For motorists climbing the hills to Jerusalem from Israel’s coastal plain, the ramshackle Efrat winery at the village of Motza, emblazoned by a large commercial sign, was long the most visible symbol of Israel’s wine industry. It was equally a symbol of local decrepitude. Far to the north on the Golan Heights, the brilliant young winery Yarden was proving, beginning in the mid-1980s, that Israel could make world-class table wines. But Efrat went right on making the same sort of coarse and syrupy sacramental wines that its founder, Zeev Zida Teperberg, first made within the walls of Old Jerusalem in 1870. The Judean hills, the source of Efrat’s grapes, remained a vinous backwater until the 1990s even though the region had been prime wine country in the biblical era.

How times have changed. Last Saturday, in preparation for the upcoming Jewish New Year festivities (Rosh Hashanah begins at sundown on September 12), I checked out the ample Israeli wine selection at Gotham Wines on the Upper West Side. Where once wines from northern Israel dominated, challengers from the Judean hills are coming on strong. I took home a pair of wines from Efrat’s boutique-arm, Teperberg Family Estate wines, now made at a new winery located in the Samson Valley of the Judean foothills. They turned out to be made in a style that the patriarch quite probably would have rejected. A chardonnay and sauvignon blanc blend, vintage 2005 ($12), was light-bodied, grassy, and bone-dry. It was a kosher wine that would — dare I say — seduce a platter of oysters. The Teperberg Meritage ($12.99), a red blend, was a ringer for basic Bordeaux: reserved in its fruitiness, just a bit leathery, and destined to be a partner rather than a competitor to foods on the table. Neither Teperberg wine was a world-beater. Both were just defect-free, modest wines at prices to match.

Dozens of small to medium-size wineries have rooted themselves in the Judean Hills in the last decade. Some wineries, such as those in Hebron, are in the West Bank, but most are within the Green Line. All have had to overcome the once-prevailing belief that the region is simply too hot to create classic dry table wines. But, as a pioneering local winemaker, Ronnie James of Kibbutz Tzora, told me, “Cold air comes down from Jerusalem and Hebron Heights, while heat comes up from the Ayalon Valley below us.” The result of those opposing air masses is often fog — something rare in Israel, and beneficial to grape growing. Fittingly, one of Tzora’s wines is labeled “Misty Hills.” It’s currently unavailable here, but Tzora’s toothsome Cabernet-Zinfandel ($18 at Astor Wines), would firmly partner red meat or duck confit.

The first time I visited the Yarden vineyards on the Golan Heights, in 1987, a winemaker pointed to a rocky depression and said, “That’s where the greatest tank battle of modern times was fought in the Yom Kippur War.” Almost 20 years later, when I first visited the Ella Valley, the epicenter of the Judean hills wine surge, a local winemaker pointed to a rocky ridge and said, “From up there, David surveyed the Philistine positions before the battle in which he killed Goliath.” Great battles, it would seem, mark key Israeli vineyards. Inexplicably, vintages from the best winery using Ella Valley grapes, called simply Flam, is unavailable in America. But wines almost as good do arrive from Ella Valley Vineyards, including its 2004 cabernet sauvignon ($26 at Skyview Wines), full of spice and zip.

The Judean hills’ “first growth” is incontestably Domaine du Castel, a deluxe, Francophile winery set high in what the label calls “Haute Judée.” Since its first vintage in 1992, equally splendid red and white wines have flowed from the handsome cellars of Castel, reached via a perilous mountain road. The flagship “Grand Vin” red manages to be muscular yet silky. In depth of personality, it’s up there with the Bordeaux elite.

Hiking in the Judean hills last winter with winemaker Shuki Yashuv of the Agur Winery, we came upon the deserted hilltop ruins of an ancient Jewish village. It included a pad for pressing grapes and, still lined with ceramic tiles, a tank to hold the fermenting juice. Mr. Yashuv is himself one of the cadre of new winemakers reviving the ancient tradition, having left a career as a furniture maker to put down roots on the Judean plain that was below us. “Unlike furniture, wine is a living thing,” Mr. Yashuv said, as we munched on wild asparagus.

When I tasted Agur’s wines at the small winery adjoining the winemaker’s home, a powerful and chocolaty 2004 merlot stood out. But the wine that won a gold medal at the 2007 Finger Lakes International Wine Competition was Agur’s Special Reserve 2004, a pure cabernet. Though not on local retail shelves, the wine is sold at Morrell’s Wine Bar in Rockefeller Center ($54 per bottle). Breaking onto that highly selective wine list is a sure sign that the Judean hills are ready for their close-up.