Gideon Marcus - Where Terroir Meets Identity And Courage

Welcome to the Kosher Teruah.

I'm Simon Jacob, your host for this episode from Jerusalem. Before we get started, no matter where you are, please take a moment to pray for the safe return home of all our soldiers, and the full return of all the remains of our hostages. If you're driving in your car, please focus on the road ahead. If you're relaxing at home, please open a delicious bottle of kosher wine and pour a glass, sit back and relax. Today's conversation is with someone who represents the next chapter of the kosher wine story. Gideon Marcus was born and raised on Manhattan's West Side in a family that loved wine around the Shabbat table. A post-college trip with his friend led him almost by accident into California's vineyards, to Covenant Winery, and into the deep end of hands-on winemaking. From there, he didn't just fall in love with wine, He chose it as a way to build a life in Israel. In this episode, you'll hear how a 23-year-old Ole is stitching together 3 big journeys at once: Aliyah, professional winemaking, and the ongoing education of his palate and mind. We talk about working harvest at Covenant, learning from people like Jeff Morgan, Jonathan Hajju and Sagi Kleinlerer. Then bringing that experience to Israel, to Shilo Winery with celebrated winemaker Amichai Luria, and then to the Negev with visionary winemaker Yaakov Oria. We also get into deeper questions. What does it mean to make wine in a desert that swings from scorching days to cold nights? How do science, data, and intuition actually dance together in the cellar? And how does it feel to return to Israel after October 7th and try to build a future here, one vintage at a time, in a country that has clearly changed? It's a conversation about terroir. Yes, soil, climate, vineyards. but also about identity, risk, and the courage to start early and aim high. Pour yourself something you love and join me in my car as I sit down with winemaker in the making, olé, and all-around thoughtful human being, Gideon, or Gidon Marcus.

Tell me, how do you pronounce your name? Gidon or Gideon?

So when I introduce myself in English, I say, hi, my name is Gideon. But when Hebrew, I say, shalom kol mikidon.

Call you?

Gidon.

Gidon.

But really, I go by both, 50-50, and at this point, I don't even know who calls me what. It's pretty ubiquitous, so it's fine. So, whichever is—

No, no, no, Gidon is great. My name is Simon Jacob, so inevitably people call me Jacob Simon, or it's actually Solomon Simon Jacob. So take your pick. I answer to all of the names because inevitably somebody will call me by one of them, but, you know, typically not in the right order.

So yeah, and usually in the non-Jewish world, people sometimes think my name is Marcus Gideon.

Okay.

But that's not so often, once in a while.

So your family is from where?

So my fam— like we're talking grandparents' family or, you know, my parents. My parents. Both grew up— well, my dad grew up in Manhattan, in New York. Grew up in Staten Island and was born in Brooklyn. And my mom grew up in New Jersey and they moved to the West Side when they got married and they've been living there for a very long time. And that's where I was born and raised for most of my life. And then both my parents did make Aliyah a few years back, but it was very scattered as far as like the progression of it. Because I had come to Israel when I was 17 first, and then I came by myself, and then after my parents came, but first my dad and then my mom because of work, and it was a whole mess. But slowly everyone started to make their way here, and everyone's here but my older brother who lives on the West Side still.

Wow. What did your father do?

He still works. He works in computers, and my mom's a lawyer. So for him, it was a lot easier to do like remote type work or to make that work. For my mom, still not so easy, but figuring it out. So constant effort. Corporate law. Corporate law.

It's a bit challenging.

Yeah. That's kind of why at 17 or whatever, originally at 17, but now at 23, there is, it's good to do it now and make a career here. Even if that involves, you know, something in the US, whatever, but to be based here from the start, as opposed to having to jump through the hoops that a lot of people, I see a lot of my friends' parents need to do.

Right.

You know, it's a tough thing sometimes.

There's an old saying, either you suffer through Aliyah or your kids suffer through Aliyah.

Yeah.

You know, that's the deal.

Yeah, it's interesting. On one hand, it really is. I think suffer is a somewhat appropriate term. But on the other hand, it's a privilege to, I think, be the one to make Aliyah as opposed to like, obviously, if I was born here, things would be different and smoother in a lot of ways. But I actually really like the journey, and with its struggle and all, it's a privilege. So I'm very fortunate.

I agree with you a thousandfold. I am really—

I—

you know, of all the generations, all the previous generations who all dreamt of making Aliyah, dreamt of even a chance chance to get to Israel, and here I am.

Yeah, pretty— and, and, and living pretty well too. Yeah, like, that's the thing is we're here and doing— like, for me at least, speaking for myself, very happy and doing a lot of really cool stuff and have a lot of, you know, good opportunity in the future, at least I hope so. Yeah, and it could be worse.

