Embarking on an Enchanting Wine Journey: A Conversation with Jacob Ner David of Jezreel Winery

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 brief moment and pray for the safety of our soldiers and the safe return of of all our hostages. The following is a conversation with my friend Jacob Nerdavid, the chairman of Jezreel Winery located in northern Israel on Kibbutz Hanaton. Jacob is a serial entrepreneur, having birthed numerous startups. In fact, so many so quickly, he probably should be called a parallel entrepreneur. He was also active as an angel investor as well as the director of a Jerusalem-based venture capital fund. He has volunteered extensively in the public sector and even worked closely with two of Jerusalem's mayors on regional economic development. But beyond all that, he is the first to tell you that his primary focus in life is his partner, Haviva, and their seven children. Please join me for this warm and informative conversation. Okay, Jacob. You prefer Jacob or Yaakov? Everybody calls you Jacob, I guess.

Some people call me Yaakov. Yeah.

I guess in the winery it helps to call you Jacob because of the other Yaakov.

Yeah. You know, when I was growing up, it was either Yankov or Yankole or—

Okay. Ashkenazi. Totally. Okay. So, Welcome to the kosher teruah. That's the first thing I wanted to say. Um, all right, I was really, uh, I, I've never, like, we've been friends for a while, I never did any, um, background research on you or looked at you, and I said, whoa, what's going on here? Um, there's just so many things, so many, uh, so many things you've been involved with, so It's a pleasure to have you here on The Kosher Terroir.

Sure.

You're now the, is it the CEO or the chairman?

Chairman, yeah.

Chairman of Jezreel Winery, which is up in Hanaton.

Right.

And first question I have is, how did you end up in Hanaton?

You know, when we first moved to Israel, so people sometimes would say— I have a bunch of funny stories of it, but people overall would say, "Why?" And then I would look at them and I would say, "Why not?" And that would floor them for a while. But coming to Khanaton was— we had lived in Yerushalayim for a long time and love Yerushalayim and always happy to come for good reasons. But I felt, or we felt, that we were missing two things. We were missing a real visceral connection to nature and to the land. That was number one. I mean, it was easier for me to kind of get out of Jerusalem. I would hop on my bike, and this is even before Park HaMesila. There was a mesila, there was a train track. And I would ride out, and in 10 minutes I would be in Har HaYushlaim. On my bike. For Chaviva, it was much more challenging, and it was fighting traffic and driving for 40 minutes to see some green. Um, and so that was on the one side. On the second side, we kind of had done a lot of the things that we wanted to do in Yerushalayim, and we wanted to experience a different part of Eretz Yisrael, a different part of living in Israel.

You had kids before? So your kids were born where?

So right, so thank God we have 7 children. So I would say half grew up in Jerusalem and half grew up more in, you're not gonna do 3 and a half children, but the older ones grew up more in Jerusalem. Interestingly enough, 3 of my older children have now moved back to Jerusalem. So they're now living in Yerushalayim. And the younger ones kind of grew up. My 12-year-old was born in Khanaton, so all she knows is Khanaton. And, you know, kind of from there. But yeah, we moved to Khanaton in 2009.

So you met, the two of you met in—

We met in Khanaton. So the kind of basic story goes is there was a very small group of families who came to renew this place, Khanaton. Which had been essentially a failed kibbutz, one of the last kibbutzim to be established in Israel, agricultural kibbutzim, and was a failure almost from the beginning, but really got to a bad place. There were only 4 families there. And we came with a group of 18 families, which was obviously on purpose, chose the 18. We came as a group of 18 families to reliven. To renew the kibbutz as a kibbutz and with a connection to agriculture and so on. So we all came in that summer of 2009, more or less. And Yehuda and Tamar were one of those families. Yehuda had actually had a deeper connection to Khanaton than I did. Because when he was in Nachal, he did his shnat shirut in Khanaton. 17 years prior. And he actually led the rebellion of that group of Nachal, which was the Noam Nachal unit, to not come to Khanaton anymore. And from that point forward, it has been at Kibbutz Ketura, because it was so dysfunctional. But even though he still had a special place in his heart and soul, so they came to Khanaton. And we met there, and he had a landscaping business at the time, But I had quickly discovered that we were both wine people and we drank a lot of wine together and we started to dream about things that we could do at Khanaton that were connected to the land and then connected to our passions. And he did the worst thing you could do to an entrepreneur. He was entrepreneurial, but I was like, that is all I did was start things. And he did the worst thing you can do, which said, why do you just keep dreaming of having a winery and making wine? Here's an abandoned building. We could take it over. We could go out and that's kind of what sealed the deal. And then we spent about a year. It's interesting because in Israel, we have all these things like a year. You have your gap year, mechinak dam tzva'i, all kinds of year, year abroad. So we spent our year of chavruta in wine together with a different rebbeim that we chose to work with us. One of them I think you've met, Ari Earle. But we specifically didn't want to replicate everything else because I was coming from the startup world. And I'm like, okay.

Disruption, disruption.

Yeah, we need, there's got to be something new. There's got to be, you know, it can't be more of the same, even if it's very good more of the same.

Yep.

And that's what guided our original journey together. But we met in Chanaton, the relationship was established in Chanaton. So yeah.

Very cool. So here I was thinking that you actually met your wife abroad in the United States or someplace else or what have you.

We met in the US, but we just, we moved here at an early age together. Okay. We met in New York. And, you know, people talk about, you know, your Zionism and so on. Raviv and I both, interestingly, we never had to like have a deep, deep conversation about it. I think we're having deeper conversations today than then, but for us, I call it organic Zionism. We both grew up more or less in similar milieus. I was a little bit more black hat than she was. She was kind of Ramaz, you know, in New York, but both of us kind of had the same reaction, which was, why wouldn't we move to Israel? After everything we've been told and everything we've studied and learned, and we both had visited Israel, why would we not move there? So it wasn't such a—

A big decision.

It was a big decision, but it was a very organic big decision.

What about family support in doing something like that?

You know, I think they were more or less supportive. I'd say there was a, the family's more or less supportive. Nobody said no. And one of the few people who cautioned me against at the time of just moving to Israel full-time, whatever, was a rebbe of mine. And he was a Torah v'das guy. Wonderful, beautiful human being. And he was concerned about Israel, interestingly enough, about kind of—

What you might do?

Education and— No, he was like literally concerned about the body politic Israel. Right. This was quite some time ago. And I was kind of thrown off a bit for a minute or two by what he was saying, but then I— My organic Zionism came back and we came anyway.

You know, it's funny, of the audience that listens to this podcast, a lot of them have two huge dreams. One is to make Aliyah and the other one is to get involved in some way in wine. And you've accomplished both of those.

I'm living both of those.

Yes. Okay. So, um, because of that, it's, you know, I— it, it's a great example for people to, uh, to see and for me to ask, like, how did that happen? Where did the dream start?

Where—

when did you start getting involved with wine?

So that's right. So wine Similar thing, which is I kind of took my education and my kind of the mesorah seriously, like even as a little kid, and I was chutzpadek. So those two things. I got kicked out of a lot of, you know, a lot of shiurim, but I took it seriously. So I immediately reacted to a lot of things that were being taught to me, told to me, whatever it is. Okay, so why aren't we— why are we praying for this 3 times a day? Why aren't we just doing it? So that influenced me, and same way with wine. In other words, wine I saw as this, even from a little kid, saw as this central thing in Jewish life, of our spiritual life. And yet, for whatever reason, in the '70s when I was growing up, It was the least mishubach, the least appreciated or invested in. I don't mean money-wise, I mean just from an attention point of view. Kavana'a. Yeah, I mean, like my father, Olav HaShalom, he loved so many different traditions, whether it be going to the shukah arba minim in the Lower East Side and going through all the different booths and looking different at tzurugim and stuff like that. We would always only do it on Erev Sukkot. And the same thing of mitzvah matzah for baking matzah on Erev Pesach, and so on and so on. So hidur mitzvah was like a big deal. And then it came to wine, and he would fill his becher up with whatever, I don't want to I don't want to say anything bad about any of our friends who own certain— But he would fill a becher up, say the bracha, and then take a tiny little sip, and if my mother wasn't looking, he would pour it back in the bottle. Because he hated it so much. And I said to him, Dad, I cannot understand. You are violating so many different things. At the same time, whether it be that you're not drinking rov kos, right? You're not drinking the majority of the, which is you're supposed to, that basically you're turning this blessing into, however you say, brachah levatalah in English. But yeah, for your English speakers.

A blessing that you really shouldn't have done.

Yeah.

An unnecessary blessing.

