floor is a large area covered by mosaics of small stone pieces, where the grapes were treaded by human feet of wine workers. The treading floor had a small hole in the center, where the grapes used to be crushed a second time using a stone weight. The juice generated from the crushing accumulated in a flat area in the treading floor. It was passed through a hole in the treading floor, which also acted like a filter and passed the juice into a pool. Workers collected the juice into large wine jars to be stored for fermentation in nearby caves. The treading of wine is symbolic of divine judgement in the bible.

Distribution of the Wine Presses

An ancient archeological survey has found 117 wine presses in Galilee, scattered from the village of Jenin to the ruins of Megiddo. Many presses were part of large estates devoted to wine making. Hence, the Great Plains of Galilee once consisted of large areas of arable land. Herod the Great inherited the estates in the western parts of the Plain from the Hasmoneans. Later Berenice, sister of Agrippa II and niece of Antipas, owned granaries on the same land on which the wine presses stood.

Mount Gilboa is the place where Gideon led his band of warriors to carry out the night-attack on the camp of Midian. Under the hill are the ancient wine-presses, shaped into the rock. They once belonged to the vineyard of Naboth, who was assassinated by Jezebel.

"They that dwell under His shadow shall return; they shall revive as the grain, and blossom as the vine: the scent thereof shall be as the wine of Lebanon."