A Wine Conversation with Joshua E. London

Welcome to The Kosher Teruah.

I'm Simon Jacob, your host for this episode from Jerusalem. Before we get started, I ask that wherever you are, please take a moment and pray for the safety of our soldiers and the safe return of all of our hostages. Welcome to The Kosher Terroir, the podcast that uncorks the world of kosher wine, one bottle, one story at a time. Today, we're joined by Joshua London, a seasoned wine and spirits writer with a deep knowledge of the global kosher wine scene. Originally from California, Joshua has written extensively on wines, spirits, and cocktails for top publications, offering expert insight into what makes a great kosher vintage. In this episode, we explore the evolution of the kosher wine market, emerging trends, and what sets certain wines apart. If you love discovering new wines, expanding your palate, and diving deep into the craftsmanship behind every bottle, you're in the right place. So pour yourself a glass, settle in, and let's explore the kosher terroir. Welcome to the kosher terroir, Josh. It's a pleasure. It's a real pleasure.

Pleasure is all mine. Thank you.

Okay. So tell me a little bit about how you got into, into wine, you know, you're, and what you're doing now, but let's start from the beginning. How did you get into this?

Oh gosh. So, um, it feels like many lifetimes ago now, but, um, So I'm originally from Northern California, from Sacramento.

I didn't know that.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, small film community. Sure. My name is Paul.

Do you know Steve Fishbein?

Yeah, yeah, when we first met, we did a little bit of this Jewish geography, but it was right at the start of the Rothschild dinner thing in New York. Right, in New York. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah, no, so Steve, in fact, even many more moons ago, The Fishbeins, when they first moved to Sacramento, so my father, aleh vashalom, who was the chazer, and he was like, what are you big? It was a small pond, he was a big fish. He's one of the folks along with the Rav who helped Makariv Steve and Yvette. Wow. Bring them more into the fold. Yeah, and I remember all the kids growing up.

Wow, very, very small world. All right, so tell me a little bit about your background. Where did you start? How did you get into wine?

Okay, so, um, so, so as I say, so I'm originally from Sacramento, and, uh, there were some family friends who, um, were, uh, who were wine lovers and who were, uh, decided to sort of roll the dice and have an attempt at making some kosher wine. Um, uh, it was— I can't recall off top of my head now. I think it was Sonoma grapes, but they, they were making it in, um, Davis, California. You know, Davis, UC Davis. Yeah, yeah. Um, in fact, that's what I did my undergrad was UC Davis. Uh, and all of the, all of the Israeli, um, wine folk who would come through, if any were Dati, they came to the, the Sacramento community. That's how I met Chicky Rauschberger. I've known the Rauschberger family a long time from his time there when he was doing the research on the Wuschel and all that. And at any rate, so friends of the family, you may know, you probably know Yitzhak Appelbaum.

Sure.

So Yitzhak and a few partners did a kosher wine. It's now a pretty mediocre um, unremarkable Australian wine, Teal Lake.

Okay.

But when Teal Lake first began, it was a California wine made at Davis. Uh, it was, um, so it was Yitzhak Appelbaum, Yitzhak and Hilda Appelbaum, um, uh, Doctors, uh, Iseroff and Huntley, married Rivka Iseroff and Art Huntley. And there was one other partner who was not Jewish whose name escapes me this moment. And back then, this is before the industry was as big and before the kosher industry was as big and as professionalized. And so basically they would, you know, grab the handful of Shomer Shabbos folks from Sacramento and sort of push them into the winery. My father did, a bunch of people did it. I was in yeshiva high school at the time, but every time I came back, I would be press-ganged into the winery. And so I began as a cellar rat, essentially, in a custom crush type facility. The Rav of Makshesh was a family Rav, Shlomo Rosen, who's now in Chicago, but he was a long, long time Rav of Sacramento. And I think it was under the OU, although I know I have some old labels, you know, pictures of old labels, But anyway, he was the actual, uh, gov on the ground and essentially the one making it. Uh, and, uh, it was Pinot Noir. Um, it was actually fabulous. Uh, at one point they did a rosé, a Pinot Blanc, Pinot Rosé, which was also fabulous. Um, distribution was challenging, uh, and it's— and eventually they sold the label to, uh, to Royal, uh, who then kept the artwork. I think was Rivka. I think she actually drew it. So they kept the name, they kept a version of the artwork, sold off all the stock, I think, through Trader Joe's for, you know, like $2. It was like a kosher Two Buck Chuck regionally, very locally. So everyone bought it up, and that was like the wine du jour till it ran out. Then I think it was a year or two of nothing before they moved it to at the time Norman's Wines in Australia for like bulk Australian wine. I think they still release stuff in that category, maybe even some reserve. I stopped drinking the Australian teal lake a long time ago, but the original one was actually very nice. So at any rate, I caught the bug then. Wow. So before I was legal to drink it. And also, so growing up in Northern California, so you know, all the, all the wine personalities that either were in kosher or dabbled or were supportive of kosher, uh, were sort of people I, I got to know, you know. So Ernie Weir, uh, Craig Winchell, um, Craig even more than Ernie, only because, uh, at some stage Ernie sort of upgraded the hashkacha, but there was a brief period where some people drank it, some people didn't, and that kind of thing. But my family, my father, alav Hashalom, was always very supportive of all of this stuff. There was a mainstream winery in Napa that was owned by the Jewish Shaskali family out of Languedoc, and they did a kosher run for a couple of years, Mount Maroma and Mount Madrona. And we used to drink that.

I remember seeing bottles of that. I remember.

Yeah, it was actually excellent as well, and nothing was that expensive, uh, back when, um, this was also the days when Bob Weinstock, Robert Weinstock, was making Weinstock Wines himself before he sold it to, uh, to Royal, um, and he was actually making fabulous wines. They used to have this Chenin Blanc, um, that was really 6 times better than the price, right?

I remember them being super quality at a very reasonable price.

Yeah, that's right. And, uh, and, and it was a sort of thing, you know, um, folks in the, in the, in the industry, uh, who again either, um, weren't themselves from, or maybe not even Jewish, but were highly supportive, uh, were generally supportive. Um, Dan Berger used to write for the LA Times. Um, he used to, you know, give positive reviews The Cordy Brothers, which were supportive of kind of ethnic and other, you know, sort of more out there wines. They— Cordy had a big influence on a lot of the kosher producers just by being supportive, helping to open doors, helping to make connections. You know, it was a smaller world, less corporate in many, many respects. Some of it still is that way in Napa, but anyhow, so I kind of grew up with all that, and it wasn't until a little bit later that I kind of realized how rich the experiences were, and it was many years later that I started writing professionally about it. So I went from California I went to Swell for a bit, and then back to California. Then graduate school, I went to University of Chicago. And it was while in grad school that I started writing professionally. And basically, I just sort of realized I had a facility for writing that was just slightly better than my peers, but enough. And initially, I was doing mostly politics and stuff like that. But so I had a whole, like, at the time my writing was more politics and kind of cultural commentary, not kind of, even though I was a kid, but you know, I come from this, the American Jewish school of thought where, you know, everyone in the world is entitled to my opinion. So.

I love it.