Or an unfulfilled blessing. Unfulfilled blessing. Were a wasted blessing. But besides those two kind of halachic issues, right, there's the mahut of it, there's the, the, the central aspect of it, that this is supposed to be like the way you bring in, whether it bring in Shabbat, whether you, where you get married, whether when you're born, or whatever it may be. And I'll tell you a, a sweet story. It has to do with the life cycle event. So, you know, when we're, when for a long time for men and as it's happening for women when they're born, so obviously you have a brit and part of the brit is wine that brings you into the covenant, you know, of the people. And so there's a really lovely young, I say young now that I'm the gray-haired person, I can say young, but very nice very nice guy, Moshe Ben-Dahan, who lives in Khanaton. And he has two things going for him. He is incredibly educated. He could quote Aristotle while, you know, Mishnah Torah while Daf Yomi while, like, incredible, incredible autodidact in terms of Jewish text. But he also loves wine and really appreciates— his parents are French, so Anyway, so Mazal Tov, they had a baby boy a couple of months ago. And so of course I came to the Brit Milah and I brought a bottle of wine thinking it is a present that they will use later on, or who knows, maybe at the Sudah Mitzvah, or they will just take home for Shabbat or something. And he sees the wine, he goes, "Of course." And he opens the wine up and that is the wine that they used. And so the first wine that this baby had, his name is Aryeh, the first wine that Arieh had was our wine. I was like, oh my goodness, what an incredible thrill.

You know, beautiful story, beautiful story. You know, you did an interview with somebody back in August, and one of the things that was truly beautiful about it was you got into the brachot of what you make on wine, when you start Shabbat, when you end Shabbat, and all the rest. And it was a beautiful interview from that perspective because it was just— it's so true that, you know, people drink wine for just to drink wine, but it's wine within Judaism is so elevated that it's— there's almost nothing you can do without having a bracha on wine.

Right.

But I think in especially for lifecycle events.

Right, but I'm saying that, you know, obviously we're proud of our own tradition. I think that, you know, probably in other faith traditions, I'll tell you a funny story in a second about that, but food in general, right, wine being part of it, is something that in our tradition we take seriously, right? So we, not only do we make a blessing before we eat, but we make a blessing on all different types of blessings and all different types of food. We take it very, very— we're really paying attention and we're really thankful and appreciative. And as you know, right, so wine has its own blessing, right? It's not the wine that you say on orange juice or apple juice, which share the same blessing.

It's not beret priyets. It's not on the—

it's not shahakol. It's not that, right?

Yeah.

So it has its own specific blessing. And so for me, growing up knowing that, I was like, oh, so this has got to be like a big deal. And I have my own theories as to what happened. Obviously, there's lots of history books and different, you know, historians of wine in the Jewish tradition. I don't think enough has been written about that, and I think there's big gaps, right? If anybody that— you don't have to do a daf yomi, right? You don't have to study Talmud every day. But even if you study Talmud here and there, every if not every page, every other page of the Talmud.

It's mentioned a lot.

There's a discussion of wine.

It's mentioned a lot.

And a discussion based on that the Amcha, the people, knew that there was good wine, that there was great wine, that they were totally in it. So there was an awareness, and then something happened. Right? And so, many PhDs, I guess, will probably be written, but where, for a big chunk of time, the Jewish people kind of lost, you know, their appreciation.

I think part of that is, it's called expulsion. You know?

Yes, but we kept so many other, we kept attention to so many other hidur mitzvah issues.

But wine. Is land-oriented.

For sure.

It was so focused on the land. And you know what? Actually, it's kind of interesting. Um, what I found is, especially among the Haredi community, uh, which really carried on a lot of the Jewish traditions, um, there was almost a fear of there being an archaeological connection to Eretz. There's almost a fear of discussing that. Like, everything that we have is connected through the Talmud, is connected through the Torah, is connected through all the different mefarshim and what have you. But they really shy away from any sort of archaeological or connection. And I think it's a fear that we lost Israel once and it almost killed us.

Right.

And this galut mentality of trying to build a world, even though we didn't have Eretz, is so ingrained in some, some of the rabbeim that they're scared to come back. They're scared to reconnect, and they're scared for their people to reconnect. Because again, God forbid if we lost that again. They saw what it did to our religion, to our people. And that's a very scary place to be in. And I—

Well, I think also, you know, just to bring, you know, in terms of wine and so on, Once you do reconnect to the land, which I know you've done and you've participated in plantings and harvestings and so on, the return to the land is both frightening, right, but exhilarating. I find it exhilarating.

Me too.

Exhilarating. And yet we still haven't scratched the surface of what it means or how to deal with it. You know, whether it be issues like trumot and ma'asrot, whether it be, you know, tithes, you know, what do we do with it? You know, sadly, as you may know, in the— basically, they— I mean, I participate in this because it's not— we haven't— wine is spilled on the ground. It's just, uh, it's just, you know, wasted, right? Um, because for so long we didn't really practice the tithing of agricultural produce, and so we didn't even know who to give it to, or how to give it, or, you know, do we give it to the priests? Can the priests still accept it today? Are they pure enough today? And so on. And so I agree with you, there's been a distancing from the land because you then would have to deal with all those issues somehow.

Actually, we have a perfect wine to try that's going to bring that Right to the forefront. And that's, again, that's another issue with regard to, with regard to Shemitah. And do you follow Shemitah? Is there a way around Shemitah? And I don't mean it from purely, you know, business money perspective. The people who make their survival you know, whose survival comes from being in the wine business, it's very hard to tell them, okay, well, this year we're not going to do anything, we're not going to grow anything, we're going to leave everything fallow. That's a difficult pill for people to take. And though I know that this last Shemitah you guys pulled it off.

Right. So the Shemitah cycle, 7 years— excuse me, 7 years ago, we were still, we were smaller than we are today, so we were making a smaller amount of wine. And, you know, Shmita sneaks up on you. It's every 7 years. And as people, but particularly as Israelis, we like to kick things down the road. I was, oh, we'll deal with it, it's in 7 years from now. But, you know, it's manrat, time flies, and all of a sudden you're in Shmita again. So what happened to us then, that was the first Shmitah for us as a winery, as a kind of family making wine. And it came up on us like whoop, like that. And so we said, okay, the next time we're not gonna let that happen. We're gonna really focus in on it. We're gonna really think about it well in advance. And the, you know, I was explaining this to our good friend, Yechi Herzog, a couple months ago because they, for this Shemitah cycle, the Herzog family and royal kind of went lifnei mishret hadin, and they really supported various NGOs that are amutot that were trying to help farmers who were observing Shemitah.

Wow, I didn't even know that.

Uh, yeah, so there's Keren Shvias, Keren Shvit, which augments the money that you can get from the government. But what I was explaining to him is that while all of that is wonderful and gorgeous and is, you know, definitely a step in the right direction, when you're thinking about observing Shmita, it's not just how much money that specific component, meaning that farmer, is losing by not farming that year. There's the truck driver who picks up the grapes and brings them to the winemaking facility. There's the people who work in the winemaking facility. There's the people who sell the wine. There's the— I mean, there's the ripple effect is huge.

It's a huge industry, especially in Israel.

Right. But we think of the people directly connected to it, harvest workers who don't get hired that year, and so on and so on. You know, there's a lot of ripple effects to saying we're not going to make wine from the Shemitah year. We did it anyway. Because it was important to us, to all of us as a partnership, to kind of take it seriously. But we took it seriously in spite of the fact that this ripple effect, you know, isn't tended to. So then we have to do all kinds of things to try and make up for that, you know, whether it be making more wine the year before or having a period of time where we don't have wine that's aged too long and all kinds of issues.

So actually, you know, in this, um, recently I, you know, I was speaking to another winemaker and they were running into the issue of, uh, topping barrels.

Yes.

And you don't even think about that. I never thought about topping barrels. Why would that be an issue, right? Because you can't use Shmita wine to top—

and they're over— right.

And you can't— and you certainly can't, right? You know, you can use regular wine to tap Shmita barrels, but you can't— but there's still Shmita.

But there's still Shmita, right, exactly.

So, but you wouldn't— yeah, you wouldn't do that. But, um, but that's— it becomes really crazy with all the different— because these wines are not things that you just, um, you know, create like water and sugar and what have you and make wine and then it's done. These are things that go over many years of effort, and some of the bottles of wine take 2, 3 years. So, it depends. It depends on what's going on.

You know, I always say to people, making wine, as opposed to certain other areas of agriculture, other areas of agriculture, you have to place your hands, yourself in the hands of the divine for a short period of time, right? In winemaking, you're like, yeah, you know, you need that support for years because that wine's going to continue to develop, and it continues to develop in the barrel and the bottle and so on. So you, you know, the, the, the, the—

yeah, you can't stop praying.

You can't stop praying. Exactly, exactly, exactly. So yeah, so Schmitz. So the 2000— what's called the 2015 vintage, and the— as my late father would say, the Gregorian calendar. The 2015 vintage, was something that snuck up on us. And so we made the amount of wine we were going to make. Obviously, for those people who don't know, most importers of kosher-certified wine into the US won't take wine from Shmita year because there's so many different people who don't know how to handle it, or they don't understand it, or whatever. So they prefer, obviously they prefer just to skip it.

