Celebrating The Kosher Terroir's 1st Anniversary : Interview of Simon Jacob by Eva Trieger

Welcome to The Kosher Teruah.

I'm Simon Jacob, your host for this episode from Jerusalem. Before we get started, I ask that wherever you are, please take a moment and pray for the safety of our soldiers and the safe return of all of our hostages. The following episode of The Kosher Terroir is our commemorative first anniversary edition.

Yay!

A number of listeners from around the world have continued to ask for more information about me. Yes, me, as Simon Jacob. So, in a conversation a few months ago, with my sister-in-law, Eva Triger, a teacher and feature writer for a Jewish newspaper from the greater San Diego metro area. And by the way, she's one of my greatest fans. We discussed her doing a feature article on the kosher terroir. Her questions were particularly thoughtful, and I really enjoyed our question-answer banter. So, I decided to use her interview as the basis for our first anniversary episode, and share it here with all of you. If you're commuting in your car, please focus on the road ahead and enjoy. If you're home, please choose a delicious kosher wine, sit back, relax, and listen in on this historical wine adventure.

So that leads me to my first question: What's the first kosher wine that you remember drinking?

Oh God, um, I— that's a good question. Very good question for me. Um, the first kosher wine I ever remember drinking, honestly, was back when I was about 15, 14, 15. I mean, we had, we had wine in the house, so, um, like Manischewitz or something like that. But I remember drinking specifically at a— the chazan from our synagogue took me to a verbringen with the Rebbe in Brooklyn.

Okay.

And this was an environment that was totally foreign to me. And he took me there and we climbed up on these bleacher-type things that were really benches stacked on top of benches stacked on top of benches. It was the most flimsy, dangerous thing I'd ever done in my life. And all of these guys were up there, and every time the Rebbe started to sing a nigun, they all started jumping and what have you, and this stuff is all rocking back and forth. I thought I was going to die and I thought there was absolutely no way out of it. And at the end of it, he, we all lined up, several thousand of us lined up and we all went up in this line in front of the Rebbe. And as each one of us got to the Rebbe, we had a little plastic cup. He would pour in a little bit of wine. And we would say the beracha and he would say amen to the beracha. And it is called a kosher beracha, and that is what we would do. And that is the first real wine I remember ever drinking.

Okay.

But, you know, it was not— if you ask me what is the first good kosher wine I remember drinking, this— I have a bunch of those memories, but that was the first wine.

All right. And how have kosher wines grown in the last 20 years?

Um, okay, so we were actually today in, um, in a place called, uh, um, we were outside of Jerusalem in, in what's called the Judean Hills. Uh, these are the hills of Jerusalem around, and, uh And 30 years ago, there were many, many orchards. Orchards of peaches and cherries and apples and all sorts of things. Very little grapevines. 2,000 years ago, everything was covered with grapevines. When the Muslims came in several hundred years ago, they basically eliminated all grapes except table grapes. So there was no wine. You're not allowed to drink wine. Muslims are not allowed to drink wine. So they basically eliminated all of the vineyards and what have you. And so there was almost nothing in the Judean Hills. Since then, since I would say, you know, you asked me 20 years, but I'm, I want to, I want you to understand that how the magnitude of it. Since the early '90s, there were no, there were almost no vineyards in the Judean Hills. Now 98% of all agriculture in the Judean Hills is grapevines, are grapes. So in, in this, in this last, you'd said 20, this is 30. In the last 30 years, everything has shifted over to growing grapes.

Wow.

So it's a huge, a huge deal. And, and all over Israel, it's, it's repeated itself all over Israel.

Amazing.

There's grapes being grown everywhere here.

Um, okay. So your interviews on the kosher terroir go far beyond just describing the wines available in Israel. In each episode, you're talking to people who are, you know, sharing with you their struggles and their triumphs, you know, even like before the war, during the war. So is there anything that you see as like a unifying thread that draws all these, these winemakers together?