So how did you get interested in wine?

It's a good question. So it's there Partly, I'd always enjoyed drinking wine, just growing up in a family that likes wine. I'm sure, as you know, and you've met a bunch of people, there's different levels of like wine, you know? I guess there's different levels to like everything. Some people, they really enjoy it. They can be like, oh, I like this, I don't like this, and that's about it, which is great. Nothing wrong with that. So I kind of just grew up around a lot of wine, Shabbat primarily, and I always liked drinking it, but I wouldn't say more than that. And after I graduated college, a good friend of mine, Shalom, we decided to go on a road trip together. So he just graduated nursing school and we had some time. I was making Aliyah, I had a few months until my Aliyah date. He was starting a job, he had some time. So we went on this road trip and it was just him and I and a small Hyundai Tucson and a lot of camping and hiking and just exploring America. And it was really beautiful. And when we got to California, it gets to a point on a road trip where you can't plan. We were on the road for months. 2 months. So you don't really plan what you're doing the next day. You kind of just wake up in the morning, get somewhere, and figure it out. So we had drove in from California, from Oregon, and we just started passing all these vineyards. And I'm like, oh yeah, California's wine country. Like, you— we were in a different state. I wasn't even thinking about it yesterday. And I knew of Covenant and like Jonathan Hady's wines just from, like I said, growing up on the West Side. A lot of people love Covenant and Hady as well. And he even has like a sort of cult following, I'd call it, in the world of wine, which is pretty cool. Definitely does.

Yeah.

And so I was like, okay, let's— I knew someone who had his phone number. He's a friend of mine from the West Side, a family friend. So he sent me his number, called him up. I said, hey, like we're only in the area for like 3 days, but if there's a day that like we could come by and do a tasting, we'd love to learn some, drink about some, and learn some wine and— sorry, drink some wine and learn about it.

Right.

And we showed up. He actually wasn't there that day. He was on a hiking trip with some friends, but they had some other people at Covenant, people that worked with Jonathan. We did some tastings and we had a great time. And during the conversation, Nelly, who formerly was working at Covenant, so he told me, he's like, this is actually my last day here, like my last week, and Harvest is starting and they're looking for Harvest intern and I'm leaving. And so it's a whole mess.

Nelly came back already?

Nelly's back. Yeah. I believe is working at Zupperberg.

Okay. But yes, right. That was where he wanted to go.

Yeah.

Right.

I think that's what ended up happening. Yeah. And he kind of just was mentioning, yeah, people are looking, we're looking for a harvest intern. And I was like, you know, this would be a great opportunity to learn more about something that I've always enjoyed my whole life. And I'm just, my personality is, if I like something, I really like getting into the nitty-gritty and learning it ad the sof, if something really interests me. So I was like, that sounds like a great opportunity. And I was fortunate to really start learning and working at Covenant because it was— I really don't think I could have had a better place to start learning and working with wine, learning about and working with wine. And yeah, then I really just fell in love with it. And I was like, I love doing this. This is something I want to see if I can take it to be something else and obviously continue to learn more. And that's what I'm doing now. And I was like, Israel is a great place to do that. Obviously very strong wine culture here, and that's how I got here. That's what I'm doing today.

So I was wondering, one of my questions was going to be, you know, have you worked with Nelly?

So I never worked with him, but he did give me my tour in Covenant and sold it pretty well because it made me want to work there. But yeah, no, we just had like a friendly conversation and drank some wine together, and that was about it.

So what did you do in Covenant?

Well, as you know, it's a small team, especially because of the breakdown of the Shomer Shabbat staff of the winery to the not. So I'd say there's like 9 people or so as a whole, kind of a daily basis, maybe a little less. And there's only 4, including myself, there were only 4 people who are really able to touch the wine. And then on a given day, there might be 3 who are really, really involved in, let's say, at least in the harvest, it was like that. And then the other person might be doing another job. That day. So I was really fortunate to basically do everything there was to do with the winemaking process in the harvest. Like, there almost wasn't a thing I didn't get to do, or, well, yeah, or learn how to do, at least on a basic level while I was there. So from A to Z, from when grapes coming in, obviously not starting in the vineyard. I went to visit, I even got to do that a few times with Jeff, which is really cool, but no picking, just winemaking and pressing and all that. And yeah, pretty much from auditions to showing up at the winery on Saturday nights and after, you know, Chagim to make sure everything's okay and topping off. And yeah, it was, I really got to like be, like they gave me keys to the winery and they said, we're putting you in charge of a lot of stuff.

Cool.

So it was a great, great opportunity.

Very cool.

Couldn't have been better. I rated it an A++.

You just continued your plans to make Aliyah? Had you delayed them or something because of the winery? Or you hadn't made a decision to make Aliyah until after you started at Covenant?

