Beit El Winery: Biblical Vineyards to World-Class Wines

Welcome to the Kosher Terroir. I'm Simon Jacob, your host for this episode from Jerusalem.

From the hills of Bethel, where Jacob dreamed, comes a boutique winery turning ancient terroir into world-class kosher wines. It's here, on land steeped in history and prophecy, that Hillel Mann and his family have been quietly crafting wines of rare elegance and soul. Trained in agriculture at UC Davis, but rooted deeply in the ancient terroir of the Judean hills, Hillel has built a winery that is both a modern boutique producer and a living bridge to the biblical past. Today, his rows of Cabernet, Merlot, and Carignan vines are nourished by the same sun and soil that sustained generations before him. We'll talk to the visionaries behind the label, explore the marriage of faith and fermentation, and taste the wines that carry the story of this place in every glass. If you're driving in your car, please focus on the road ahead. If you're relaxing at home, please open a bottle of great kosher wine, sit back, relax, as this story about Bet-El is not just about a winery. It's a testament to how land, history, and human devotion can merge into something truly timeless.

My name is Hillel Mann.

Hillel Mann.

Okay, beseder. And this is Nina.

This is Nina.

Pleasure. Okay. So the questions I have is I want to know a little bit about your history and, you know, why you made Aliyah and your path to actually making wine.

I, when I'm I always sort of wanted to move to Israel. There used to be this thing with, you come and go to an Ulpan and it wasn't, there weren't so many yeshiva programs when we were young, when I was young anyways. And the, in '77 I did an Ulpan in Kibbutz Ein Zohrim and it was great, I had a great time and I came back to America and wanted to learn all about cotton because I had to do a bachelor's degree for my parents, right? And so, so that was, so then I came back and in Shalavim I ended up working in the vineyard in '96 when I moved to Beit El. The obvious, or the, what appeared to me then was appropriate agricultural activity was grapes here in this area. Perfect.

Was there a family impact from your journey?

My parents weren't very happy about us moving to Israel, but me and my brother moved to Israel, and we had kids, and they enjoyed the grandchildren. My sister stayed in New York and doesn't have children.

So you have children and grandchildren here?

Me now? My parents are nifter.

Okay, but no, you now.

I have, I have, yeah, you know, my granddaughter got engaged, my oldest granddaughter got married a couple weeks ago.

That's something I'm still waiting for.

I haven't, none of my grandchildren are married, so I have no great-grandchildren yet, but I've got a grandson who's an officer and he's got kids, he's got He's finishing up tiranut, the basic training with them, and they're ready to go in the next couple of weeks. Wow.

So this is my number 2 son, and his eldest is in Givati.

Oh, great.

So, bravo, Shem.

Okay. What inspired you to choose Beit El as a site for planting grapes and to be here?

I chose to live here. Okay. And I chose to live here because it was It was a settlement, but with all the services. Before we lived in Petach Tikva, you want to take the kids to the swimming pool when they separate swimming, right?

Yeah.

Okay. And it was like, you know, from 7 o'clock at night till 11 o'clock at night. I mean, there wasn't anything available. And here everything was available. Schools had a good reputation. The, there was, there's clinics here, there's whatever you need. It was family-oriented decision. And then when I got here, I wanted to do something in agriculture. And I looked around and because of the poor land and the topography, it's making wine. But I had a terrible business plan. I wanted to make simple grape juice and wines and sell it to my neighbors. That was a terrible mistake. Never try and make money off of the—

Your neighbors.

Your neighbors, right.

You got that right away.

It took me a number of years to pick that up.

It took me a number of years too.

Ein chacham kabbal, that's what I tell my wife.

Can you describe the journey from your first vines to today's production? Production?

The first step is that I planted Carignan because I wanted these simple wines, right? Wow. And it turned out to be my Carignan. I don't know whether you know my wines, but my Carignan is very popular as it turns out. Now, why is my take on it? I don't, you know, from my experiences, the people, you know, they don't have the self-confidence when it comes to wine, okay? So their decisions are kind of, you gotta second-guess them, But they like something very smooth and they don't necessarily like the big tannic Cabernet, right? But they still, all they know is they come in the store and say, give me my Cabernet, right? Yeah. So here it's, you know, a lot of my wines also, the Merlot in Israel, but also in the English-speaking world has a very bad rap as a wine. I made 2 pallets of it, say, for argument's sake, okay? And just sat there and nobody was tasting it for like 2 years, right? Because, you know, nobody— and then somebody came in and tasted and made a lot of noise about it. Now it's something, my Merlot from Kfar Tapuach. It's a good wine. It's very concentrated, very sophisticated wine. But I'm just saying that those were sort of things that happened on the way. And then the big thing in the last few years is that I have two sons, Yisrael Meir and Shalom David, who work with me in the winery. And they've really, A, they brought it to a different level, and they're always trying something new. Something, I don't know whether we've got a still, we make kosher L'Pesach brandy, we make the white wine, rosé. All sorts of interesting things are happening and they're really very effective. Yisroel Amir is very effective in marketing. Nina is also very effective in marketing, everybody knows that. And Yisroel Amir is very effective in marketing and Shalom David is very organized. He studied in Ariel in Shivi Drori's program and And he comes in with a little bit more organization than I have.

And my favorite thing about your Merlot is the anecdote that comes with it. Mr. Almeida told me a million times that people taste it and it's called Merlot Tapuach.

Yeah.

He says people taste it and they try to be the aficionados and they taste it and they go, I'm really getting that apple. I'm getting that tapuach in there. And he just sits there.

You're right.

There's some tapuach in there. Come on, guys. But he goes along with it. And it makes people feel like they know exactly what they're talking about.

Yeah, that's the difference between me and marketing. He's nice. I'm not nice.

Baruch Hashem.