I've tempered a bit now, but, and even more so by politics, it's a blood sport of a different, nature than it was when I was growing up. Um, but anyway, so, uh, um, so I became sort of a professional writer, um, as a sideline. I was always doing other stuff too. And then, um, once I moved to Washington, DC after graduate school, uh, and after I was married, uh, which I married my wife in 2002, uh, so it was around 2000 I think 3 or 4 that I first started writing about wine, kosher wine and spirits. And there was a local— it became a national thing, but there's a local paper called the Washington Examiner. And now it became a big chain with examiners all over the place. And but at the, at that exact moment, it was basically just a local paper. And, um, the, the wine guy for it, uh, who's, you know, Jew-ish, never wanted to touch anything kosher, whatever. Um, I had met him through someone else, and I asked him, oh yeah, what are you going to be reviewing for, for Passover, right? So it's the one time of year when everyone— and he says nothing. And I'm like, that's not good. So I contacted the editor and I said, look, I, I I nominally know the wine guy. I know he's not going to touch it for Passover. I said, you have a sizable Jewish community. Can I write the piece for Passover? Sure. So I did. They loved it. Because they had a regular wine writer and at the end of the day, there wasn't the market for a regular kosher wine column, I ended up doing a cocktail column. Cocktails, spirits, food occasionally for the weekend section. I ended up with a weekly column and where I was basically doing like storytelling about cocktails, the background, the history, different recipes. There's a handful of cocktails that have their history in DC. And so I would go, you know, sort of like the Army Navy Club and the photographer would come and just like having fun with it. I was a very tiny minor, not even celebrity, but a minor figure in the drinks world in DC. Very tiny. I mean, you know, my stature is almost infinitesimal, but amongst them, they knew me. And then from that, let's see, around the same time, kosherwine.com, which back then was Hungarian Kosher Foods in Chicago. They had just started sort of revamping their website and getting people to do reviews of the wines. And I and my friend Gámbli O'Connell, who's also a wine writer, we started just uploading our notes, you know, of the wines because like, oh, it was an easy way to keep track of our notes. You know, without having to be too, um, uh, pretentious about having, you know, notebooks or this or that. You know, it was early days. Well, so in short order, I said, you know, I'm a bit of an insomniac, so when I would have dead time, I would just start uploading these things. All of a sudden, I had something like 500 wines, you know, reviewed across the price spectrum. And so suddenly my name was like— people all over the place would email me out of the blue and say I— are you the same one who does this? What would you recommend? Etc., etc. And, um, Dan Kush, uh, who at the time— the Kush family owned Hungarian Kosher Foods— he ran, um, a Wine of the Month Club through Hungarian— through kosherwines.com, uh, and he had a newsletter, and he needed someone to write the newsletter at some point. And I— and here I don't remember the history if if David Rocker was doing it first or if Rocker took it over from me. I just don't remember. And I— maybe Rocker knows, or— but, but at some point I started writing the newsletter, not under my name, just, you know, just writing it for them. And for that I needed to research. I need to know information about the wineries. And at this stage of the game, the only way there was any information was whether or not the individual winery doing kosher and had a marketing department and decided to do anything. Royal wasn't on top of it outside of the Herzog label, maybe a couple of Israeli wines. And I was pushing a lot of stuff that I found interesting and that reached my price point for Kirsch and that he could get, you know, enough supply. And through that, I became very friendly with the Royal Wine Corp marketing people. Uh, at some stage I moved on. I can't remember exactly why I left the newsletter. At some stage it was, I think, partly maybe we were running out of information on the wines. Uh, like I had sort of tapped the interesting ones, and then, you know, Royal didn't have any information, and the wineries— this was early days, the websites weren't so prominent.

Um, so at some point, certainly no internet.

Yeah, I mean, this was— it was—

the internet was really low.

It was low, right? It just, it just wasn't as user-friendly certainly as now. And everyone's computers were like dial-up or whatever, you know, like everything was slower. Um, but, uh, and then, so let's see, this is probably— I'm making up the times, but it's something like maybe 2009, 2008, 2009, something along those lines. At some stage, my cocktail column came to an end because the editors changed. The Examiner got bought out, became a much larger national thing, and essentially I was dropped. I had a bunch of other people, um, in one fell swoop. And, uh, then I started doing some freelance writing. And at some stage I became the weekly columnist for the Washington Jewish Week, a mantle that a friend— you know Jules Polonecki? Sure. Yeah, so Jules now has that, that column, and he's doing a great job. And Jules is an older neighbor of mine from Potomac. That's one of his columns. But so I had that column, and then my friend Galmiel Kronemer had a regular gig with the Jewish Week in New York. In the print edition, and they were just launching their website, uh, like a food and wine website, uh, and so I started writing heavily for the website, uh, again sort of ended up with a weekly column and periodically also for the print edition. And this was— I don't remember the exact year, but at some stage they began an annual wine magazine, Krit Pesach Thing, and so I became very involved in that. I became a judge a little bit later in the process. The whole competition was basically Yossi Horowitz, um, I think it was invention. Either he came up with the idea or he professionalized it for them. I don't remember. He'll tell you, he remembers. Um, but, uh, he and, uh, City Winery guys, Steve Dorff and folks like that, they began it. Gamliel, my memory of this is he became a judge maybe the second or third year in, and they kept inviting me, but I, you know, it just wasn't practical. And then by the fourth or fifth year, the publisher said, we'll pay for you to come up and stay in a hotel. I said, okay. And then I became a judge, but the whole time I was writing for them. So, you know, by the time that just before COVID rolled around, when, uh, when we finally met in person at that Rothschild dinner in New York. Yeah, um, that was probably the, uh, the height of my, um, very relative, uh, name recognition in this niche, uh, and then COVID blew the whole thing up.

Well, it, it did in some ways and didn't in others because it evolved. It totally evolved.

Yeah, um, but for me, it's like my, my column and like the, the Jewish Week in New York folded. Um, it's sort of back as an online thing, but all different people, but they never did reach out to me. Uh, and I think I never heard of it. I tried, I tried emailing them, the new crew, and never heard a thing. Um, so like my regular writing gigs, uh, evaporated. Um, and then about the Link, online stuff. What about the Link? So the moment the Jewish Link started up— so Elizabeth Kratz is a longtime friend. I knew her, um, actually I first met her brother, who sadly passed a few years ago. Uh, he was finishing his PhD at University of Chicago, uh, just as I was entering University of Chicago, and he and his family were friends with my brother who lives in Chicago. Um, and through, uh, Robert, the the brother, I met Elizabeth. She was working on Capitol Hill at the time for, I think it was Pombo, Congressman Pombo. And she was like, had a whole career in politics and, you know, and when I reconnected with her in DC, I and Gamliel and a couple others helped sort of cultivate for her a love of wine. I won't take credit beyond the spark. It's all the rest of it's all her talents. But we used to have very fun wine tastings and stuff in DC. We had a nice little chevre for this shtick. So yeah, so I've known Elizabeth a long, long time. So when she, when the Jewish Link took over effectively from the Jewish Week, She also always invites me to come up and be a judge. It's just, again, it's just not practical in terms of the distance. But I've been writing for them from day one, just basically just the magazine. I think she's encouraged me to write much more off and on. I think now she probably has an embarrassment of riches of people who write, which is nice. But so, you know, I've reached that stage where my name seems to be recognized by some By others, it's more of a sounds familiar, and there's plenty of people who have no idea who I am, which is perfectly fine too.

So what prompted the move to the UK?

