An Intimate Spanish Wine Tasting with Viña Memorias

Welcome to the Kosher Teruah.

I'm Solomon Simon Jacob, your host for this episode from Jerusalem. Before we get started, no matter where you are, please take a moment to pray for the safe return home of all our soldiers, If you're driving in your car, please focus on the road ahead. If you're relaxing at home, please open a delicious bottle of kosher wine and pour a glass, sit back and relax. Welcome back to the Kosher Terroir. I'm your host, Solomon Simon Jacob. In this episode, we take you on a sensory journey straight to the high-altitude vineyards of Valencia, Spain. Join us for an exclusive behind-the-scenes wine tasting conversation with the passionate winemaker Armando Caratena Maljo from Vinas Memorias. Discover the vibrant world of Spanish kosher wine as we explore the unique characteristics of native grape varieties, like Bobal and Mahabeyo. From the crisp, refreshing notes of clay-aged whites to the rich, elegant structures of old-vine reds, you'll learn how climate, history, and minimalist intervention come together to create pure perfection in a bottle. Pour yourself a glass, sit back, and immerse yourself in the authentic flavors and fascinating stories behind Venus Memorias.

That's a 2024. Yeah. Soon we will get the 2025. We'll let the wines, including the rosé, to rest and to develop in the bottle a little bit before. Everything that we do from now on, it's going to be old vines. Okay? So the expression, we're going to see it later.

Wine au bar.

Old vines of Robal, old vines of Macabeiro, and this is going to also to, you know, to show a little bit the expression of the wine.

That means more intensive flavors come from an older vine? Is that—

would that be true to say? I think you will have more concentration, and I think you will have more balance, elegance onto the wines. You know the Bobal? There is so many parameters, okay? It's like an architect when you're gonna buy, gonna build a house. There is so many parameters. How much, what type of cement you want to put, how big you want the— The wines is a little bit the same. With Bobal, it's a great variety that the beginning when they are young, they bring big— How do you call it in English?

Clusters.

Clusters, huh? And not just big clusters. It brings also lots of grape— anavim— lots of number of grapes. So you're going to have a big one with a big number of, you know, and then it's going to be a little bit compact. Okay. As soon as, you know, the grapes are— the vines are growing, you're gonna get more what you get with the Simon. Very "haham," you know. No, but you get, you know, the clusters are smaller. The number of grapes, this is very important, maybe the most important, is going to be a lot lower. So you're gonna see a little bit more, you know, more air coming in, and you're gonna have more balanced clusters. Why? Because sometimes the clusters inside the grapes are going to be also ripped and not just the ones outside. Okay, so that the year is going to help a lot to, to have more balanced clusters, then also wines. This is a Macabeo.

All your whites are Macabeo?

With Xarello. Okay, with lots of—

Wait, but not the same varietal?

Here is, is probably the, the only wines that we do blend. And this wine is always— the Alenar white is always Macabeo. Macabeo is a grape variety from the Spanish, but mainly from the Spanish coast. Also, Macabeo is— you know, each grape variety— my name is Armando, but some people call me Itzik. Some people— I have a second name in the middle of the day, it's called Robert. So some family may call me Robert. So the grape varieties happen the same. Each grape variety has few names. So the Macabeo is well known in Spain because it is one of the most popular grape varieties in the Spanish coastline, but also is known by Viura in the area of Rioja. Okay. Same name, same grape variety, obviously, because in the region of Rioja, where there is a bit less sun, more kind of like Atlantic humidity, and in the Mediterranean coast we have more sun, more influence of the Mediterranean. So the expression is going to be a bit different. In the Mediterranean, it's going to be a bit more flowery, more flower notes and floral notes. And in the Rioja, it's a little bit more, you know, more steely. But same grape variety, two different terroirs, two different names. Okay, but so this one is always 80% Macabeo, and there is a grape variety, it's called Xarello. With an X. Xarello. X is very typical from Catalunya, from Valencia, I mean, this is the only one you really have, I think.

You don't change it every year, you're keeping the one.

No, we play with this one. We play with this one. The 20% might vary between— many years ago, in 2021, we did Sauvignon Blanc. 2022, we did in Chardonnay, the 20%. Why? Because of the vintage. Vintage in 2022 for the Chardonnay was Crazy. In Spain?

In Spain.

In my region, right, in Valencia. And since 2023, we've been using Tarello because it was like more authentic with what we want to express. Yeah, yeah, but the expression is what exactly what we wanted to do.

The region is called Valencia or just the city?

Valencia is the city and also the province, and my appellation is called Utiel Requena.

Ah, yeah. So I saw that online when I was looking for wines. How do you pronounce it?

Ootiel Rekena. Yeah.

What does that mean?

Two towns.

Two towns?

Ootiel and Rekena. They are two villages, like one close to each other. And this is the name of the—

Okay.

Yeah.

All right.

So what are we looking for here?

So what we want in our wines, especially with Alénar, What we want is— I mean, it has a lot of expression, but we want lighter wines. We want a wine that you can really feel being on the beach, really hot, humid day, and just open it and be refreshing and yet expressive, right? So this is what we try to do. So Xarello, it's also a grape variety that is mainly used very little in Catalonia and a little bit in Valencia and almost That's it. You know, in Champagne, you have 3 main grape varieties that is being used for the Champagne. Most of the Champagnes are, you know, Blanc de Blancs, like Chardonnay, Pinot Blanc, Pinot Meunier. Exactly. So in Spain, we have the Macabeo, that is a little bit like the Chardonnay, like the one is being used the most. And then you have Cerrillo, and then you have Parellada, which is very little.