Okay. So one of the things about the kosher terroir and the reason it was called that and not the Israeli terroir. Or Israel Wines is because I, I wanted to be able to speak to and speak for, um, all kosher winemaking globally. So some of the, some of the winemakers are in— one of the winemakers I interviewed was in South Africa. Um, there's a couple of them that have been in California. Um, I've also spoken not only to winemakers but also to distribution people. Um, I've even spoken to consumers about kosher wine so that they, they understand what's, you know, so that I get a flavor for that. The kind of the factor that runs through this, the thread that runs through all of these conversations is, um, a love of kosher wine and, uh, an interest in the people who are involved in it. And there hasn't been an episode that I've recorded that I haven't learned something in. It hasn't been— it's been amazing. It's been totally amazing.

Yeah, I have— like I said, I've listened to— I haven't listened to all of them yet, but each one I listen to, I learn amazing things. And, and I'm so blown away by the the depth of not just what these people understand and know about wines and what they've learned about wines, but also, as you said, I mean, what they've learned about distribution or what they've learned about refining things. It's incredible. Yeah, it's very exciting.

So the latest one I just did, which is actually only going to be released tomorrow, okay, is with Josef Herzog. He is the member of the Herzog family who actually manages and runs their entire California operation. So his, his responsibility is their winery in Oxnard, all of their contracts with all of their growers, which literally, um, are across California. In every— they're called AVAs. They're, um, they're the wine regions across California. And he is an amazing person, including his, his management of their tasting room in Oxnard and their kosher, uh, their, you know, high-end kosher restaurant called Terrasaur. He's an amazing person. And that was— that's something that's being released tomorrow.

But okay, cool.

We've, we've got, um, I got people literally, honestly, all over the world. In Italy, um, in Paris, there's a chef we spoke to who's just incredible, and he always, um, involves wine in his production. Of things. I spoke to the, the Cohen family who makes wine in Spain, Elvi, Elvi Wines.

It's such a cool interview.

It's the only— sorry.

Yeah, yeah, they said they were the only kosher, um, kosher distributor, or the only kosher venue.

They're the only kosher winemaker in Spain. It's so solely kosher. There are a few winemakers in Spain that make wine that is kosher as well as not kosher. I think there might be one more now that's coming out, but overall I think they, they were the first and definitely the biggest.

That was a really cool— that was a great one. I really enjoyed that.

They're a lot of fun. They're super people. And, and the person who makes the wine there is the wife and the sister. The two— the father and the son are the You know, are the marketing guys, right? The, the people who are actually in the background getting their hands dirty, making the wines are the mom and the sister. So it's really, they're really kind of amazing.

Oh, so the other thing that interests me about the, the kosher terroir is a lot of these people, they did not necessarily start out as winemakers. So talk about that a little bit, if you could, about their careers or background, where they came from.

So that's one of my big interests because I've got a lot of people who listen to the podcast who are— just so that you know, we have somewhere north of 8,000 downloads on the podcast. We've got 56 countries that it's being listened to in. I was quite amazed at the breadth and depth of the listenership. Um, one of the things people are always interested in is actually two things. One is, I'm interested in wine, how do I get into the wine business? Okay, so they're interested in stories that are telling them about people who, like themselves, decided to get into wine and the path they took to get there. The other is people who have made Aliyah to Israel, and when they made Aliyah, um, you know, It's a hard thing to do, but how did they make Aliyah? How did they succeed in doing it? And how did they end up in Israel involved in wine? Which is, I want to make Aliyah and I want to be in wine. Now, how do I do that? So that's one of the, you know, a couple of the questions I always ask people. Where are you back? What's your background from and what have you? And people come into it from all different avenues. One of the winemakers who's probably the most prominent winemaker in Israel with the highest credentials, he's a master of wine, Eran Pick at Sera Winery. He was in the Air Force, the Israeli Air Force, and he had to go to test the simulator for an aircraft in Germany. And he went to, uh, Mosul. And when they had a break, a bunch of the guys decided to go out and go to a restaurant in Mosel. Mosel is an incredible German wine region. So they make a wine called Riesling. That's their specialty. It's very light and it's wonderful and it's delicious, especially in the summer. So he happened to be there and he said, okay, he'll go out to dinner with these guys. And they said, oh, let's get some wine. And he said, I don't know from wine, what wine? And they said, well, we're in Mosul, you need to drink a Riesling. He said, Riesling?