So, um, COVID— COVID was an interesting time period in Washington, D.C. So I was living in, um, Potomac, Maryland, sort of a Washington suburb. A lovely community, very nice area, um, just outside of DC. Well, when COVID struck, um, the politics of COVID particularly in DC, was even more toxic than coronavirus. Um, and a lot of different people handled it in many different ways. A handful of people remain level-headed and and good, and many, many, many panicked, and it brought out, shall we say, their worst traits, including, you know, in some cases, people of either nominal or official leadership capacities. I'm saying to Anna, like, look, our jobs are now remote, we can do this from anywhere in the world. Why don't we find someplace where A, there's family a little bit closer, and B, maybe we could find Jewish schooling that's not online. You know, my son was essentially eating crayon on stage, so to do that remotely is silly. And at that time, the school, because of the politics of corona, they were talking about— in the early stages, they were talking about, you know, if they ever reopened to, you know, and then, and like, kindergarten would be 6 feet apart, then you'd have like a little, not quite a cage, but like, you know, A plexiglass box. Yeah, it's like I'm gonna pay, you know, close to $30,000 ahead for this. This is ridiculous, right? So, uh, and it wasn't until— oh, I want to say it was maybe Shavuos. It was the basic— it was the chagim of like no guests, no nothing, that, that, uh, that helped convince my wife that, uh, that we, we did need to move on. Um, I think it was post-Shavuos that she finally said, you know what, this is ridiculous. Also, you know, we never— we didn't know when we'd ever see my in-laws again. Thank God they're in good health, but they're older. Um, and, uh, you know, it was like it just didn't make sense for our kids. It was just— it was too, you know, um, sterile an environment. So finally, uh, we, we, uh, we decided to explore the options We came to England thinking to get to London thinking this would be, you know, maybe a 6-month expat, like, you know, wait it— wait out COVID essentially. Um, long story shorter now, uh, basically, uh, we stayed. We're still here. Um, and it's been a— it's been a great move for the family. Um, my p— my kids who don't really remember America pine for it, uh, but you know, just because it's other. But the only thing that, amongst the things that transitioned, was professionally. Until that time, my day job was I was a lobbyist for various Jewish groups, Israel lobbying basically. And once remote work was no longer the method of the day, that was untenable to maintain that kind of position. I jumped back and forth a little bit, and the January 6th stuff in DC and the politics around that kept the Capitol shut for even longer than Corona. So that allowed me to hang on to that job for a bit. But at some stage, you know, enough. So I let my boss know I wasn't coming back, and we moved on. We've sort of been involved a little bit in the local scene, with, uh, with Kedem Europe, which is like the, the royal family here, um, and a couple of the other, you know, folks. Um, it's a much, much, much smaller market, but, um, but it's a, it's a vibrant community.

Um, well, they seem to, you know, I'll tell you something, um, the Kedem team that has the, uh, has the wine club in, uh, in the UK and in Europe, the Refined Wine Club. That is really incredibly well run. They always have the best product of any club, any wine club anywhere in the world. I'm always super impressed with them.

Well, they have a fabulous portfolio, as you know. So I mean For every iteration of the Royal Kedem Herzog family, you know, they have bar none the largest kosher portfolio of any one, you know, group, and with tremendous variety and some amazing quality. And they had the, you know, I don't know who invented the club. I don't know which of them came up with it, I believe it's currently run by Yonki Herzog, who's the son of Shia Morris Herzog, who's the, who's the head of Kedem Europe. Um, so his son who currently runs it, I don't know if he came up with it or Shia or somebody else, but they, they run it very, very well. Uh, and because of the funny bits, you know, related to the three-tier system in America, they, they have a lot of American, uh, members Uh, because I, I guess I don't know if they ship it. I mean, I know they ship it there. I don't know if most of the members get it shipped or if they pick it up as they pass through London for business, but apparently they have a very large subscription base in America. And I guess it's just easier. So like the Herzog Winery in California has, has a wine club, but because of the distribution networks, it only makes sense for people who are within certain states or whatever. Um, and so Refined Club is like, uh, I think is the club du jour. Uh, so it's, um, it's, it's multiple countries and, uh, you know, and they seem to be very good about just giving people variety and quality. And yeah, it's a good operation.

Have you ever tasted non-kosher wine?

Yes. Okay, so, um, Some years ago, when I was first sort of becoming professional about it, when I was still in Chicago, I had extensive conversations with Dayan there— passed away— but he— and this was an area of expertise, so wines and related issues. And actually from him I got a Heter to taste and spit. The person who gave me the Heter was Rav Gedalia Dov Schwartz. Is that so? And so in the early days, I did a lot of educational tasting in educational settings. You know, I would go to a trade show and— a lot less these days. I feel like at this stage, I have a pretty well-educated palate in many respects. I still sometimes will taste the spit if it's truly I mean, taste some Samyang if it's, uh, if it's something I've never had and I just read about it, you know, I just, I want a sense of really what it is. But, um, very sparingly now.

Just, no, I'm curious because that really frames, you know, um, questions that I have for you as far as that's concerned. We've just gone through a number of, um, uh, Trade shows, specifically in London, um, KfWE London and also the Kosher Wine Show. Kosher Wine Show. Okay, so anything interesting?

Lots of great and interesting new stuff. Uh, just to take it first with KfWE, um, which I think this was like the 19th, uh, 19th show maybe, or 20, something like— I don't remember off the top of my head, but It was, um, this was like the third or fourth one I've been to in London, and it was phenomenal. And it was a packed house. I think it was over 1,000 people, but, um, hard to tell a little bit, but really, really packed. Uh, and so it's all the Kedem portfolio, but they have some astounding wines coming through. I don't know if you've yet tasted the new winemaker, um, David Galgazon. Yeah, so he He's only a couple years in. I mean, so he's new in the sense that, um, I think this is the first, uh, iteration of wines where he's been, uh, where he's been more in control in terms of his style, you know, breaking free of the formula stuff a bit. Um, so Joe Herleman, you know, was an unbelievably talented winemaker and a great guy. Um, and David had big big, yeah, real mensch. So David had big shoes to fill, and he's filled them well. He's— I—

So you're talking about the Yessod?

So actually across the board. So Yessod is like new, new, but all of the wines that he makes, which is basically the whole lineup, Many of them he's begun to sort of tinker with and make changes. Some of them subtle, some of them a little more so, but they're all like a step up in quality and you can— distinct, you can taste them. Two of the wines in particular that— so not as high as the Yosoda price-wise, but they have a new sort of reserve Chenin Blanc. Unbelievable. David, he, like, he had a vision, you know, to take the Chenin that they grow there and just kind of take it to a different place. So it's still California, it's still distinctly a New World wine, but he had in mind essentially to go to the Loire to Sauvignon, which is a particular region that makes a very particular style of Shannon. And he's basically channeled it in ways that are just astounding. The wine is really good. I had previously, Joseph Herzog, Mati Herzog from the winery had come through London and they did a tasting. So I had sort of tasted the Ollie Essodes and the Chenin and the Reserve Pinot, which are also incredibly good, and a handful of others. But to taste them again at Kfwe, and in some instances that, like with the Chenin, they do both the mevushal and non-mevushal, and I was able to kind of taste them back to back. Um, just an amazing wine. Uh, I, I really, uh, I think, um, I think if people give it a chance, they'll fall in love with it. It's just, it's a— there's a complexity, a weight in the mouth, a— just so unbelievably food-friendly. And it's just, it's a different— it's, again, it's still distinctly California, but very much channeling the soul of Loire, of Sauvignon. And I think it'll become— it's a little bit pricey, but I think it'll probably become my house white because it's just, to me, it's really astoundingly good. The Essodes are amazing, but they're so young. I mean, frankly, it's hard to taste them. Several years. Yeah, right now they're just a bit too inky. The Pinot, the Sonoma Pinot, they have the Reserve, excellent. The, their sort of champagne method bubbly is even better now than the previous. So I like across the board, Herzog, yeah, they get better every year generally, but they're even better. I think there's a real, a real qualitative step up. And so all those were good. There was a whole variety of upscale French and mid-level French that were excellent. Probably the one that got the most attention is the Philippe Lahardy line of Burgundies.

