Exclusive First Taste: Shiloh's Bold Move into Tannat and Pinot Noir

Welcome to The Kosher Teruah.

I'm Simon Jacob, your host for this episode from Jerusalem. Before we get started, I ask that wherever you are, please take a moment and pray for the safety of our soldiers and the safe return of all of our hostages. Welcome back to another exciting episode of The Kosher Terroir. Today I've got something truly special to share with you. Just a couple of weeks ago, after our Tenat episode, I received a call from none other than Amichai Luria from Shiloh Winery. He invited me to taste two brand new wines that are so fresh they haven't even hit the market yet. We're talking about a single varietal Tenat, and a long-anticipated Pinot Noir from Shiloh's Secret Reserve line. If you're driving in your car, please focus on the road ahead. If you're relaxing at home, please open a wonderful bottle of kosher wine, sit back, relax, and join me as we dive into this exclusive tasting with Itay from the winery and explore the craftsmanship and passion behind these new releases. You won't want to miss this.

So Itay, we're sitting in the Shiloh Visitor Center.

New Visitor Center.

Brand new Visitor Center that's so beautiful. It's absolutely spectacular. And I'm here with my son Ovadia and his wife Leila, and we came specifically because Amichai told us that they had bottled 2 new special vintages, a Pinot Noir that's very, that's really special, and also the first Tannat. And I did a podcast a few weeks back specifically about Tannat, and I hadn't even known that Amihai was going to make a Tannat.

Yeah, we also didn't know until a few months ago that we're gonna release —wine, Tannat wine. Yeah, it's a variety. We saw it is going to be a part of our blends. Yeah. And most of this batch goes to another blends in the winery. Yeah. Which blend does it go into? It goes to also to the Privilege and also because it makes it stronger. And also to the Adino, a few drops inside this blend. But we felt that it's really, it's not okay to remove it off the table. We need to keep few barrels and make maybe for our experience just to see how it's going, how it's gonna be, what, what is going to be with that vintage, and also how it's gonna aging, right? Because of that, we did kind of research wine, right? And we very, very happy of the results. I can say that we upgrade its barrels just few months before the bottling. To make kind of kick-up to the wine with specific American oak barrels.

I was going to ask you this.

It makes the work. Yeah. Yeah.

Wow. Okay. I know it's the most tannic of all the grapes. Yeah. That's out there, but if you make it well, you can reduce the tannic content and it can be really good.

Of the I can say that in the first time, first season of the aging, the first part of the aging, we, Ankhai, actually make the decision to put it in second or third use barrels. Yeah. To make the tough tannins, let them low down. Yeah, reduce them. Because we wanted to lose the tannin levels to see another layer of the wine. Because it's like, it's like to remove a cover of the— when you drink very tannic wine, you can't see after. So we made around plus minus 12 barrels, and we just left for the bottling just 4. Okay. So we have around 1,000 bottles. That's it from this wine. Very, very interesting wine, I think. Very greeny, like Amichai. Amichai, his policy wines as a winemaker, he like greeny wines. Okay. Not all of the customers like it too, but when you give him the permission to do what he wants and what he like as a winemaker.

He likes it to be green.

This is the result.

He likes it to be more green. Yeah. This was actually harvested when?

It's harvested 2023. 2023. With most of our secret reserve wines. Right. That we release this summer. Also, if we're talking about the Pinot Noir, it's also from that year. Was a very difficult year because in the middle of the season, the harvest season, 90% of the employees here are left to the war. Also me. And it was just Amichai. As you know, I'm his son. And Aaron, the winemaker. And one second after Simchat Torah, there was here three, just three workers, really workers here, because the other five left to the war.

Went back into Niliim, went back.

Yeah, yeah, we, we, we started to come back just middle of January. Yeah, we started to come back.

Wow. So tell me, which one should we taste first?

I think we can taste the Tannat first because I think it prepares us to the Pinot Noir. Because if the Tannat is greeny, the Pinot Noir is extra greeny, also with the aromas and The flavors are much, much important. I want you to compare, of course, also the aromas and also the flavor and the color too. As you can see, it's much lighter than the Tanat, also because of the grapes. And this is lovely.

Yeah, this is great. I hope so. Really nice.

I hope so.