He'll learn.

What were some of the early biggest challenges that you faced at the very beginning? I promise there's going to be questions about the wine too. But I'm asking.

No, I don't, you know, what's a challenge? A challenge is what's in your head, right? 100%. It's all about what you, If there was something that I'd really like to change, it would be the politicians, what do you call it, bureaucrats, stuff like that. But that's not happening. That's part of nature, Newton and whatever.

Okay.

Gravity, whatever.

Are there biblical or spiritual roots that shape your approach to winemaking?

No, not to the winemaking, okay? I make wine that usually the process is that I'm making something that I like, okay? Okay. And then, Nisad Meir and Shalom, and then I have to go and find somebody to sell it to, okay? I mean, first—

You're very pragmatic. I love it. I totally love it.

No, no, no. Can I rephrase?

I love it because you think like I think.

No, no, no. Let me rephrase that. Go ahead. And then I make wine that I like.

Yes.

And me and my family drink as much as we can. And what's left over, we sell. Okay? So that you have that, that's clear. It's about a hedonistic experience. Okay? We're having a good time here. Okay. The question is about the Bible. Okay? When somebody buys wine, they don't just want wine and their fish. They want a story of it. And so we've got the biggest story in the world. I mean, you know, it's here. It's part of the experience. When people come here to visit, and everybody's invited to make an appointment before you come, but everybody, you know, we've got the vineyards here and we've got the history and we've got archaeology and we've got all sorts of interesting things. It's part of the experience, part of the story.

Yep. Let's talk about more technical wine things. The Terra Rosa soils here are unique. How do they express themselves in your wine?

Look, everybody likes this deal about terroir. I understand it's part of your thing, okay?

It's— yes.

But it's— why is everybody on it? Because it's the only thing only they have, okay? Right. But everybody also has something else that they're forgetting about, okay? It's about the people growing the grapes and people growing the wine, what their motivation is, okay? Okay, they're people who want, I mean, I'm fortunate that, I mean, I buy grapes out, but most of the grapes I grow, I'm a farmer, that's my, I make grapes, and then try not to ruin them in the winery, and then everything's good, okay? And the point about terroir is the question is it's something of a talking point, but everything fits together. But it, you know, you aren't getting anywhere unless you decide where you're going to first, right? And so you have to say what I want to do, okay? And it's the terroir is part of that puzzle, but it's not, you know, everybody comes into the store and they say, How many months was it in a barrel, right? They didn't ask what barrel, they didn't ask how many kilo per du— you know, how the crop yield, you know, they didn't talk, did you do—

I'm going to ask you those questions, but no, I'm not.

No, no, no, no, no, no. I'm just saying that people talk about talking points so that they have something to talk about. Right. And that's great. Okay. Nothing wrong. But it's, you have to—

But it's not the most relevant points.

No, it's part of the puzzle. Everything's part of the puzzle. But I will tell you something about the altitude here being 850, where you're sitting, 870 meters above sea level gives us an advantage is that in the evenings it's cool. And why is that important? You've already discussed that?

No, no, no, go ahead, tell me.

Okay, but everybody talks about this, but plants don't respire. Plants respire by temperature, okay? It's not like you take a high schooler, undergraduate, right? And he respires according to the beers in the room and the music and whatever, right? And playing basketball, whatever it is, right? And plants, it's a function of the temperature. And at night, when the temperature goes down, they don't respire. Or they respire much less. Okay? And so that's great because during the day they're doing photosynthesis. They're going forward. In a lot of places it's hot at night and they're respiring like nobody's business. And they're taking a step back. So it's a matter of how much forward. Everything's about the photosynthesis and the biochemistry that's going on there. That's what makes the grapes.

So, but it's also what you were speaking about with regard to the winemaker. That's the reason why my podcast is called The Kosher Terroir. And I take a lot of flak for that because people say there is no such thing as a kosher tevah. And my feeling is that the winemaker and his process and what he does is an integral part of the wine. And because of that, it's as much a part of the environment around it. He's an integral part. The process of what you're doing is plays a part in the story of the wine. So that's the reason why I even use the name, the kosher terroir. And I do take a lot of heat from that, from, you know.

It doesn't matter. If you do something, you'll get heat.

Yeah, I know.

That's easy. Okay, if you don't do anything, then it's cool. Everybody likes you.

Okay.

But listen, the— Yeah, go ahead. What's that?

No. Okay. Is your philosophy minimal intervention or maximal intervention?

In the field, there's a lot of intervention, and that's how I get good grapes, okay? Okay. Now, why is that? First of all, I see success. I see higher phenolics when you get the, when you do the leaf plucking and you get the berries out in the sun, it's like anything else, you get the more phenols. It's like somebody gets darker after a suntan, they get the more phenols, okay? And that makes the wines not only the color better, but the taste and the whole experience is better. Also, you look at a lot of things that are going on in the fermentation, you know, that's the yeast, and it's not only the yeast, it's what they're eating. You know, they're eating something really neat, so they're having a good time too. And as a result, you get a lot of yeast fermentation byproducts that are good because of what you did in the field. But the question about—

Intervention.

Intervention. Is, yes, I'm into, and one of the things in France is it's against the law to fertilize.

Yes.

It's against the law to do anything.

To feed and water.

To water in most cases.

In most cases.

In the most, especially in the high-end cases. And the deal there is, is, no, follow the plant, see how it's developing, whether it needs more water or not, less water. I'm the one in control. I don't want it to do whatever it wants. I've got a specific game plan for the grapes, okay? We do petiole analysis to know how to fertilize. We follow up on it. It's part of the game plan, the handwork. But look, usually the grower is one person and the winery is another person.

That's why it's interesting with you that you're the same person.