People are hot on Burgundies right now because we haven't— we've been Burgundy-starved for so long that—

Yes, and now there's an embarrassment of riches. And the Lahaidi wines are excellent, really outstanding. They had a Clos de Vougeot, which is super, super expensive, but drinking incredibly well now, but will get much better. But to me, the Aloxe Corton that they had, exceptional right now. Again, a bit pricey, but if you can afford it, really fab. Uh, the, the base level Burgundy, um, I thought, uh, I thought was excellent for the money. I actually prefer that to the, to the Premier Cru version of it. Um, uh, with a little bit of time in bottle, that'll reverse and the, the Premier Cru will become better. But in terms of drinking right now, the, the, um, the quote-unquote bog standard one. Fab, really, really good. Um, really exciting, uh, Drappier Champagne. Uh, they released a vintage Champagne. Um, really, really nice. It's a bit different from— if you've, uh, if you're into that Champagne house, which I love, but I love all Champagne, but, but I do love Drappier. Um, and Michel Riehlmensch, um, his son Hugo. It's a really good family. Uh, they've been, um, in general they've been going for, uh, low dosage, you know, drier, drier, drier. And this 20, uh, I think it was 2018, uh, vintage is a bit higher dosage than we've seen from them of late. So depending on your palate, it may come across as a little bit sweeter than you've come to expect from them, which some people— like, some people tasted it at KfW and were like, sweet. Um, it's not a sweet wine, but it's a very relative thing.

Yeah, but, um, but I think that that'll actually sell better, to be quite honest. I think there's a group of people who, who are really averse to any type of sweetness coming across the palate, but in the general public I think the general public, it will move much better than—

I tend to agree. And you know, it's funny, just as an aside, and you know, if I'm boring, you let me know. This is an aside. So there's a— this is not just kosher, right? Across the wine world, there is a strong bias by aficionado types, you know, wine mavens, against sweetness in wine unless it's, you know, dafka, a dessert wine, like a Sauternes or whatever. And, you know, it's just, it's not right and it's not fair. I say not right because that's not To me, that's not how you approach wine. That's not what it's about. It's about what— it's about the grapes giving you the best that they can give you. In some cases, you do want to see it across the style range. Riesling, it's a shame that increasingly nobody wants any sweet Riesling. I mean, I love dry Riesling, don't get me wrong. I love sweet Riesling and I love every gradation of the Riesling. And Chenin Blanc is the same, I love every gradation. And so there are some wines where a certain natural sweetness is not just acceptable, it's proper, right? That's— and to convince people that if they like sweet that they're unsophisticated, It's just not fair to me. It's just not. And it's— it's because it has nothing to do— it's not— it's nothing to do with sophistication or lack of sophistication. It's, uh, it's a, it's a preference. It's a taste preference.

It's a subjective preference.

It's very subjective. And not that long ago in the big scheme of things, um, even the top wines of the world, even, you know, recognized names that are now Nobody would ever think like Cheval Blanc, nobody would ever think of as a sweet wine. Not that long ago, high residual sweetness was the fashion.

Right.

And so across Burgundy, Bordeaux, the Rhine, you had many more wines that had that to modern palates would be too sweet. And they were the wines, they were, you know, Fashion, right? So like anything, there's the storytelling version of the product and then there's the actual history and you know, and all commercial wines, you know, they want to appeal to the market and the market wants more dry, they go more dry, they want more. But so all of that said, but sweetness in wine is part of the human condition. It's right and proper at times.

I always wonder whether the people who are, you know, it's the, the people with the voice, like the squeaky wheel gets, uh, you know, gets the, the oil.

Yeah.

Um, I, yeah, I wonder whether the squeaky wheels within the wine industry who have the ear of the wineries are the people who are saying, you know, 'Oh, I don't want any sweetness,' or 'I want a lot of acidity.' And the trouble is then the market is really not attuned to that. You know, I kind of wonder with consumers, a little bit of residual sweetness goes a long way to convince people that wine is something that's reasonable for them. Where I'm hearing, like, a lot of people will say to me, "Oh, I don't touch, I don't drink wine. I don't drink wine. I have a cocktail, but I don't drink wine." And, um, and, and it's totally because of this, because they think of wine as being some acidity, um, non-sweet.

Well, I think it's a mix. There's, um, some of it is because the wines that, that they're told they're supposed to love they don't love, right? It doesn't fit their flavor. Uh, and I think a lot of it also is the, the, the sense that to, to, to be into wine requires, uh, sort of a, an intellectual commitment. Yeah. Um, at the end of the day, it's a beverage. Um, you know, like Coke. 100%. And, and, uh particularly wine professionals lose sight of this all the time. And it's— I get it, I'm not blaming anyone, you know, a wine geek shouldn't feel bad about being a wine geek either.

100%, yeah.

But the pretentiousness factor keeps a lot of people away. Again, it's across the wine world. In the firm world, perhaps even more so, right? There's plenty of people when, uh, when they're done either with their professional jobs or yeshiva or, you know, whatever, like, they don't now need— they don't, they don't want another graduate level course just to be able to, you know, have wine with their meal. Um, so, uh, and whiskey, uh, in fact, all the spirits are so much more approachable in that sense because you don't— you know, it's like, it's I've tried to explain this to people in slightly different contexts, mostly my wine geek friends. When they say, you know, uh, in wine speak, when you say, oh, it's very approachable, so to a non-wine person, they'll look at you funny, like, like, what does that mean?

It's a liquid, you drink it. What do you mean, it's got to melt? Like, like, what are we talking about?

What does that mean, approachable? You pour it, you drink it. And, and, and, um, and sometimes wine geeks, when you ask them about it, like, they You know, they kind of go into this reverie of, you know, and all the kind of the nomenclature pops up, pops up, and, and it comes out as gobbledygook to, to the uninitiated. And I, and I always try to explain that, look, the uninitiated, that's the market, right? You want to sell not to wine geeks, you want to sell to people, normal human beings, right? Wine, it's just like food, it— because it's It's supposed to be part of everyday life. To me, a successful wine, when I say it's approachable, it means you don't have to have ever tasted anything like it before to enjoy it. You don't have to— it doesn't have to age for 20 years in the cellar before it's just coming into its— a good wine that fits all the different categories, it's refreshing, the alcohol is just enough to make you happy but not enough to where it's burning or, you know, where it feels hot. Remarkable. Ultimately, you want a wine that isn't— with no one element is remarkable. You just want it where you go, oh, that's nice, or yummy, or whatever. That's really what you want in a wine. The wine geeks will— like me, I mean, I'm a self-confessed wine geek of the highest order. I'll sit there and ooh and ahh for 20 minutes over this element of that, but I'm not going to bore anyone else with it unless they're into it. For anyone else, I'll just say, oh, it's really nice. And so approachable wine means it's good drinking right now. Pop and pour. If it's not pop and pour, then it's not yet approachable. It's as simple as that. And I, you know, it's like the worst— the one thing about the KfW style tastings, and again, this is as true in the, in the trade market, I was going to ask you if there's a difference.

Is there a notable difference between the kosher market and the treif market?

Those are— yes.

With return to how they're approached, but also consumer behavior.

So, a whole variety of differences.

Trends.

