A Conversation with Eli Shiran - An established Boutique Israeli Winemaker

Welcome to The Kosher Terroir. I'm Simon Jacob, your host for this episode from Jerusalem. The following is a conversation with winemaker Eli Shiran of the Shiran Winery in Kiryat Arba, Israel. Eli has been making wine for just over 10 years. Choosing to stay a small boutique winery. That said, he currently sells his wines in Israel, Europe, and the United States. I hope you enjoy this discussion, as I really had fun with his quick wit, his bad boy persona, and in true Israeli style, crusty outside but lovingly sincere, passionate Zionism. Sit back, grab a glass of kosher wine, and enjoy. Thank you very much for coming to the studio.

It's a pleasure being here. It's a pleasure and honor being here.

Okay. It's my honor, for sure.

That's fine.

All right. Okay, so I have, I wanted to start from the beginning and I wanted to ask, you grew up where?

I grew up in Yerushalayim.

Okay.

Very near Me'asharim, just It's called the Chof Baran. It's next to the Ethiopian church. The fence of the church was right next to our balcony. That's where we grew. I studied in Horev, which was at the time, used to be called Poalei Agudat Israel School. Only later, when I was about 17, we moved to Sanhedria, but my childhood was around Mea Shearim, Bet Israel, all these areas, which by the way at the time were Haredi, but not like today. Yeah, there were many, many other people living there, many blue, um, color people and ordinary people like us, right? We lived all together in harmony. This is my childhood, basically.

So what dreams did you have when you, when you started there? What were you thinking of doing with your life? What were you trying to accomplish? Where were you trying to go?

It's so many years ago, I can't remember what I dreamed at the time.

Okay.

But I think that most of my life I, I wanted to— there are always two things running in me. One of them was to learn different subjects, and the subjects at the moment are not important, and the other ones to be in business. And eventually I achieved both, but with no planning. Life took me there. Whatever I did, it was sort of— I, I flew with the stream. Whatever happened, happened. And I didn't have any plan next week to open this business or to study there. It just, I went with the flow.

So, how in the world did you then get into wine?

Can you repeat the question exactly word by word?

How in the world did you get then into wine?

I thought you said in the name of God. You should ask God. I've got no idea. I really don't have any idea. As a child, we didn't drink wine. I mean, we drank kiddush wine.

Yeah.

What we call in Israel, yaim patishim. Yes. In the army, you call it that. Sometimes in Pesach, when we had really good treat, we had conditon. My father used to have grape juice. So that wasn't my sin. But in England, I was sort of— I started having some wine. Later on, I knew to say that they are from Rioja, and I really fell in love. And being a very minimalistic guy, I used to buy a bottle. If I tasted it, I used to take 2 or 3 cases home. And slowly, slowly, I had a collection of wines. And it was just kind of a hobby to drink wine. I didn't understand anything about wine. I still don't understand much about wine. I knew what I like. When I came to Israel, I opened a business. I had a chain of supermarkets. And after a few years, that was gone. And I went to study law. And I don't know, I saw suddenly on one of the websites a course for winemaking. I said, okay, let's see. I could— anyway, it took another 2 years that I joined the course, and in the end of the course, I find myself making 2 barrels. The headline in one of the Israeli magazines for wine said, he wanted to make whatever, he found himself making 1 ton. And that's what happened. I couldn't make 100 liters a kilo. Because I couldn't get 100 kilos of grapes. Somebody offered me half a ton from Merlot, half a ton of Cabernet and a bit of Shiraz. And I played. That was 2012. My goal was to make wine without faults. I didn't think about aging wine or all this stuff. It wasn't even in my vocabulary. Excuse my English sometimes.

Your English is superb. I wish my Hebrew was close.

Thank you for the compliments.

Serious.

And then that's it. I was hooked. It's like having drugs. Once you— it's like— it's not nice to say drugs, but it's like skiing. You ski, you either hooked on it or it's not for you. I was hooked on it. So the next year I already made I think 4 bottles, and the wine that I made then still alive 10 years afterwards. Hopefully we'll taste one of them here now. If not, you can taste it later.

Yeah.

And the rest is history. I never planned to open a winery. That's what I told in the beginning. I followed the string of life. I see opportunity, I like it, it's good time for me, I'm doing it. It could have been that year later or two years earlier I wouldn't be there. It was just the right time. I took over part of the house and the rest is history.

So your wife must have been thrilled with taking over part of the house.

I have to be careful because she's sitting next to me. Yes. In the beginning, she was very happy. Then she was also happy, but she thought it's already getting too much. Because you've been in my house, so you know that our dining room is only a curtain separates and a door between the dining room and where we used to ferment. And then the bowel room was there.

Yeah.

After 2 or 3 years, 3 years I think, I built a cool room so I can make white wine. But all the storage and filling the bottle or keeping the grapes cool when they came from the vineyards was done in my living room and next to the dining room. So the whole house suddenly became into a winery and we have to walk slowly, slowly between the bottles so not to offend them. And at that point, we discussed it and it was time to move on.

I remember the racks of bottles on the side.

Yep, yep.

Under the stairs and on the side. Yep.

Wow.

So the family supported you. What about your daughters?

The older one or the younger one?

Who was the most troublesome?

No, all my kids are amazing, are great. The family supported it. The older one were less involved because they were some— they didn't get married in the beginning, but they helped me. All the kids in their turn helped me. Um, two of them actually worked with me on almost daily basis. In the early years. Meir was number 3 and Uriah was number 6. And then that's it. I mean, they got older. Everyone is on their own. And basically today, it's a one-man show.