Okay, that's traditional in France. So it's not like I invented anything. But the difference is when the grower is growing, he's getting paid by the acre, he's getting paid by the—

The yield.

By the 10, by the yield, by the tons, whatever it is, right? And the winery has to make wine with what, and they try and influence how he works, right? So they aren't working at, they're working at— At odds. At odds, at, okay, at odds is good enough.

You're saying they don't have—

They're not working in unison, they're not—

They don't have the same incentives.

Yeah, they don't have the same goal. They aren't headed for the same point. The grower at the end of the season, He just wants to pick the grapes and go fishing, right? Right. Give me another couple weeks, I get more mature grapes. I get more, you know, people complain about the high alcohol. I happen to like the high alcohol. If you don't want, you know, and the truth is that people, you know, when they're tasting wine, they complain about the higher alcohol only after they read the label, not when they taste it. Not before they taste it. And I mean, because it's not only about what it does to your, once it gets into your blood system, it's got a lot of the mouthfeel, whatever you call it, the, you know, how much mouthfeel you're getting there. It's important. It has a big impact there, but also the color changes. The color gets more developed. The tannins soften up. The pH maybe comes into balance, right? That's what I'm looking at when I'm picking is the ripe fruit is what I'm looking at. Other people, you know, they don't necessarily have that luxury.

So normally I would ask, where's wine made? In the vineyard or in the winery?

In the vineyard. Okay. If you bring good wine to the vineyard, you can make good wine.

Yeah.

But not necessarily. You could screw it up. I've done it.

Yeah.

The—

if you— if you had anything you do is about the raw material. Okay. Yeah. Right. You know, I get all sorts of people and try and ask and make my appropriate. Right. But I mean, like a teacher comes in. I said, it's about the raw material. I mean, if you get a student that's, you know, not the sharpest kid, Right? Can you make a genius out of them? No. No. You can give them opportunities according to his capacity. It's about raw material.

Okay.

But you can't screw it up in the winery. If you screw up in the winery, it's gone. Well, we can distill it still.

That's true.

Now that I've got that in line, we've got a solution. Yeah. No, there were wines that we sold in one way or another because we didn't want it involved in our brand.

Okay.

Fancy wineries often have that. They have their grand vin and then they've got another label that they can put the less successful wine out.

Or they can sell it to another winery to do what they do.

It depends on the setup, but that's an advantage. No, obviously I won't. I almost did it, but I'm going to talk about another winery in Israel.

But I want you to know something. I edit everything. So even if there's something that you do say, you can always say, hey, please don't leave that in the podcast. I edit everything. Okay. So I'm just telling you.

Okay.

You'll know from the next question.

There is a winery here in Israel that's got a tremendous advantage. That they send it to their mother winery if they aren't happy about it. Right. They've got a very, very, a very competent winemaker, and he does whatever he can to make good wine. And the wine that aren't up to his standards or to the marketing standard, they said, okay, we don't need it. You know, that's an opportunity that you often have in a sophisticated consumer. He can get the rejects. Why was it rejected? Maybe it was just rejected because the marketing department says, I don't need that much reserve. And so it'll get bottled. Yeah. So it gets bottled and sold at a lower price point. Right.

In Bet-El, how do you balance tradition and innovation in the vineyard and in the cellar techniques?

Look, Let me say it this way. We balance learning as much as we can. Okay?

Yeah.

What gives good results, we work on that. Okay? There's no secret. It's, look, halacha, in the halacha world, I've got my rules, right?

Yeah.

Wine makers, I don't have any rules. Okay? But this is a critical thing to understand. Is that we talked about France a minute ago. I was talking to a Frenchman, okay? I was actually, it doesn't matter what I was interested in, okay? And I taste non-kosher wines if I think there's something to learn. You know, I taste and spit, okay? The point is that I was talking to this winemaker, tasted the wine, and I wasn't really impressed. And I said, you know, it needs a little bit more, you know, power in it, some oomph, whatever you want to call it. And he does this sort of— I mean, our communication was very poor. I know a few words in French. It was— and I said, maybe you could plant some Cabernet Sauvignon, put some more Cabernet Sauvignon into this blend. He says, here in this location, I cannot plant Cabernet Sauvignon, okay? And And I'm aware of the law, so I understood the issue. And I said, how about Malbec? And he said, no. And then in a minute of candidacy, he says, what I can do is I can order from the nursery Cabernet and ask them to write on the bill of lading Merlot. But that just gets back to what we think about politicians. We don't have anything special in this. Israel. They're all there to get around it, work around them. In France, there's good research. There is research. They've got lots of money for research. In Israel, there's a much smaller budget for research. But in France, they do what their grandfather did. And in Israel, everybody's interested. We go, doesn't matter whether whether it's the Department of Agriculture or whether it's Karmel Mizrahi or whoever puts it together, or Shivi, the great seminars where people come and you get, and people are talking about things. It doesn't have to be their concept that you go home with, but you hear something, you think about it, you think about what you're doing, and we're learning all the time. It's a changing thing, but it's not only about me that's changing. The market's changing. The market, 20 years ago, 30 years ago, there wasn't anything to drink. And people said, I don't like wine, right? It was, you know, and then as wines came onto the store and people came, started having the opportunity and having a little bit more money, so they were buying higher quality wines. So it's also about me. I've, they've been choosing my wines as well.

No, you're 100% right. Let's talk a little bit about them. What are the wines that you offer today?

This is about the marketing department. It's not me, okay? But I'll tell you what I heard over there is going on over there, okay? Okay. Okay. They, in order to make, besides the brandy and the rosé and the white wine, The real wine, the red wine, right, is in 3 different tiers. Okay, there's the Sulam Yaakov, Jacob's ladder, Jacob's ladder, right? And we've got Cabernet in that, we've got Marselan in that, Cabernet Franc, and Carignan's in that.