There's even a religious, there's even a group of poskim who say that that wine can't leave Israel.

Can't leave Eretz Yisrael. Yeah, yeah, for sure.

For sure.

But then, what's interesting, there are certain things, you know, it's funny because one of the issues of wine from Shemitah year is that it has the sanctity of the 7th year, of the sabbatical year, we say, you know, k'tushat tzavishvit. And one of those aspects, definitely you shouldn't waste any of it. So you should drink to the last drop. You should make sure, you should be more careful in terms of Shemitah year wine, Shemitah year produce in general, but certainly Shemitah year wine. You know, and my joke is, when do I not finish a bottle of wine? Of course I'm finishing, but if it's a good bottle of wine, why would I How could I not finish it? But there is a fear. Our fellow very good friend, the other Yaakov, Yaakov Shmuel Tovetzky, he makes sure when he is pouring wine from Shemitah year, under whatever way it came to be, different approaches to still making wine from Shemitah year, when he is pouring it for other people, he makes sure that they understand. Like, I will pour it for you, And I took that from him. If I ever do have wine, you know, from Eretz Israel, from Mashmit HaYir, and I am pouring it for someone, I make sure they know it, and I make sure my expectation is that they are going to drink the whole glass.

Right. 100%. There are some people who feel that if you use chet ha'mechira to do it, then there is no requirement to drink the whole thing because you have got chet ha'mechira. So I said, I am one of those belt and suspender guys. I do not just, you know, I won't.

Right, but I think we need to, you know, particularly around wine, the law is important, right? You know, the— but the spirit of the law is, for me, much more important. And that's really what's guiding me. You could always, you know, the Jewish people love to make laws and then find ways, legal ways around around those laws, whatever they may be, in particular around the Shmita year, because as you know, half of the Shmita year has nothing to do with agriculture. It has to do with loans and, you know, sadly when there were slaves or whatever, but it doesn't relate it to agriculture. We've kind of written that out of the Jewish practice almost entirely by various artifices where we get around it. But then we think of things like, you know, Yom Kippur, which was the culmination of the 7 cycles of the Shemitah year. So, you know, the idea that you're going to have some sort of economic justice and all of that, we, but we still have, you know, and I think it's, I don't think it's a bad thing, I think it's a good thing. We have an attention to the legalities of Shemitah around wine. Again, I think it's only a good thing because it wakes you up, makes you think about Shemitah in general. So, you know, my view of heter mechira is I totally understand it. I understand why it came about. But, you know, it's like chametz on Pesach, right? So obviously a practice developed where people sell their chametz for the holiday.

Yeah, the leavening.

And, you know, as a chutzpahdik kid, I always ask the question, which some chutzpahdik kid always asks in the, Shiur, when they explain selling chametz on Pesach, say, well, but if the non-Jewish person who you sell the chametz to comes into your house on Pesach, can they just eat your chametz? And the legal answer is yes.

100%.

Yes. So if you have your Scotch whiskey collection, you know, priceless collection, which you've sold for a dollar to someone, and they come and they could drink it all up. And once Pesach is over, You could say, "I want to buy it back," but it might be gone. 100%. Yeah, so we as a family, Chaviva and I as a family, for many years, most of the time that we are together, we make sure to just get rid of all the chametz in our house. I still sell whatever I have, I cannot see, like whatever, but from a principle point of view is, whatever chametz we have, we You're obviously not a Scotch person. Exactly. I don't have any Scotch in the house.

I don't need to sell any of the other holidays.

Just the Scotch.

My wife thinks about, you know, flour and stuff like that, but I can use up everything.

Use up everything.

Scotch is another one.

Scotch, yeah. I'm not a Scotch— you know what I always say about Scotch, you know, is, you know, I had to— I'm a person of, you know, limited abilities. If I'm going to try to understand something, I chose wine. I can't figure other things out. So, I don't really know anything about Scotch.

I love it. Okay. Yeah.

All right. So, we should try.

Let's try it. Yeah. So, we have a bottle of Carignan from Jezreel. I think it's an old vine Carignan.

Yes.

And it's beautiful. Well, you know, it's from 2015.

This is the 2015 vintage. The Carignan story in Israel is, for me, is the story of— I'm just doing my sniff. Sniff as I'm talking.

Yeah, well, let's do a sniff and a little taste. I mean, it doesn't—

So they— The story of Carignan in Israel is the— it's being told more and more, right, by lots of good people. You know, our friend Adam Montefiore and other people who are telling the modern story of Carignan in Israel. Because the truth is, we still don't know what the varietals were in the time of Bayit Sheni, certainly not in the time of Bayit Rishon. So we, you know, we could have been Carignan. It's a sun-loving varietal. It could have been here. But the Carignan we're drinking is a modern planting in the sense of it's the grandchildren of the Carignan that was planted by the original Zionist, modern Zionist movement. You know, I'm here in Yemin Moshe, it was very auspicious to the modern Zionist movement. But you know, when When Rothschild and before Rothschild, the Chovevei Tziyon on its own, when they were first thinking of restarting the Israeli wine industry, so they planted Carignan because they realized this is not Bordeaux. Very different terroir. Very different climate. And so they went with something which they felt was going to be sun-loving in it. And it took really well. The trouble was we just didn't know what to do with it. We made a lot of bad wine from it. Anyway, Baruch Atah Adonai Echad, Ori pri agafen betamalim, ma'omer berekef. And you served it at the temperature that, um, do you know Eric Segalbaum? Have you met Eric? Oh, you gotta meet him. Next time. Yeah, so, um, Eric is a huge fan of Carignan, a huge fan of our Carignan. Uh, he's one of the top sommeliers in America, co-founder of the United Sommelier Foundation, um, a great wine educator in general, and He tells people to drink Karinyan, particularly Israeli Karinyan, at a colder temperature than they otherwise would serve Karinyan, for those people that do Karinyan, at a colder temperature. Basically because, I mean, I'm going to paraphrase him, you can hear it from him directly, but that's his kind of shita, that's his method. Ad kerei kach, you know, up to the point where he'll actually put karnyan in the refrigerator, refrigerator, not in the wine chiller. Drinks it cold, cold. I've tried that. It's a little too cold for me, but this is—

This is really—

Yeah.

This is a pleasure, really a pleasure. And it's— Really balanced.

And it's doing really well. I haven't had the 2015 in a while. Wow.

Great.

So, um, we— the Carignan is that we, that we put out, the 100% Carignan is a single vineyard. Um, the, as you mentioned, they're old vines. What are old vines to, to two people with, with gray hair? What are old vines? So So old vines, there's no strict definition of it. These vines are about 50 years old, which qualifies them to be called old vines. What's fascinating is when you can meet people who planted a vineyard and 50 years later or more than 50 years later, you're picking those grapes and you're making wine from them and you can talk to them about what it was like when they were planting that vineyard. So we have that, thank God, today in Israel. And you have many Moshevnikim and so on who planted vineyards in the late '60s and the early '70s. And thank God they're still around and you can go to a harvest with them. It's really powerful.

It's such an incredible thing. I remember the first time we planted grapes. Um, we did it up in, uh, near Itamar in, uh, in Tomer Panini's, um, uh, winery. And it was— we planted the— we planted the grapes and, uh, they, they actually, um, made wine from those grapes.

Yeah.

And I was there at the harvest and they gave me a bottle, a couple bottles of the wine. And I said, you know, like, wow, not only did I plant it, but I'm enjoying the product from it, which was delicious. I can't imagine what it's like to have planted vines 50 years ago. And have the, um, the, I don't know, the benefit, the merit, the merit to be able to drink that wine after planting it 50 years ago. Planting vines is not an easy thing. My hands were not, um, I guess people wear gloves and the thistles and all the rest of it.

Right, so there's planting the vines, but that you know the expression in English, right? Tending to the vines, which is a very particular agricultural expression only for vineyards. So it really is tending to it. They really do need tender loving care to come to their own. And the, you can see a well-tended vineyard if 50 or 55 years later, most, 95% of the vines survive. That's how you can tell a healthy, really a healthy ecosystem that somebody really provided that TLC, as we say. And what's interesting is that, you know, I think we're in a good place in, in Israeli winemaking because some of these vineyards can continue. Thank God 50 is not like, they don't stop, right? So you have, for example, Carménane vineyards that can keep producing certainly till in their 60s and 70s. But you know, there's the Bobal grape in Spain. I don't know if you've ever had. So they are 100-year-old vineyards. So the intensity of flavor and so on will continue. But just in terms of the Israeli winemaking industry, you know, for a while we didn't know what to do with all that Carignan that got planted. And as I say, now the Carignan that we're drinking is kind of the grandchildren of the Carignan that was planted 120 years ago. And we finally figured out what to do with it.

How to make it.