So I did actually delay them for about a month, I think it was. I kind of, I planned to make Aliyah, I don't remember exactly what the dates were, but about a month or two before I started, pretty much right when I would have finished my trip. And because I had this opportunity, I said, you know, what's, I have my whole life to live in Israel and I'm excited to do so, but let me take this really unique opportunity, push it off. I think it was like a month or two and I even considered pushing it off more. But at a certain point I caught myself and I said, you know what, like Israel's got wine too. I'm going to start to do it over there. But I really loved working there and learning there. And it was an excellent, excellent place.

Ari Erle used to make the Covenant wines in Israel. And he's up in Bat Shlomo. So he's another Covenant connection.

Yeah, I've heard a lot of cool things about him. I haven't met him yet. I think I was put in touch with him recently by Jeff. So it's been one thing I've also, more than just getting to work at Covenant, kind of meeting, getting introduced, you included, with a lot of people in the Israel wine world through Jeff has really been stellar. Like, it's a pretty, I don't think you could be asked to be set up with better, better networking potential, at least just showing up, because it's a small world and it's a lot about just getting to meet the right people. And not only in a business sense, just, you know, just connecting to the people who have similar mindsets and are interested in similar things. So it's very lucky.

You also want to get involved with a winemaker who is willing to teach.

For sure.

One has, you know, there are certain winemakers who are really, really creative, really good. They're really always looking at new things and they're willing to be open and teach. That's one of the things that's special about Yacov Horia. He is, he's really creative.

I think to work in the Negev, you have to be to a certain degree, right? Right. It's kind of sort of uncharted territory.

Yeah, but you're right. You're 100% right. It is. It's unusual to even think about it, um, making wine in the Negev. But the thing that's also cool with it is the things that make wine complex, complex and special. One of the things is the temperature differences between the warm days and the cool nights. Cold nights.

Hot days, I guess.

And there isn't a more extreme situation that I know of than the desert. You know, you think the desert is hot during the night. It is not at all. It gets very cool at night, typically, and it's pretty roasty during the day. So you get that extreme, and if you can, if you can harness it and not lose the grapes in between the swings, you can get some really interesting stuff. So, Yaakov's also done some crazy things. Like, he has a— I don't know, do you know about his wines at all?

I know I've had some of them. I know that he really makes a lot of orange wine.

He used to. He used to. He makes some, but it's not, it's not really— he makes some. That has been a trademark, and it's also been a pathfinder for him to try other things that are interesting. Me, M-E, which is really not M-E as in me, it's multiple expressions.

I assume—

what?

Memud, like me? Oh, multiple expressions. Oh, it's an acronym.

M-E. It's M-E on the label, and it's multiple expressions. And, and the reason it is, is because I think it's now up to 13 different fermentations. He does 13 different— takes the same grapes from the same— well, not the same grapes, but the same plots in the vineyard. Some of them have more exposure, some have less exposure to sun, to radiation, solar radiation. He ferments them with different yeasts in different batches. And he has, I think the latest one is 13 different fermentations, you know, and then he blends them. Okay? Into one wine. That's nuts. Okay? That is absolutely nuts. You know, it's exactly the opposite of what you try to do if you're trying to make money at making wine.

It's a lot of work for one bottle of wine.

It's like unbelievable.

Sure.

But he— he makes these wines that are just— crazy. Fantastic. That just really special.

That's one of the things without even knowing him personally and only really knowing him through some of his wines that I've seen, and even some of the ones that aren't maybe as crazy as, as the Mi wine, you know, that he has a lot of stuff that not only is just different but it's very adventurous and exploratory. And the thing is you just understand that At least for me, I always felt, or I've been thinking about it recently, that when you do so much funky stuff, you really have to have a really, really strong understanding of what you're doing so that it doesn't turn out as just a mess. And like when you have 13, it's so many variables and already just one bottle of wine is complicated enough to do it well. It's not so easy. And then you're not only trying to do it well, but you're trying to do it different and differently well. And to be able to do that, it kind of seems to me that you have to have a really, really, really good idea. And just fundamental understanding of how everything works in a way that a lot of people probably don't or maybe wouldn't think to. So it makes me excited to get to meet him too. So I'm looking forward to getting to speak to him and kind of see and hear what it's about.

Yeah.

Who else have you spoken to here?

So I've spoken to Amichai Echilo. I've spoken to a good amount. From as far as Trying to think, not too much else. I've had contact with like meeting, just email back and forth with a few other people with Asaf Paz, with Eran at Sora. Eran Pick, I believe.

Yeah. Sora. Sorry.

Yeah. And besides that, I'm really just kind of pretty recently. So still making connections, meeting people, learning a lot. That's really cool. Well, yeah.