Okay.

So again, Parellada is like a— Parellada. It depends on how you pronounce it, but yeah. So these 3 wines that you are having now, you can have with the red, is inox.

Yeah.

So they go inox. What we try to do here is to keep the, you know, the maximum fruitiness taste for the wines. Okay, so it's just pure inox, but it's not a wine—

sorry, what was that?

Pure stainless steel inox tanks. So it's— anyway, there is wines that we also give some aging on the tank and on the bottle before releasing. So it's not a wine that you will get it on the market January 1st, you know? So usually it goes to the market like really, you know, April, May. Okay. Sometimes the reds a little bit stay longer, but it's important for us on the Alénar side that you have maximum expression of the grape variety. So the inox sometimes is allowing that. Okay.

More fresh.

Also more fresh. Also the inox has no porosity. Okay. So it will not let any oxidation, even if it's micro oxidation, it will not let. So it will not go for a different direction. It will keep the fruitiness. Then it's probably only there for like 3 months? No, usually maximum stays like 3, 4 months and then another at least 3-4 months in the bottle. I think this time in the bottle for this kind of wines is very important. So for example, the one I'm selling right now, the rosé I'm selling finishing now is the 2024. Until the— until now it's coming now, but until mid-July I will not start selling the 2025. Here in Israel, the Rosé 2025 was already in the shelves on January 1st. It was like— so we let the wines a little bit of time on the bottle. I think it's important. For those who have— I think no one has here, but some people are asking sometimes. For those who have certain headaches on wine, forget about it. So what we do here is we try to work on minimal intervention. As much as doing kosher wine allows us to do. And this is why I'm saying for those who have any type of a headache, I challenge them today to finish the complete bottle and call me tomorrow to see how they are feeling. Challenge accepted.

Ah?

Challenge accepted? We, my family, we like to drink lots of different wines. And what we really enjoy is not to drink the same wine that we love so much every time. What we like to do is to drink the wine we love on the different, on the right time. Okay, what I mean that is like, for example, this wine in a, you know, easy sunny, you want something fresh, you want to start, you want some good acidity, you want something light. So then you go for something like that. It's very fresh, it has everything. But if you want a white that you're gonna sit, you're gonna have like some, you know, fish, you're gonna have some, you know, with some white, you know, complex sauce. Oh, by the way, sometimes you can have it like a very dry white, you can have it also with meat. Okay? It's not— Shollen.

Shollen.

We are in a place, we are located in a place that is funny because now that we are in Jerusalem, it's easier to compare. We are in the Jerusalem of of Valencia, let's say. So Valencia is Tel Aviv, and our vineyards are in Jerusalem. So we are 767, but up to 800.

Oh, that's where the number comes from. So what is Altos Levantinos?

Altos, it's high. Levante, we are the Spanish Levante. You know, the Mediterranean Levant, it's Israel, Lebanon, and so The Spanish Levant is my region, is Valencia.

So how do you translate directly to the Levantinos as a whole?

The Levantino Hills.

So that's like signifying—

why? Because it's the Levant of Spain on the hills.

You're telling me the region.

We are doing the region. This is a very terroir project, so everything thin. It's all around the geography, climatology.

Okay.

Everyone love this wine.

My stepdad doesn't even drink wine. He drank this and he was like, this is good.

This is the one.

He doesn't like wine. I was shocked.

This is amazing wine. So this one, so this is 2022. It's, uh, that's it. I think there is the last 3 cases and now it's, uh, No, but there's more coming. There is a new vintage coming. If you like the old vintages, for sure. What we do is divided into grape varieties. Bobal for the reds and Macabeo for the whites. So this is a Macabeo as well. This is some Macabeo that I actually brought it. So actually this kind of amphoras. This is a model. No, we don't have million like this. No. The original one, the one we have, is like 2 meters high and is 1,000 liters. Wow! So it's still small. This is a direct replica of what you use? It's exactly the same. This is a clay, handmade in Spain. So this is— there are still some people doing this kind of things. And, you know, thanks to us and other people, so they have— they can keep the tradition. This is a clay they're doing in Spain already, like, for— I don't remember if it's 4 or 5 generations doing that. And what Solomon was trying to tell me is that you guys saw here, Maga and David, this is— I didn't— we didn't request. Suddenly we order clays from 2 different handcrafters. They do. And suddenly They arrived first just to do the first year trial to see which one we like more because, you know, each one behaves differently. So suddenly we saw this Magen David on the original ones and we said, hey, how did this guy know that we're Jews? How do they know? You know, we are very discreet and we are not like— The Spanish are very good at hunting you down. Right.

Nobody expects the Spanish to be good at this.

In Spain, right. So I think, yeah, huh? Yeah, well, it was very easy. It was very easy because, because of the, the, the guy who was saying that, he said, no, it's just, uh, is the way, is the way how I sign the clays when I finish to show the people. This is mine, and this is how my father is signing the clay, and this is my grandfather. Yeah, and you know, like, to tell you, like, the Judaism and the— is so strong in Spain, you know, like, you know, family names, Tarbut producers. So the people are signing like this and they don't know that, you know, they— for them is a star. It's not even a Star of David, but you know, like, you go back on probably the grand-grand-grandfather never told to the grandchild because, you know, they have to protect somehow. But this is the way how— how was it?