We finally figured out what to do with it and how to use it. And how to elevate it, because the, uh, it's called mass commercialization of any, uh, product will, will just by nature lessen its quality. Very difficult to, uh, I mean, maybe Apple with an iPhone, I don't know, but most things, the quality goes down in the, uh, anything artisanal, anything So the return over the past 30 years to lots of smaller, and we can always talk about what smaller is, but smaller wineries who are elevating Carignan, whether it be us, whether it be Vitkin, whether it be now Raziel and others who are focusing in on Carignan, I think is such a blessing to the folks 120 years ago. Those are the people we need to be thanking.

Yeah, yeah, 100%. I remember, um, one of the first meetings I ever had with you was at, um, Jezreel, and you had just made Argaman and figured it out. And before that, it was like impossible. It was just like this gray goop. No matter what you did, it just didn't really become a wine, right?

Didn't come into its own. I mean, it was, it was used as a coloring.

It was a color. Yeah, no, the— and it was actually, um, a clone that was made in Israel. But, uh, when it worked and you guys actually pulled it off, and it, and it, and all of a sudden you had a wine that was really not just dark purple, but actually tasted so special.

I remember thinking, "Oh, I need some cases of this." Well, you know, I think Arugaman is as close as we're going to come to drinking modern Israel. Um, uh, you know, I'm saying this in front of my glass of Carignan, so I'm not trying to embarrass it. But I think, and as you know, Argaman is a hybrid of Carignan and Suzhou, which is an important part of the story of modern Israel, right? We celebrate what's here, what's natively here, but you, me, hundreds of thousands of others have traveled the world, have lived outside many generations. Maybe we've come back here, we're bringing with us all kinds of things, and then we fuse that. We, we, right, infuse it, infuse it. Um, and I think that's what Argaman for me represents, uh, which is like we could take this Portuguese variety, we could, uh, cross it with something which may or may not have been here thousands of years ago but was brought back or brought 120 years ago. And then finally, with skill, which, you know, my other parallel life is in tech startups. So with, with the right technology and the right technologists, meaning winemakers, you can make argaman, you can make it sing. You know, the first argaman I had which influenced my direction in general, but also with the winery, was when Avi Feldstein made, I think it was the 2005 vintage, if I'm not mistaken. And that's what kind of got me thinking much more about Argaman. I also happen to love the tastes. But like with all things, I wouldn't drink only Argaman, or I wouldn't drink only— yeah, I love it, but it has its, has its place. My, my favorite way to experience Argaman, actually, which I've told many, uh, people— somebody was just consulting with me about a, a pairing menu for their, uh, children's wedding. Uh, mazel tov to two rabbis marrying each other in, in a couple of weeks and they wanted to order our wines. And so they were, you know, kind of reached out to me for pairing advice and so on. So I said, look, I'd love to tell you, you know, buy our most expensive wines for everything and, you know, just drink, only drink Argaman, which is our most expensive single varietal. But, you know, I think Argaman needs to be experienced you're not going to pour it at the smorgasbord, you know, or at the— you know, when they're passing around. You need to be sitting, you need to be focused, you need to really appreciate it.

You need to taste it.

Right. My favorite thing is actually, while it goes really well with all kinds of food, my favorite thing is just to sit with a bar of dark chocolate and argaman. And that's— I get that could be my meal, but it's usually my dessert. It's not a dessert wine, but it's a wine just to, just to be able to focus on.

Um, I totally get that. I absolutely totally get that. I, um, I gotta try the—

by the way, on the edge, on the education front, which You know, bless you. I think you're doing great work to educate people on wine.

Trying.

Yeah. And, you know, you ask the average audience, even of people who would describe themselves as wine drinkers, not just in the Jewish world, I'm saying in general, and you say, how many of you could recognize Carignan? Or how many of you have heard of Carignan before? And very low response numbers. I agree. Once you get to kind of that very top of the pyramid, not in any way a judgmental sense, just in terms of people who are— so there's a little bit of an awareness, but even there, you know, Bordeaux so overpowered the wine world for good reasons. You know, I enjoy just as much as anybody else, and spent my time touring around and so on. But Bordeaux overpowered the wine world, and a lot of wonderful varietals around the world got pushed down or shouted down because of that. And I think now, if you look at whether it's in the States or other wine markets, Israel, people are waking up and saying, "Wow, there is a whole world of wine.

I don't only have to just drink that." If you ever made a Syrah or a Shiraz and you tried to sell it in America 10 years ago, it was just impossible.

People, "No, it doesn't have the word Merlot or Cabernet." There is a beautiful guy, He really is a very nice person and really knows his wine, but I'm not— I don't want to call him out because— but so we were talking about wine, a frum guy, but he knows his wine, really knows his wine in the States. And he was talking about all things that are not Bordeaux, classic Bordeaux blends, as off-varietals. That was his expression. So I said to him—

more for me, fella, as far as I'm concerned.

Well, he's kind of an influencer. So I said, you know, you got to get away from that language, like off-varietals. Like, there's a whole world, you know, Kadosh Baruch Hu has given us, you know, you know, God's given us like all of this to explore and to get to know. And thank God for those people who, for all wonderful reasons, restrict themselves to wine that's kosher certified. Today, you can find kosher certified wine from all over the world, right? So many different experiences you can have.

100%.

So you're, again, going back to what we talked about before in terms of violating a Jewish principle. A Jewish principle is to enjoy life, enjoy Right, what's been given to us. So if you're a wine drinker, you should broaden your horizon. Yeah, you should drink, drink, drink, embrace.

I'm here to embrace everything.

I'm here to promote the Israeli wine industry and my own winery. Having said that, there's a whole world of wine. Yeah, you know, when I, when I first got started with selling wine, I was, uh, kind of thinking in a very tunnel vision, as whenever you're with your own kind of startup or your own whatever. And this person says to me, he said, Jacob, go back to being the consumer, the wine consumer that you were 5 minutes ago, right? You were a wine enthusiast, a wine consumer 5 minutes ago, not a winemaker. Did you have only one wine in your collection? Did you have only one type of wine, one region of wine? No, you had All kinds, right? You want to enjoy, right? I said, yeah, you're right. And that is, you know, what I tell all people, go experience as much as you can. Thank God there's now a kosher-certified wine from the Bobol grape. You know, there's now a kosher, you know.

We have some Greek wine, though I would wait a couple of years for that.

I don't know. I tasted it. Yeah, let's wait.

I would wait a little bit. I'm not ready. I'm not recommending it, but I'm just thrilled that it's there and I'm thrilled that people are drinking it.

Yeah, and I think exactly. And you know, we, as you probably know, we were the, I think the first winery, I don't like to always say I'm the first, but among the first, but if not the first winery to put the vegan symbol on our wine. And people automatically ask me the question, why are you writing vegan on your wine? And I said, well, because you, you should get to know the winemaking process a little bit more, you know, if you're a wine drinker. Uh, again, not from halachic point of view, because halachic point of view would be, you know, again, um, and, and regardless, it would have to be kosher substance that was used anyway. But, uh, but yeah, in the winemaking process, there are different elements that you use, and some of them are, are, don't qualify you know, as vegan. And since, you know, a very good friend of mine— one time there was a rav that I love. Thank God he's still alive, that I really love, and he's a real wonderful person. And he surprised me in a certain way having to do with wine. Let's leave all the halacha out of it, but he surprised me. I didn't think he would be as machmir, as strict as he is. And I told the story to another talmid of his, another student of his, who That's a good friend of mine in Chofut Tamar. And I kind of was venting, you know, after I heard this, like, I can't believe he's so, you know, strict. And my friend said to me, Jacob, you've learned nothing. I said, what do you mean? My friend's name is Brad, Rabbi Brad Hirschfeld. And he said to me, you've learned nothing. I said, what do you mean? He said, you have so much shtick, and you would love it if people would respect your shtick. So he has a stick around wine. Respect it. I was like, ever since he gave me that musar, a little bit of that little—

yeah, a little, you know, I'm—

I respect. So, and you know, so my stick is, is, you know, that I put vegan on it because I follow a vegan diet. So I want other people around vegan to know that.

So part of looking you up I was so impressed that you were in Oxford and that you were in— what you call it— you were in Mansfield.

Yes.

And then I'm going, Mansfield, wow, you know, like, how did this Jewish kid from New York end up in Mansfield? And then all of a sudden, um, one of the comments they made was, we have one of the best kitchens in all of Oxford. And one of the reasons it's the best is because it's certified vegan. And I went, okay, now I'm beginning to get some insight into how he picked Mansfield.

So it was funny. So I was— yes, I did study at Oxford. I had a— I was, I was fortunate to have a scholarship and was able to go to Oxford. Um, uh, The Chabad House at Oxford had just opened up the year that I came. It wasn't the shaliach who became famous or infamous, depending on your perspective, but the one who established it, his name was Rabbi Overlander. And one of the first things that Rabbi Overlander did was to kind of seek out all the Jewish kids and see who he could help. In any way he could help. And so obviously one of the things with food, so he reached out to me and he said, "Can I get you food or whatever?" I said, "I'm not your typical person that you're trying to help." I said, "What are the kind of things that you're bringing in?" He said, "Oh, I'm bringing in beef and chicken and schnitzel and whatever." I said, "If you're really trying to make me happy, you know what I miss? Bagels. If you can get me bagels, frozen bagels, get me frozen bagels, kosher frozen bagels, that would be a big deal," because at least 30-whatever years ago, there were no bagels in Oxford. And he did. He got me bagels.