What's a Riesling?

And he tasted it and it blew his mind. It was so delicious. So he decided, wait a second, I really like this stuff. I can't believe that this is that there's such a variety of wines that are out there in the world. Yep. So people come to wine from all sorts of places. And the truth is that wine isn't about the wine. It's about people. And each of them get kind of pulled into it by the people they meet And, uh, it's interesting, wine makes the conversation, um, easier and it really allows people to communicate. So that's—

well, I do, I really love the podcast. And I, I mean, like I said, each time I listen to a different episode, I'm really struck by, again, like just the, the grit of the people who are there. Like, I think One of the episodes that really made an impression on me was the two guys, the friends who had a vineyard and they were both called up and their wives took over and stepped in. And, you know, and just even the fact that the wives not only did the harvesting and the wines, but, you know, brought it online. So there was a, you know, marketing presence. I mean, it was just amazing.

We just visited them again a couple of weeks ago and, uh, with, uh, Ovadia when he came into town, and we did a barbecue there. And they're such special people, incredibly special people. And it's from one of the podcasts, actually. It was kind of interesting. Um, they don't sell their wine in the US and they don't really have a way to get their wine to the US, but one of the listeners was so impressed that she called me and said, how can I donate money to them? Because I want to get them some money because I really am impressed with what they've done. And she, and she sent the money.

Wow.

And it was like, and they, they came to me and said, Simon, like, wow, you know, we did this podcast, we didn't expect people were going to send us money. So it was, it was kind of fun.

But that is amazing.

People are wonderful.

So you talk to a lot of people that make kosher wines. Would you say, are all of them religious? Are they all Torah observant Jews? No.

No. In fact, Torah observant at different levels. In Israel, unfortunately, the way the law is now, unless you are an absolute shomer Shabbat, it is not only in Israel, in America too, unless you are a shomer Shabbat Jew, where you are outwardly shomer Shabbat and there is absolutely no question as to whether or not you are a religious Jew, You cannot touch the wine in its production, right? So winemakers who are obsessive and compulsive about every little detail that they do, who are involved in winemaking down to the absolute nitty-gritty, when you tell them, "Sorry, you can't touch the wine," They go nuts. So the winemakers who are making kosher wines who are not religious have to have people who are their hands. So what happens is they basically have assistants who are religious, and anytime they want to taste something, they withdraw the wine from the barrel and they put it in a glass and they hand it to them so that they're not interacting with the wine in the barrels at all. But they are tasting in there, and, and the people have to be really, um, they have to follow orders precisely because these guys are really, really crazy about, um, procedure and detail. I mean, they're, they're, they are really incredible winemakers. And to be a winemaker, you've got to be really, really detail-oriented. And they document every little detail about everything. So, um, that's what they go through. So the winemakers who are not religious really have to jump through hoops to be able to, to do this.

You were talking to somebody— I'm sorry, go ahead.

Yeah, no, and there's some winemakers who it's just too much for them, and, and if they get pushed by the Rabbanut or what have you the wrong way, they end up being— becoming anti-religious, and they will not make kosher wine.

Right, right. Yeah, it is. You talked to somebody a few weeks ago, and it was fascinating because they were talking about how the, the barrels or the vats are, you know, and how even the spaces between them, like they couldn't touch, there couldn't be any, um, like mixing.