Really awesome.

I also find that when you have people who, at least so far I found, I should say, generally, people who are interested in anything, but wine, I guess, in this case is the medium, in such a way that they are putting— it's not just about money. They're putting time, care, thought, education, like just their heart into it, that they really tend to be good and interesting people that have a lot more to offer than just like a bottle at a table, whatever they're bringing. So I find that just a lot of people I've met have been really spectacular and they have like certain shared qualities. So that's really been fun.

It really is special. It really is special. So Yerucham is an interesting place as well.

So for me, actually, I really think that's quite cool because I love the south of Israel at this point in my life. And that's kind of why I'm really running after a lot of these things now. Like, I'm not married. I'm not going out with anybody. I'm not looking right now to go out with anybody. And I can do something like, hey, I'm going to move down south and live in what I believe to be the most beautiful place in this country. I mean, Yerucham, not necessarily the city, but—

Yerucham is amazing.

The area surrounding it as well.

I'll tell you something, Yerucham is amazing.

Actually, I really haven't— maybe I visited the city once, passing through on a hike or something, you know, driving to a hike.

But it is a really amazing, friendly, special community. So tell me, what interests you about wine? What have you tasted? That you've— have you found any wineries here in Israel that are— that you like?

So when I was in America, yeah, and that was pretty aligned with— and I was in California and I was really, you know, learning more about it and really just developing a relationship and a passion for it. Most of, if not all, the wines I was tasting were pretty much from California. I also think that when I was— I knew, like, I had lived in Israel for a little bit in Sheeva and I was studying— Where did you study in Sheeva? I went to yeshiva in Maale Adumim, the Hasidic yeshiva over there.

Great.

And then I also studied at Tel Aviv University for 2 years. And I knew some wine. I kind of knew how much wine costs in Israel. And then I looked at some stuff in America and I saw like the import, like the prices that got on import. And I said, you know what? I'm just going to drink American wine right now and not feel that I'm kind of paying another import price. I'll wait till I go back to Israel. So I'm still very much exploring.

So what were you drinking?

A lot of covenants.

Did you ever meet Benio?

No.

Benio Gantz from Four Gates.

Oh no, I have not. Actually, I did try one of his wines that I really enjoyed very much. I do not remember what it was. This was before I was really getting into the wine, but it was at the start of my trip. I was talking, I was in Pittsburgh and there was this guy, his last name was Milch. Milch, one or the other. And he had a house minion and we went there and we're kind of these like travelers in Pittsburgh. We didn't really and we were finding places to eat, and he was very nice, and we were talking with him. Sorry, let me silence my phone.

Go ahead, you can—

there you go. No, just silence it. And I told him some of my plans of moving to Israel, and I also was planning then and still planning to draft to the Israeli military, and we just had a really fun conversation. He was very excited. He said, you know what, here's this wine I just got, you'll like it. We weren't even talking about wine, and he gave me some Four Gates. That was the only time I ever tried it. It was the first time. And really good. But I have to say, I was thinking about it a little less thoroughly than I would if you were to give me a bottle today. He's been around for a long time, right?

Yes, he has.

Yeah, I've heard. But I did have some wine, Israeli wine recently that I absolutely loved.

Which California wines? Oh, well, you like—

I said a lot of— a huge amount of kaftan, which I was really like Then the first day, Jeff and also Segi, who's the general manager, Segi Kleinler, really wonderful.

What's his last name?

Segi Kleinler.

Yeah. So they just, they're making a new, aren't they making a new wine?

When you say like a new, like a brand?

Kleinler.

Oh yeah, he's doing, I don't know what exactly. He has a few. So he has a, I mean, a Cinsault. A Chenin, which is skin contact, I believe.

Right, the skin contact Chenin. Yeah. Somebody just showed a bottle of that and said, this is wonderful wine, this is amazing. And I said, wait a minute, you know, I looked at the label and I said, it's made in Berkeley, hold on.

He's also, it was really wonderful. And when I started on the first day, both of them basically said, like, if you want to learn, the only way you learn is by trying. Right. Or at least one of, like, one of the main ways. Yeah, it is. So I really got— so obviously the wines— well, not even just the wine, from when we were pressing juice, I used to do this quite regularly, and it was so cool to be able to do this. I would take a glass of the juice coming out. Yeah. So it's a— I remember the first grape we processed, I'm trying to remember what it was, wasn't Roussanne. I believe it was Chardonnay or Sauvignon Blanc. No, it was Viognier. That's what it was. It was Viognier, which has become specifically Covenant's Viognier in the more recent vintages, what I was drinking when I was there. I fell in love with that wine. I really, really— I don't know if it was just because it was one of the first ones that I got to work with, but I really love the grape.