Yeah, there's a whole variety of differences. So, just to finish the thread of the KfW-style tastings. So, the two things that I find, or the three things I find that the— that sort of annoying about tasting in that context is many wines, particularly as you go higher up the quality spectrum, they're released to market early because they need a return on the investment, but the wines in many respects do need time in bottle before they're really ready to drink. So that style tasting traditionally is a trade tasting, not a public tasting, because the trade understands that, all right, we lay down stocks of this and in 4 years' time, you know, we'll sell that, or, you know, whatever, 2 years' time, depends on exactly what you're tasting. But there'll be some wines that you bring to market and instantly move off the shelf, and others that are for the people who are building their cellars out and need a little bit more of this or that region. And it's the understanding that, oh, lay it down for 3 years, 2 years, 5 years, 10 years, um, because right now it's not— it's not pleasurable. Um, when punters, you know, when, when consumers come in, they're expecting, I think quite rightly from their vantage point, right, they just spent X amount, $100, £100, whatever, like, I want to taste the best of what you got right now. And usually they're very disappointed because The most expensive wines aren't ready to drink right now, even though it's being offered right now on the table, A. B, at home, people will be drinking it with food and friends as part of a meal, right? All good wine fits into a meal. It's part of cuisine at table. It's part of everything. And to just taste, you know, walk around and go, oh, we get a taste of that. It's ink, or it's, or it's not, you know, it needs more time. It's not yet totally together. And so even if a consumer can instantly recognize, oh, it's a, it's a quality wine, it's really all the different elements, even if it is just enough to recognize that, but at the end of the day, it's not ready to drink now. So it's still an unsatisfying experience for a lot of people. In the kosher market, it's a little bit worse only because depending on the level of frumkeit, a lot of people are coming in and they're thinking kiddush. You know, can I glug back, you know, 4 ounces in one sitting of this, right? Is this— will this give me pleasure when I consume Arbokoses and I'm just downing it out of a silver becher, even if they upscale, use a glass becher, Well, a lot of wines don't work at that level. You know, try chugging a Coke, a whole can of Coke in 30 seconds. It's not so pleasurable either. There are wines that do that and that do it very well, but it's just that it's a slightly different context. And it's one of the things about the kosher market that people outside the kosher market don't get. Professionally, and I think people within the market sometimes lose sight of. And consumers often feel— kosher consumers often feel like they're being— not cheated is a little bit strong, but feel like they're— it's at their expense. They sort of recognize that it's their captive audience, right? They need kosher, they can't drink not kosher. So there's always a sense— same in restaurants and other— where people are like, well, there's no competition, that's why we're stuck with this, that's why the pricing is this. There's a lot of silly notions that people have in their heads about what things ought to cost. Um, at the end of the day, everything is market forces. Um, doesn't mean that there isn't things that are priced too high, but, uh, or too low in some instances. But, um, but usually the, the people who are coming up with the pricing, you know, they're the— it's, uh, They're trying to figure out, A, how to make a profit, but B, how to not lose their shirt. So, you know, there's a little bit of guesswork, but it's still— at the end of the day, it's all still market forces. It's at that part, it's no different. More competition would help improve the dynamics of the price structure, but the basic dynamic is the same. But so a lot of people come in and think, oh, I'm stuck, you know, having to pay 4 times the price of the non-kosher version of this wine, and it's just because I'm trapped because I keep kosher. And I'm like, no, um, that's— in most instances, the markup is a reasonable maybe 40% because it costs more to do, right? It costs more for the winery to do, uh, a lot more in some instances. Um, it's just as a quick aside, we mentioned earlier Drappier Champagne. I recently, uh, had a nice conversation again with Michel with an article I was doing, uh, on, on champagne. So I asked him, um, you know, so what are some of the, the technical, technical differences in— because they've been doing it now for, you know, however long, a decade plus, 20 years, something like that, right? They've been doing a long time already. Yeah. And it's a regular day, it's a regular thing. So I said, like, how, how much co2 should you produce relative to your non-co2? So he says, you know, it's different every year depending on quality, depending on the market, you know, demand and whatever. He says, so at any given vintage, they could be doing zero kosher bottles to up to 30,000. So, okay. So that, so let's say—

How is 30,000 compared to the rest of what they make though?

Ah, so that's what I asked him.

Yes.

So he said, he said, like, you know, on average in any other year, in any year, the non-kosher, they do 1.5 million. Wow. So 30,000 with a tremendous, you know, he said like, like all the economy of scale is lost. All the efficiency is lost. So a winery that normally produces 1.5 million, the exact same infrastructure is, has to separately, and it has to be fully separate, you know, independent is now doing a tiny run of 30,000. So you can imagine what the costs are.

Yeah.

So, you know, and, and for quality producer, they demand that the mashgiachim have to be on hand, you know, uh, ideally as, as readily available as all the time. Yeah. And so, you know, you can't always— there's only so many people doing it. So they had— so there's always, um, well, not always, but there's usually You know, you have to kind of balance that out. Plus, you know, there's Shabbos and Yom Nerayim. And so like there's a variety of other factors that delay the seamlessness, you know, or distance the seamlessness, potential seamlessness of the kosher run from the non-kosher run. But, you know, if the guy, if you're, say, in Champagne, and the guy's coming up from, I don't know, Strasbourg or Lyon or wherever, you gotta wait for him to show up before you can pull the sample, before you can adjust this, before you can adjust that. And, you know, if you've ever driven around France, you know, you get stuck in traffic and— Yeah. That's another delay. So, like, people have to— It's one of those areas where an all-kosher winery has it all over a non-kosher winery. In terms of the process and the efficiency. And scale. And scale. The downside is it's often the best terroir is, you know, multi-generational, you know, established, which means not kosher. It means not Jewish. It means, you know, so often the non-kosher wineries have better fruit at their disposal, but it's offset by the fact that the the economics of it are upside down. Whereas an all-kosher place, the economics of the production are in line with the industry. But, you know, if they're an estate winery, it's just what they own. And if they're not estate, or if they also buy, it's what the market, you know, what they can afford to get and what they're able to get. Even in Israel, you know, it's not unusual if you're not in the state winery for your long-term contracts to be underwhelming. You know, whether for the grower goes, even though we signed for this, you know, like I cut— they won't tell you I cut a deal with somebody else for cash. They'll tell you, oh, yields were low this year. Yeah, yeah, it is what it is. And we should actually—

because yields were low, you should actually pay me more because it's more concentrated product.