Even though it's not open, it still has malolactic fermentation.

And on this one, no, no. But, but, but I tell you, before I was telling you, the Dalinar, we want stainless steel inox because we want just one direction to the fruit. And on Alcunia, this is going to— the white wine is going to age on the lees. The yeast, once it has done the fermentation and, you know, it's having the cycle, then it dies. And if you decide to let the lees with the wine, you can add, you know, different flavors, but you can add also a bit of a volume to the wine. And there is something that's called batonnage in French. They take a baton and they move it, and the more you shake it—

move the lees, you're saying?

Yeah, you move the lees, and the more you move the wine with the lees in it, the stir, and the more you move or shake. So the winemaker is going to choose how he wants the wine. So we— is this going to stay here for 6 months? We're going to move it very low, so we're going to move like once a month. And then it's gonna stay at least there. Why I say that? Because in our region, think about it, we are in Valencia. Again, we are in a place that is really hot. I don't know, I hope you guys come back to visit one day. It's very like Israel, like, and it's very hot and you want complex, but you always want lighter, lighter body wines. You want wines that are fit to the region. Okay. It's not just, uh, A coincidence that in our region we do lighter wines is because of, you know, what makes sense. Here in Israel, it makes sense to make lighter wines. For whatever reason in the history, we have made here in Israel, like, very heavy wines. So there is no problem to have heavy wines or to drink a heavy wine. Why not? Love it. But certain regions, certain moments ask for different wines.

Okay.

So this is a drier, more gastronomic, you know, aged peach. Usually the Macabeo, generally speaking, is bringing white fruit notes and also white flower notes. So here it doesn't need to be purely that, but because it's a wine that has been aged on tinaja, has been, you know, micro-oxygenated for the next for 6 months and it's already like a couple of years in the bottle. But in the essence, it's— you're getting some white peach or what are you getting? Some stones, some— look, very, very, very, very Macabeo always brings a little bit of bitterness in there on the back. This is 100% the Macabeo. We're gonna have another Macabeo white, but because it's brut, A Brut, usually the sparkling Brut, it goes by— no, it's very polyvalent. It could be, you know, for starting, you know, when you want acidity but you want a little bit of, not sweetness, but you want a little bit of touch of sweetness, it's good to start. But it's also very nice for dessert. So if you have like a mousse de chocolat or something lemon, also to have a Brut. Could go very well as well. Okay, so if it was like an extra brut, there is no mousse au chocolat.

No?

Oh my God, yeah, we're gonna have to change all the— yeah, okay, okay, okay, surprise, surprise. So this has evolved a little bit. First of all, we receive it like you see, okay? Here there is a lid that has a rubber and then has like an inox lid. So it's closing it like 100%. So there is no air coming. The only air that is coming is from through the clay. Do you have to do topping? Well, you know, it's micro-oxygenated, it's breathing, so you have to be topping. Yeah, it does. It's like wood. It does like wood. Here, in clay, it's a little bit more irregular. Sometimes when it's full of wine, you will see that sometimes has like a mark of like a wet brown thing here or there because it's made handcrafted. It's not like— it's not monotony. It's not all the same. So, you know, it's a person has been taking the clay and doing by hand. And then, you know, so some parts are a bit more porosity, some parts are less porosity. Or what you get is what it— netto, what is it?

Georgia, they use clay.

Do they still bury the clay in the ground?

But they're much bigger.

They're huge.

And they're like pointed at the bottom.

You mentioned they're pointed at the bottom that they put in the ground.

And then this sediment settles into the point at the bottom. So I don't know who brought that to Georgia. But these ones that we have the same. The Phoenicians, the Phoenicians, they brought to my region. And if you come to visit, you will see towns of— in my own town, there is 3, 4 houses that on the bottom you have like no 1,000 liters, you have like 3,000 liters. And sometimes I think myself, you know, I told them, but who, what was the egg or the chicken You put the, you put the clays and then you build a house? Or you— because it's like huge. How do you get in the door? Yeah, no, how you get into the door?

Dig in the ground.

So that's so, so, so this is, this is not a choice of, you know, romanticism or whatever. What we wanted to do is just go back a little bit to, to the origins, what it's, you know, how you make wine like a few hundred years ago, a few thousand years ago, but in a more modern way, right? So experiment with other barrels. So there is another— in the reds there is another experiment, but in this one they ferment in stainless steel, and then when it's fermented, and then you put it out, you put it out. But that could be also— for me, sometimes it will go into wood or never. We don't do that.

Not you, in general, is that— yeah, yeah, no, in, in the area, in the region, other wineries.

I think, I think doesn't it, I think doesn't it, but, uh, there is some people they do, but it's not the common thing in our area, you know. It's, uh, it's more common tinajas or more common in steel? It's more in our— it's more common in inox. Tinajas, we were kind of like the pioneers in my region to It's not that— doesn't mean that we were the— in my region, when you come in the towns, you will see underground many, many villages with clays like this. But somehow people completely left it aside, and people thought that to make one here was not classy, you know, was not modern. Since 2016, we started making wines like this, and suddenly You see all the wines, all the wineries doing it. So I think it's amazing. I think it's— so for example, this one, this is not called amphora. We call it amphora, like you said, like has the Yedidot. Like this, we call it Kinahas. Kinahas.