I fell in love with their Israeli Viognier.

I did have one. I sat down with Jeff right before I left and we opened up an older bottle. Yeah, that aged a little bit and it was quite nice. But I, as far as so far when it comes with whites, I'd say I'm still trying to figure out and understand aged whites.

Okay.

Because every— I haven't drunk that many that are older than, let's say, like 5 years, 6 years. Had one 12, 13-year-old Chardonnay that was, it was quite good. But I consistently find, at least what I've drunk so far, that I enjoy when it comes to white wine, I enjoy more the way it tastes younger. Like, there is obviously, I just, it is pretty clear what is changing at like, you can say, oh, this is definitely older and has like more nuttier and like less fruity aromas and smells. But I just tend to really enjoy the, like, the, the newer wines so far.

So Yakovoria makes a Semillon that I had a number of bottles of. I might have one left. That's a 2009 Sémillon. Now, that's not a new bottle.

No. For a white, especially not.

Right. That bottle tastes like it was made A month ago.

That's cool.

It's the crispest, freshest, most incredible Sauvignon that I've ever tasted. It really, I, there's certain bottles of wine that you cut your teeth on in your life and you, that end up being like ingrained in your memory.

Something going on, yeah.

The Covenant viognier from Israel was just mind-boggling to me. It was so delicious. But it also took a while, you know. When he made it, it actually When it was freshly made, it wasn't anywhere near as exciting as it was after 6 months or a year. So, um, there are a number of Italian wines that are like that as well. There was an Italian wine that I once got from Jesse Horowitz, produced it, and I tasted it and it tasted like water. It had no body, no nothing. It was terrible. And I remember getting this and I bought like 2 cases of it. And I said, oh God, who am I going to pawn this off on? Because, you know, whatever. So I put it in the corner of my cellar and I just left it. About a year later, my son came. I was in Israel when my son came to our house. And he often raided the cellar. And he said, I have a rule. If you come to the cellar, as long as I don't have just one bottle left, take whatever you want.

It's very generous rule.

So yeah, it was good. And he took this bottle of wine and he said, this is the most incredible white wine I've ever tasted in my life. So I said, what is it? And he told me the Greco de Tuffo. And I said, Greco de Tuffo? That's like, it was garbage. It was like water. You can have it all. He goes, Abba, you better taste this again because you're giving away something that you don't want to be giving away.

That's awesome.

And when I got back to America, I took out a bottle and I chilled it a little bit. And it was fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. And it just blew me away. The Yeru, let him know. So in each of these wines, they just make an impression on you that it's just— another one is a Sancerre that I tasted in 2012, 2014— 2012, and I think '14 as well. The Sancerre was the most incredible white wine I've ever tasted in my life. It was like— it was like oriental fruit, like lychees and rambutans and all sorts of these very— kumquats, loquats. It was really an incredible wine, and it lasted a long, long time. But as it aged, it became more less oriental and more citrus. So it aged into being what you'd think of as a really delicious white wine, but it gave up some of the magic in my eyes. So.

It's a wonderful story because I think it's just so cool how, like, the word, I guess the phrase, a mind of its own is used to apply to a lot of things. But it's really something else when it's just something starts. You finish making a— I guess finish making it is a relative term, right? Because you kind of finish making this product and then it just does its own thing after that. Obviously, assuming it's stored in an okay place, it's not problematic for it or anything like that. That's it. It's a whole other world of like you're sort of producing it still. You're making it with that in mind and what's going to happen. And it's pretty cool.

It's kind of like kids. I know you haven't had that experience yet.

No, far from it.

But you can only put them through— I have 9.

Love.

So you can only put them through a certain amount of— you have a certain impact on them. You have an impact on them your whole life. But you really have to get— you get to a point where they're on their own and they're— And you can put some feedback into it, but overall they're on their own feedback loops. They're running themselves. And wine is kind of like that. You develop it to a point in time and then you set it on its course, especially if you're the winemaker. As an example, Sémillon has a tendency to mature over a much longer period of time than other whites. So if you've got a blend of a Chenin and a Sémillon, the Chenin will be very pronounced at the beginning, but as it ages, the saumignon comes from the background more into the foreground, and it does some amazing things to the wine.

So I really haven't had much saumignon at all.

I'm telling you, it's like— so there are all sorts of little wines like this that are, yeah, crazy. That develop and do things that aren't— that you never think of. You buy a bottle of wine, you taste the bottle of wine, and that's the bottle of wine, and it's done and gone. But these bottles, when they age over time, they can develop all sorts of interesting things, all sorts of interesting flavors and what have you.