In America, that was one of the few things that you could eat no matter where you went, as far as bread was concerned, was Lenders bagels.

Right.

Because they had an OU on them and they were—

but by the way, I have to, I have to tell you, nothing to do with wine, but has to do with bagels and has to do with the time we're in right now. I don't know when this podcast will get released, but I just have to do hakarat hatov to Marvin Lender. Okay, because you mentioned that. So I was a college student in, in America. It was back and forth in Israel, long story, but I was a college student in America and, uh, we were leading up to the Gulf War, the first Gulf War, all trips to Israel were canceled in the months leading, if you remember, all trips. All trips, shul trips, Federation trips, everything.

Everybody canceled.

There was no Birthright yet, but all trips, everything was canceled. And the Israeli tourism industry was like, you know. Dying. Dying, and I also thought it was the wrong message. And I was still living in the diaspora at the time. I was still living— but I thought it was the wrong message. Like, we should, all the more so, we should try to support them. All the more so. And I went to Marvin Lender. Why Marvin Lender? Not just because he has bagels, but because he was the president of the UJA at the time. And I said to him, look, all these trips have been canceled. So I know you've got a lot of money sitting around that was supposed to subsidize Federation missions. To go to Israel. Again, chutzpahdik. So he says, yeah, that's true. I said, I think Jewish students will come to Israel, but we need to market it. And we were coming up, like literally it was this time period, we're coming up to winter break of American college students. The average winter break vacation, if you go to Boca or if you go to Acapulco or whatever, I think I remember it was $300. I said, "It's $300. Flights, hotel, the whole thing is $300. I have to market a trip to Israel in winter break." Remember, it was literally the weeks before the Gulf War. "For $300. Anything above $300, you pay for." He said, "You could get people to come to Israel right now?" I said, "I'm telling you, they want to come. You just, you canceled the trips. You didn't even ask them." We put out word, there was no WhatsApp, there was no email, there was no anything. We put out the word, my answering machine was the reservoir of how you reserved your spot and a quick, quick, quick, you know, wiping it clean. We filled an El Al plane of 470 students in I think 3 days, 4 days.

Wow.

But it was thanks to Marvin Lender, and he wrote the check. He covered all the money that was above the $300 a person for the flight and 10 days in Israel. And we went all over Israel together, 470 crazy, crazy Jewish students.

Wow.

It was a beautiful moment. So thank you, Marvin Lender.

Yishkoch. Yishkoch.

Wow.

Unbelievable. Okay.

Yeah. But bagels go well with wine, so I've tried it.

I haven't tasted very much that doesn't go well with wine, but there are some things.

There are some things that can react. I mean, it's chemical reactions, you know, at the end of the day, right? There's chemistry that's taking place. So there are certain things that you can, there are certain things you shouldn't cook with wine. There are certain things, I love olive oil, right? There's certain things I wouldn't necessarily cook with olive oil in the same way. So there are certain things that don't necessarily go very well with wine, whether drinking it or cooking with it, but there are things that don't go well.

So I used to think that, and then all of a sudden people started making these incredible wines. As an example, Yakovoria, which is— Sure. With his orange wines.

Yes.

All of a sudden, here was a wine that went with crazy Chinese food.

Right.

Super spicy Indian food. Like, I'm—

Super spicy Indian food, yes. In other words, and I could pair some of my own wine. Right. Right. I wouldn't pair any of our wines with spicy Chinese food, with standard Chinese food.

Unbelievable.

But anything, again, we're placing us where we are.

Yes.

You know, Mediterranean, anything Mediterranean, yes.

But Mediterranean is, I think, part of the reason people are moving towards, um, the Mediterranean varietals like Syrah and Morvedra and what have you, um, are, well, one is because of the climate. So, uh, climate seems to be really changing.

Yes.

And it's getting hotter. And, uh, these wines do very well in Spain and they do very well here, right? And as they do well here, I think that the overall move in that direction is, um, a product that is— it's not trying to be a Cab. It's trying to be spicier, more pronounced, more in your face, more approachable from the beginning. And, and I think that that style of wine goes really well with Mediterranean food, and especially with Israeli food, right? So I think that I think the wines that you guys have focused on at Jezreel are perfect wines for exactly the cuisine of where Israel is and Israel is going. And it is because of that, it is super pleasurable.

The Israeli chef that I am sure you are familiar with, Eyal Shanee.

Yeah.

Thank God he's making more of his restaurants approachable to a kosher audience, which he didn't before. Even though, you know, it's interesting, a lot of his cooking, I would say not 90%, but 70% of his cooking was kosher. In other words—

Yeah, there was nothing non-kosher in what he was doing.

Right. And 30%, he felt that whatever, the Tel Aviv crowd, he needed to spice it up. Right. Included some You know, my good friend Ina Tadmoni of Palabusta fame in New York, she does the same thing and we have a running kind of argument about it. Do I really need the shrimps in the trina sauce? I think I could have just had the trina sauce with something else. But anyway, but Eyal just opened up a new restaurant in New York 2 weeks ago, which I think is also an important statement. He just opened it up. Which is a twin of a restaurant he has in Tel Aviv. So it's called Malka, and there's Malka in Tel Aviv. And so now there's Malka in New York. So he has two Israeli wines on the menu. Thank God we're one of them. But I was a little, you know, I was a little like, I was happy that he put our wine on the menu, but it was a little like, ah, why doesn't he have just Israeli wine? Like there was something in me, right? Why doesn't he have just Israeli wine? And then I, you know, I had to correct myself and say, you know, we also can't monopolize the conversation, right? In other words, if Eyal Sani, as an Israeli chef with very Israeli cooking, is coming to New York, if he only had Israeli wine on the menu, it would be a little, like, forced, like, you know, but all of the wines on the menu, if you— I'll send you a picture of it. Of the wine menu, all the wines on the menu, you can understand why they're there. In other words, they go very well with his cooking. And I think that in a lot of the other Israeli restaurants or Israeli-owned restaurants, particularly in the States, but not only, but in terms of outside of Israel, You know, we still have a little ways to go to educate them to, here's where Israeli wine is today. It's not the wine that you grew up with. You know, a lot of these people left Israel in the sense of a full-time. They left Israel 25 years ago or 30 years ago, right? We need to re-educate a lot of them. And even people who live in Tel Aviv sometimes don't get out of Tel Aviv too much.

I agree. I agree. Well, I'm being from most of my life in America. I was not a big French proponent. And being in Israel now, I'm so thankful for the French. They have so lifted the level of food, the level of everything. Yeah. In, in so many positive ways. And I know that people are going to say, what, are you out of your mind? But no, they have, they really have. Um, all of a sudden, all of these restaurants in Tel Aviv that were, uh, absolutely not kosher are now all turning kosher. Um, and it's mainly because of the French, to be quite honest.

So I think it's the French, but it's also, I think it's an awareness that it's better to embrace rather than reject.

Right.

You know, particularly these days, these weeks, right? You know, ahavatrinam, right? Which is, doesn't have a good translation, but ahavatrinam is the way to go, right? We know what happens with sinatrinam, right?

Unity.

Right, we know what happens with faceless hatred, right? That we know what happens. So, but with—

Baseless love.

Baseless, or based love. I should say based love. Avatrinam is not baseless.

It's focusing on being positive.

Right, exactly. Exactly, focusing on being positive. And so, you know, I think with, it's the same way, you know, there are so many people today who have gluten sensitivities. Whether they didn't know they had them or they're new or who knows, right? But they exist, so right? So because you know they exist, so it doesn't mean you have to make your whole menu gluten-free, but please tell them so they don't have to go through that painstaking research thing and put it on your menu, put a little asterisk, this is what's gluten-free. So I know already what I can easily order. I think that, you know, it's a sensitivity and it's just kind of a love that permeates. And I think for a lot of the Israeli chefs, they had to go through kind of a process, and they're still getting there in terms of wine, but they're pretty far along in terms of wine. You know, and then there are like a lot of other hangups that people have. Based on whether it's something they experienced or they didn't experience. For example, I know you've talked about this before, about, you know, mevushal and what is mevushal and so on. But you and I both know that, you know, flash pasteurization in the wine industry has— forget about Jews, right? Is happening anyway. And debates in the wine industry as to what its effect on the wine is and why should you use it or when should you use it and so on. Again, nothing to do with kosher, not kosher. But within the kosher world, there's a whole conversation to be had. But in terms of getting over people's hangups, right? Somebody will say to you, "Oh, I can't drink any mevusha wine.

Mevusha wine's terrible." I get that, yes.