It's not the barrels, but in inside the vats, there are, there are layers. Um, the way a wine vat, the big stainless steel vats are constructed, they allow other liquids to flow through their skins. In order to either cool or heat the wine. And that's where it becomes just— even if there's two liquids on either side of the metal, it taints it through the metal. And that was something I learned for the first time. I didn't know that at all.

It was fascinating.

It is fascinating. That was a session with Rabbi Wolf. Who gives hashkacha in Europe. Okay. So, yeah, Raphael Wolf.

All right, now I don't know if you know the answer to these questions, but I'll ask. Um, so go ahead. Do you know what percent of the kosher wines are purchased and consumed in Israel?

Probably significantly more kosher wines consumed in the United States than in Israel.

Okay.

Um, But, uh, there— but it's catching up quickly. Israel's wine population is growing. Um, I would say it's probably the United States number one, Israel number two, uh, then pretty far behind France and England. Okay. And, um, yeah, and then there's others like South Africa and what have you, right? Okay.

Um, And how about with like Australia or New Zealand? Are they buying kosher wine?

Yes. Yeah. There are actually winemakers in Australia and New Zealand. They make kosher wines in New Zealand and also Australia. There's a winemaker, Harkam, who— Richie Harkam, who makes wine in Australia. And I'm going to try to grab him for a podcast pretty soon. He's a very interesting guy. He likes to make wines that are very health-conscious without sulfites and what have you. And being in Australia where you're so far away from the markets, not preserving your wines is a risky thing. So I want to have a conversation with him about it. Yes, there are a number of wines that come. If you go to kosherwine.com in the United States, you will see that there are a number of wines from New Zealand. There are especially some lovely whites from New Zealand and also Australia.

So that was my next question. How do you find the people that you interview?

I am sitting in the middle of the world here. I know it seems far away, Jerusalem, But I'm, I'm literally sitting in the middle of the kosher wine world. When I made Aliyah 8 years ago, when I first moved to Israel 8 years ago, I made a commitment to myself that I was going to try to do 2 things. One was get a rabbi to learn with on a regular basis. And the other was that I was going to get to know a number of the Israeli winemakers. The latter part of that commitment I've really, you know, fulfilled. The first part of the commitment, I've got a rav that I learn with. I'm not, certainly not enough, but I do learn with him. But that opened me up to a lot of different kosher winemakers and a lot of different people who like kosher wine. And And that's, that actually, you know, the, probably the biggest thing that drove it was that there's a person named Yossi Horowitz who's, who lives in Manhattan, who lives in New Jersey now, but he works in Manhattan. And he decided that he was saving all of these kosher wines in his cellar forever. And there was nothing, no reason to drink them. And it was disappointing because you save a wine, you're interested in the wine, you really want to drink the wine, but you're not going to drink it alone. And, um, because we're not drunks, we're winos, but we're not drunks. And, and with that, um, how do you, how do you organize, uh, on a regular basis some sort of a a wine get-together. So he created something called the Rosh Chodesh Clubs, the RCCs. And once he created the RCC, literally once a month people get together. And each of the groups, because it's limited by how many people can drink out of a single bottle— sure, meaning, you know, a single bottle can be distributed among maybe 12 people, totally 13 max. And so he, he got together where everybody has to bring a wine that's at least 7 years old and that's got certain, you know, capabilities, certain special, special things. And the 7-year-old is only, um, with regard to certain reds. There's certain whites that you really don't want to drink that old. So in, in, it was just the balance to make sure that everybody was bringing something that was worthy of being shared and that there wasn't somebody who was coming and being cheap about which wines he was bringing. So, and, and what happened was he created that in Manhattan. I think about 6 months he was running this program in Manhattan at his house. And, uh, one of the guys makes food, so he started becoming the chef to produce food for this. And then people started to franchise the idea out, not for money, but they started saying, hey, I really like that idea. Let's do it. So now there's one in Toronto, one in Lakewood, New Jersey. There's one in San Diego. There's a group in San Diego who goes, there's a group in LA. Um, in, in, in New Jersey, there's actually, uh, 3 groups. Uh, in Manhattan, there's a Hasidic group. There's a Syrian group. There's a, you know, there's all sorts of groups that have gotten together in Israel. There's 3 or 4 of them, one in Beit Shemesh, one in Renana, one in Jerusalem. And it's amazing. So what it's done is it's created these little clusters of people who love wine and get together and At the beginning, I started to go to different ones. Like on my way back to Israel from America, I would stop in London and I would try to— one night I hit a Manhattan one, a New Jersey one, and a Brooklyn one and got on a plane and flew to London. And that next day I was in the London one. And there was a lot of cross-pollination because of that. So You, you're getting a lot of people who know each other and know of each other, and it's become a really wonderful, uh, wonderful group.