Yeah, some of the most, I guess, impactful ones that I did try was there when I was leaving Kavod and then my last week there or whatever, last day, had like a nice meal and brought out some nice wines and I went sat down together and it was really wonderful and brought out some aged Syrah. It was in the Landsmann Syrah and it was 2015. Yeah. And the cellar master at Covenant, his name is Dashiell. He had— I think it was the best way of describing it. Like, you stick your nose in the glass and you look around, you're like, how did I get to this, like, wet forest floor? And it was really— it was very impactful in the sense that to have, like, a smell, you know, you have, like, nostalgic smells or smells from, like, cooking that you know, but it's not— that really transports you to another place.

Smells can do that more than anything else.

Yeah.

I actually have a bottle of Covenant Syrah from Israel.

Which year?

I have a 2013.

Because I just opened up the 2016.

Right.

From the Covenant Syrah. And I was so surprised because 2016, Israel wine, I expected there to be, like, feel a little more age on it.

No.

I thought, if you closed my eyes and gave me this bottle, I told this to Jeff after I had it, I called him, we were talking, and I mentioned, I would have maybe 3 years old, like, I wouldn't even would have said like, oh, you made this last year. Like, especially with Israeli wines, I've understood and I've heard from a lot of people who've aged it.

It's not true.

Really?

It's not true.

You think you find Israeli wines to have equal aging potential, assuming quality, to other places?

As California, yes. Not as age quality as France, though some of them do. Some of them do. Some of them really do.

It's not knowledge from personal experience. It's more, you know, it's the type of—

No, I agree. What you're tasting and what— and also what people say.

Yeah, exactly.

And I You know, people say a lot of rubbish.

I've been learning.

You know, they just do. I, I, I, there were people, it's funny, people for years were tasting Covenant wine and saying, and they were drinking it way early, and they were saying, this is, you know, this is It's not good. They don't know what they're really doing. It's way overpriced. And all the typical things. 10 years later, in fact, 20 years later, there are people who are saying, whoa, this is a phenomenal bottle of wine. You know, they've improved so much. You know, like, This is an old bottle, but it's like they, they—

Perception.

It actually, a lot of the wines these days are actually approachable much earlier than they used to be.

Does that mean in turn though that it ages less? I don't want to say well, but less long.

It's an interesting question. And actually it's a question I ask most winemakers. You know, and each of them come to me and go, you know, I ask myself the same question. I drink this bottle and it's so good now. And does that mean I've given up on the future?

Yeah.

The only way I'm going to know is to see. So that's it. And the ones who are honest say that. The ones who are not honest go, no, no, it's wonderful. I built it that way. Rubbish. They didn't build it that way. They're just as surprised as I am.

But I, I, that was, that was my first experience ever with, with like an older wine that tasted that I really, and it was not 5 years, 10 years on the bottle. 2016, yes, 10 years. Really like not like just, it was wonderful. I, on one hand, it was really cool that I got to open it and try something that I had. So I could age another 10 years and no problem.

I'll, I'll give you a bottle.

But on the other hand, I was a little sad that I drank it.

We need to taste a bottle of the 2016. That was the 2016?

That was the 2016. Okay.

So I have a 2014 Syrah. I also have one bottle of 2013 Syrah left.

Mm-hmm.

And And I— Jeff doesn't even have that bottle.

Maybe not.

No, they don't. They don't have any more of it. Yeah, I know. And because it has the— it has— it has the Israel map on it. On it. Yeah, instead of just the corner.

Yeah, I, I heard about that story.

Yeah, it's a pity because it was so— it was a— okay. The first time I really met Jeff, I'd seen him before and what have you, but I met him with, uh, with a friend of mine, Jay Buchsbaum, who works for Royal and has worked for Royal for ages. And he's a close friend with Jeff. And Jeff came into New York and the three of us went to dinner. And I said, um, You know, Jeff, I love your stuff. I was actually a member of Covenants Club, but I was really Israeli focused. I wanted to make Aliyah. I wanted to move. I wanted to focus on Israeli wines and And I said to him, you know, I'm, I'm, I love your wine, Jeff, but I want to tell you, I'm really focusing on Israeli wines from now on. I'm not, so I'm sorry. I'm, you know, don't be upset, but I'm going to focus on Israeli wines. And so we're at dinner across from each other with Jay. And he, He says, oh, you're going to focus on Israeli wines? Yeah. So I said, okay. So he had this legal briefcase, one of these things that opens at the top like a clamshell.

Yeah.

And he opens up this briefcase and he holds it from the top and pulls this bottle out of the 2013 Syrah from Israel with the Israeli map on it. And I said, is that what I think it is? He goes, yes, Covenant is now manufacturing wine in Israel. And I started to cry. I still choke up when I even think about it these days. I started to cry because I said, you know, I can't believe it. That's awesome. And we tasted it and it was really new bottle. And he just made it. And it was delicious. He said, you can make some good wines in Israel.