I was gonna ask.

Okay, so yeah, so that's maybe the— at least 4 wines we've got in that tier. In the second tier is the Merlot. Single varietals or a blend? They're labeled as single varietals.

Okay, sometimes there's a little blend. Is that what you're saying?

Yeah. Okay.

Yeah, because—

Yeah, no, look, the issue with bottles is what if I According to law, I don't have to state more than 25% or less. Less than 25% I can put in, not state on the label. The label depends on the country and it depends on—

Right.

But there's—

It's 15, I think, right?

Let's—

Whatever.

Look, I'm not good with following any laws, okay? But the issue here is I have blends, okay? I have in the Revelation, there's a— now what we're releasing is a Cabernet and a blend. And, you know, people get talking about, and it gets them confused. I like my Cabernet, I like the blend. And if you get—

Don't look at the label.

Drink the wine. Exactly, exactly. Don't look at the—

Drink the wine.

Yeah.

That's why Flom produced the white label in order to— they produced the white label on on the new wine that they introduced. And they said they're tired of people looking at the label and telling them what they think about the wine. Did you drink it?

Drink it.

If you like it, you like it. If you don't like it, fine. I don't care.

Just drink it. No, this is— look, where's the issue here? Is the consumer doesn't have the self-confidence? Because if I'm having a conversation with you, I don't want to embarrass myself by saying something really stupid, okay? Mildly stupid, you know, I can get away with. People have this feeling that they brought this bottle of wine to their girlfriend, to their father-in-law, to somebody from the army, whatever it is, and they want to make a good impression. They went out and bought a good bottle of wine and they want— they don't want to go through all that process and then be embarrassed by the guy saying it's not a good bottle of wine, right? So he first of all checks out what the critics wrote about it, okay? And then whether he likes it or not, it's a good bottle of wine. The critics said it was a good bottle of wine. Whether they're having any fun or not, they, they, right, they, they, it doesn't come across. I'll give you the opposite example. I always say that about chocolate. Nobody writes— there's no chocolate critics, right? You— I could choose my own chocolate. I don't need anybody to tell me what chocolate it is, right? I've been telling that for a number of years, and finally there was somebody from—

Belgium or Switzerland?

Belgium, Belgium, Belgium. And they said, of course there are people who write about chocolate. But the concept is not everything you go out and read what a critic says, and on the basis of that, you buy it and enjoy it. Okay? You've got to find the wines that you're having a good time with. And this is a hedonistic experience. Okay? You're supposed to have a good time.

The—

you brought up the Revelation Reserve. You make that as a Cabernet and as—

this what will be released.

Okay, that's a blend or that's—

there's a blend, there's a blend and a Cabernet.

Okay, very cool, very cool.

It is very cool. It's very good one.

It's— that's the top of the line for you?

No, again, I'm talking about things that I don't understand, okay? There's the—

marketing will be here in a few minutes though.

I am so happy to have met you.

I really am.

I'm so happy to have met you. It's a pleasure.

The concept is, is price points.

Yeah.

Okay, the price points where I'm not making any money and I don't need to be there.

Okay, right.

And the, the price points that, that they're just there for show, that nobody's selling any wine for I mean, how many bottles, 200 bottles of wine go? It goes, it happens, but it's on the shelf and wow. Okay, so I asked a diamond merchant that likes my wines and drinks my wines and he says, how do you sell those 1-carat diamonds for all the money? For the incredible amounts of money as far as I'm concerned. I don't know why anybody needs a diamond, right? But that's my personal issue. Okay, okay. So, okay, so he says, he says, no problem, you want to sell 1-carat diamond? I put a 1.25 on the— and the one— and, and a 1-carat diamond, 1-carat diamond, and a 75-point.

Okay.

And then the guy looks around and he says, how much does the big one cost? And then how much does this one cost? And this You know, and then that puts him in the— he didn't buy the big, the most expensive one because that was too expensive. He didn't buy the smallest one that was on the table, right?

Right.

So price points are all about that psychology, okay? And it's, again, you don't— if you're sophisticated and work on it, you can really find very good values today in the market, okay? They're very good value wines. Available at— but if I'm putting out a, a wine at 200 shekels, right, or $50, $60, I can't disappoint the client, right? I can't be— I can't say— I mean, obviously there's always going to be somebody who says I didn't like it, right? I mean, you know, that's, uh, that's life, okay? But there's, there's two wines that— one's called the One's called 5757, okay? It's something that we, last winter, we had wine here from 2017, okay? It was very good wine and we were, it was also a little bit different bottle, you know, a little bit heavier, taller bottle, something. And it was very good wine, but you know, it was waiting for the marketing thing.

I loved your 2017, 2018. There was wine, I don't know whether it was called Heritage, I don't remember exactly what the name was, had a brown label. It was just—

We don't care about the label. We already discussed that.

Spectacular. Spectacular one.

Okay.

I still have some.

Oh, Hashem.

That's my widest favorite.

The '57-'57, I went with my, with Shalom David, okay, the second son in the business. Okay. Okay, the one that studied in Ariel. And I said, you haven't been to one of these big wine shows. You haven't been to one of the wine shows, and there was Milan this winter. Okay. Now, because of the COVID they're out of sync, and they have Milan and Bordeaux in the same year. So we'll see how— but Milan is a better show. Okay. Anyways, it doesn't matter. It was difficult because of the flights and something. Anyways, we got there, and we, you know, we met this, we saw that. It's more about, you know, integrating things than anything specific. And I saw this metal label and I said, you know, who would buy a metal label on a 1-kilo bottle of wine? You know, it's not something that's going through my mind. But I was diligent. I took samples, I wrote down the con— I came back and I made fun of it in front of the staff. And suddenly he says, oh, it could go. I said, look, So there's a particular store owner that we have, that he has very good relations with. And I think he does very good with, he's got it, okay? He's dealing with the people every day who buy the package and, right? And he says, send him a picture of it on WhatsApp. If he likes it, we'll move forward. If he doesn't like it, he sends back with zero time, okay? He said, take it. Do it. Do it. Do it.