And so, you know, I won't say the names or whatever, but I was with, in a certain situation where somebody said, "I would never serve a mevusha wine." I said, I hear you. Again, going back to my friend Brad's, you know, respect their stick. I was like, I hear you. Let me pour you this wine. Just tell me, I just want you to get your feedback on this wine. And I poured them, you know, it happened to be the first vintage of our Alpha blend, which based on request from Royal, we did Mévouchelle. And that was the first time we, And I poured it and the prince said, "Ah, now this is a wine I would serve. This is a great wine. This is a—" To this day, I have not told them that it's a kosher wine.

Don't tell them. Don't tell them.

Don't tell them. Exactly.

I wouldn't tell them. Okay, so we're switching wine.

So this is a limited production which we may repeat. We'll see. You know, sometimes when you do innovation, it works but you can't repeat it. Sometimes it doesn't work, so you don't repeat it. And sometimes you say, oh wow, that's a good— you know, let's try and do that again. So we were coming into, um, 10 years of making wine, and we wanted to celebrate in some way. And part of the ethos of the winery, what I brought to it, what Yehuda brought to it in his own way, is innovation and not standing only on the past. And even though our past in winemaking terms was very short, we wanted to do something new to celebrate where we were, you know, it's funny because you say 10 years. So in Jewish life, 10 years is like, it's not, you know, it's not bar mitzvah, it's not bat mitzvah, it's just 10 years. Like there's nothing. But in popular, whatever, it's like you've gotten to the double digits, like you're there, right?

You're not even a teenager.

You're nothing, you're just 10. So you're 10 and then you fall back, you're 11 and 12, what is that? Like, but whatever, 10. So we want to do something. So we, we have a neighbor, a neighbor in the sense of, in, you know, in our, right in our area. And we try and be very, very local whenever we can. Um, and a fellow who planted some vineyards in Alona Galil, which is the neighboring town to us. Um, and one of, he's not really a winemaker, his real knowledge is around honey. But he planted some pititsira, and he didn't know what he was going to do with it. And as we talked before, it takes a while, right? It takes a while until you get fruit that you can use, both in terms of Jewish law, but also in terms of just winemaking. And so he had this pititsira, and he hadn't really done anything serious with it. And we said, you know, what would it be like Here's a varietal we haven't worked with yet. Let's see what it would be like. We brought the Petite Syrah in, uh, Syrah, Carignan, kind of started blending. And blending is, you know, a mad science. Um, I've watched some master blenders at work, uh, some of our, our mutual friends, uh, Jeff Morgan, uh, Amichai Lurie, you know, people who are like master blenders. We're still learning, right? But you do it enough times. And Yossi Chachmon, who's a co-winemaker with Yehuda, I'm a wine drinker, but they put the whole thing together and I get to drink the 15 different examples and say what I think. But they're doing the real work. And so we came up with this blend and We said, you know, we want to celebrate both the community that we're in for many, many reasons. And so we said, we're just going to name the wine Chanaton. And it's a— Beautiful. Blend, I said, of Syrah, Carignan, and Petit Syrah. And we didn't know if we'd repeat it, not repeat it. And then came Shmita year. So we didn't make the— And now from this current vintage, the harvest that we just finished, we're looking to try and repeat it. But what was funny is that for some of the people in the winery, as we were tasting this, you know, it's sometimes new is always better. So the people get used to kind of what you have. And then we had this blend and they're like, "Ooh, this is my favorite wine." I said, "I think it's just because it's new," but it did come out very nice.

It's very nice.

So we have no idea how well this particular blend will age. Again, it's a vineyard, it was the first time we were working with it, and it's a varietal, it was the first time we were working with it in terms of Petit Syrah.

—but it's a blend with Petit Syrah.

—Yeah, Syrah, Carignan, Petit Syrah. And we'll see, we may make more of it. But for many people in the winery, it was funnily enough, it was their favorite. I love blends because I think blends is kind of where you see people playing.

—You see the creativity of the winemaker.

—Exactly. And it doesn't mean that every wine is going to suit everybody and, you know, the same way there are certain wines that I just don't like, even wines that we make, but I know other people like them. You know, we make a Gewürz semi-dry. I can't drink it, it's too sweet, going to what we talked about before about with sugar and everything. I can't drink it. It's just way too sweet for me, but people love it.

So initially I love gourds in its sweet form, but I've become madly in love with it in its dry form. Yeah, because it's, it's so floral and there's so much— well, the aroma stay, right?

I mean, so the aroma stay, right, right. And then, but if you, if you, right, if you bring it to a dry Then you don't have that overpowering sugar content. But you know, a lot of people come to the winery, they come with their friend who's the wine person, or they were on a trip and decided to stop at the winery, whatever. And they've never— you know, the amount of times I've had people say to me, "Wow, I've never enjoyed wine before." And I think the reason why they've never enjoyed wine before is You know, one of two things. One, they only drank really cheap, bad wine. That's a real possibility. Uh, and, and, but two, they, they just didn't find the wine that they liked.

It's also an environment thing, and it's also a social thing. If you're not with the right people, I mean, you can, you can drink wine with people and it can be, it can be unbelievable as far as an experience, a wonderful experience. And then you can taste that wine later by yourself. It's like, what was so good about this wine? It's really a social elixir. I mean, there's the Jim Morrison line, right?

When I drink alone, I prefer to be by myself. But yeah, most of us like to be with other people.

Assaf Paz has a line that was actually in one of the past podcasts about why can't we make peace with the Arabs. And when he was in France and he was harassed by the French, after a while he said, "You've had all these years. Why haven't you made peace yet?" He said, "Simple, simple answer. They don't drink wine." And as soon as he said that, they all said, "Oh, really? Oh, no wonder why." I know, I'm only kidding.

It's a joke. Yeah, yeah. It's funny because, you know, there are two religious texts that I believe were— and I say this to my Mormon and, and Muslim friends— there are two religious texts that, that wrote wine out of daily life, right? The Book of Mormon and, and the Quran. Um, but much like our religious texts, right, there's mephorshim, there's commentators, there's this. In, in Islam, it's, uh, uh, called hadith. And, and I think there are misinterpretations. I mean, if you read, like, for example, the Book of Mormon, which is easier to read because it's in English, you don't need any translation. But even the Quran, right, was not even, even according to Islamic tradition, Muhammad didn't write the Quran. It was told over and then written and then interpreted and then reinterpreted. So, you know, I say to a lot of my Muslim friends, again, respecting their shtick, but that, you know, that you don't drink alcohol. And to my Mormon friends that, you know, don't drink alcohol, I say, I get it. I will continue to maintain that they were misreadings of your prophets, but I, but I respect it. But, you know, um, and, you know, there is in the States, uh, and in Europe right now a no-low movement around wine, which is a no-alcohol, low-alcohol movement growing. And you'll find shelves— yeah, used to be one shelf, now it's —whole sections of no-low. There aren't very many kosher certified, but the growing thing of no-low, no-alcohol or low-alcohol wines, most of them are terrible. Just, right? Most of them are really bad.

The ones I've tasted are terrible.

Are really bad.

But I've only tasted the kosher ones.

Across the board, they're terrible. But I have a good friend who's Muslim. He for a while was a lapsed Muslim, and then he came back to his devoutness. And he's from a village not far from Khanaton. And what he enjoys doing is coming during harvest season and drinking the grape juice before it's started to ferment, literally that first day, because then he's getting the reminder of the that, you know, of what that could be. And so we've talked about, and we started to make some steps towards like trying to do a no-alcohol wine. And then he told me a funny story. So I just tell you, in terms of cross, you know, you were living here in Yerushalayim, right? So the center of at least 3 religions, right? At least 3. Yeah, uh, 4 if you count Mormons as Separate religion. Well, yeah, anyway, that's true. So, um, so he was— he's been teaching in London, uh, he's been a visiting professor at a business college in London the past few months. And he was in a supermarket and he saw one of these no-low-alcohol wines. He's like, ah, well, you know, great. And he bought it and he brought it home. And again, he's a, he's a from Muslim. And he brought it home and he starts drinking. He was really enjoying it, and he said, uh, you know, I should really look, check, you know. He looks at the label and he sees that the label says that it's, uh, um, 0.07 alcohol content, meaning it was, it, it was okay for the labeling to say no alcohol, but in reality it was 0.07. 0.07. So he Googles, of course, uh, looks up the halacha, like the poskim and thing, and he finds that the major posik that he respects in, in his tradition, um, out of, out of Cairo, says the most it could have is 0.05% alcohol content. I said, so what'd you do?

Pour water in it.

I said, so what'd you do? Because he said he was like halfway through the bottle. I said, what'd you do? He said, I poured the rest of the bottle out. I said, wow, you're frummer than me. I said, you're frummer than me. I would have finished the bottle.

I would have taken a shot glass with water, poured it into the top of it and said, yeah, now I've diluted it. Now I've diluted it down to 0.5.