But yeah, everyone's trying to make a living. Um, but, uh, anyway, so in the kosher market, so there's all those aspects to it. And consumer behavior is different. Now, the other thing about the kosher market, at the end of the day, Yidden need wine, halachically wine, meaning grape juice too, but something that is yayin. They need yayin. They need it every single week. At a minimum, they need it for Kiddush, Havdalah. So For some, grape juice is fine, either because they like the taste, they don't want the alcohol, for health reasons, for lifestyle reasons, you know, like young kids, whatever it is. Although I give my young kids wine, but whatever. But it— so, but they— Jews need the product. And I've often said, at the end of the day, You know, in the mainstream world, wine is a luxury item. In the Jewish world, wine is a necessity. Good wine is a luxury item, and it makes a big difference. So it means that, you know, if somebody is budget constrained, and most Jews are, you know, lots of, God willing, many, many children, and that costs money to raise and educate. And so all the different competing elements of a family budget. Um, you know, unless, uh, both, uh, both all the elements that control the budget— a husband, wife, and anything else— unless they're on the same page, uh, and/or the disposable income allows whoever's making the purchases to quietly bump it up anyway. But otherwise, you know, that's— it has to be sort of a family decision that we're going to drink at this level, not that level. You know, so there's plenty of people who, as much as they would love to drink, you know, a few hundred dollar bottles of wine on a Shabbos, that's just not an option. It's just not realistic. Uh, and so everyone is always looking for, um, the cheapest possible wine that will— that they'll enjoy. So depending on their palates, you know, that's— that means that they have to— they have to spend over you know, say, I don't know, $20, $25 just to get something that they can drink. Uh, you know, uh, the, in the, in the traif world, you know, there used to be Two Buck Chuck. Um, and, but it, it was not all wines that were competitive at that price level were any good. Two Buck Chuck was considered just drinkable enough, right? Kosher, there's no such thing as a Two Buck Chuck. The closest thing would be, well, it's $5. There's not a lot of that at that price point either, but, um, you know, but Trader Joe's in America, you can, you can start to get for under $10, you can find things. Most kosher wines under $10 are at the quality level of the competitors of Two Buck Chuck. Uh, so not very good. There are some exceptions, but so when you're at that price point, you know, to drink a Cabernet that retails in the kosher market for $9.99 may or may not give you the same pleasure as Bartonore Moscato, you know, which depending on your exact market, you're either getting discounted at $10 or you're spending maybe $14. Again, depends on the exact market. But, you know, so you're comparing something that you can absolutely drink not remarkable necessarily depending on your taste preferences, but everyone will, you know, they want— it's not like Mendelšević wine with them. They'll get something out of it versus a dry red that at that quality level maybe isn't really what you want. So the price sensitivity is high, and it leads to big gaps between people who aren't willing to spend more than their usual budget because it's unfamiliar territory, and they're not, you know, if they're buying wines at that price point, it's usually for a reason. So in the mainstream market, even in the goyish market, right, why convincing the average drinker to spend more than $20 or £20 in Britain is a huge jump, right? Most of the wine that gets sold is at the cheaper end. Um, 20 is considered sort of premium, right? Um, and certainly in the UK, but even in America, mainstream 20, 25 is kind of the first jump to premium. Uh, in the kosher market, that's like, nobody thinks of it as premium because you think, oh, that's where it gets drinkable. Um, Again, partly it's just because kosher costs a little bit more to produce. Um, kosher Israel, you know, Israeli wines have to be exported out of Israel, brought into America. There's costs involved in that. So all Israeli wines are that much more expensive in America or in the UK. Um, often just removing whatever competitive advantage in terms of price structure domestically in Israel. That evaporates the moment, yeah, you know, because import-export, it's just there's more costs involved. Not fully evaporates, but you know, that cuts into the margins of how people think of these wines. The mevushal aspect also changed, particularly for Israeli production, is often the stuff that they make mevushal for export A little bit different because they're a little bit further removed from the, the chain of customers being able to, you know, relate back, this didn't taste right, or this wasn't, you know. So sometimes the mavushal quality coming out of some of the larger wineries in Israel isn't quite as good as the same version that you can get locally.

You mentioned though that some of the French ones have a mevuchel and a non-mevuchel. Yes. And you've tasted those. What do they taste like? What's the difference? Is there a difference?

So it varies a little bit. Um, some of them, some of the wineries have, uh, so I've come to understand this is like a technical issue, but, um, many of these wineries, it's small production. They, uh, so that even Even within their own, you know, like thermal processing of wine is a long-standing thing. Almost all commercial wineries of any proper size have had experience with it. Not Mauvusel temperatures, right? That's a whole nother kettle of fish, but just the idea of using heat in judicious technical ways to deal with a difficult vintage Not all of them are familiar, but many, many, many are familiar. They all kind of hate the idea, um, just because it's, you know, HEAT. So it's not what they're— it's not— it's, uh, it certainly doesn't keep with the narrative they tell customers, uh, but they're familiar. Um, but, uh, to do it at a scale and with the, um, the rigorous protocol involved in KASHRUS is kind of a different order. Some wineries you can't get the equipment easily. Sometimes you can't even get it to the facility easily. In some cases you have to truck the liquid just a little bit, you know, it just depends on where things are set up. When the mashgiach is being mivashal the wines, you know, a heavier touch versus a lighter touch, you know, so that even though there's a particular temperature you need to get at for, you know, la halacha, it doesn't mean that you're not getting well over that at times because, you know, oops, you know, I'm not regulating it the way I should. Obviously no one's going to share that with anybody, you know, the, I mean, the people producing it know what's going on, but they're not going to share that with customers and say, oh, well, the first 20,000 liters, Ooh, it went about 10 degrees hotter than we wanted. So like there's some things, it just, it is what it is and they have to make the best of it. And so they'll try to blend it out or things. So some wineries, their Muvushal versions really aren't the same quality level. In some cases they will be, right? It means like the first time that Capsanis in Spain did some commercial wines, I think virtually everyone agreed they weren't as good. There was a real qualitative difference. You can taste them back to back and it was like something in the wine had changed and not for the good. And that's a learning curve, you know, a couple of vintages and they get it usually. So there's that aspect to it. And again, from a It's, it's all very technical from a consumer perspective. At the end of the day, all you know is you drink it and it tastes good or it doesn't taste good. It tastes like you expect or it doesn't taste like you expect.

I have a question. You know, you've, you're, you're kind of in a, a focal point of, um, the global markets between having France and having the US and having Israel. And some of the other outlying producers.

Is there a—

is there currently a leader in the kosher wine industry? You know, is it Israel? Is it the US? Is it Europe? Is it another region?