So, they grew up in a wine— they actually grew up in a winery.

Yeah.

I was going to say in a winemaking household, but it's more than that. It was actually When they grew up, they were in the winery.

Yeah, the house was the winery, the winery was the house. It was one entity. And you know, Simon bought once to put in the entrance to the house, Maison de Vin, the house of wine. And when we made engagement to our kids, we said the engagement would be, bechatsara yekev, Right, in the garden of the— we had a few other jokes, but there are two, what they call, bdikhoch chorot, black jokes, so we'll keep them not here.

Okay, yes, this is not a— yeah, I don't want ratings.

I'm trying to be serious.

Yeah, okay, good. During that time, this is a big step, so you went from absolutely no background and making wine to taking a course and making wine.

Yep.

So did you have any mentors helping you along the line, or people that you could ask questions of?

Or it's two different questions.

Okay.

Mentor is one question.

Okay.

Or someone that you call it in Hebrew, marid, admire. It's one question.

Okay.

I can say upfront, no. I don't admire anyone in any subject. I appreciate people, I respect people, but I don't hold that anyone is, you know, something special. I had people helping me in the beginning. In the first years in the course, I met Kobi Arbib, and he used to be my 911 call I remember every Yom Kippur I had a stuck fermentation. I called him every Yom Kippur in the morning. Kobi, what am I doing now? He said, take it easy. Told me what to do. I worked till half an hour before Yom Kippur. Everything was fine. And then it's happened a few times. I used to be an over-the-phone advisor. And I was in good touch with some other winemakers. In the beginning, it was Olivier Feltier a bit, him less on day-to-day basis, but again, he was one of the people that gave us the course. And some other friends or colleagues that they— till today I'm in good touch with them. So you— and they've got more experience than me, so I used to call them and ask their advice. I think after 2 or 3 years I took a consultant already, and after another 3 years I changed him. And not because he wasn't good, because I needed somebody that will fit more into my, uh, my head.

Yeah, mindset.

As you said, right, I, I had no background in wine. I really, I knew there is a Bordeaux, but I didn't know anything about all these blends. Yeah, I didn't have any, any knowledge of world wine, kosher or non-kosher. I told you I drank when I was younger Rioja, but I didn't actually know what's the meaning. But I knew one thing. As a religious Jew, I live in a world of rules, right? They tell you how to daven, they tell you what to do. We are living more or less in a very square world with many, many rules. I hate rules. I hate. I can't stand people telling me what to do. One thing. The other issue is that I looked around Israel. When people start telling me about blends, et cetera, I said, listen, it's a small country. We grow different varietals one next to another, or we've got different— what later I knew called terroir. At the time, I didn't even know what's the meaning. Why do I have to blend Merlot with Cabernet, Cabernet Franc, and whatever, any kind of this blend? I'm a free man. I'm not bound by, by appellation rules, okay? I can do whatever I want, and I like the idea. So I started making my own blends.

So what's a blend? That highlighted that for you?

I don't think it's a specific— I can tell you which blend was the first one that I went off the beaten track, okay? But I don't think it was a particular blend. It was the idea. I didn't know much about wine. I knew what I like when I tasted it, okay? And what I did, I remember the first year before I had a consultant. I took the wines that I had on the table and I start making them. I said, okay, I like that. And then I went on. So, the idea of to be free, not to walk by any rules, by any patterns, by any— because somebody in another country making them. That's what I liked. The first one that I broke, you can say broke, I mean, it's, it's a big word, but when I made the Khazan '13, I put— it was Cab Merlot, and I don't know what bothered me in the blend, so we put a bit of Grenache from 2014, about 10%, and it gave the wine all totally different direction. And at the time already I made the Conductor 13, which was, if I remember right, Cabernet Merlot and Petit Syrah, I think. I'm not sure about the Merlot. It does that anyway. And then I, I said, listen, I, I like the wine, so I sat with friends just to make the blend a bit more precise. And apparently it worked because this wine were good and are still good till today.

I actually have, I actually have a bottle of the Conductor 13 downstairs. So that was the bottle I was going to surprise you with and to try. So we'll see. We'll see what happens.

If I behave nicely.

Yeah. You're behaving great.

Ah, thank you. Can you tell that to my wife, please, that I behave nicely?

Okay. You brought along some wines to try, so I would also like to, uh, I'd like to taste some of the wines with you. There should be, um, they're interesting wines. You brought some whites and some reds. Um, But actually, before we get to that, I wanted to ask you a question. If you were going to talk back to yourself, you know, if you could send a message back, would you be in this business? Or would you— are there any recommendations you could have made to yourself that you would have done things differently than you did them?

You've got some difficult questions for me. I usually don't look back. I usually don't look back. I'm happy with what I'm doing. The same day that I won't enjoy what I'm doing— I wasn't born as a winemaker, I don't have to be winemaker when— until the end of my life. The same day that I will stop enjoying what I'm doing, the winery will be closed. Simple as that.

So you enjoy it?

I'm still there.

Okay, you seem to enjoy it, at least to me. Listen, I'm just telling you, you seem to enjoy it.

