a wine episode

Secretly, we crept out of the campus, in three cars. Headlights cleared orbs of light in the dark dark desert. Just a couple of kilometers later, we pulled to the side, next to the vineyard that I had passed by a hundred times before- without giving it a second look on the way to Ber Sheva. The barking of dogs and light from a strangely ark like building welcomed us to the new establishment: a pub for wines. I'm sure there's a word for that but I have no clue. Anyway, finding something like this in the middle of the desert was surreal enough, but inside even more so. The whole building looked like the belly of a ship or even the interior of an artificial whale. The owner proudly showed us the local wines; saying that wine had not been made in the Negev Desert since the Nabatean times, so it was something of a rennaisance. For a couple of hours we sat there, sipping wine in outrageously sized glasses and soft italian music in this shelter from the desert, as people kept dropping in. So new, and already its name was spreading. Now if i can only remember its name...

wine producing areas of israel