Yeah. Anyway, but yeah, so there's this growing, growing thing, which is important, which is interesting because You know, I think, um, the, the alcohol content of wine is part of our experience. Going to what you were saying in terms of the experience of wine, it's definitely part of the experience. But can you remove part of that experience and still enjoy it? I think it's possible, right? I think it's possible. Um, but, but who knows?

You know, I've tasted some Oregon News came out one year with a 9% alcohol.

That's already high for the no-low movement.

No, no, no, no. Yes, it wasn't. It was really— I think they're— they, they made it and then they stopped making it, but, um, it was a wine that they really wanted to bring out for Pesach. So that people with arbutus could drink and not, you know, get totally hammered by it. And, um, and it wasn't bad. It, it tasted like something was missing, to be quite honest, in the taste. It didn't— I'm not a— I don't, I don't drink wine for the buzz, right? In fact, it actually is in the way for me. It stops me from—

That's what Yehuda says, the same thing, right?

It stops me from being able to drink more wine. My wife is exactly the opposite. She drinks it for the buzz. When she gets the buzz, she's set. I don't need any more wine. I'm perfect. I feel very comfortable. But that's not— Me neither.

You know, I just wanted to just to A real-life story, as you know, I like to run. One of my favorite things, by the way, in Yerushalayim is to run around the Old City. We've talked about that a little bit. But one time I was doing a run, and it was a night run, and a place up by us, and we finished the run, and so you can't really see that much because it's at night. And we finished the run, and this place, they do a very nice thing. They put out food and drink and so on. It's a sponsored thing. Anyway, so somebody hands me something and he says, "Here, would you like a beer?" And I was like, "Sure, yeah, I just ran 15 kilometers. I'd like a beer." And I took a couple of sips of it, and I said to him exactly the same thing. I said to him, "What am I drinking? This tastes kind of—" off, which is funny for beer because it's only usually like 4 or 5% alcohol. I said, "Something's off about this," and then I looked up, it was the 00, you know, Heineken, you know, the 00. I said, "Wow, I could really taste the difference." It's fascinating because again, I'm not a huge beer person, but I do drink it, you know. So yeah, there's something to it. I think Nobody should be drinking wine to get drunk. That's definitely not— and if you are trying to get drunk, there's a lot of other things out there that you could drink much faster, much more efficiently.

Yeah, much more expensive. Yes.

Yeah, the whole thing. And I think the experience of wine, going back again to what you were talking about from a social point of view, and You know, there's one of the things that we've started, you know, sadly that we've started over the past few weeks, which is, you know, as again, I don't know when this will come out. Hopefully it'll have ended before then, but you know, we have, as you and I both know, 'cause we experienced it viscerally, we have, and talking about percentage terms, we have basically like half a percent of the country is drafted into the reserves right now, over 300,000 people who have now spent 5, 6 weeks away from their families and in all kinds of conditions. So we said, okay, well, as a winery, what can we do? What can we do so we can bring them wine? And you, oh, you didn't do the army here. You didn't do the army here. When you were younger, you didn't do the army here. No, no, no. So I had a very short short army service, but anybody who did do the army here knows that certainly years ago, the Rabbanut of the army did try and bring wine for kiddush to soldiers, but it was usually like the cheapest, worst possible wine you could find, which is where the expression of yayin patishim came from, which you might be familiar with.

I wasn't, but that's perfect. Hammer, hammer, hammer wine.

It is. Like really, really, really bad wine. Either you drink it and you feel hammered, or when you drink it, You feel it is like somebody is hitting a hammer, whatever, but it is really bad. Nobody— but it is for Kiddush, you know, that is the Kiddush wine expression. So we said, you know, what would have been better just to elevate that experience for soldiers? And we had two plugot, two units of reserve soldiers who were based at Khanaton. Khanaton became a, as it is called in Hebrew, a sheter chinous, an assembly point particularly for the north, because we are very close to the north, but we are not in range of day-to-day, hopefully, activities. So we had these two Pluggot that assembled at Chanukkah, but they did not know where they were going, so they were with us for a couple of weeks. And we realized they did not have wine for Kiddush for Shabbat. So first we invited them Friday afternoon, the winery was closed, We have been closed basically since the war started. But we said, you know, come, come Friday afternoon. And they came Friday afternoon, and we did a little wine tasting together, and it was just a moment of both joy and normalcy, you know, for these people who at that time had been away for 2 weeks from their family. And we saw the impact that it had on them and how much they appreciated it. So since then, for the past few weeks, we have been donating wine every Thursday, Friday. Mainly in the north, to soldiers in the north. This week we did an even more special thing. There's, as you know, sadly, been a lot of injured and worse, and people who have fallen. But the amount of injured, we forget what does it mean to be injured, right?

There's so many injured people. So many injured people. I know the deaths are high, but they are in, you know, thank God, they are in—

It is way too many.

It is way too many, but the people who are injured, we are talking about thousands of people. Exactly. Exactly.

So there is a unit of, there is a commando unit called Maglan, which kind of was an offshoot of Tanchanim. But there is a commando unit called Maglan, and we discovered because of how this, everything has played out, there are very high rate of injured people in Maglan. And there is a group of volunteers that just help the soldiers and the families of very injured soldiers from Maglan. And it is about 70 volunteers. Wow. And we just discovered that this week. And so we quickly put together a special label for them and delivered the wine today, or it is being delivered today, to the volunteers who are helping the Maglan unit. You know, very similar conversation we had before about Shmita, like how many circles, it is like, When you think of, yes, there are 300,000 people in reserves, but then how many families, how many businesses, how many everything? I mean, even just at our little winery, right? We had two of our cellarats, as it's called in Napa, right? Two of our assistants to the winemakers who were drafted. Our part-time CFO was drafted. So I have to step in. Like you asked me about my title before. My true title is Chief Wine Drinker. But I'm still an owner of the winery and I care. So the CFO is not around anymore. So I have to step in and say, oh yeah, I'm sorry, you haven't been paid in a month. I'll pay you. All kinds of things. You know, these, the circles, right? The circles of people. And you know, when you think about the wine industry in general, what I try and explain to people, everybody has their holy spot in the wine industry. You know, I got a little bit of a bad name again, because I'm usually the chutzpadek or the enfant terrible of the whatever. So, you know, whether it's, you know, why can't direct to consumer? Why can't this? Why can't that? I think everybody has their place, right, in this wider community. And if we all can work together, and I think that's what we're seeing in the country right now, when we work together, wow, you know.

It's so much better. It's so much better. It's so amazing to watch what people can do together. And it just elevates your neshamah, it elevates your soul to watch.

You know, when you look at the, going back to what we talked about again, because of the title of this podcast, the kosher terroir. So when you look again, when you sensitize people in a good way, right? And you think of, I don't know, how aware you are of this, how aware of this you are, all these restaurants in Tel Aviv who were, as my late father would say, glattreif, Yeah, who coshered their kitchens so they could make food that everybody could— they— that everybody could have. I can't—

I can't even talk about it because it makes me cry.

Yeah, yeah, it's, uh, look, it's, it's, you know, when we, when we use the expression, right, that's Avatrinam. And I think so good. Yeah, you know, you know There's an expression we know here in Eretz Yisrael, sadly, of a kfiat datit, of a forced religion. And forced religion never really works.

It can't. But God, it can't. It doesn't.

It just can't. So when you look at what happened with restaurants and wineries after the start, after October 7th, right? No one had to say anything to the wineries or to the restaurants that you should be closed. It's like driving on Yom Kippur. Right. There is no, people don't know that. There is no law against driving on Yom Kippur, just nobody does. Right. Right? So when you allow, you know, Am Yisrael to react in the way that they want to react and you don't put, So then they stand up and they're counted, you know, kadosh, kadosh, kadosh. So I think what we've seen over the past few weeks is a beautiful thing. We're trying to, you know, as I said, help out. I just got a, you know, we're doing it for soldiers because, you know, another one of my rabbeim called the soldiers the kadosh hakadoshim. It is true. It is true.

You know, if you have the opportunity to speak to a soldier, especially the soldiers who are on the front, ask them for a bracha. That is a much more chashuv, a much more important bracha than you can get from any rabbi. Any rabbi. Yeah. You know, it was a— One of the other rabbeim was talking recently, and he said, you know, that people are coming to Israel to visit Kvarim, to go around and visit, you know, all of these graves of famous rabbeim. And he said, Har Herzl.

Every one of those. Right. Yeah? But I got an email this morning, on the way here. Got an email this morning from a community that's— we talked about this a little bit before we started taping— the communities that have been evacuated from their homes. We're now going on 6 weeks, right? Communities have been evacuated from their homes. Like, what is it? Just imagine being homeless for 6 weeks, right? So, but one of these communities reached out and they said, They heard about this campaign we are doing for soldiers, and Yossi Horowitz is doing a campaign similarly for these communities that have been pushed out of their homes. Again, it is over 100,000 people who are homeless right now. I know.

There are a bunch of them around us.