So that's amazing.

So yeah, and everybody knows a winemaker from here or from there, what have you. Everybody's sharing stories. So that opens up the population pretty dramatically.

Um, now I know that you visited kosher wineries in other countries, as we were saying before. Um, and again, are there similarities between those various wineries or, or differences? I mean, what do you, what do you see?

Okay, kosher wineries that are not inherently kosher, meaning that there are many wineries where they take a, a non-kosher winery and they produce kosher wines in it. So in those wineries, they have mashgiachs, they have, uh, people who who control the production and make sure that people are not touching it that are not allowed to touch it. In those instances, the barrels, the vats, everything are taped over with tape that has Ashkaha labeling on it. And it's quite, um, it's quite intense as far as being able to go in. Nobody is allowed to touch anything except this limited group of people who are there to do it. So even, even if I go into a winery like that, they're so, uh, kind of intense about it that they won't, uh, I, I couldn't go, I couldn't go near a barrel and And they don't want anybody to even touch barrels, but that's like a little crazed. But they set fences wherever they set them. So, but then if you've got a winery that is a kosher winery, that is totally kosher, and the winemaker is a religious Jew and what have you, then things become a lot more, you know, a lot easier to deal with. And they know I'm a religious Jew, so they allow me to come in and taste some of the wines coming out of the vats and what have you. One of the most incredible things to taste is a rosé or a white that's in a steel vat that's cold and just still kind of bubbling because it's still at the end of its end of its— what you call it— end of its fermentation. And it's just incredible. One of my favorite things to drink.

Okay. Um, all right, so do you have a go-to wine?

Okay, I have a go-to one for different levels of people.

Okay.

Right, I have different go-to wines for them. Um, And I can tell you I have a favorite wine, but it's not really a go-to wine because I drink it once in a blue moon because I only drink it with people who know what it is, and there's so little of it that I don't like to waste it.

Okay. And what is that one?

Okay. It's called Pont-à-Canet. It's a French wine.

I've heard you speak of it, yeah.

Okay. I particularly like the 2003. And it's a wonderful Bordeaux wine and it's deep red, you know, an incredible wine. So I happen to love that wine, all right? But there's a bunch of Israeli wines that I also love and cherish. And I'm always being introduced to wonderful wines. If it's a person who is not a typical wine drinker, there's some wines that are, as an example, the blue bottles, the Moscato wines, the Barcinura Moscato. That's not a wine that, uh, you know, highfalutin wine, um, lovers— it's kind of something they put their nose up to. They, they look at it, it's like, you know, drinking apple juice or something. It is truly wine, and it's truly miraculous how they get that to be consistent. So that's a, that's an incredible wine. Um, I, there's some dessert wines made by Yakovoria, one called G for, um, for quartz, quartz trembler. He makes a wine called G and a wine called V, and they're going to release a wine called S for semillon. And they're sweet and they are so delightful. They're not sickly sweet, they're, they're just really delicious, um, wines.

I know that you've been interviewing people all over Israel as well. So is there any place that you had not visited in Israel before doing the podcast?