There's a winery here in Israel. Their whole marketing is those metal labels.

Whatever.

This is the whole marketing.

Oh, my metal label is much better.

Okay. And you know, because of that, there's a bunch of wineries outside of Israel now in California and what have you that are doing all the metal labels.

I was not aware of it.

Yes.

It's crazy.

I think it's absolutely meshuggah. Look, it's the same thing with heavier bottles. Also, I think heavy bottles—

we bottled, we bought— listen, I— we bottled the— now it's not for release in the near future, but we bottled with 1 kilo bottle, and it's going to have the metal label on it. And it— but it's really good. It was my 4 best barrels, no question asked.

Yep.

I mean, I got to decide which were the 4 best barrels, you know, which is part of the work. But anyway, somebody's got to do it. Exactly. So I'm talking, so in New York, I was doing my Ischtadlut for marketing. And I've got this box for bottles of wine. And I'm showing the owner of the store. I said, look what a nice box it is. And it's got the barcode on the outside so that you don't have to get out of the bottle to scan it. And it opens this way and it carries the bottle. And not only that, it has a bottle of wine inside. Look, it's important. You want to bring— you want to— packaging is important in the following sense, okay? When I want to make a good impression on you, it's there, okay? If it's about us having a good time, right? When I said us, I moved, you know, I pointed to all the people in the room and the people in the podcast, right? We're here, we're having, we're here to have a good time, right? Yes.

Nervous.

I don't care what it looks like. I mean, I don't care what the packaging looks like.

You just care whether the wine is—

I mean, unless you enjoy looking at bottles of wine.

There's some people who do. And you're right about the impression. If you're bringing a bottle of wine to a host or what have you, some people, it's all about that.

You gotta dress to impress, right?

Yeah, and le pasteur said, oh, see how beautifully I'm dressed?

I know, I love it, I really love it. I think it's great. You certainly got the branding even on the hat, even on the everything. Yeah, all around.

It's okay. My daughter was— she's a teacher, okay? She was out with the kids in Elon Mo'or, okay, and somebody, some kid that didn't, says, how are you related to Per Mann? Okay, Per is my grandson and she's my daughter, right? She says, how do you know I'm related to him? He says, you've got the same t-shirt with the Beit El on it. So all my family's out there working for me.

I love it.

That's one of the things, I don't know how you fit this in, but It's family. I don't have any investors. I don't have any significant debt. I, it's, it all belongs to us, okay? It doesn't, which makes a big difference.

Karen Yeun, your Cliff View, do you still have Cliff View?

We just bottled enough bottles for the both of us.

Okay, good. So how do you feel that that fits into the global market? I'm asking you a marketing question again. I'm sorry.

Look, again, I'm making something that I'm trying to create things that I enjoy, that I understand, that I relate to. The advantage of specifically the Carignan, besides the soft tannins and approachable, and it's also got high alcohol, so it's got that mouthfeel and you feel like you're having something significant. You know, when you're drinking it, and it's got a complex, uh, nose on it, whatever you call it, the smell. Like, like we say, it stink— it stinks real good. There's a trade-off, okay? If I'm making something, the same wine like everybody else, or my objective is to make the same wine as everybody else, then, uh, it's just another It's just another wine. I think that I excel in this, in the traditional wine, or I hope we're trying to excel in the traditionally produced wines. But we also like to make something interesting, you know, something that's different, something that's— and you get that, you get the feedback. Some people are nuts about the Carignan, and some people say, oh, It's not wine, it's, you know, it's good.

I love it.

I love the Carignan.

Look, it's crazy. Look, it's all about approaching it in a— we're going to have a good time here. Yep.

What varieties, what varietals do you actually make wine out of? There's Carignan, there's Merlot.

Look, there's both Merlot from Cabernet, from, uh, Falta pocha, I grow Merlot, okay? There's, I grow Cabernet, I grow Petit Verdot, I grow some Malbec and some Marsala. You like Marsala? I love it. You want some juicy gossip?

Go ahead.

The, it's not available in Israel anymore, okay? Because the people who own the licenses told the nurserymen not to sell it to people in the occupied territories. Okay? And so, to the best of my knowledge, it's not available from the nurseries anymore because the nursery says, we can't tell people where they're going to buy it, what they're going to do after they buy the seedling. And they said, okay, then it's crazy. Wow. Oh, there's lots of politics. There's lots of politics.

I know. Is there a wine that you make that you feel is way underrated that's one of your favorites that people should really taste?

I like a variety. I like a variety. I like It's about what's going on in the room. I mean, there are a lot of things. It's not about— I mean, I don't ever want to say it's not about me, okay? But I certainly don't pasteurize the wine for me, okay? Just saying that. People say, oh, I want to— I'm certainly not putting it into a box because about me. That's not about me, okay? I'm a farmer. We make, we have really good olive oil, but that's not a business either. I mean, I'm just saying that there's a lot of things that, you know, you have to organize yourself what, you know, you're having fun at and what's the business.

How did the war impact you?

Or did it?

The winery, not you personally. I mean, obviously everybody was impacted.

Look, my kids did, middle win, whatever. Look, the corona thing, there's a lot of things that are going on in the last years, in the last few years. And, you know, two days aren't alike as far as traveling goes, okay? But the standard visitor here is not from Israel. Okay. I don't get it. But in Corona, I got visitors that were from the center of the country. They couldn't go to— they said, I can't imagine, I never thought I'd visit in Beit HaOved. Okay. But they can't fly, they can't go to Turkey, they can't go to Greece for their vacation. Right. And so that was an opportunity. The war, the war, I haven't had the tourists, but But you know, that'll work out. You have to look at the long term, okay? It's not from— here, send me as my son if he wants to correct any misrepresentations that I've made of him.