Yeah, yeah. You know, in Chanaton, we have also from here and from there. Anyways, the community reached out, and they said, as a community, you know, they reached out. And they said, we really, really, you know, would love some quality wine for Shabbat. We just, we're, we just can't, we're really, we apologize, we just can't pay. We're like down to the whatever. If you could, if you could donate, you know, some wine. So of course I said yes, but you know, the need, right, is like enormous. And to be able to bring And I think that is, you know, if we talk about wine, you know, what is the one life cycle event in Jewish life that we do not use wine? Death. Right. When we are burying someone. Because wine is about celebrating life. Judaism in general is about celebrating life. Yeah, it does not celebrate death. Respect for death. Right. Kavod Hamet. Yeah. Kavod Hamet. Right. But not celebrating death. And so in the ethos of celebrating life, right, there are 100,000 people who are homeless who just want to have a sense of normalcy for Shabbat. Right? Right. So, you know, if we can as a community, again, we're not, we're not You know, we're a tiny little winery. I'm talking about as a community, as an industry. If we can react to that, you know, there was a beautiful group from Texas of evangelical Christians. You know, and I always say, somebody loves me, first of all I love them back. Afterwards we can talk about, you know, if we have ideological differences. If somebody comes to me and says, "I love you," I say, "I love you back." So they're also wine lovers, and they've been, uh, start— they started a wine club and they're sending out our wines and other Israeli wines for the past couple years. Uh, everything that was happening, they raised money and they came to Israel from Texas, and they came to Israel and they were running around to, to donate wine both to soldiers and to, and to, to refugees, to displaced communities. And they said, can we buy some of your wine? We've raised this money. I said, you know what, our wine's kind of expensive and we're donating already. And if you want to support that, support that. But you know, I want your money that is kadosh, mamash. You know, like you're coming, let's stretch it out as much as we can. So I introduced them to my good friend Adav Ahrens, the CEO of Carmel. Who have some beautiful wines, you know, but they're cheaper. They're less expensive. They're less expensive. I said, talk to Nadav. Nadav immediately, boom, they went and they were able to use their budget and buy wines for it. So I think as a community, we need to, you know, come together and remember that there are literally, I mean, it's an unfathomable number, over 100,000 people, who this Shabbat will be now their 5th or 6th Shabbat.

Yeah, we have a family coming to us from Sderot who is living nearby. I think they have 10 kids and they're living in one of the houses nearby. We have a family from, um, Silver Spring, who have literally a house, two houses here, one for them and one for their kids, here in Yemin Moshe, and they have got either 5 or 6 families living in them from the Tivot. It is unbelievable. The whole of Yemin Moshe, I mean, there are people who who live here part-time. And they have reached out to all of these people, and many, many of the houses have been taken over by families or clusters of families. Like you have, you know, brother, sister, what have you, and all of them together. The ones who have taken over this other house from the Tivot, there is like, 16, 20 of them that are, they are all close. They are all from Netivot, from the same group and what have you. It is an incredible experience. People keep calling me and saying, "You know, we really, we are praying for you and we feel sorry for you and what have you." And the Jews are saying that to me. I really say to them, like, you know, I'll tell you something. It's incredible being here when everybody's so united. It's such a pleasure. It's unbelievable to see this. It's unbelievable to experience it. And it was a lot more difficult for me 3 months ago. It was just terrible for me 3 months ago.

So it's such a pleasure to speak with you today. As we say, let's go weiter.

I know, I know, 100%. I agree with you. And it wasn't, it was, you know, these are friends on all sides. And we have so many feelings and we have feelings that are so strong that it's really quite remarkable.

Yeah. I think— So I was going to ask you about the war, but you— I preempted you.

Which is very good. That was exactly where I wanted to go anyway.

Yeah. No, I said to somebody, I was on a call yesterday. There's a beautiful initiative here in Jerusalem, which I've just been blessed to be like a bystander, kind of, I'm a board member, but I don't really have to do anything. I just lent my name to it. It's the perfect type of board responsibility. So it's called the Jerusalem Youth Chorus, and through song, usually a very spiritual song, they bring together all the different communities of Jerusalem, East, West, da da da da da. It's a really wonderful initiative. And we were on a call, it was a board call of the Jerusalem Youth Chorus, and people were talking about sides, and I said, I said, gosh, I just have to stop you for a second. I said, we're all on the same side. Nobody on this call is on a different side, right? We all celebrate life. That's it. Like, we're all, you know, and we all in our different ways, you know, are praying for peace X times a day, whether it's 3 times or 5 times or whatever, one time. We're all praying for peace. Like, we're all on the same side. There's nobody here who's on a different side. So let's stop using that language, right? And we're all on the same side. It's so hard. But yeah, we keep, you know, reminding ourselves of that. And of course, there was a beautiful moment with somebody who I didn't know yet who was on the call. She said, I don't know you, but I love your wine. Isn't that great? Thank you. Thank you. All I can ask for is, you know, people always say to me, you know, I'm sure you've heard this before. And I said, you know, going back to my kids, right? I have 7 kids. And I know you have, you know, similar experience. I said, I have 9. I'm saying, I know, I'm saying you have similar experience in terms of people talking about your kids. So I'm like, it never gets old. Tell me, tell me how much you, how great my kids are. Yeah, of course. Yeah. I don't, Tell me again. You know, you want to tell me you love my wine? Great. It never gets old. It always sounds fresh. It always sounds new. And happy to— always happy to hear it. You know, the only other thing I wanted to say about— not really the kind of the war, leave that aside for— the war part aside for a moment, but, you know, The going in terms of kiddush for Shabbat and families or soldiers or anybody, right? There's a, a great line from a Hadag Nahash song. Uh, do you know Hadag Nahash?

I know exactly. He, his father used to live on the street, so yes, yes.

I know there's a great line from Hadag Nahash, Yom Shishi Yagiya. Yeah. Um, which you don't need to say more than that, right, in a, in a, in a Jewish country. When I say Jewish country, I mean a Jewish flavor country, right? The Jewish flavor country.

You don't have to I'm just saying more than an Israeli.

It doesn't make a difference. Yom Shishi Yagia, right? And there's an expectation, right? And when that expectation isn't met, I think people feel a sense of loss. Yeah. Um, even if they didn't know, right? Even if they did. And so for me, uh, well, I, you know, I enjoy wine every day. People always ask me, oh, do you drink wine every day? And I say, well, with God's help, usually I do. Thank God. You know, I'm saying thank God I don't drink that much. Maybe I have a half a glass, whatever. But yeah, I do. I do drink wine almost every day. And, you know, as you know, there was a period of time where I wasn't allowed because of medical issues. I wasn't allowed to drink wine for 6 months, and that was difficult. But, you know, but yeah, usually every day. And, uh, but there's nothing the same as Yom Shishi Hagia, you know, everybody sitting down together. And, and then, you know, whether you say kiddush like this or you say kiddush like that, whatever, there's nothing like that. So I think that is something we need to, um, you know, and I think one of the more powerful things— I don't know if you've— I know they have it here in Yerushalayim. I went to the one in Tel Aviv which is the Shabbat table that's been set up for all of the hostages. And the powerful thing for me, and from this I also started to cry, but the powerful thing for me when I saw it in Tel Aviv a week ago Friday, was that you had closed bottles of wine on the table.

Right? Wow. Yep.

So, you know, our only blessing should be that they should get opened up and everybody should come home and be able to say kiddush together.

Thank you. Sure. It's a pleasure to have had you on the Kosher Teruah. I look forward to in the future as well.

Yeah, um, we got to change the name to the Jewish Teruah, but otherwise I know.

You know, somebody asked me a question. So, this is over the top of what we were discussing. Somebody asked me a question recently that, "You mean wine actually isn't like Coke? You don't make it like Coca-Cola, what have you?" And I said, "No." And as we were discussing the types of flavors in certain wines, he said, yeah, but okay, so it's like Coke, you add those flavors and what have you. And I said, no, you don't. They come from the terroir. They come from the terroir for sure. They come from the surround. And he said, he just like was stunned. And he looked at me and he said, you mean there's a difference between wine that's grown in Israel and wine that's grown other places in the world? And I said, yeah, right. And he goes, you mean when I buy a wine from Israel and I drink it, I'm actually tasting Israel?

I mean, I mean, yeah, drink Israel.

I said, do it. Hashtag, hashtag, drink Israel.

Yeah, no, it's time now more than ever.

It's time to buy Israeli wine. Amen. Shalom u'bracha. Thank you. Good shabbos. Thank you. Thank you. This is Simon Jacob again, your host of today's episode of The Kosher Teruah. 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. And whenever possible, buy and share Israeli wine. I hope you have enjoyed this episode of The Kosher Terroir. It was exciting and informative for me as well. 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. The Kosher Teruah is also available on the Nachum Segal Network at 6:30 PM New York time Thursday evening, and on the world-famous NSN app. Again, thank you for listening to The Kosher Teruah.