With a J. Yeah, that's enough. Wine does give you nachas. It's an awesome product.

Actually, in my region, you go and you tell the people "amphora" and they will look at you, "What? What do you mean?" Like, "Ah, tinaja!" Because my region, once— I really want you guys to come— has the oldest archaeological sites of winemaking in all the peninsula of Spain and Portugal. So when you come there, You can see places that are like, how you say, uh, hewn out of stone. Hewn out of stone, yeah. They have places on, on the nature. You go and you will see that they have 2,500 years ago where they put the grapes and with the feet they were, you know, crushing the— and then you see that they, how they have made in the stone so the, the wine is going to a special place. And this is how they were making wine at the time.

We have that right by where I live in Northern Yeah, we do. There's this really great natural park in my neighborhood, and if you go around it, there are different wine facilities all around there. Yeah, wine ratchet neighborhood.

So this is the brother or sister, brother of Alain Alouette and José. Okay, we want the same philosophy. We want like, you know, freshness. We want fruitiness. You want— yeah, we want a beautiful introduction of Bobal, the same as the rosé, but now fully red. Inox coming from the old vines, good acidity. This is the type of red that we sell the most. You know, even though they say in Israel that, you know, I heard some people when I was coming here that, you know, you don't drink red wines in summer. And it's true that if you have like a very heavy red, you avoid that so you don't get smashed.

If you are drinking Barcano, then of course, yeah, you'd be right.

But you can have like some, you know, kind of like lighter in terms of not only about the body, but also in terms of the tannins. So you see here, the tannins are, you know, quite acceptable. Like Grenache. So the idea here is, again, you have like a red wine that you connect very well with the Bobal, the fruity side that has a good acidity that is very, that is fun. What I was saying is like good for summer. There is some people that like to put the reds a little bit on the fridge to chill. And not every red wine goes well with the—

Like a garnacha.

Garnacha. Garnacha is very— how do you say it?

Versatile?

No, no. Do you know the animal that changes the color every time they close?

Chameleon.

Chameleon?

Yeah.

So the garnacha is very chameleon. For example, if you do a Tempranillo in Spain, so more or less you will see, oh, this is Tempranillo from Rioja, from Duero, from there, more or less is the You find the— but you take a garnacha from Aragon or Catalonia that is very close, or Valencia, or Madrid. You know, you have the Madrid now, they are very fashionable because they are super— and they are completely different one to each other. So there is some garnachas— the garnachas that I saw here are a bit heavier, no? And in color, no? Very alcoholic.

It depends.

It depends? Which one, for example?

I had from from the, from the Negev, Quinto and Nana. And I would drink them chilled.

They're super duper light.

Okay, not heavy, not heavy. No, but Vitkins is a little, a little more bold.

Yeah.

Okay, like Grenache can also vary even, because like the couple that I had were super light, but then some other ones like Vitkins, a little more bold, like you were saying. Yeah.

So it's not one and the same everywhere. So the Garnacha is widely used for rosé.

Oh yeah.

And in areas like, uh, Garnacha was born is a Spanish grape variety. It was born in the area of Aragon. So it's the birthplace of the Garnacha. So there you can have— there is a lot of— the soil is typically there with the pizarra.

What's that?

A board. You know pizarra? You know when you go to the Pyrenees or the Alps in France and you see the roofs are made with, you know, this black thing, like a black—

Slate.

Yeah, that is good for the snow that doesn't, you know, like— So this type of soil is very typical from Aragón, where you can make, like what I was telling you before, you can make a very, very light garnacha that looks like very close to rosé, but they get to do like very intensive wine. So when you get into the mouth, you get the intensity of the wine, yet very, very light.

Pale color.

The same thing in Madrid. If you go to Madrid, you go to the west of Madrid, you have a place called Sierra de Gredos, the Mountains of Gredos. So you can have as well the same type of garnacha, super light.

Does it give a taste of mineral?

Yeah, yeah.

The slate would give that.

You will find that. Why I was telling before, because when I said about the rosé, I said more like salinity. I didn't say, you know, I also said minerality, but I said more salinity because in my region, in the calcareous soils of the Mediterranean coast, you will have more the taste of like a little bit more salinity. And there in these regions with pizarra, like very strong pizarra, you will have more minerality touch than— Yeah. Good.

Grenache comes from Aragon. It's northeast Spain.

It's close to France, right? It's touching the Pyrenees, but it's, uh, it's west of Catalonia. So when you finish Catalonia, it's the next region.

So is it close still? Like, that's why you have a lot of Grenache in Côtes du Rhône Châteauneuf-du-Pape, because it's right the south. Is it close?

Is it?

Yeah, yeah, it's across the Pyrenees. Yeah, so that's why they both, yeah, they both consider it a local grape.

This was in oak?

This, this is not in oak. This is, this is not in oak, but You feel something? This is coming from old vines. This is going to bring some— So there is no whatever, whatsoever vanilla or toasted thing or something. So was it steel? Is it steel? No, only steel. You're gonna taste tinajas.

Do you want to order what we drink?

Ah, the stone? Flint? Pizarra? Pizarra is Flint?

Yeah.