All right. Oh, it's a good question. So it depends a little bit on what the focal point is. So in terms of sheer numbers, The largest number of kosher, of all kosher wineries is Eretz Yisrael. Which frankly I find appropriate. I think that's the way it should be. As a quick aside, when the late Daniel Rogov, in one of the iterations of his book on his first one of that was just kosher wines, not Israeli wines. You know, kosher wines. I wrote a review for the LA Jewish Journal in which I was a bit critical. I mean, you know, he's a good guy, it's a good book, but I said, like, you know, the percentage of Israeli wines isn't as high as it ought to be for the market in a book that's about global kosher wine. And as you know, there's many more kosher wines from Israel than was reflected in the book. And he said, well, I already have a book on Israeli, and I said, but you're missing the point. To a kosher consumer, right, they want to know about kosher wines as a whole. And so it should be better represented. So that, just as a quick sideline, side note, one of the things that I feel very strongly, I think a lot of people don't grasp about kosher wine, a lot of Jews don't grasp, Kosher, you know, we speak of kosher wine with the word in terms of kashrus because within the trade, it's, you know, kashrus supervisors who are doing it, right, who are involved in it. Halachically, you know, it's bachal esser, so we think in terms of kashrus. And it is conceptually at that level, at the technical level. But really, it's not kosher in the way that, you know, ingredients into this or that processed food are kosher. It's not quite the same, right? It's not manufactured in quite the same way. It's much more of a natural product. There are, you know, additives and, you know, make sure the yeast, if you're using commercial yeast, there's a handful of things. But ultimately, it's an agricultural product. Really what kosher, the difference between kosher wine and stam yenum, right? General wine, non-kosher wine, isn't really kosher, it's really Yiddishkeit. It's Jewish identity. What is kosher wine? It's Jewish wine, right? Historically, what was the reason for, uh, you know, the gezeira of stam yenum? It's not yayin nasa, that's distinct. Hashem doesn't want us to have wine that's been used for avodas Hashem. That's its own issur, it's an issur dereiser. The reason why stam yenum, wine about which we don't know if it was used for nasa, why it's forbidden is because chasunus. They don't want, the sages didn't want Jews in that social situation with non-Jews. It's about separation. It's us and them. So kosher wine is really Jewish wine, right? That's the distinction. So, you know, in terms of the rules of, you know, the technical rules of kosher, you know, we live in an age in which most Jews aren't shomer Shabbos, they're not shomer mitzvos in the way that, you know, used to be, you know, certainly in the biblical period, but certainly in the Talmudic period. You are either Jewish, which meant you were of the community, regardless of your exact level of religiosity, you were Jewish. There was only one definition. It was before there was the different, you know, Reform and centuries or millennia before all that, millennia plus. So it was identity, Jewish, not Jewish. And to be not, to be a Jew who's outside Jewish is a, was a whole different thing. So wine was Jewish wine. So it's different from shchita. It's different from, you know, modern food processing. So, you know, in an era now where many Jews can't make Jewish wine in a halachic sense, right? They need to hire workers who are shomer Shabbos. But before the kosher industry had certifications that, you know, for which you rightly need to pay because it's a job, someone has to do it. How'd you know something was kosher? Because, you know, Yossela the butcher, he lives there, he's part of the community, he's kosher, the meat's kosher because he's a trustworthy kid. How'd you know, you know, this wine was kosher? Because he's in the community, it's Jewish wine, he's making Jewish wine. So like before, before the industry, before kosher became an industry, And again, this is all a proper natural evolution. Progression. It's a progression. And it is right and proper. I know people complain all the time about it. It's a job and it's a difficult job. Dealing with Yidden is always a difficult job. But ultimately, right? So kosher wine is really much more about the identity of Jewish wine. And it's just as a technical matter, L'halacha, that means Shabbos, that means, you know, folks of the community. And then there's a politics, Haimish versus this versus that, etc. But so Israel, by rights, should all be Jewish wine. I mean, all the Israeli wine, right? I mean, again, Palestinian wine if you're there, whatever. But commercially, it's all Jewish wine. It's not all kosher because of the technicalities of, you know, what constitutes kosher certification. But so to me, like, and I understand many Israelis, this isn't what they want to hear and it's not their approach conceptually. That's fine. No one has to agree with me. I'm just saying historically, that's what kosher wine is. So it therefore becomes a bit weird at times when, you know, kosher, when the best kosher wines are coming from non-Jewish wineries. It's the nature of the market that somebody swooped in and got them, convinced them to do Jewish wine. But, you know, a 9th generation French winemaker who, you know, historically, if they had any interaction with Jews before the modern era, was not positive. Even if, you know, certainly post, either during the war or post-war, maybe it's very positive, but, you know, historically probably wasn't great. So on the one hand, it's a kiddush Hashem that now you can go and get the highest levels of kashrus from, you know, people who wouldn't know, you know, don't know from Jews otherwise. And in many respects, that's a kiddush Hashem, and it's a wonderful thing. You're being Mekadesh something, you're bringing it into the fold. On the other hand, it's not Jewish wine, you're creating Jewish wine in a totally, you know, totally non-Jewish environment. And there's a cost, right? There's a greater cost. So in terms of leadership in the wine world, so it depends on sort of what you're looking for. As I say, the most number of kosher wineries is in Israel, which I think is appropriate. And so there's a leadership sense of when Israel is exploring new varieties, that's I think exciting, and you know the indigenous variety, not that all are equally good, but it's an exciting development. Certainly at the Wine Geek level, even non-Jews get very excited about indigenous varieties in Israel or Cyprus or Greece, Greece, or— because it's different from Cabernet and Merlot. And as much as they love all wine, when it's different and it's a foreign-sounding grape to them, that's just exciting, you know, full stop. Whether it's any good is the next step, is the next question. But so that's an exciting development. Wine geeks who are more academic are especially excited by, you know, some of the archaeological wine research about, you know, how Vitis vinifera came onto the scene. And, you know, it turns out the Levant is also not just Georgia. Okay. Yeah. Depending on one's level of geekery, this is brilliant stuff. So there's all that. So there's lots of this unbelievable talent in Israel. But what Israel lacks is, as you know, is better than I even, I'm sure, is the traditions, right? Because outside of a couple of families before B'dinat Yisroel, there was no wine in any traditional sense. It's not like in France where there's 9 generations cultivating the exact same grape in the exact same plot. And so they, you know, it's not like that, right?

It's a little different though. Wait, I want to correct you. It's not like there wasn't. 2,000 years ago, there were goths all over the place. You almost can't throw a stone in the Judean hills without hitting a Goth. But there haven't been Jews here for that— there's a big space where we were pulled out, right?

So Gullis brought to an end a terrific amount of the continuity of Jewish life. Right, that's the nature of it. And so that's what I mean by a tradition, not that the history is not there. It's the living tradition.

Recent tradition, right, where you've got a grandfather and a great-grandfather and what have you. I mean, the Herzogs have this living tradition that's like 12 generations, and it's amazing. I mean, but it's very rare, but they do. I mean, we've got some We've got some families here that are, you know, 2 and 3 generations into it in Israel. But it's not like we've been living on the same land with the same vines for the last, you know, 900 years.

Yes.

Yeah.

Now, all of that said, there's also— this is where the sort of the stories wine people like to tell themselves. There's a disjuncture, right? A lot of the great wines of the world went through terrifically long periods of mediocrity. In some cases, unbelievable mediocrity. And even unbelievable vineyards, you know, Château Haut-Brion, right? Samuel Pepys mentions it in his diary in the 1600s. And so For sure that plot of earth has always been, you know, special. But the wines coming from that plot of earth have not always been correct because until the modern era in which wineries estate bottled, right, it was negotiants buying barrels and bottling it themselves. And often they were doctoring it because there was no regulation, they did what they want. So, you know, in France, famously, there's lots of these, you know, stories of, you know, fraud and legal and illegal, right? Because again, it was pre-regulation in some respects, certainly before the AOCs. That's why a lot of this stuff came about, was to protect these things. So, also, the science of wine pre-Louis Pasteur and post-Louis Pasteur is, you know, like a Copernican revolution. And since Pasteur, the science and understanding is just leaps and bounds. So, in that you can now take— make technically brilliant wine virtually anywhere in the world. So, yes, It may be a place that didn't know viticulture until yesterday, so to speak, I mean, in relative terms. Japan, pre-1950s, I don't think there was a lot of wine, but they're exploring and doing interesting things. China, there's plenty of places that don't have any natural long history of wine, but can be doing excellent things. So does it mean that therefore a wine that, you know, in historical terms, was created yesterday versus the 12th generation or whatever. Does it mean that they're qualitatively better or worse? That's a subjective judgment. But in many respects, no, it's the person who's been farming the same plot of land for generations, they make better wine now than they ever made before. Because the kids, you know, the people doing it are educated in the scientific terms. So Israel has an edge that way where on the one hand, yeah, a lot of the— there's a break in the continuity of tradition. And so a lot of indigenous and all that kind of stuff is gone. We don't really know what styles and whatever. But ancient wine tended to be, by contemporary standards, dreck, right? Too sweet, all the stuff they would use to doctor it. So, different kettle of fish. So I think there's a degree to which that it's an unnecessary story, but it's a trapping because the wine world, the mainstream wine world likes to tell these multi-generational stories, right? So again, in terms of leadership, so Israel I think is where some of the most exciting stuff is happening, bechual, The Herzog family, we mentioned it a few times, it's not appreciated by some because, you know, it's commercial, it's, you know, people are always complaining about pricing and whatever. The Herzog family has done more than any other commercial enterprise, commercial group, to push the quality of kosher wines in the right direction. They're doing it for commercial reasons, right and proper, right? But it's hands down, if but for them, the industry would be nowhere near as advanced as it is. They're not the only ones, but they're by far the market leaders in this. And so it's leaps and bounds. We would be so far removed from quality wines but for them. And even the people who independent of them are pioneers, the Ernie Weirs and people who are really unbelievable vignerons, you know, if the wine is excellent but nobody can get it, the impact will be minimal, right? So distribution is an important part of all this. And again, in storied parts of France, you know, again, nobody like, people don't think of the commerce side of it. Why did one region do better than another? Because the trade route or the train or, you know, things that allowed them to get to market. So if the greatest product in the world doesn't have an audience for distribution reasons, the actual impact on the market will be next to nothing. So that, that can be a tremendous drawback right now in terms of like sheer quality, probably the absolute top of the market, me personally, I think is Domaine de Monty. Étienne de Monty and his wines, exceptional. The terroir he's working with, unbelievable. The market, you know, The distribution of the wines is pretty minimal. So, the market exposure is pretty minimal. But, you know, there's a terrific importer in Israel. They're just kind of reconfiguring their setup in America. Honest Grapes, you've had Nathan on.