Are you the marketing person?

Trying to sell something.

I think you need a microphone.

It's a really pleasure to be here. I'm really enjoying—

Pleasure to host.

Enjoying your father a lot. Amazing. Target audience— who's the target audience for your wines?

It's, it's hard question because we're looking for all the Israelis, but it's going to be a lie if I, if I going to say all the Israelis because the, the market in the, in the Haredi is, is the biggest market in Israel.

This is a really important point.

That's interesting because it's the first time I've ever heard that comment.

It's because people don't want to say it.

It's like, hey, when I was a kid, I grew up in America. There were very few Hasidim and they didn't have any money.

Right.

Okay. Now in Williamsburg, only Williamsburg, Staten Island.

Okay.

There's a, I don't know what you call it, a fund, managed money fund, whatever it's called. Okay? But don't come here if you're a small business, if you're a small client. If you don't have $50 million, we don't have anything to do with you. Okay? And they've got hundreds of investors there.

Right.

Okay? Look up Satmar in the, there was a Knesset, what do you call it?

Yeah, Knesset.

Convention in New Jersey. And big convention center. All Satmar businesses do business with Satmar.

Okay?

It's an incredible, incredible economic opportunity. Right. Yeah.

But not only in the States, also in Israel, because we all the time here in the Tikshova that the poor people, they only sitting in the kol and don't have money. But Jerusalem is the biggest market in Israel.

You know, that's so funny to hear because I keep hearing from people that Tel Aviv is the market. The restaurants in Tel Aviv.

It's the market for the not kosher wines.

Yes.

Or for the cheap white and rosé, things like that, bubble things. Yeah, it's market. Not to the red wines, not to the kosher red wines because the competition between the Israelis wineries and the wine that you're bringing from Italy and French and all of them. It's not— you cannot be in the competition because it's much expensive to make something in Israel, not only wine, everything.

I know in Italy they support the grape growers and the winemakers. Also France as well, they subsidize it.

Yeah, yeah, they do.

It's not only this, it's, it's also the glass, okay? The bottle, the glass, it's much expensive to buy it in Israel. It's like 25% cost in, in, in Europe.

So, so then why do they use the thicker glass bottles for the high-end wines? It's like unbelievable. It's, it's—

well, because then they can just up the price at the same, you know, because, because they have less the, you know, what's the chufuni?

Shufuni. It's in Arabic. Look at me.

Okay.

And just like it, I will bring the big bottle to the table. Look what a nice bottle, what heavy bottle I bought with me. They drinking wine. It's much— it's less like— Okay.

No, it's crazy for me because actually, number one is then they ship it to the United States. So a container where the bottles weigh more than the wine is absolutely nuts to me, but they do it.

Yeah.

And, and then at the end you pick up the bottle and you think you have a glass of wine left, and you go to pour it and there's nothing left in the bottle. It's like, ah, what's going on? Yeah, but okay, yeah, it's for show, I guess. Where's your market?

Is your market mostly Jerusalem is the biggest market.

For you?

For us. It's the biggest city.

I know, but it's also—

I would have never thought this. It's a very religious city.

Yeah.

And there is like, also it's, um, tayarut, I would say.

Tourism.

Tourism. Lots of tourism in Jerusalem. So it's also helping for that. And you have lots of hotels, lots of restaurants. And maybe Tel Aviv selling more wine, but I think the price of the wine that you're selling in Jerusalem much more expensive.

Domestic versus international?

How much international business do you do?

We doing, we want to do more, but—

What are the markets for you?

Tell them about what happened. There was a show in Paris and a show in Vienna. Yeah. And we were going to send you some.

We're selling to the United States, of course. We're selling to France, Austria, Polish, England. No, today we don't have in England.

Okay, that's it.

We look, we try more and more, but this is for now. And I needed to go to France to a big show of the company that's selling our wine. And 2 days before the before the show, they canceled my flight because the war. Okay, month after, they opened the sky again, you can fly. So we had also a show in Austria, in Vienna. So I bought a ticket, of course, I wanted to go, and again, the Iran attack started. So I didn't went also for that. Yeah, but in French they doing very good with our wines. How much? It's Pocobza.

Pocobza from Clarisse.

Clarisse Pocobza. And they doing very, very good with the wine. And it's not— it's big market. It's funny to say, but it's like they buying a lot. They like the wine from Israel. They also very— it's of course it's going to the Jewish communities for the goyim, and it's a— they very Zionim, so they like buying it. Also they like it, yeah. You can be Zionim once, you will buy it. If it's not tasty, you will not buy it again, yeah. But they keeping buying it, Baruch Hashem, and And they very, it's different from the state. They like to depend where in the state, but when you go into the Haredi area, then the parts to help the Israelis' business, it's less. Of course, if you're going to Long Island and then, I don't know, Teaneck and places like that.

Also in New York, the Borough Park thing, Muncie, Williamsburg, it's a better market than Long Island. I don't get it. You'd think Five Towns would be—

Baruch Hashem, it's great. I don't, I've also, you're the first person to ever tell me this. And I've spent most of my life in New Jersey.

Look, I wasn't born there, but I— I don't know.

Okay.

I don't have, I mean, I have statistics about which stores bought out what, right? Right. But so that I can be confident about. But most of the people, because I'm the grower and I'm also the guy in the store, I think that I know what I'm talking about.

No, it makes a lot of sense to me. It makes a lot of sense to me.

I don't get it. What's it called? Great Neck. Yeah. What are the towns in Five Towns?