Okay. All the reds are Beauval.

So all, you know, you know, some projects, uh, some projects you, you can see the difference between, you know, I make a Cabernet Sauvignon, I make it one Merlot, one whatever. So we do all Beauval.

This is exactly what I love in wine. It's just so balanced. Keep sending me wine.

I thank you. This is my job, you know. This is how I live. I'm not going to be politically correct.

No, there's nothing politically incorrect. When someone orders from bobal.co.il, that's you? Like, you are in contact with you?

Yeah.

Nice. It's very unique. I never— like, there's a lot of bunch of wineries from Spain, Italy, France that are in Israel, usually through an importer, distributor. I never saw someone have direct It's a direct, like, you can just go to the, like, in Israel you have an Israeli website, that's Yodarayel. I was so surprised.

Yeah.

Because you live here, right?

Because I live a part, you know, because, yeah, I think it's nice. I think it's the minimum I could do.

And you cut out the middleman, so it's more money for you to save.

At the end of the day, it's true, but at the end of the day, because you are the owner, then you you have to— you spend more in marketing, you spend more in this. So at the end of the day, so sometimes when you have your own company, it doesn't matter if it's small or big, if you have your own company, you don't know how much money you put in the company. You put your life. It's like, like as a family, like if you were really thinking about how much you put in the company, sometimes it's not rational because you have to keep it. No, because because you have to invest and do this and do that and there is no— this is American. So yeah, yeah, so what I was going to say, this is 100% Bobal as well. It's the same grape variety we have been drinking before. Obviously here there is few years of difference, 2023 or '24, '24, '23, and on the, on the bottom left or right, 2024. So obviously 2024, the other one is 2020, on, on 2020 on this one. So few years already aging on the bottle, like, is very important. Also in the bottle is aging and bringing to somewhere else. But here, 2020 is the one we have now. 2020 is what you have now.

This is the most recent vintage?

No, no, no, there, there is, uh, I'm bringing now 2023. 2023.

Oh, this is the most recent vintage in Israel, but already it was produced and sold.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Why I brought this one? Because I thought, like, it's, it's good to see for, for you to see, like, an older vintage, so you see the direction of development. So you have, uh, so you have 8, uh, 12 months on, on American oak in Spain. So, so you have the French oak, you have the American oak, you have other oaks like Hungarian and whatever. But generally speaking, you have American and French. In Spain, very, very, very, very, very classical to use American everywhere. Like when you have the Rioja, most of the— no matter what, if it's like a very high-end or lower-end, American oak is the way, in a sense.

It's the standard.

It's the standard.

Like LV wines in Córdoba, they're using They use an American, so that's right.

Yeah, I think you can do French oak. I'm sure they do French oak in La Rioja now, but a few years ago it's only American. Okay, so you know in the French— no, in the— how you say it in the French? No, it's not the expression, but what defines the République française, it's égalité, fraternité. Liberté, égalité, fraternité. Okay, so you have these 3 words that define what is about the French Republic. So in the wine, you have local, loyal, and constant. Local, like locally, constant, and loyal. Okay, so that's 3 main words that define what's the— Local. Local, like local. Loyal, to be loyal of certain things. And constant. Regular. Consistent. So that's what define terroir as the main thing. So many times, to like for 20 years ago, we have, for example, in Bourgogne, we have, you have new wines and people crazy. 20 years ago, 30 years ago, that success a lot. But 40 years ago, you were making a wine that is not going to these 3 things. You were making a wine for Bourgogne that is not 100% Bourgogne style. And people will say, your wine is no good. No, not because, not because he didn't make it well and perfect, is because you didn't know how to make it, these 3 things. Because you are going to try to make it, you were trying to make creative. No, be creative. If you want to be Bourgogne wine, you need to be this, and the, the wine has to taste Bourgogne. And now things changed in Bourgogne. Now things change around the world everywhere. Like now you get some, you know, We have things like Super Tuscan. So for example, what I was telling you before, the same thing in the region, for example, La Rioja. If you were like 30 years ago, you were going to bring French oak, you will say, hey, this is not La Rioja. I think you get confused. I think you should go somewhere else. Somewhere else. Yeah, to try. So in Spain, the American oak It was very dominant in the style of winemaking, whatever. I tell you how it works. There was a certain moment in history of the winemaking that they have to put some standards. And the standards, they were like, in Spain at least, like 70 years ago. They are not the same standards as of today. So the crianza Reserva and Gran Reserva. They were used in the past to put the wines— those who want to show off a better quality, they have to go to certain rules. But today those rules, as for example Crianza, that you can make Crianza anywhere in Spain, in appellations in Spain, it doesn't matter the grape variety, but you have to be inside appellations. Today it means only timing. Doesn't mean quality. So you, when you look at Crianza, Reserva, or Gran Reserva, today, as for today, doesn't mean quality at all. 50 years ago means quality because you have to take the wines and you have to do certain things and you have to put the wine on the oak for a certain time and then to age on the bottle for a certain time. There was an effort. Yeah, you have to do it. But today it doesn't mean— it's not equal to quality. It's only the time. The time that you have to— like, each appellation is going to rule what they want to do. In my region, in my appellation of Hautel-Réquena, the timing is for criança minimum 6 months. 6 months, not 1 year. Not 1 year, minimum of 6 months and 12 months.