This is really nice. Really nice. I can taste it, you know, it definitely has the tannins. It has strong tannins, but it's been subdued. It's pretty elegant.

The idea behind the switch with the barrels is also to to break the sharp corners, if you mean what I say, with the tannins and with the flavors that we want to clean from this wine. Because of that, in the end of the process, we put it in American oak that is a little bit spicy, spicy oak. That when you put it, when you put the wine inside, it's a lot of cases it's breaking sharp, the sharp corner. Sharp corners. Yeah. Sharp edges. Edges. Right. Wow, it's amazing. It's very beautiful and I think unique color if we compare it to another brands in Chile winery. It's much It's much more purple. Deep red purple.

It's deep red purple. Yeah, yeah.

You can see on the lips of the wine, it's phenomenal. Yeah, not even sign of oxygen.

Yeah, of oxidation. Yeah, yeah, it's beautiful. And I'm glad you made this as a varietal. It's really cool as a varietal, as its own.

It's a very interesting wine. It's a very interesting grape. The whole process when you're talking about Pinot Noir or Tannat or different varieties of grapes that we made it for the first time. It's every time is reaching us with an experience with different thing because we know how to make good Cabernet with good grapes of Cabernet. And when we giving in, when we taking another varieties, it's much more complicated because We don't know what to do and how to do it right. I think we've got here a balanced wine with the tiny dominant acidities, but it's still on the balance level. Yeah, it's definitely balanced. With a medium, medium body, I think. And this is really where the Tannat is supposed to be with medium body and not with full body, because like the tannins, when you taste Tannat, if it's with full body or extra tannins, it covers different flavors that you can't get if you leave it like this. When we do a kind of winemaking test, we try to make it like the extreme, extreme level of safety of this grape. Because of that, for example, it's a good example for the winemaking process that we— every spot on the timeline of this wine, we leave it just with himself. Because when we, when we learn another or new variety, a new grape, we want to see how it's going. And if we're gonna blend it with another grapes and other wines, as we're doing all the time, you know, if I want to fix acidity, acidity level, I can mix a few drops of Barbera, for example, to fix it. It's the— I think it's the best way to fix things at the wine. But here, because we want to learn what we have and what we need to do, we separate it totally. So we keep the Tanat away of the— even if most of the cases we do some blends, here we wanted to keep it to keep it out.

And the other one we're tasting is the new Pinot Noir.

Pinot Noir, for the first time. 2023. Also for the first time in Cilla Winery, these grapes. We never made harvest of this grape. And from the harvest, Amichai, of course, worked at the vineyards. The few months that before harvest, he made his homework about this grape. When we collect it to the winery, it was really exciting because, as everyone knows, that Pinot Noir is an elegant, dominant, very legendary grape. Like, few cases when we mess with, with the, with new grape, we want to keep it like the grape supposed to be, like the wine supposed to be. Of course, when we learn a new wine, it's the same way like the Tanat. We separate it to the others, the other wines, and we keep it natural. Natural. We try to make the minimum difference when we make it to see the real results. It's like a lab test because We want to see how it's going, what it's going to be. How did it come out from your perspective?

Meaning, is this what it's supposed to look like? Is this close?

I tell you what, before, a few weeks ago, 2 months ago, we brought here a few winemakers from the area, from Israel, to taste very, very big Pinot Noir taste. We brought more than 12 brands of Pinot Noir. 5 from Israel, 2 of us, 2 samples of our Pinot Noir with final blend and with good barrels, and also another 5 brands from Israel. And we tasted it, talked about it, negotiation also, of course, about the flavors, about the taste, about the aromas. I think our two samples was definitely in the top 5, and it wasn't the big Pinot Noir they ever tested, but it was a real Pinot Noir and also very surprising aromas. Yeah, the aromas is— So this color— One of the winemakers Said it's a cannabis aroma.

Yeah, I don't know that I smell that, but I definitely get totally different aromas than I get from, you know, sort of the stronger, fuller-bodied.

Yeah, this is the color.