Some excellent wines.

I didn't know that. You know, he didn't know it either. He said, there's some amazing places. Tel Kfaros. There's some amazing, amazing vineyards. That are available in Israel. So whatever.

Jeff, when we were talking about like him, I mean, just hearing first of all his whole kind of journey with Judaism in Hawaii, really cool. And he's like, it's cool to like, it's cool to hear him talk about it because I think every time he talks about it, similar to the way like you're saying, you're very like, you have a lot of emotion come up. Yeah, he does too. Every single time. And I've heard him say like, I've only been there for 2 months, I think I said this 10 times, and it was amazing every time. I really just love talking to him about it. But yeah, I remember he was saying when he came to the Golan, he was like, this is like California. He's like, it's really great here.

It's unbelievable.

Yeah.

It gets the same, the same types of exposure. But so as you get to know wine in Israel, And even as the winemakers get to know wine in Israel, they start to discover different things. Like everybody thought that the only real place to grow wine was up in the mountains, okay? Because you get that diurnal change in temperatures. What's happened recently now is in the Judean Hills, they found an interesting thing. There's an area called Kivat Yishayahu.

Okay.

That a lot of the high-end Judean Hills winemakers are suddenly planting vineyards. And And they're actually in the valleys. So how does that work?

Yeah, it's counterintuitive.

Yeah. Well, what they found was that where the vineyards are facing south, you get a lot of solar radiation, you get a lot of heat, but also at night because it's a valley, you get it shaded by other hills. But because it's in the morning or in the night, the cold air runs down the riverbeds, the streambeds, from the top of the hills down into the valleys. And it chills all the vineyards. It's like AC blowing in it, and it comes down and it chills the vineyards, and it's really cool.

You're talking about like whites that age that kind of give like still have a very young smell and flavor to them. I had, I was with my grandparents, they came to visit for the first time in a long time recently, and we were at King David and we went to eat some food there and they had some buy-the-glass menu. Yeah. And they had a Vitkin 2021 Riesling.

Riesling. Yeah.

Similar type of experience. Obviously not as old, not 10 years old, but similar type of thing that as I drank it, I was, I actually went to check because on the menu of the wine menu said 2021 buy-the-glass. I went to look. I was like, they gave me a new one or whatever. No, no, it was really, really good.

Rieslings age beautifully.

Yeah.

And actually I had some 2015 Rieslings from Asaf and just his Rieslings are awesome. His new ones are crazy because usually it takes Riesling. Rieslings have this kind of pronounced petrol taste after they age for a while. And it, it really is pronounced. So I was just with Asaf a couple weeks, 3 weeks ago, because I was in America for almost 2 weeks. But his new Riesling is phenomenal. It's not really new. It's a couple years old. He won't release stuff unless he— unless he feels that it's ready to release. So you all—

Yeah, that's a tough thing to do. Especially just like financially speaking. I know. Basically just have to sit on it.

His bankers don't love him.

I can imagine.

Does.

I find it to guess there's a pretty strong correlation. Between very great and committed winemakers and dislike from financial institutions.

Right.

Actually, I went to visit Maya Kaimas in Mount Veeder with David, who makes the wine there. David Edelman, I believe his last name is. Yeah.

Yeah.

So he started working with Jonathan and he still comes by and I think he produces the wine. It's under the label Otter and Fox. He still produces at the Covenant facility.

It's kosher?

Yeah.

Cool.

I mean, I made it, so I hope so. I don't know if someone else touched it, but I believe it's kosher. It's his own label.

Yeah.

But that's how I got to know him because he used to come by once in a while and say hi to Jonathan and whatever. So he invited me to come up to Myakamas and see what they got going there. And they also do a lot of— one big thing they spoke about was they refer to it as heads-up aging. Where they're holding on to, unclear if it was always in bottle or just in barrel. It seems to be in bottle from what I understood. And then they bottle it and just hold onto it for years, 3 years sometimes.

Right.

Before they're putting it out. And that was it.

What type of bottles? I mean, what type of wines?

So they have most of, not all their wines are kosher. So I believe.

Yeah, I know that.

No, but I'm not even, they don't even, they don't produce kosher versions of every one of their wines.

No, no, I know that too.

Yeah, the kosher ones though, I do remember. They have a Chardonnay, a Sauvignon Blanc, which actually the SB is all kosher now. Everything, 100% of the Sauvignon Blanc production now is kosher. It's not being sold necessarily as kosher, but David told me that this year, maybe past few years already even, you'd have to ask him exactly from what year, but he said 100% of it was made by him. So in his production. So that's cool. But they, and then they have a Sauvignon Blanc, excuse me, a Cabernet Sauvignon and a Cabernet Franc. I don't, I think the Cabernet Sauvignon is the kosher bottle, the Franc is not. I forgot which one was which. But they, yeah, they do, I assume probably more aging than the reds, but they hold on to a lot of stuff before they send it out. That was very Very impressive facility. That was kind of—

They're a crazy place.