It's different Rioja than this.

It's different Rioja. So you have also for the whites and you have also for the rosé, but you never— I think you never seen here like a crianza rosé, no? No, not really.

Is there a purpose to age rosé that long?

You don't see many. There is some people— I think I see someone, no? Simon, who does rosé age on barrels?

Oh, in Israel? Yeah, there's a few.

There's a few, right?

Lahat is 10 months. It's a GSM with—

The Rosé?

Yeah, very complex. And Augur is 6 months, also very nice. This is—

so what we do again, this is 80% Bobal, 80%. So there is a 20% of Syrah.

So what's in the blend?

So here, so there was a moment that's, you know, that when you are talking a project that is using always the same grape variety and it's all Bobal. There was a moment that we focused very into the grape variety, into the land that where we grow this Bobal, and there was a moment that, you know, we wanted to increase a little bit the angle in order to show the terroir, the bigger view of the terroir. So sometimes when you do like a very terroir wines, you can focus on something Here on this one, we wanted to open a little bit more and to show the— because our area is high altitude, is Mediterranean, is continental, but it's also quite dry. So, the Bobal didn't show that, and we brought 20% of the Shiraz to bring that spices to these dry herbs in order so for you to imagine while drinking Bobal how it looks like our high altitude dry terroir. So this is what it's bringing. We— the Syrah can bring a lot of body, right? Can bring more body than usually can show here. But what we did with the Syrah is to bring— to flip it and to bring the aromas and taste of the Syrah, but not the body. We make it lighter to go along well with the Bobal. And this is This is the— so then that would not be— if it's lighter, it would be Shiraz. The lighter form would be Shiraz. Okay, so the Shiraz is aging on the clay.

Ah, yeah.

Okay, so we mix it with the bourbon. So you asked me before if I was like— so the Shiraz aging separately in the clay amphora jars, in the tinajas, and the bourbon The barley is aging on the— in oak, in American oak. And then we do the blending. Okay, so after each one ages, then you blend them? Yeah, then we blend it. Each one ages— how much time? Separately? Each one ages for 12 months? Each separately for 12 months, and then the Shiraz, when it's finished, we blend it together. And then how long does it sit in a bottle before?

No, in the barrel.

So in the, in the bottle it stays like at least for 1 year. At least for— yeah.

So this is American oak?

This is American oak.

What processes are you using to keep the alcohol levels low? Like all the whites are low, the reds are low compared to Israeli reds. Except for Amarias, yeah.

So there is 13%. This is 14, right? Yeah, well, you're going to get—

but that was still medium.

You have 11.5, usually in the Alenar Tinto is 12. 12.5, you know, certain—

it's more hot. So are you stopping fermentation early?

Are you— so the grape variety, it's a, it's a Bobal. It's a grape variety that it takes long to get ripped, so it has a long cycle. I, I would say something we are very lucky is the continental climate, is the altitude that is allowing, allowing us that. Okay, so we have, for example, for example, when I say long cycle, altitude, uh, the— here in Israel, already in July, August, you have already the— August, you have like a heavy harvest, right? We, we do most of the wines for the reds end of September, October. So if you come to my region at the end of September, October, during the, during the day is really hot, during the night is really cold. Okay, it's, it's already really cold. So that's, that's allow us to, to, to have a sac à, to have a— during the day keeps ripening, during the night you have a sac à. In, in— if you go to lower places in Valencia, lower places like 300m, 400m, you don't have that. It's like a chicken, you know, when they put the chicken, you put the light, never stop eating because he thinks it So it's a little— not exactly like that, but more or less you got it, right? So this one, it's Finca Cerezal. Finca usually in Spain means chateau. So this one is also 2020. 2020, 100% Bobal. You know, in Europe, there is still happening, like in Australia, like in some places, there is some vines that survive the— Phylloxera. The phylloxera holocaust. So in this time of the year, when it happens, it kills most of the vineyards in Europe. And happening that in some places in Spain, for example, mainly the islands, or places like, for example, Utiel Requena, that's 115 years ago, it was kind of like isolated. We didn't have like train, we didn't have— so we have, you know, to go to Valencia, you have to get the donkey. So the filoxera is something that is not flying and the human has to bring it to the place. So we were lucky that The phylloxera only got to our region at the end of the epidemic in 1903, 1904, more or less. But it didn't get really hard on it. So we have some parcels that are still, you know, alive. Old vines. What's that? Very old vines. And the soil sometimes, you know, the phylloxera, it's, you know, it's kind of like an insect that doesn't like too much the sandy soils. He doesn't feel comfortable with that. So here you have a very calcareous sandy soil. That's all combined together. We make that still happening, still alive. So these are pre-phylloxera? So pre-phylloxera, ungrafted, meaning, you know, like, you know, like, I don't know.

Yeah, it's a very old vines, right?

It's very— you have in Canarias, you have Canary Islands. Canary Islands.

Is it true I read that they just got phylloxera now?

You know, by law, by law, so it could happen anytime. No, by law the phylloxera is not allowed. No, by law is not, is not allowed to plant if you don't graft the vines. By law they need to be grafted.

I heard that just this last year they had issues —dealing a little bit with the sketch I said everyone has to do.

Yeah, so there is ways to control it and the main way is to make everyone compulsory to graft the grape.

What about the existing vines?