The Five Towns.

Woodmere, Cedar Hill. Yeah, yeah. Those should be full of people. I did an event there in a young Israel in Five Towns, Motzei Shamash, and things are out of my league, I don't know what I was talking about. There was some kid, he says, ah, my, you know, young kid, right? He says, ah, my wife is going to be so sorry she missed the event. I said, what, you couldn't find a babysitter, trying to figure out? He says, no, she's a surgeon, she's working. It's not things that I necessarily, but it's not a big market. They got the money. There's no question about it. But I think one of the things inside this thing, this duality, the, what do you call it, the, is that the, they go down to Florida and they have some place to spend their money. The Haredi community has, they don't do scuba diving, they don't do, They have ski vacations. Wine is something they can spend money on and have a good time.

I'm interested about the whole thing with how well you sell in France because your wines, I find, are very, very pronounced, you know, and they have a lot of flavor. And I always find that very different from at least like the classic Bordeaux. Like the general, you know, French wines are known to be bombastic but also very like tannic but also very muted. And I find that these are very, very different from the classic French profile, especially what Jews know. You know, when we talk mostly Bordeaux and stuff like that, nothing like this.

I don't— look, you're talking about two things, what Jews know and what—

No, but you sell mostly to the Jewish community there as well.

No, no, no, I understand. Look, they don't know what they're— they haven't tasted all the wines in the world either. And I've met people I've met French people. I've got a French neighbor who knows wine, okay? He, no, no, what do you call it? No, you can't fool him, right? Yeah. And, but he also likes, he likes more substantial wines. He doesn't like this elegant thing, okay? Elegant wines are very good, but I mean, it's a genre.

It takes, you have to have built up a certain experience to like the much lighter wines and what have you, and to feel the elegance or to taste the elegance in them. But I— these are much more approachable for people. This is much more, you know—

what is it? This is the Carignan.

Yeah, it's a Carignan, but it's—

it's not your Carignan, it's my Carignan. It's your Carignan.

This is your Carignan from here, from your vineyards.

Yeah, very good. And it's— this has not been released, but the previous couple times I tasted it is— I felt that it was very closed, but here I find it's not.

It's not now. It's absolutely delicious.

Just open that bottle? Just open.

That's amazing. It's open and it just bottled 2 weeks ago.

That's amazing. Another thing people don't appreciate, you know, when they— first of all, for a person to have a good time, he has to decide, I'm coming to have a good time, okay? And if you're—

if—

okay, the other options I'm not dealing with right now. You've got to decide that you're— you have to try a few different things and see what you like, okay? But also the same wine at a different temperature tastes different. If it, as it develops in your glass— here, smell it, smell it now. Yeah, it smells different than when you first did it. Totally.

Okay, in, in another hour, the next morning, it's going to be very different as well.

It's going to be very— people ask me how much wine do I drink on Shabbos, right? And I said, when I have guests, you know, I, I open 3, 4 bottles and when it's only me and Nina, it's 5 or 6 bottles.

That's good.

And, but, but I like opening a few bottles of wine on Friday night and then tasting the same bottles on Saturday morning. The development makes them so much more interesting and so much more, they come, okay.

Yeah, the complexity, you don't feel it until you compare.

Okay, okay. Look, they, they, There are a lot of things to understand also. There's a lot of other things to understand about when you want to have a good time. The color, is the color important in the wine? If you aren't enjoying the color, I guess you don't care, but—

I asked for a spittoon and I got in trouble.

Don't worry about it.

I like the wine.

We're drinking wine. This is one of my favorite wines. It's amazing.

It's absolutely—

it's awesome.

I never—

I haven't tasted—

but you feel now on the aftertaste, it's still a bit— it's there.

I love it.

It's the first time I had a bottle of wine that I can actually feel the yeast.

It's part of the aromas in the bottle. It's only 2 weeks It's delicious. I want to ask him. I want to ask one more question while he's here.

Yeah, we've got somebody who's—

I need you for one more minute.

Okay, don't worry. I'm listening.

I like the finish on this a lot, and it's a long finish. It's lovely. It's just wonderful.

Another thing is you've got very talented winemakers that make the same wine every year, okay?

Put it back. Yep.

You've got winemakers that make exactly the same wine every year. It's not me. I don't have to be consistent. I'm a small family, family-owned. We're making it for ourselves. It doesn't have to be consistent. I come every time and I want to do it right.

You want to get a wow from yourself.

That's okay.

The question I have while you're on, because I know everybody's going to go soon, the last major question is what's the long-term vision? Where do you want to be in the next year, the next 5 years, the next decade? What's the goal? Is there a goal?

He's talking to you, Assan. I'm 67. I'm retired. I'm retired. I hit it.

No, we don't want to be like one of the biggest ones. We're looking to stay boutique. I don't know what's boutique.

How many bottles approximately do you make a year now?

Approximately?

We're doing today around 40,000 bottles.

Okay.

Good, nice, nice.

We're of course looking to grow, but not above 100, 120, not more than that. We're looking to stay good quality, good things, special things, like to stay like family thing. Because if we wanted, we could be already very big because you have lots of people that come in here, I wanna, I wanna mashkias and I wanna invest, invest you. And like all all the wineries around us. Yeah, okay, so we can be very fast much bigger, and we're not— we're looking to stay like family business, small, not big name, but not a lot of—

under control.

Yeah, under control.

You want, you wanna, you want it to be your business, not to be—

when you grow, when you're growing, you have to bring more grapes, bad, bad grapes, and, and to make like a cheap wines and lots of things around it. We want to stay— we're doing a little bit rosé and white, but we want to be under good red wines in barrels.

Which whites do you make?

Look, I've been experimenting, but the, you know, what you said about the yeast?

Yeah.