I, I, I told you about my father. My father was an artist. He was a musician. He also had a very good— any, any painted— okay, we've got some drawing that he did, mainly enlarging pictures that Not many, but, uh, and most of my life I didn't understand, sort of, I'll say it, it maybe it won't sound good, but what's the connection between me and my father? Because he's a musician, he was a, a very from person, not Haredi, but very from person. And you know me, I'm more of a easygoing person, and I was never into art. And suddenly I found the wine. I can express myself not by singing, not by drawing, but by putting my heart, my soul, and my personality in the wine. You can make two I think you didn't ask that question, but I'll tell you that anyway. Think that you asked me the question. After I finish, you can invent the question and push it in.

Insert it.

There are two ways of making wine. For any wine, you need good grapes, okay? That's the obvious. The first thing that I learned when I studied winemaking is that you make the wine in the vineyard. Okay, this is the first. But you can be a technical, brilliant winemaker that you make an amazing Cab, Merlot, or any single varietal wine. Okay, and you can be a brilliant winemaker, or you can make wine, a characteristic wine, wine that you put your soul and your personality in it. And it's a form of art. That's why when I had the winemakers from France— one of them is actually making today only kosher wine, he's not Jewish— from Italy, they said, we envy you, you can do whatever you want. We are bound by rules. So you can't express your, your feeling, your art, your desires, your, your personality into the wine. Okay, you can be very good technician and I express myself through the wine. If you ask one of our joint friends, he's got name for each one of them, of my wines.

You know, I found as I've been doing these podcasts and as I've been looking back at the winemakers there are, there are so many ways, so many paths to expression for winemakers. It's just amazing. There's some that I, I know the comment that everything starts with grapes, with the best grapes, and if you can't get good grapes, you can't make good wine. Sure, but I've seen some, you know, they're winemakers who look at vineyards and depend on the, the viticulturist who's, who's, who's maintaining that vineyard or helping with the vineyard. And they look at, um, and they depend on that farmer you know, in the vineyard to grow the best grapes. They've tasted them in the past, they've liked them. This is, you know, just keep doing what you're doing. But there are others, there are other winemakers who manipulate the fields almost every day. I mean, they're— they, they are so focused on the vineyard that they focus on the vineyard and then they just want to take whatever that vineyard provides and express it as simply as possible, meaning that they don't want to manipulate it. They don't want to really do blends, though they do sometimes do blends. Their focus is really on how do they get this expression of this vineyard out.

Okay, I, I think there is no right and wrong.

No, I don't think there is. I think they're, they're just different paths. There are other, there are other winemakers who take the grapes, and they have a vision for what they want that, that wine to be, and they, and they manipulate it into where they want to go. Now, they can't do that with bad grapes. They can only, they can only manipulate so much, but they're really focused on the engineering of blending and winemaking inside the winery. So it's interesting. I mean, you have to be on— I'm seeing it on so many different sides. There's very few who are doing both.

First of all, I know a few people that are doing both. Yeah. I'm not a vintner. And I'm not a scientific guy. I hardly know chemistry, rather I don't know any chemistry, um, and I use, I work from my guts, uh, and I try to work with vintner that don't grow grapes, they grow wine. It's a huge difference between vintner that grow grapes or sell your grapes to someone who grow for you wine. So I'm trying to take this vintner that, first of all, that I'm very friendly with, okay? They understand me, they know the land, they know every tree, they know every cluster. And when they go to the vineyard with me, I know that they're aiming to the bottle. Then I'll make for me the blend, okay? The blend will be my personality, but the good wine is them, not me. My job is not to ruin— I said that from the, from the first day. I've got two jobs in, in making wine. One of it, the first one, is not to ruin— we will call it God's creation, other will call it nature or the vintner. Okay, this is one job, not to ruin, to make the best out of the grapes. Okay, this is a very technical job. Where I come in is within making the blends. Okay, now blends, it can be single vineyard Chardonnay, but it's a blend. I'll tell you what I'm doing, okay? But you can't podcast it because it's a trade secret. And, you know, I'm just joking. You can do whatever you want. I ferment them in different lots, okay? Every lot's got different character. Every lot's got different— I ferment them with different yeasts, with different, different temperature. So I can get from— I mean, you know, Yakov, he made from the same terroir 13 different fermentations, okay? And then he blended them. So sometimes you're lucky and you blend third, third, and third, or 1/13, etc., etc. And sometimes you have to make a blend because you want to express more tropical fruits. If I'm talking about the Chardonnay, you want to express more stone fruit, you want it to be mineral. I like very mineral wines, so I'll try always to emphasize a bit of the minerality of the wine. So it's a blend. It's not— this is one type of a blend. When you're making a single varietal, single vineyard blend. Okay. The other blend is when you make, take different varietals and you blend them and you blend them. And there the terroir gets in. In the winery and in the vineyard, we can, uh, how do you say it in English?

To blur.

Yeah. We can blur the influence of the terroir. Because if we want to emphasize whatever part in the wine, we use that yeast or the other yeast. And, and so people say we are making natural wine. Once you made, once in your winery you use cultivated yeast, the air of the winery is full of it. So, it affects your wine. So, there is no pure expression of terroir today. This is at least my opinion and will excuse me all the experts, etc. They can kick me out of all the winemakers associations. It's fine with me. They can tell me that I'm ignorant. They'll be right. I've got no problem with that. I think that in today's modern world, in modern techniques, the terroir has got, I'm not saying that it hasn't got any meaning, but it's got less and less, less and less. Of course, if you grow in a priorat with the special stones that they have there, I forgot what's the name of the stone there?

Limestone, but it's like the—

No, it's slate.

Slate, with the slate where it, yeah.