Do you have to rip them up? The existing? No. The existing is to exist until they will die. But the new ones, you cannot plant more if you don't graft it. Okay. So I think it's, you know, you will tell me, Armando, do you think that that are 115 years old, grafted, ungrafted, you will see the difference. I think it's— I'm not sure if everyone will be able to make the difference in terms of quality. So why?

So she wants to know why this tastes different than the Magus? Besides the blend. Oh, than the Moriah, sorry.

No, this one is French because— The main thing before it has been aged in the barrels, you can see already the difference. And the main difference here is the soil. The two of them, they are like Bobal grape variety. One of them is more calcareous soils, which is— this is like purely calcareous. This is why it's a single vineyard that we wanted to show. And the other one has a lot more content of clay.

So wait, this is a single vineyard and the rest are not single vineyards?

No, it's the only one here. It's— we want to show something specific. Yeah. Okay. Obviously for us, flagship wine is one of the— but we want to sell something specific about the— this unique parcel.

Yeah, this is considered flagship or the next one? The Unico flagship?

Finca Terrazal and Unico is the— is the— I would say the same, the same level. But, uh, you know, Unico is, is a crazy wine. So it's—

everything— we'll get to that in a minute. Actually, take it. This is— I love this wine. It is so elegant and beautiful. Yeah, just amazing. Classic. Yeah, I still like— anyone can enjoy this.

Yeah.

So this is a wine, it's a Reserva. What we said before about the timing, so it's a Reserva type, a minimum of, you know, 12 months. And this one has been 12 months and at least 2 years in the bottle before release. So it takes a while until they get to the— 2 years? 2 years. 2 years in the bottle before release. So it takes a while until These ones go in. The Malvas was one—

what level? Granza or Reserva?

The only two wines that they have this thing is the Reserva and the black, and the black label. But it's something we are taking slowly, slowly. We are not— we don't want to be categorized as that. We want to be categorized as wines of author. Like, we decide what we want to do and it's enough. You're not interested in classification? Kitchen. No, you have to take the— I know that it's becoming more complicated, you know. You know what's teresal? Teresal, it's orchid, orchid, orchid plantation.

Orchid is a flower? No, as the duvet van. Cherry?

Cherry plantation. Yeah, so we are in an area, it's like a continental, we are high altitude, like I guess in the Jardín, so you have the cherry trees. So we also have cherry trees because this climatology allows to— yeah, like we are like 900. So this is why Finka says that, because there is Duve de Vanim. Okay, you know, once you start an adventure. You don't know where to go, and then things are, you know, every morning I flip the page, reach the fifth line, go, and then you write, and then you go back, you say, wow, what an amazing story. And I did. But if you see that the only two wines that are being aged in the barrel, on oak, are the Finca and the Memorias. All the rest has been all whether the Tinaja or whether in Enoch. So only the memorias and the finca has been aged in there. So my mother was born in Aix-en-Provence, which is in the heart of the Provence in France. She was born there from parents of Tunisian grandfathers I have. So the one, my grandfather— Tunisians. Yeah, so my grandfather was an expert of French law when he was living in Tunisia. And then obviously because it has like French influence in all of it, so the war was finishing and then they decided to go obviously to France. Marseille was the closest place to, you know, so they arrived to Aix-en-Provence. They grew up there and my grandfather has been a working on law all his life, found his way on law, has a great success. And slowly, slowly, Aix-en-Provence was a little bit the place for the artists in France, what was, you know, was the artists from Paris to go back to in summer to go to the Provence. So they arrived to Aix-en-Provence and so many places. Cézanne, they paid the Saint-Victoire, Picasso has a house, still having a palace close there. So there was a big influence of writers, poets, painters, and all of this, you know, culture. It was a golden era. So my grandfather got really inspired with art and life, got to meet one of the, you know, painters that, you know, was there. And slowly, slowly, he acted as a patron. So he has, you know, some— most of the painters are artists, are a little bit cuckoo in a certain way. So he has some difficulties to, you know, for life, how to— so he slowly, slowly, he was buying all the paints. And it's called Gilbert Rigaud. He was born in Aix-en-Provence in that time. And what we did here with all the labels is just to to take the most simple figures of the painting. And because it's part of my mother's family and this is a family story, so we blended my father's Bobal, Spain, with my mother's. We don't put it everywhere. We don't put it anywhere. If you go to the website, you almost will not find it. But it's something like we give recognition to my mother's touch, which, by the way, I have to tell you that's my mother influences as a French person the wines that we make in Spain. So for example, when you come into my region, my wines compared with the rest of the wines in my region are not conventional, let's say. We don't make wine as the other people in my region make wine. So you know when I was telling you about before the 2, the 3 words about terroir, constant, loyal, da da da. We break that. So, you know, we break a little bit because we wanted to have a more refreshing interpretation of the Mediterranean wines. Less heavy, less barrels, like also happened here. That was something that we— So this one, it's called Unico. Unico for many things. You see that it's so many Ys and so many Ks. In Spain, you speak Yiddish?

No, I don't speak Yiddish. I understand.