I was here with somebody It is the second year I bought grapes out, okay? I bought French Côtes du Rhône, I bought Emerald Riesling, okay? And the Emerald Riesling, I hit it perfect with the yeast. And a friend of mine came in, I was tasting again, these are bottles before we're releasing them, I just opened the bottle, he said, wow, because the smell with the esters, the the terpenes, whatever is going out from the yeast products. It's a different experience, the white wines. But we are, you know, we drink them. I drink them. I enjoy them. I have a good time. But it isn't a big thing in the market. Our core business isn't the olive oil or the brandy or the whites or the rosés. It's the red dry wine.

Yeah, this is also the market in Israel. People drinking a little bit rosé, but it's more like talking about rosé and not drinking. Well, of course it's also weather. People drinking more wine in the winter and they drinking vodka, Excel, I don't know what in the summer.

Yes, man. I don't know why.

The thing that—

wait, wait till it warms up a little bit because it did come out of the refrigerator. But I, I do want this. This is a very nice effort. Look at the color. Look at the— what— when I— one of the things is, you know, before I start directing the wines, we send out to spectrometry and the to get a rate with the total phenol concept, because that's a very good indicator of the quality of the wine, the red wines.

I can't believe that Carignan is a '24.

Carignan doesn't age very nicely. What's the oldest Carignan you've got here? You've got a—

I have a '13 or '14.

It's probably nasty.

Yeah, also if it's not nasty, it's like, it's not—

There's no point.

It's not like a cab or a mulot that's making it better. It's like, you know, in the halacha there is mitzamech v'ralo and mitzamech v'tovlo.

Yeah.

So here it's mitzamech v'ralo. But I will be happy to hear your opinion if it's ready to go out to the market.

I think it's very approachable right now. I don't think it's— you can decide as to whether it's ready to go out to the market, but I don't think that there's any— do you think that there are rough edges on this?

I like them. I like those rough edges. Me too. But, but it's fully integrated. Okay, fine, but we have 3, 3 different ones. Okay. Yes. Everybody's a different story. Yes. But that's great. Great. I don't know about you. There are people in the world who want to have exactly the same menu every day, every Shabbos, every Yom Tov.

I'm not one of those people. I'm not one of those people. You can ask my wife.

Okay, fine, fine. But those people are living, I mean, you know, I hope they're happy, right?

Yeah.

But a boring life. Yeah, I'm interested, something interesting, just, I mean, about eating the same thing, right? I always, I, I don't speak Yiddish, I don't understand Yiddish. I mean, you know, a little bit.

I'm smartish, so I don't know it from—

you, you don't, you don't need the excuse, but I sit and listen to try and figure out what he was, what he was talking about, okay? And, uh, And afterwards, the Rav was talking to me in square, b'deivarak, okay? He says, I was an example of what he used me as an example because I take out Shabbos regular and they give ben otam. He says, can I take his shtreimel out of the, whether it's bechevza or be'gavra, okay? And also he was talking about, and I said, but what were you talking about before? About the fleishig meal, you know, it was before Shavuos, right? It's Yom Tov, you got to eat fleishigs and stuff like that, but you also eating milkhigs, so you got to be careful, think about what you're doing before you get involved in it. And I said, you know, I was thinking of an example, groping for an example, I can't imagine having a kugel that's milkhig, then all of a sudden, the Rebbe, sure, my mom made kugel with cottage cheese. He says, the Rav says, my mother too, right? But it's chutznekem, it's not Israeli, it doesn't happen in Israel. But it's interesting, life is interesting, especially food. You know the name Rich Thomas?

Sorry.

He came to, When we were very young, okay, he came in Napa, Sonoma. They used to grow prunes, they used to grow chickens, they whatever, right? And he said, let's try, you know, this Cabernet thing. And okay, he's the, he's the guy who started it. He was the field advisor that, that pushed this, this concept, okay? And everybody obviously wants to say it was their idea, but that's cool. But he was in big demand in, you know, the California wine shows. He was a judge. I mean, in San Francisco, Los Angeles, they're very, very— some of them are very sophisticated, very serious wine shows. And he was always in demand as a judge, okay? He said, in every show, without an exception, I could always point at an example where the higher priced got the bronze and the lower priced got a gold. Okay. Always, if you're a sophisticated looking consumer, it's not about palate. It's about having a good time and being value per money, right? You can be out there and having a great time, or you could be following the trends, the trend and the neighbors and your father-in-law and the and the critics and spend a lot of money and have a miserable time.

The Jacob Dream. So you have 3 variety roles in this. You have Karen Yan, Kev Frank, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Marcellana.

So very special.

4.

No, but in Hebrew it comes out 3.

Okay.

No, no, I get it.

3?

No, no, no, it's okay. It's like Monday and Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.

And you have the, uh, Tal Bin Yamin. You have in the Tal Bin Yamin, it's 3. It's okay, 3.

I don't remember.

Ah, you have the Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbec, and Merlot. Okay, the famous Merlot Tapoach that people very like. And in the Revelation, we didn't We did it like not every year we did it, and sometimes we did it only Cab and sometimes we did blend. But this year we did it also one, also blend and also Cab. So we have two bottles in the 2023. And above this we have two special things. We have the Majestic. And we have the 5757. It's two special wines that we're not doing every year at all. And we're doing sometimes when it's very— when it's very special. When we get good grapes.

Thank you. Thank you for the time. Thank you.

Really.

Enjoy yourself.

Today, we've heard the stories and tasted the dreams bottled here in the Judean hills, but our journey doesn't end in Bet El. Next week, we'll explore another chapter in the ever-evolving story of kosher wine. Until then, keep your palate curious, your glass full, and join me again on The Kosher Terroir, where every sip has a story. 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 Terroir, please check out our many past episodes.