Um, that's a good question. Yeah, I've met a whole bunch of people that I've never visited or, you know, I've never been to. The husband and wife team, the two who are in Hasela, They're next to Tekoa. They're a winery that is— I'd never been anywhere near before, and it was wonderful to go there. Um, we actually— they have next to them a place called Arugot Farm where they have this unbelievable swimming pool that I just took a bunch of my kids to. Um, it's an eco pool. So there's lilies growing in it and there's little salamanders and what have you, but it's safe and filtered and it's an incredible place to go and swim in the middle of the desert. It's like an oasis in the middle of the desert.

Wow, okay, great.

Also, I went up north to visit a very large winery called Recanati, and that was literally right near the Lebanese border, which right now is really kind of crazy. And, um, and we were watching fires, uh, on either side of the winery and also, um, what was going on in Lebanon where they were actually, uh, retaliating for the strikes that were coming out of Lebanon.

Yeah, I heard that interview. That was, that was also really amazing.

And the, the guy you were speaking with, you know, this Effie Koz is amazing guy. He's, he's super, super knowledgeable person. Yeah.

So you made Aliyah with your wife about 8 years ago.

Yeah.

And most of your children made Aliyah years before that. Um, was that always in your plan?

It's been in our plans since your wife— since your sister agreed to become my wife. Okay. Um, she, uh, she made me promise that we would make Aliyah within 5 years. And that was quite a number of years ago, 40-some-odd years ago, almost 50 years now. And I had to keep every 5 years asking for a—

Extension.

Yeah, for an extension. And she granted it, she granted it willingly and what have you. But then we finally said, "Come on, we've got—" We've got 8 of our 9 in Israel. Grandchildren are there. We have one in America who has 8 kids of his own, which are a whole bunch of, you know, 8 grandchildren. So that was keeping us in America. But the overwhelming majority of the kids are in Israel, and it's a place we always wanted to go.

Okay. What do you think about living in Israel is the most fulfilling or the most exciting thing about being in Israel?

I can't express to you how, you know, people view Israel as this incredibly unsafe place, right? They just do. I mean, it's what they're what they're accustomed to or what they see on the TV. Um, I can't tell you how safe and incredible it is to grow children here in Israel. It's an absolutely incredible place. It's kind of like what it was like to grow children in the United States in the '40s or '50s, I guess. Um, uh, people care for each other. They care for each other's kids. If you're in a playground and a kid does something that's really, um, stupid, you know, you can grab somebody else's kid and tell them, don't do that, you know, you don't want to die. And their parents will thank you for parenting their children. Rather than, you touch my kid again and I'll sue you. I mean, it's, it's become crazy in America. So that, that's, it's an, it's a lovely place to grow children here. Everybody cares about each other's, everybody cares about each other's welfare in that perspective, from that perspective. Um, so that's wonderful. Uh, it's, it's in I kind of say that we're living in the fishbowl of kedusha and of Judaism. We're living in it. It's not something that we have to infuse into ourselves. It's infused into us just by being here. I wake up every morning and I walk to synagogue, which means I walk down the stairs looking out over the walls of the Old City. It's just, everything is about Judaism and what have you. I know there's places in Tel Aviv where you can go and you don't get that sort of impact, but Jerusalem's the biggest city in Israel. And it's, um, and it's, it's very— there are a lot of very religious people here, but it's also, you know, I, I get people walking down our steps wearing shorts and t-shirts and stuff, men and women, and it's very open. It's very, you know, like, uh, you know, welcome home, you're here. It's just a wonderful place to live.

So beautiful. Um, how can American Jews show their support best for Israel right now?