I understand a little bit. So in Spain, we have the language of the Ladino. And when the people right now write Ladino, so they use, for example, a lot of Ks and a lot of Ys. For example, casa in Spanish is casa, is home. You see C-A-S-A. But in Ladino is K-A-S-A. So you use the K. So for example, Alkunia, if I can get the bottle of the white here, the orange. Here, this is a proper word in Ladino. Alkunia today is written as Alkurnia with C and with R and I, not with Y. And Alkurnia means, you know, that's noble family name. We wanted to give Alcunia to that wine because it was a bit more gastronomic, a bit bigger wine. So we, we use that letters, and this is what we use for Unico. Unico is 100% Bobal, and this is going to age again. It's a prefilled oxidavinas of 3 parcels, and it's going to age, it's going to be made, fermented, and aged on, on this It's going to be like for 14 months, more or less, depends on the years. So here again you have a red bobal with a beautiful structure.

I'm just absorbing, I'm just absorbing. It's funny because the name Alcunia almost, it brings forth ideas of like the Muslim, the Arabic.

Yeah, Alcunia. 100% because At this time, you know, Ladino, Arab, the language was very mixed. So if you see, if you go to Google, you will find that also is used in Arabic in that time. But it was a Ladino word for using for family name, you know.

I don't know if I caught it. Did you mention what the Magus duopole, what it means and what's the name?

Magus duopole, Magus is the magic of two grape varieties that's make together Duopol, like no Monopol, Duopol. In which language is that? Latin? French? Magus is in Latin and Duopol, yeah. So it's funny, your names of your wines can really vary.

Those Finca Cerezal is clearly Spanish.

You know, the next time you come to my family, you go to Valencia and you— and we are opening like 5 bottles of wine and we are eating, you know, we can— we talk about everything and many, many funny things things come out in the whole conversation.

I'm thinking maybe the next one is Hebrew, a Hebrew name. You have Spanish, you have Arabic, you have Latin, French.

Maybe a Hebrew name is coming up next. Who knows, who knows. You have to come. How is that the wine? So there is a way of tasting the sparkling. So how we do it, it's you first of all let the wine to relax. So you see when it's relaxed, you taste it and you see how are the bubbles. And when you have tasted how are the bubbles when the wine is relaxed, okay, when you finish, you can now shake the wine and let the aromas to come out and then taste the— and, you know, have the aromas. But first of all, we let the wine to relax. We have some in the mouth to see the quality of the bubbles. And the next step will be aromas then and so on. So this is from Macabeo. This is from Macabeo. This is 2022. So we are talking about Reserva. Okay, Reserva in Spain, minimum of 15 months. So here we have 24 months. 24 months where you guys were doing the Razziale, right? I'm sorry? Méthode traditionnelle. Yeah.

This is Reserva. This is the Reserva. It's cheap. It's basically not, nothing. No, not the aging.

Yeah. Do you have a plan to make a Grand Reserva? The Grand Reserva is coming. Yeah. So at the end, we are like, uh, we are living a bit. It should come now, but we are leave it until next year. So I think it's— we have been tasting, it has a bigger potential than we thought, and we are leaving it. It's bottled already or it's still aging? Méthode traditionnelle, so traditional method. It's already bottled, so it's aging with the lees inside and not touching. So when it's aging, the bottle is flat and it's not touching for the time that is going to be aging. So this thing 24 months. Between 24 and 30 months.

And the Grand Reserve will be almost 5 years.

Whoa, it's gonna be much more intense.

You want to release more?

Yeah, more release for sure, but it's going to be like, um, like a Brut Naturel. Oh wow, it's not relaxing. It's not relaxing because you're looking at it. It's getting nervous. Stop looking at it.

It's—

I'm not a champagne guy usually, but I can appreciate quality, and this is the super fine bubbles. So refreshing. It covers your whole tongue, the whole palate. Lovely.

Yeah, from Maccabees. Yes, not Chardonnay. Yeah, so you find, you see the brioche, didn't age at all in wood, but you find the brioche touch. There is the macabeo.

It didn't age, it's only in steel? Only steel, yeah. What's the word you keep using for the steel?

Inox, but what is that? How you say inox? In what language? Stainless steel. Ah, in Spanish, sorry, maybe. Inox? Inoxidable. Inoxidable meaning means that, uh, it's not, you know, stainless steel. Oh, okay, sorry.

No, it's fine. I understood what you were saying.

I want to know what was the source. Inoxidable, that doesn't oxidize. That is not— oh, inox. Oh yeah, inox. Wow.

Yeah, could you grab me a couple glasses of water?

So, so once again, it relaxed. You relax, you drink it. Yeah, because if you shake it, the wine at the beginning, it's gonna shake and the bubbles, and, uh, you know, it's gonna get more oxidized. But, uh, how usually we do is you let it calm, you drink it so you have it on the mouth, the, you know, the, the right bubbles, not like crazy bubbles, right? And you understand what type of bubbles you have. We want fine, persistent, well-integrated bubbles, very elegant. And now if you want, try, try, try to shake it. Try to shake it, find the aromas, and you will see that if you— are you supposed to swirl a champagne? You, you supposed to swirl if whatever you want to have the aromas intensify. So you want to, to shake the aromas, you want to, to— but Yeah, and this is 100% macabre. So, so this one, you know, it's like mostly 100% macabre, but it can have also a little bit of charello. Of the— yeah, charello.

This is Solomon Simon Jacob again, your host of of today's episode of The Kosher Terroir. Please subscribe via your podcast provider to be informed of our new episodes as they are released. If you are new to The Kosher Terroir, please check out our many past episodes.