The first ever Carmel Trophy for the ‘Best Wine Producer in the Eastern Mediterranean’ Tuesday night was awarded to the Golan Heights Winery at the International Wines & Spirits Competition’s annual banquet at London’s Guildhall.

“We are truly honored to award this trophy and draw attention to such an important wine-growing region,” commented David Ziv, CEO of Carmel Winery, “but it is with particular pleasure that we award the first trophy to an Israeli winery. The Golan Heights Winery is one of the leading wineries in Israel today and is truly representative of the new quality coming out of the country and region.” “We are very proud to be the first winery to receive this award,” commented Anat Rushansky, Marketing Director for the Golan Heights Winery. “This trophy is an honor for us, not only as a winery, but as a representative of our country.
It is very important that the rest of the world recognizes Israel as a top quality wine producing country and that is finally happening thanks in part to this trophy. We feel it is very special that the Carmel Winery chose to create this award to promote the entire region.”

This new trophy was created by Carmel Winery to promote & give focus to the Eastern Mediterranean as an exciting wine region. The Eastern Mediterranean - comprising Cyprus, Greece, Israel, Lebanon and Turkey - is the true cradle of viticulture; the region has been producing wine longer than any other area and in recent years has been witness to a quality revolution – particularly in Greece, Lebanon & Israel.
There are already ten ‘best national wine producer’ awards for Australia, Canada, Chile, France, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, South Africa, Spain and U.S.A. The Eastern Mediterranean award adds a further award to this category – there were fifty countries from five countries taking part in this competition. The wineries on the short list for the trophy were: Carmel Winery, Golan Heights Winery ( both from Israel), Samos Co-operative, & Tsantalis (from Greece).
The International Wines & Spirits Competition is the oldest & most prestigious of the world’s major wine tasting competitions.

October 2004