Um, okay, so there's a few ways. One is to get on a plane and come here and see it for yourself. That's one of the best ways you can enjoy it as well as show your support. Um, but I know a lot of people can't do that, and a lot of people are scared to do that. Uh, one of the best ways you can show your support, at least to Um, this, there's plenty of people who are looking for money from, from, you know, people in America. But actually, one of the biggest industries that's been impacted the most is the wine industry. It's just been incredibly impacted because in one breath, um, the wine industry in Israel is geared to providing wine via restaurants. And a lot of the restaurants, uh, especially during the beginning of the war, in the middle of the war, were either shuttered or were having a very difficult time, um, either because they, you know, the people weren't going, or you've got so many people who are in the military service or actively in military that, you know, there, there are these families all over the place that are, that are missing parents, meaning not because they've died, but because they're in the front. They're out in service. This war in Israel is almost a commuter war. You get in your car and you go to the front. I mean, the northern border is 2 hours north of us in Jerusalem. The southern border in Gaza is 2 hours south of us in Jerusalem. You know, we're in a little country. We're in a country the size of New Jersey. It's like having something going on in Philadelphia and something going on in Manhattan. That's how close it is to people who are, you know, living in New Jersey. In fact, it's closer, to be honest. New Jersey is even bigger than Israel. So The people are, there's a bunch of people who are serving, men and women who are serving. So there's a whole population of people who have been pulled out. Um, at the same time, there's a whole population of people who live near the southern border, live near the Gaza border. Most of those have returned home. There's a 5-kilometer swath of land across the entire northern part of Israel, all right, that has just had to be vacated so that all the people who are living there have been displaced and they're living all over Israel. We have a bunch of people living in Jerusalem who have been displaced from the north, from communities like Shlomi, Communities like, uh, Kiryat Shmona is evacuated. It's totally evacuated. There isn't— there are only people there who want to run for shelter, you know, every few minutes. Uh, it's, it's really, it's really difficult. They've moved them into a lot of the hotels, but, you know, so you think, oh, well, they're living in hotels, so that's cool. Except that what they do is they pull all the furniture out of the room. And they put 5 beds on the floor because these are big families, and they're living on the floor on these beds out of suitcases. It's impossible, and they have no idea when they're going home and when this is going to end. And what their homes are going to—

their homes will be there when they get here.

Right, but some of them have homes there still, especially up north, but it's really dangerous. And you've got kids, so what do you do with them? Some of the school systems have accepted kids into their school systems, so they come and the buses will pick them up outside the hotels and take them to the school systems. But none of this was meant to be, and none of this is normal. It's all like, you know, kind of trying to deal with something that's, uh, that's, that's difficult. So what can you do? All right. And, and as I said, the wine businesses are particularly impacted. The workers have gone, um, back to war. The foreign workers who were here left the country. Um, the wineries are having a very difficult time. Doing something as simple as buying Israeli wine makes a huge impact. To the industry and to Israel. It makes— it's an incredible impact. And not only, you know, it's something you can buy and you can enjoy and drink and enjoy with your family and friends and be doing something really positive for Israel. So that's— there are a number of ways to help Israel, but I think the most impact and the least impact to you is to just buy Israeli wines and enjoy them. Great, great. Let me talk a little bit about how I actually got into kosher wine. Yes. Or wine, for that matter. I have a father who was very interested in wine, um, only because he became successful. He was an actuary and he became successful in the United States. We're immigrants. We came into the United States. My dad was from Calcutta, India. My mother was from London, England, and I was born in Singapore. And we, um, we emigrated to, uh, to the United States. And when we did, um, my father started to work, and he was a very bright person with very little money at the beginning. And he, and he built a very successful business, and he enjoyed, um, He enjoyed his success, and one of the ways he enjoyed his success was drinking really world-class wines. He learned about wines, he got interested in them, and he spent time enjoying them and visiting wineries all around the world. We also had a client who was in Southern California, an insurance carrier. Who ended up being one of the banks, you know, the money funds for wineries that were developing in Southern— in California, not Southern, in Northern California and all around California. And because of that, my father became pretty close to a number of the winemakers and a number of the really innovative, high-end wineries that were popping up in California. And high-end didn't mean that they were expensive. It meant that they were really high quality and they were new and innovative and what have you. And my father got involved with them. And when he did, he enjoyed the wine. And I happened to have a bomb shelter in my house. From the '60s, uh, from the '50s and '60s. They built a bomb shelter under my house, so when I moved into it, I had it. And, um, I used to store wine in my bomb shelter, so I was kind of the guy who— the, the, the eunuch who was watching the harem. And because I didn't drink any of— I didn't drink non-kosher wine, and actually I didn't drink very much wine to begin with, but I started to get interested in it And my father started to pick up some really good kosher wines from California and from Israel, especially the Herzog wines and what have you. So we started out with some incredible, well, the beginnings of incredible kosher wines, and I enjoyed them, and I started collecting them. And then I became obsessed with kosher wines. So I started collecting a lot of them and meeting people and getting involved. And again, I collected a whole bunch of different kosher wines over the years from 1976 through 2000-whatever. And it wasn't until the, you know, early 2000s that I started to meet people through, um, through the RCCs that liked wines. And then all of a sudden it was, you know, we had a discussion and I had these wines that people were dreaming about tasting, and I actually had them in my cellar. So we started tasting and as we started tasting those wines and sharing them, um, I met a bunch of people and I, you know, ended up with a pretty good name as far as, uh, somebody who knew something about wines. And it was, um, a lot of fun. So that's what I did. That's awesome. So that's how I got into it. That's how I got into it from the beginning.

