Stephen Brook, who visited Israel for IsraWinExpo 2008, has written an update to Hugh Johnson’s Wine Companion. The Wine Companion is one of the classic books, which is in the library of every wine lover.

Over the years Stephen Brook has been a prolific author and his most famous book is his work on Bordeaux. He is a regular contributor to Decanter Magazine.

Hugh Johnson  wrote five editions of this book, which was first published in 1983. For this sixth edition, Stephen Brook has had a free hand to update where necessary. He obviously used his visit to Israel to good effect, because he has totally rewritten the section on Israel.

The leading five Israeli wineries according to Stephen Brook are:

1.= Castel, Golan Heights; 3. Clos de Gat, 4.= Carmel, Barkan. The full list is as follows:

Barkan *> ***

Binyamina *> **

Carmel *> ***

Castel ***

Chillag **

Clos de Gat **> ***

Dalton *> **

Ella Valley **

Flam **

Galil Mountain **

Golan Heights ***

Hevron Heights *>**

Margalit **

Recanati **

Sea Horse **

Segal *> **

Tanya *>**

Tishbi *>**

Tulip **

Vitkin **

Yatir **

(This article is adapted from an article that originally appeared on Wines Israel)