Yeah, this is the color of Pinot Noir. This is the color you want. It's a light color. It's perfect. And because of the color and the body, we— it was hard decision if we can stable it as a Secret Reserve brother. Right. Because all of the brothers in this edition of the Secret Reserve are at least medium, medium-plus body and full colors, strong aromas, and very elegant wines. Also. Here is the case that we decided to put inside, to put it in the Secret Reserve Edition, because it was so special and so elegant wine that we cannot ignore it. We have to put it in the Secret Reserve Edition. It's the first time that we changed the bottle, the glass bottle, in this series because we're using basically just for the Bordeaux type of the bottle, and here we cannot do it. This is a Burgundy bottle. Yeah, it's, it's one of the Bourgogne variety, of course. So we, we needed to do it. I think it's, it's a very interesting wine, a lot of layers of flavors, and when you leave it in the glass for 30 minutes, you can feel different flavors. Very cool. It's really not a Shilo type wine. It's totally different from everything we did until now. Both of them? Yeah, both of the wines. But the Tannat, I can make the connection with— the fruit is still— yeah, it's still very fruity and it's still round. It's still deep red. It's still with kind of medium body, and it's still Shilo's signature. Yeah. The Pinot Noir, we hope it will be Shilo's signature too, but it's not our regular wines.

I could taste this without the label and tell you that's a Shilo wine, so 100%.

Okay, it's good.

No, but the Pinot is really lovely. Yeah, we're drinking it straight from opening it. So actually, I'm sure it's going now.

And as we told, it's one of the best varieties to aging, to a long aging. Even if you speak about Israel as warm country, warm weather, a lot of varieties, a lot of grapes are not supposed to be aging for I don't know, decades. But here, as also Shivi Dori, the Gvaut winemaker, told us, it's a good potential. It's a very good potential, specific in our Pinot Noir. He tasted also, and he said this is with a good potential for, uh, for aging, for a long aging. We hope, right? Amazing. I can say about the Pinot Noir also is The decision of the barrels in the process of winemaking, the decision about the barrels is, I think, maybe the second big decision. Which kind of barrels, what is the toasting level with the barrel, if we want full toasting barrels or without the huts, the sides. And here we decide to put in very, very delicate and elegant and low level of toasting because we wanted to see—

you want the fruit to express itself—

what we have, what we really have without flavors from the barrels or from another varieties. We want to see the pure Pinot Noir, what we have, and I think the result is very interesting and also pure Pinot Noir because of that.

It's complex, it has a lot of different flavors going on, it's very enjoyable, especially if you let it air a little bit, and it's really beautiful. It's got all sorts of layers in it. It's really good. I love this.

And what I also like in, in this wine that the aroma so strong, when you taste it, you are confusing. Yeah, because it's kind of game. It's kind of game. You, you smell like strong aroma, and when you taste it, it's so— it's, it's a tiny, tiny, tiny flavors that you, you need to research in your mouth. This is one of the, one of the big reasons that I like to drink this wine because it's, it's kind of game. I drink, I drink wine all the time, wines all the time, and this game, I can say it's a kind of game to smell one thing and taste something different. I very like it, and I, I can find it in other wines also, also with Ciro wines and also with different wineries that I tasted. I think this, this brain game also makes this wine very unique.

I'm even almost picking up like a mint scent, right? Mint, eucalyptus.

Yeah, yeah, eucalyptus. Yeah, this is the— and when we tasted on the barrels, it was stronger, and I liked it so much because it's, it's really different thing. But our winemaker that we talked about it, Amichai himself, also was not so sure that the customers also going to like it because it's so different than the other two wines, right? It's maybe too much different. So we decided to mix the whole batch together with the barrels, and it's made the aroma a little bit lower. It's taken it lower. It's still, it's still there, but it was much stronger.

Overwhelming, yeah.

Okay, it's a delightful aroma, really. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was.

You're right, the aroma is powerful. The flavors are subtle, but the aroma is powerful.

Yeah, yeah, I think this is one of the brilliant things in this wine.

I like the flavors, the fruit is still there. It's strawberry. It's beautiful fruit and it's very light.

Not— it's not a ripe fruit, right?

It's much lighter, but it's not like it's diluted. It's not an anemic wine. Yeah, it's, it's, it's very pronounced fruit and it's just very elegant. It's really nice.