Beautiful. Okay. That is great. And then, then Nami inherited those wines, right? Many of them.

You know, I, I'll tell you, I had this cellar with a few thousand bottles of wine, and then I decided to sell it, um, because initially I had somebody who was willing to, uh, transport it to Israel for me, but these were older wines and they're fragile. And to put them through an ocean voyage probably would have destroyed those wines. So instead, somebody said to me, "Hey, you are moving to Israel. Do you want to sell those wines?" And I said, "Make me an offer." And he made me an offer, and I said, "Not enough." And then he wanted certain wines, But I told him, "No, the only way I was willing to sell them was to sell them all of them." And because I didn't want to pick and choose and have him take the cream of what I had and leave me with the others. So I ended up selling them, much to NAMI's dismay, though I did keep some of the bottles. And he is my guy in America when I'm ordering bottles that are only available from there. But some of my Scotch collection ended up with NAMI, and he's been nursing and nurturing it on. So that's been going on. Yeah. Do you remember—

this is kind of an aside, but do you remember when you met me and Joel in Phoenix? And so we met in Phoenix. You were on business, and we were visiting. And we went and we decided to get a drink. And it was early. It was like 4 o'clock in the afternoon. And we went into the lounge at this hotel. And I think it was maybe the Biltmore.

It was the Biltmore, I believe. Okay. Yeah, I think it was the Biltmore.

And you knew the guy who was briefing the group on Scotch because you'd met him in Scotland. Yeah. Yeah. And Joel and I just thought, it's really true. Simon knows everybody.

No, I don't know everybody, but I'm a drunk. So I do know anybody who's involved with alcohol. Yeah. That was so funny. Okay. We had, we had during Nami's son's bar mitzvah this last Sabbath, last Shabbat, we had two spectacular scotches. One was a scotch that we, it was bottled in 1968 and it was a 30-year-old scotch that we opened at his brit.

At Nami's brit or Yosef's? No, at Yosef's brit.

And then we opened it again at his bar mitzvah and drank a significant share of the bottle. And we also had a bottle of Springbank from— that's a 35-year-old Springbank that was also from, I think, 1972. That was also an incredible bottle of scotch. And, and we also had a bottle of, um, Johnny Walker Blue, which is normally a scotch that anytime you see it, people like finish that bottle. And it was hardly touched at the bar mitzvah because the other scotches were just out of, out of this world. So it was kind of funny to see.

Great. Yeah. Well, Simon, thank you so much for the interview. Thank you. Thank you. And I'm very excited about, about the upcoming podcast. I'll listen to that one for Yeah, thank you.

Well, everybody there, my love. Take care. Bye-bye.

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. And thank you for listening to The Kosher Terroir.