Assaf Kedem established Assaf Winery in 2004 in the greenhouses of the Golan Heights agricultural community Kidmat Zvi, a region ideal for winemaking with its optimal combination of mineral-rich soil, basalt terroir, cold climate, and high altitude.

Assaf’s 10 acres of vineyards are located 500-890 meters above sea level and are divided into 4 plots, each with its own specific terroir. These conditions allow them to grow a wide variety of grapes, including Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Sauvignon Blanc, Shiraz, & Pinotage. Yet all Assaf wines share a distinct and natural elegance. Today, they produce around 43,000 bottles of wine annually. 

What makes Assaf Winery special is at its heart Assaf is a family winery. All members of the Kedem family are part of the winery, and to this day the family works together to grow and develop the business. They collaborate on everything from growing, to visitor experience, to branding, to marketing. And every year during the harvest season the Kedem family expands its boundaries to include close friends, extended family members, wine lovers, and many other volunteers, who all travel to the winery to help harvest the latest crop by hand. 

Leading the process is Assaf himself and his son Oren. Assaf started his wine journey under the tutelage of famed Israeli winemaker Yair Margalit, and Peter Silverberg, a graduate of the Davis Institute of California. He went on to study at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and completed a wine lab training at The Standards Institution of Israel. At Tel Hai College, he studied chemistry and food engineering. Later, he studied and trained in wineries in South Africa. Oren grew up learning much about wine from his father. As an adult he worked and studied winemaking in California’s Sonoma Valley in the well-known Michel-Schlumberger vineyard. Later, he studied oenology at Ohalo College in the Golan, a branch of CFPPA College in France. 

Together Assaf and Oren bring traditional and new qualities of winemaking to the family winery, adding to its uniqueness and exclusivity.