Okay, so when I was—

Gives you much more minerality.

When I was in priorat a year ago, Yeah, I went not only to wineries, but, and of course to Moïse, but also to mines. I licked the stones and you can feel it. You know what they're talking about. But in the winery, you can blur it with other things, with techniques, with method of fermentation. So this is one thing. And then I understand, you know, many, many years ago when I started making the wine, I start with one of the experts at the time. Today he's not very young anymore. And he told me, you're ruining my business. I told him, me, Eli Shiran? He was a lawyer also, and he's a consultant for investment in wines, etc. He said, listen, we are built on terroir. I can do Bordeaux. This is Bordeaux-style wine. I can foresee what's going to happen and tell you to invest in it. You take different terroirs and you make back one big mouche. Well, I'm not responsible for the world trade. I'm responsible for what I think. And if I can see advantage, let's go to extreme, in the desert, grapes and something that will make the two parts better than, than one plus one, right, to make it into three from northern Ramat Hagolan, I'll use it because this is what the modern days gave us. And I think it would be crime not to use it. It's not big deal today to transfer, and I'm doing it, from Kerem Marouach, which is up north in Ramat Hagolan, or from a Mitsperamon and to make a blend. If the two parts are more than just one plus one, it gives you three. And I've done it in most of my wines. So this is where all these things— maybe it's a bit confusing.

No, I think—

Maybe I'm not very—

No, I think you're describing exactly where the wine world is and going and is going. And I, I agree with you. You know, you as a winemaker have to make what you like, what you want. The— ultimately, when you do a blend, you sit there and you blend it and you decide, hey, is this better? Is this worse? Is this what I want, or is this not what I want? There's no I guess there are some specific rules if you're in the middle of France or in the middle of Spain or what have you, but when you're blending here, you're making the decision. You're making the decision to do it, and I think to somebody to say that that's not a valid decision or what have you is silly. It is totally a valid decision.

Well, I was told.

Well, one of the main parts of terroir that people leave off. There's 4 elements to terroir, not 3. There's location, which, or elevation, what have you. There's climate. There's the fauna around you and what have you. But there's also the process. And people leave that out of the terroir picture. 5.

And the winemaker.

Well, that's the process.

He's part. I know. But the process could be the winemaker.

Okay.

But the vintner, yes.

The farmer, yes.

He is a major part in the terroir.

I agree. I agree. He's left off usually from that, from the descriptions of terroir, but you're 100% right. And it's the same thing when you leave off the method, methodology. That's why the podcast is named The Kosher Terroir, because there are people, it's not about Israeli wines only. There are people making kosher wines all over the world. And when they make kosher wines, they are following procedures that are about kosher wines. They do not follow them exactly the same in different places, but I believe that that is a significant part of the terroir when you are making kosher wines.

Then what is different in the process?

I will give you an example.

Between making kosher wine and not kosher wine.

I will give you an example. In, in Madeira. Madeira is a wine that's from grapes, just like everything else, but they take it and they put it in a barrel and they sit the barrels in the sun and they let them, they let them go in the sun. That's part of Madeira's terroir. You can't make a Madeira without following that procedure. Okay? You can't.

But you can make it kosher.

You can make it kosher.

So the process is the same process.

It's not exactly the same process.

Why? A bit of the beard of the mashgiach will fall into the wine?

The process is exactly the same. That's definitely part of it. That's why you have a beard and I have a beard, because we want to make sure we have an impact on the wines.

Yeah.

But no, I— I believe that there, there is an impact from whether you make kosher— when you make a kosher wine. I'm not telling you about people who make non-kosher wines. I'm not going there. I'm not judging or anything. I know I'm in a position where I can only drink kosher wines, so that's the only wine I taste. That's, that's the situation I'm in. So that's why I focus on kosher wines.

Thank God for that.

Yeah, it is. It's— I, I'm very thankful, and I'm very thankful for the, the incredible expressions that are now coming out. Um, there's so many kosher wineries in Israel and so many kosher wineries around the world. Where I was limited in the past, I'm not limited anymore.

So absolutely.

Yep. Okay. So let's break for a minute and then we'll get some wine out and then we'll taste it and go back. Okay, we're back.

Hi again.

Thank you, Eli, for being here.

Really, thank you again for having me here.

Okay.

Having us, us.

Yes. Your wife isn't speaking and she has a mic, but she's very quiet.

So it's very quiet.

Okay.

Can she be quiet? Is that so quiet also at home?

I'll give you the switch for the microphone. Oh, he's going to be in trouble after this.

I'm used to it.

We're all big talkers.

Yep. Absolutely.

Okay. So we're going to try some of your whites. We're going to start with the whites. We're going to try some white wine. Tell me a little bit about this. What are we tasting?

So first of all, I can say chag Sameach now.

Yeah.

Because we will be drinking the Chardonnay '21. And why I'm saying chag Sameach? Because tomorrow— and happy birthday— because tomorrow morning it's my first harvest for this year. And it's going to be Chardonnay from the same vineyard. So what we're having here, and by the way, give or take a day, this is the day that we harvested in 2021. This vineyard, which is in Gush Etzion, I'll explain, please, in a second, uh, whether it's hot or cold, roughly give or take 2 days, it's exactly spot on for what we expect it to be. To be harvested. So we've got here a Chardonnay '21. Just to be a bit— so to show off a bit, this wine just got in the Israeli competition, Shkol Hazav, the gold award for Chardonnay.

Mazal tov!