Nathan's amazing.

Yeah. And Nathan, they, you It was basically his, he and his partners, it was their pet project to get the thing going. I think Demonty came to him, but they're the ones who made it. They already had a longstanding relationship with Demonty. I've had long conversations now with Demonty where, you know, over the years he was approached about kosher and his Israeli importer of his non-kosher told them, don't do it, it'll ruin the brand. And, you know, 20 years later, it's a different story. And so he's finally dipped his toes in, and it's just, it's unbelievable quality and complexity and just amazing wines. His approach to how he wants, how he insists on doing his kosher is the right approach, but it's expensive. But that's, you know, like, if you can't have the mashgiach exactly when you need them, you know, only accepting only Shabbos and Yom Tov, otherwise You're not doing it, right? I'm not waiting a week for the guy to show up, like that's not going to happen. That's the right, that's the correct approach, but you pay for that privilege. So there's a whole variety. So again, if the wines don't succeed commercially, you know, De Monti will stop doing them and the impact on the market will be minimal. So there's success, there's many ways to chalk it up. But the market controls it. But the talent. Yeah, we've never had such great talent in the modern era. You know, the guys in Israel across the board, some, some amazing stuff. Bernie Weir, Jeff Morgan, Jonathan Heidu, uh, David Garzegnato and the, and the whole Herzog operation California. And then there's what they're doing, Menachem Israelovich in, uh, in Royal Wines Europe, um, Pierre, you know I think still does a couple of French wines. He does.

He does a bunch, actually. He actually got back into it bringing wines to Israel in, uh, during the Shmita year. He made some interesting wines in France and brought them back to Israel, uh, so that they were non-Shmita. Are there any Israeli wines that really, you know, stand out in your mind?

So I find across the board the Recanati wines I think I've always liked Recanati from Louis Pascoe's days forward, and but I feel like they get better all the time, and they were good, they were great to begin with, they get better all the time.

By the way, there's a new Odem, it's called, you know, Odem Merlot from Recanati, that's from their Odem wine, Odem Vineyard, and it's It's awesome. And it's a Merlot. And it's just an awesome Merlot coming out of Israel. So I'm just telling you, it's an interesting product.

There's some people who are doing amazing things. So Dalton, I've always been a fan of Dalton. I think they do, I mean, A, you know, kol hakavod, the pioneers, they helped dramatically transform, you know, the region into tourism and wine. They're true trailblazers. They've had, as it happens, a terrible war. No one has a good war, but they've had a terrible war. But they, I think they have some amazing wines. The Asufa series, which is, you know, the plaything of a guy.

It's so much fun.

I love it. I know, it's so much fun.

There's some of us in the, I'm including myself with some stellar people, But there, there are a number of people who have like put themselves in a box that they almost don't like anything except this, this specific product. Um, I've tried to keep my mind a little bit more open and, um, and, and I'm— I try to taste things. I don't always love some of them, but I can see how the market would react positively towards it and how it could be an entry, you know, an entry drug to the— what you call it— to the wine industry. Where to expect somebody who's going to pick up a bottle of Smith Haut Lafitte that's a 2020 and you're selling it at like whatever price and these people pick it up and they taste it and they go, oh, you know what, wine's not for me, I'm going to go back to cocktails.

Well, so that's— it goes back to the premiumization, the categories of price categories. You know, as Louis Pascoe once told me for an article I did, he said at the end of the day, like, you know, very few people go into wine to be rich. That's not why they went into it. And he's 100% correct. And, you know, doesn't mean that there aren't rich people who get into wine, and it doesn't mean there aren't people who got rich through wine. But that's not the norm. Right.

It's not the wine that did it.

It's the— That's right. So again, for a Smithhoof, Lafitte, or some of these, these are, in relative terms, the playthings of the rich. Bordeaux has always had this. Burgundy, that's more recent, but it certainly has it now. It's important to ensure that you have correct— or correct is the wrong phrase— that you have adjusted expectations for human nature. In theory, it'd be great for every wine lover to be enamored with Smith-Hollafitte. I'm sure Smith-Hollafitte would love it, right, if every wine sold out in seconds. But that's not practical, right? Four Gates, everything sells out more or less in an hour. But there's not much of it, right? Yeah, it's not the whole case. So, you know, some of the larger wineries, you know, particularly some of the middling price points, get a bad rap. Because, you know, if you, if you're a Smith-Oliphant drinker and that's your budget, that those are the types of ones you drink, a Barcon Classic is not going to rock it for you, right? It's just not going to work for you. That doesn't mean that it's not a good wine. It's not being made for you in that sense, right? Their target audience, right? And so there has to be, but there has to be an adjustment to how people speak about this. The wine world is co-opted, the wine literature shall we say, the wine buzz is co-opted by the people who have the time and interest. People like me, although hopefully I'm a force for good to the degree that I have any impact at all, tiny, tiny, tiny. But, um, uh, you know, that I, I'm bored senseless when people only want to discuss sort of the, the, the super expensive snob appeal things, even though, you know, if I have the budget, those are my wines, right? But, but the reality—

you're an honest man. You're an honest man.

It's good.

It's good.

But, uh, but, you know, if— but if I'm trying to convince people to to incorporate wine into their lives, what kind of a schmuck would I be if I say, here, here's a wine you'll never afford, you'll never want to have, but taste it, you'll love it. Great, now everything doesn't taste great, right? Like, what? Like, why would I do that? Why would I take so— take away someone's pleasure? Uh, I think it's, it's a silly thing to do. And, and, you know, there's a good chance that the, the trophy wine the playthings of the middle class and upper class, aren't going to rock the world of the people, you know, who— just because it's too different. If you're a fast food burger kind of guy, you know—

Beer.

The very delicate entrecôte steak probably isn't as satisfying. Right. If you had it, you know, every, you know, once a week, you'll develop a taste for it and suddenly you'll, like everyone else, go, oh, they don't cook it as well as these guys. But if you're a fast food kind of eater, which, you know, just by the economics, a lot of people are, um, it— you have to develop a taste for things that are outside of that.

So thank you, thank you for being on the Kosher Terroir, and I look forward to talking to you again.

Very soon. Thank you for having me. This was my great pleasure, and I hope, uh, I hope this will be even remotely satisfying to other people, but I had a great time.

I think it will be. It's fun. If you have fun, it communicates. This is Simon Jacob again, your host of today's episode of the Kosher Terroir. I have a personal request. No matter where you are or where you live, please take a moment to pray for our soldiers' safety and the safe and rapid return of our hostages. Please subscribe via your podcast provider to be informed of our new episodes as they are released. If you are new to the Kosher Teruah, please check out our many past episodes.