Do you harvest these grapes at a different point in the maturity cycle, or are there, you know, This vineyard, yeah, it's a specific vineyard that came here just for one year because we asked for a favor from one of our growers. It's to see if we want to plant and to buy Pinot Noir. If we didn't know if we like the wine. We didn't know how it's gonna be. So what's the Moscana? I think the Moscana is— Good job. We're gonna do it. Yeah, we're gonna do it. Definitely want to do it. I think this kind of flavor, the— I can say it's this style of wines, yeah, are— we are missing it because Shilo wines known as big bombastic wines. And we want to say that, yeah, we know, we know how to make also very elegant, light but not anemic wines. Pinot Noir is a good example for that.

It's really interesting. It's really Both of these are like a special tour de force of trying to do something new at Shiloh. And it's— they're beautifully— they're really nicely on the path.

I think when Amichai decided to collect new grapes to the winery for our research to make the best wine that we can get, we all the time try to to build ourselves as students and not as winemakers that know everything, right? And when Amichai try new thing, he's not afraid to, to ask another people and other winemakers and other lab people that know better than him what we need to do, what we do, what we doing wrong, what we doing right. And what we need to do different. I think this point is one of best thing that winemaker can decide to ask another people and not afraid to fail. But nobody want to fail. Fail, right.

But if you don't ask people that did it before, Yeah, no, you know, I'm going back to this, to not now, and the aromas coming off of it are just crazy.

Yeah, and before we bottle it, before we decided to bottle it, of course we make full taste of Tanat wines. It was difficult to get, to even get any.

Yeah, I know there's only a few in this Yeah, yeah.

So we tasted 3 or 4 or even 5 samples of Tannat wines. 2 of them was a blends with 90% and above of Tannat wines and Tannat grapes. But it was very interesting and learning thing to see what the result can be.

I've tasted maybe 3 Tanats, and this is really amazing. It's really delicious.

I think our mistake was a good mistake to make the decision to put it in old barrels basically and not in new, because if we put it in new barrels of the start, the start of the beginning of the process, as we actually doing in this level wines, I think we was losing a lot of aromas and taste that came out right now. And if we put it in another style of barrels, I think it was a mistake.

It would have been a mistake. It was a mistake.

So our real mistake to put in an old barrels was Successfully. Successful. I tasted it one more time and it's different now.

I know, it's very—

it's different now.

The Pinot Noir is different now. The Pinot Noir is different.

Also the Pinot and also the Tannat.

Because they're opening up now. We drank them very early after we opened them, but now—

yeah, it's— I think it's with the Tannat. I can smell now a kind of a nuts aroma. It's stronger now. Yes.

Well, Amichai did say, I think on your podcast, that you're supposed to open it for several days. He said open it up Thursday night or something and drink it throughout Shabbat and Vayakhda L'atz.

I don't know if he was talking about these two, but yes, you could try that with this easily, easily.

You will take these bottles with you? Yeah, I would love to. And taste it in the evening? I would love to. And the day after?

They're amazing. Yeah. Thank you, thank you. No problem. Anytime.

My pleasure. Amazing. I think it's going to be better at the evening. Take it, taste it, and let us know what you think. Thank you.

Thank you for being on the Kosher Terroir. These are not just like picking up a bottle of Cabernet and drinking it. These have such interesting flavors and expressions with them. For a person who wants to taste different wines, and is excited about the experience, these are two wines that they definitely have to taste because it's really different and though elegant and lovely and complex. Yeah, they're complex. There's so many tastes. Yeah.

That you get going on here. It's a wine for wine lovers. Yeah.

Yeah, it's a— it definitely is a wine lover's wine, both of them. It's not a— it's— this is not a—

it's not just for drinking. I think it's not— not— and also it's not— I think is the better way to, to taste it, it's not with a meal. It's just— you could just taste this and, and you can find along of the taste, you can find different flavors that came out with the oxygen. I think it's what make it very unique Interesting and wine for wine lovers.

Toda! Amazing! Toda! Thank you, thank you!

No problem!

Please tune in again next week for part 2 of of our episode with Nadav Jesselson and the Anava Vineyard. This is Simon Jacob again, your host of today's episode of The Kosher Terroir. I have a personal request. No matter where you are or where you live, Please take a moment to pray for our soldiers' safety and the safe and rapid return of our hostages. Please subscribe via your podcast provider to be informed of our new episodes as they are released. If you are new to The Kosher Teruah, please check out our many past episodes.