Thank you. The Chardonnay, most of the whites, I, I can say I don't interfere. I mean, the only way that I interfere is, first of all, the vineyard is altitude about 950, 970 in Kibbutz Rosh Tsurim in Gush Etzion, which is very near where we live. My daughter actually lives now in Rosh Tsurim. It's the old Revadim, which is part of the Yeshuvay Gush Etzion before 1948. This area called Revadim, uh, so it's got also— and my uncle fell to the Jordanian prison in 1948. He was in Kfar Etzion, but the same area, so to speak.

Yeah.

We are trying to harvest it fairly early, uh, so to keep— and that goes for all my whites— so as to keep the good acidity, uh, and on the other hand, uh, to get enough fruits and minerality in the wine. Now, I think, again, it's not my vineyard, so it's not, I'm not praising myself, but it's a very unique and probably the most special vineyard of Chardonnay in Israel. It's not your typical Chardonnay. Don't ask me the differences because it's really difficult for me to say. And every year it gives expression to slight different fruits. 2016, for example, it was the first time that I made a Chardonnay. It was with tons of guava. Uh, slowly, slowly, I'm playing with it. As I told you, I ferment it in 2 or 3 different lots with 2 or 3 different, uh, yeasts and different temperature. Some of it roughly 13, 14 Celsius. You'll translate to Fahrenheit.

Yeah, no, no, it's—

and, and goes up to about 18 to 20. When you ferment something in a very cold temperature, you get more fruity, fruitiness, right? And when you ferment it on a higher temperature, you get bit more minerality. Now here I don't have to work hard. Because there is something when we'll taste it, you'll see that in the end, in the finish, I think that you get almost as you feel the sea. You get this minerality which I love in white wine. Okay. I don't like over-frogginess. I like it in a moderate way. Even though the Chardonnay sometimes is very, very fruity, but I like it to be also with minerals. Now, I will not analyze the wine. I think that you know by now that I don't analyze any of my wines. You're welcome to say what you feel, what you don't feel, etc. I may agree, I may disagree. Please, if you don't like something in the wine, tell me. I hate it when people just say, "Wow, wow, it's great." because not all my wines are great. And I like to get good reviews.

Good feedback.

True review of my wine. It may be that it's a great wine, but, but it doesn't always go. So feel free to tell me whatever you think about the wine, even if you've got criticism. The fermentation takes about 3 to 4 weeks. Then I leave it on the lees roughly Another 4 months. Then it doesn't go through barrel, not at all. Then we, uh, um, what's the name, sieve it?

Filter it. Filter it.

Then we filter it, bottle it, and a few months afterwards it's in the market.

So there's no malolactic process at all?

No. Listen. Sometimes, mainly after you've got a not new place. As I told you, like with the yeast, you've got in the air of the, of the wine, of the winery, you've got the malolactic bacteria. So I don't go through the process. I cannot tell you that sometimes in some of the whites it doesn't start, but as soon as I can, I stop it. And usually I get high acidity with the, the, again, the, the malic acid on fairly high level. And this is the wine. So happy birthday to my Chardonnay.

Happy birthday. It's Yom Huledet Sameach. Yom Huledet and we're going to be sameach. It's a beautiful, beautiful golden color.

Thank you.

Absolutely beautiful golden color.

It's a bit warm now.

Yeah, no.

Because yeah, we took it out a while ago, but it's still—

it's got apples, lemon. It's very, um, it's very good. Very good.

Thank you.

It's interesting. It's, it's, it's, it's an It's an interesting Chardonnay.

Some people claim that it's got a bit of the characteristic of Sauvignon Blanc. I, I can't tell you, but if they say that, I mean, it started as a joke. That's the truth, because my first Chardonnay, or second one, had also the, this cat pee smell.

Yeah.

So some people notice civet, whatever they call it.

They call it civet.

Okay. So since then it's become a joke. They call it Château Vignon and all these names. I think it's, it's, uh, from what I read, it's a— can be typical for that climate. We are in a hot climate, right? Israel is a hot climate, but Gush Etzion is a microclimate, is much colder. Rosh Choriv in Monmoso, I mean, you can see the fog in the middle of August. And from what I read in the books, when I did study a bit, when I did WSET, etc., etc., You can have this tropical notes that usually are not very within the Chardonnay with the other notes that this wine gives. When you drink it colder, you get even more tropical notes. And again, as I said, every year you get slight different direction to the fruit, which for me is great because I hate to do the same thing every year. I mean, you know, it's got very nice acidity as well.

It's there. And you're right, it is more like a— it tastes like a— it tastes more like a— what you call it— Sauvignon Blanc.

Well, if it's okay with you, you can take a marker, cross off Chardonnay.

No, no, no.

Sauvignon Blanc.

I've tasted I've tasted, um, you know, this is the expression of what the grapes are giving you. This isn't something that you changed. It's not— I, I don't have— there is so much in making wine that when people say it's not varietally correct, or it's not this, it's not that, I, I look at them and I just Like, I laugh.

Hallelujah. You're a clever wise man that agrees with me.

I agree.

You don't expect a Chardonnay from, I don't know where, to be like a Moncharet. You don't expect a Pinot from Ramat Hagolan. Maybe they've got some connection, like But I think, hallelujah, thank you for that, Simon. Just for that, it was worthwhile coming here. Can I go now?

I'll let you out anytime you want to leave, but it's— I'm having fun. Okay, I'm gonna— I want to taste the Riesling. I want to taste your Riesling.

So you want to taste what?

The Riesling.

Ah, the Riesling.

That's the next one we're tasting. So I'm going to give you I don't want to pour so much. Here, I'm going to give you the, I'm going to give you the bottle back to talk about.

So we are drinking our Riesling again, 2021. 2022, I didn't make wine because of the Shmitah year. I decided not to make wine at all. So I took a sabbatical, not only the land, also I took sabbatical. The Riesling is from a vineyard in Kerem Ben Zimra, but not as they said, Kerem Ben Zimra Rehovot. You know that if you collect all the bottles that it says on them, Kerem Ben Zimra, it's 4 times as much as Israel produces graves altogether.

I wasn't aware of that. Kerem Ben Zimra.

Yeah, yeah. It used to be a big joke in Israel. Kerem Ben Zimra where? So this is actually Kerem Ben Zimra on the edge of the, of the moshav. It's a very small vineyard for an Avdonim divided to, I think, 6 terraces. Which is half of it roughly. I signed the contract, so I get every year the amount that is enough for me. And again, I, I, most of my whites, I, I, when I make reds, I'm interested more in, in, in the characteristic of the blends and my, my, uh, I don't know what to call it, personality. My, uh, what I dream during the night when I make blends. Also in my white blends, they're coming sort of out of my dreams. When I make single varietal, I want to find different expressions of the same terroir. So I want that to be loyal to that terroir, even, even though what I've said before about terroir because I'm playing with it, right? I'm playing with different yeast, different temperature, different times that you do a solive, that you mix it. So everything is different, but I'm trying to find what I can make from this vineyard. Okay, I've got no interest on mixing, and this is my second Chardonnay. My first Chardonnay just received also a medal, and it's still very young. It hardly got the petroleum that we are looking in.

The Riesling, you said, not the Chardonnay.

Sorry, I said Chardonnay. Yeah, yeah, but don't worry, erase everything that I said in the last 2 minutes.

Yeah, no, you're talking about, you're talking about the Riesling, right?

Yes, so it hasn't got yet a lot of the petroleum. However, by the way, you know that in Alsace and in the Mosel, they're not so keen on the— they think it's a fault in the wine, right? I was just there and they told me, what are you looking for? Maybe in 5 or 6 years, but then we don't like the wine anymore. I think it's mainly us, you said kosher terroir, us as Jews looking mainly for that. As Israelis, we are looking if it's not, if it hasn't got the petrol notes in it, it's not Riesling. This is a, I think, a decent expression. Of course, I won't say about my wine, good expression, but it's a decent expression of Israeli Riesling. It's very different than European Riesling. We are in a hot climate, but you can see the line between the varietals. I think so, at least. Yeah. Again, the process here takes roughly the same as the Chardonnay. I suppose we'll harvest the 2023 in about the next 10 days. Again, fermenting in 2 or 3 different lots, different temperature, then blending them and leaving a bit for a blend of which we wait to see which blend will come up this year.

So this is also a beautiful golden— only it's a little lighter than the Chardonnay, but it's also beautiful golden color. Okay.

I basically love white wine. I drink also in the winter white wine.

I like it as well.

When I eat shouldn't, it's allowed to say in a Sefardi house shouldn't, hamin, hamin, tabit, tabit, tabit. I don't know, hamin. Iraqi is tabit.

I know, but.

Okay. I drink it with white wine. The reason is, The acidity refresh you and you can eat more. And who doesn't like to eat a lot of children?

The, the acidity— what I found with the whites is that they're fantastic with spice, they're fantastic with fatty foods, they cut through the fat, they help you, um And, you know, and I think that that's one of the reasons why even the orange wines work better here than in some other places, because the food here has so much more flavor. The Israeli food has this Middle Eastern spice and flavor, and much more than, than in America. And because of that, though orange wines have now become a craze in America as well. I mean, Yaakovoria was at the beginning of the curve, or ahead of the curve, especially among kosher drinkers. But now, but the food here is really what it works with.

Much spicier.

It's much spicier, and it really, Works great. This is exactly— the acid in this is tremendous. It's wonderful.

4 or 5 years ago, we had a dinner with Yakov in our house, and the first course was a countryman with soup, but it was pretty spicy, and we were debating which wine to open. So Yakov said the orange. It was a perfect hit.

Yep.

Bull, as you said in Hebrew.

Yeah.

It was the perfect wine for the perfect dish, etc. And the Riesling, actually, everybody says is good with Chinese food, with Vietnamese food, etc., etc. Yeah, I agree. I love white wine.

The other thing is that the petroleum taste usually doesn't come out of the Riesling. For a number of years. It's not something that's there at the first— I, I don't believe— I mean, my experience has been that new Rieslings, new bottles of Rieslings, don't have that petroleum taste.

So it depends. In Europe, because of the Riesling is an element— excuse me, not telling you the right word of the substance that, what makes it, the petroleum, but it's something that exists in the Riesling. In Europe, where the weather is very cold, this is at least what I understood, it takes 5, 6, or 7 years to express itself. To express. In Israel, it's starting because of the sun, etc. You can get the expression of the petroleum after 2 or 3 years.

Okay.

And by the way, you can see here a bit note, like very minor note where it started.

There's an oiliness to it. Yes, 100%. There is definitely an oiliness to it. Done. Nicely done. Okay, we're going to try the Trad. Or do you want to go to the reds?

Up to you, sir.

Let's go to the reds.

Let's go to the reds. Let's go to the reds. So, we have got time for both of them? Yes. So, let's start with the Tempranillo. With the Tempranillo.

Okay.

Because it's lighter. Okay. And then we'll go to the heavier wine. The Tempranillo, I managed to get— there are very few vineyards of Tempranillo in Israel. I managed to get twice, and now they're not willing to sell anymore, and I understand them. And one year it wasn't good enough to be single varietal. And this is— pardon?

You blended it.

I made it as a blend. And in this seal, some of it I blended and some I made as a single rital. What I actually did was in the blend, I made it as a field blend and it went into the Song of the Birds. And some of it I just bottled. It's different to Priorat, not Priorat, No, Rioja Tempranillo. It's still very, very young, very young. I think it's got a good few years ahead of it. But as I told you from the beginning, I fell in love with the wines through Rioja. And when I drink the Tempranillo, I understand why. Or Carignan, that I also love. I think they are very— they are going very good with the Israeli kind of vibe, weather.

This has almost an old nose to it. It's interesting. I didn't— I—

Who is almost the wino?

Me, certainly. Me, certainly. But it's got a funkiness to it that—

I'm sorry, I didn't intend to. It's a compliment. It's a compliment.

It's okay.

It took the wine, it's a 2020, 2020.

Okay.

For the first 2 years, you hardly got anything and slowly, slowly starting to open.

To develop.

Again, don't forget we just opened it.

Yeah, we just opened it.

You drink it in a few hours, you'll get totally different wine. But this is what it is. I mean, I don't even have any, uh, motives to advance it because I've got only 4 or 6 cases left. I made only small amount. Some of it went to the state, some of it stayed in Israel, and this is what it is. I wish I can make more of it, but I can't. It's still pretty close.

It's closed. It is closed. We didn't give it enough time to leave it open for. I should have left it open longer. But it's an Uh, even though it's a little lighter, it's not, it's not light. It's not like a Grenache light. It's, um, it's, it's much darker.

When, when I made it, I found Moise from Elve.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I knew that I like Tempranillo. Yeah, I knew that I like Rioja, which is mainly Tempranillo. And I managed to get to put my hand on the small amount of Tempranillo and ask him, okay, I've got the grapes, help me with barrels, because too much barrel to varietal, you've got millions of different barrels. So he told me, if you want to get this type of wine you do that. If you want to get this type of wine, you do that. And guess what I did? I did it all. I mixed some of this, some of that. So I got wine which is not too light, hasn't got too much of the vanilla like they like to use in Spain. They used to like to use the American oak, which gives vanilla. So I used some of the American oak barrel some of the French oak barrels, and I made a blend. Again, it's, it's single varietal, single vineyard, single lane wine, but it's a blend because we mixed few barrels, and some of the barrel we use for another wine. So it wasn't like 50/50. And it's like most of my wines, I don't put more than 12 months Sometimes it can be 11 and a half months, sometimes 12 and a half months, but give or take 12 months in a barrel. And if the wine is not ready, it can rest in the bottle. I'm afraid to get too much wood into the wine.

It's got tannins, but the tannins are nice. They're light. They're, um, they're not overwhelming the palate.

They're not aggressive.

Yeah, they're not aggressive at all, but it's good.

I actually like tannin in wines. I like to get the kick. I also drink wine. When I open a bottle of wine, usually I don't let it— I hardly decant and I don't let it breathe. I open and I drink. Then I let it rest. But I want to see the development from first second, few hours, next morning, and if anything left in the bottle, next day. Okay? Not always. I'm lucky enough to have something left in the bottle. Mainly when my kids are at home. But I have to hide a bit of each bottle so I can try it after a day, sometime after 2 days. I made once an experiment with a very good friend of mine. I won't mention his name because maybe he doesn't want his name to be mentioned. We open simultaneously in my house and his house 3 bottles of my wines, and we follow them through a week. A week, we didn't do anything. We, we drunk, we put the Coke back, and we left them outside. Well, on the 6th day, the bottle was finished. The wine was still perfect.

I I never used to expect a wine to last more than a day. If I didn't finish it that night, I knew it was going to be gone by the next day. That's not true anymore. A lot of the wines are just so lovely, and they develop even better. Yeah, they— especially whites, especially whites, whites, but also, also— no, the reds do as well.

I didn't try white over a week But I did try reds over a week and they developed beautifully. And after a week, they were just amazing. Amazing.

Yeah. So we have one last bottle of wine that we're going to taste.

Yep.

It smells delicious.

Before we'll talk about the wine.

Yeah.

I want you to tell me what you think, what you see, and then I'll tell you what's the wine.

Okay, good.

Because I don't think it's very obvious, at least This wine is, um, is beautifully dark.

It smells almost French. It's really beautiful. Um, beautiful.

I don't see French as compliment, but just joking.

Okay, let me taste it. It's a beautiful fruit. It's got tannins still, but they're, they're soft.

What— how long do you think this wine is still going to go on? I mean, what's the future aging potential of it?

I think that the— I think that this is probably going to age maybe another 2 years, 3 years. I don't think it's going to go on more than that. I mean, maybe it will, but I think that it's, it's really accessible right now. I don't think that it's, uh, it's in any sort of a quiet phase. It's beautiful fruit. It's lovely. Why? What do you feel?

It's interesting. No, no, I've been hearing that this wine is going to age for only another 2 years for the last 8 years. Now, I don't know. I'm not an expert in aging or—

No, this is not.

And when I make wine, my goal is not aging. It's like a side effect. Well, why I wanted to bring this wine, first let me tell you what's this wine. It's 10 years old. It's again its birthday this year. These days. It's 10 years old Merlot. I made only 70 bottles out of this wine. It's my last time that I've used Merlot. It's Merlot from Kfar Tapoach. Unfortunately, the vintner didn't look well enough after the vineyard, so I stopped I think somebody else is now taking, took this vineyard and made from it very good wine, different style but very good wine. There is a lot of talking and there is, I see always on the groups, etc., Israeli wine cannot age. Well, I don't know how to say it, but you know, a bit more modesty. For all these experts that, uh, talking about Israeli winery. Of course, I'm very humble next to them. Most of them's got much more knowledge than me, etc. But if we'll talk about international wines all over the world, about 95% of the wine or more around the world are not eligible for aging more than 3 to 5 years. Then out of this 5%, only I don't know what can age up till 10 years. And even I don't know what percent, 1% or more, or 2% can age more. It's true that some French or Spanish wine or Italian wine can age 20 and 30 years, but they are wine per million. So to go and say that Israeli wine cannot age, how should I put it? It's like saying that Israeli wine, some people used some of the words, pour it down the drain and all these derogative words. Now, I made this wine. Again, it's not me, it's the vineyard. I try not to ruin God's creation. It's my— the first wine that I made. Sorry, second. Year before I played, and this was the first time. I made only 70 bottles of it because the rest of it went into the Chazanne blend, 2013. We talked about it before with the Cab and Grenache. And because I didn't know anything, I bottled only 70 bottles. I said, well, it's tasty, let's bottle 70 bottles. And I didn't, I never sold it. I, from time to time, we open it within the family and we saw that it's not only holding, but it's been developing throughout the years.

It's a lovely, it's a lovely, it's a lovely, very fruitful, but not It's almost like an old— this is not a New World wine. This is more of an Old World wine, but it's delicious.

Again, I don't understand about New and Old World. With all due respect, I really am sorry. For me, wine, I like it or I don't like it. Very simple. Very simple. And But it's always, you know, I look— wine for me is fun, it's game. When I start giving a wine tasting, my first question most of the time is, what is wine? So people saying fermented grapes. No, no, wine is fun. Wine is fun. I'm in the wine business because it's fun. It's my playground. Not to take from the new label of Yannick.

No, no, no.

But I've been saying for the last 12 years, it's not my label, it's his label. And you know that I've got a lot of respect and love for him. But I feel as I'm going to play every year when I start making wine, I'm playing. And for some people, to come and say, doesn't matter from where they are coming, that Israeli wine is, you know, hold on your horses. As a winemaker that at the time was afraid to even mention that word winemaker, made a wine that lasted now for 10 years. You say another 2 years and I'm one of the smallest, whatever. I think give a bit more respect to Israeli winery, to the Israeli wine industry, and to Eretz Israel. Absolutely. I'm saying it also as a Zionist, not only as a wine lover. This is the reason why I wanted to bring this bottle, even though I don't usually share it. You know, thank you. What's his name in Joy doesn't share food and Ellie doesn't share Merlot. I open it only in my house. So, but, but I thought it's interesting, Dafka, to see this, uh, this comparison.

Yeah, yeah. You're such a Zionist. How long have you been here? When did you come?

Oh well, I was born here. You were born here, but the family The family came to Israel. It's called the Bear Maim Chaim. He was a Kabbalistic. 1813 or 1817. Simone will know better, but she's not with us at the moment. She's very much into the family history. We are descended of his daughter. Her name was Dvora. So we are definitely— I'm definitely 9th generation Israeli. According to some of the research, she was married twice. We don't know for which of the husbands she had kids. One of them, they lived in Tsfat. One of them, there were two people exactly the same name in Tsfat. One of them came from the same city that they came from in, uh, what, sorry, White Russia, around Chernobyl. And one of them was already 6th generation Israeli. That I discovered only a few years ago. So if we are son of him, we are 15. I'm 15, my kids are 16. My grandchildren are 17. If it's the other one, I'm 9th, my grandchildren are 11th generation Israeli. So yeah, we are very proud of it. We've got, uh, one thing I was sorry that none of them was in agriculture. It's always frustrated me. That they're all in chasidim and whatever. No disrespect to chasidim, right? But none of them had a hold in the land. But that's it. That's life.

Baruch Hashem. You know, I'm, I'll tell you something. I am so proud to have grandchildren They are the first generation Israelis. So I cannot even imagine to have grandchildren that could be 17th and please God, 18th generation Israelis for Chai. They should be, they should keep going and going and going and going. Please God, it is awesome. It is beautiful.

It is very special.

It is unbelievable.

But you see, I did not do anything for that. I was given it as a gift.

You almost left and you came back. It's not a gift. You did. You purposefully went back.

I came back because of my wife.

Okay, but you still came back.

Thanks to my wife.

You still came back. Otherwise, your children would not have been.

That's true.

Okay? So, Baruch Hashem. Me'achoz. All right. Thank you very much, Eli. It's really a pleasure. A pleasure tasting wine with you and talking to you. And I look forward in the future.

Thanks for having me.

It's a pleasure. Really appreciate it.

I had a great time.

Thank you.

I even managed to put the earphones, the headphones, the headphones properly. Yeah, which gave it more serious effect. Yes, and I was trying to be serious, which is very difficult for me. Thank you.

Thank you. Be well. Bye-bye. Thank you.