That was a really cool moment, just seeing the level of just the way it's the operation, the commitment to— like, I got a tour through the vineyards and just their understanding that they're talking of row by row picking throughout the harvest. Right. I can— they'll pick the same grape at different parts that end up becoming the same wine, but they're picking it at the peak time for each. It's like such an insane understanding of their property and the vineyard and each row. It's really crazy.

The vineyards are not just vineyards. They break them into plots, and each plot is really different. They can be in the same vineyard, same grapes, and every plot is really different.

The moment that that really, I guess, registered with me.

Yeah.

Because you hear things and there's moments where you really understand it, at least to some degree. I can't say I really understand it, but I start to understand it, maybe is the better way to say it. Jeff and I were walking through a vineyard in Dry Creek Valley. And we were, I forget what grape it was, but he points out, he goes, like, there's— we're in the middle of a row, so there's on the right and the left. And on the right side, so the same grape had gonna be picked very soon, and the east and the west exposure, just huge. The same thing, 2 feet away from each other, right? Very noticeable difference between them. And if you picked them at the same time, it wasn't— one wasn't bad or good necessarily, but they were different. And it was very clear that like if you were looking at it row by row, You wouldn't even think of it as a plot that's cohesive. It's even, it's just two different products coming inches away from each other.

Right. So the other thing that's there is that the ground isn't uniform. So there are certain places where there's mineral deposits that are closer to the surface. And all of a sudden you get, you know, across a hillside. You plant it, but there's places that have rocky soils and places that are less rocky and what have you. It's very, very apparent in Israel. There's a lot of, especially in the Judean Hills, there's a lot of places where the limestone comes all the way up to the top. The amount of earth between the vines and the limestone is, you know, a few inches.

Yeah, like even just taking an hour drive and like from Kvar Adumim, drive around the area, again, in that hour radius, there are places around the Kvar, it's much less limestone sticking out. Once you get to, which is closer to Jerusalem, once you go a little bit more north, at least, you know, I'm thinking about driving there, Echelon, and it just looks like a different, it's the equivalent of being like in a different state in the US, but it's 20 minutes away.

Right. So here you get a lot of diversity. And so across vineyards, when they harvest, you get a lot of diversity. So most vineyards harvest by lot, not by vineyard. They harvest each lot and they mark them separately. Many of the winemakers just stack, you know, a bunch of the lots together and what have you. Some of them, as an example, at Breconati, Kobi Arbeef, if you can actually, it's funny, you can see from the winery what the premise is from the winemaker. When you go into Kobierbiew's winery, Rechenaty, you'll see that there are a lot of smaller steel, stainless steel vats rather than these humongous ones.

Towers.

And though he has some where they do blending, but he has many, many smaller ones because he, he finds that he, he likes to be able to ferment each lot separately because it gives you a very different overall wine. And then he blends them, so it gives him another level of control by lot.

The Kerem side of things, the vineyard side of things—

Okay, I'll get out of your way.

Like, I studied life sciences and neuroscience in college.

Okay.

And so I have like the basis of chemistry and organic chemistry, and I took a bunch of plant science classes, things like that. Nothing though particular to vineyards. So I find that I'm able to like understand a little bit when talking to people and reading things because of that education. But it's just, it's a whole world in and of itself. That also the separation between the, like, the people running the vineyards are very often not the people making the wine. And that's something like, that's something I learned that, like a lot of things, I didn't really know much about before. And that kind of surprised me that very often, obviously there's involvement, but like, you have growers and winemakers.

Right.

And sometimes they overlap. But from what I've seen, More often than not, which isn't a whole lot of experience, but more often than not they haven't. And that's because they're each their own specialty almost.

Right.

One thing I'm trying to understand and kind of sort out, and I'm sure it will be for a long time, maybe everyone is, is the mix between, like you said, data and intuition, experience, personal relating to what, like, obviously your own senses, like your firsthand experience to what you're dealing with. And especially someone from a background of science, and I worked in labs, and it's very like, we're trained to— data is, in a way, whatever winemaker says, you know, I go by data. I'm sure there are some that are ultra, you know, lab, tech-oriented, but like in college, I was trained to be like, everything you think is not important. It's following data. And to be honest, I really was fortunate to have teachers towards the end of my college, my university classes that really were really accomplished researchers and basically kind of popped the bubble and were like, anyone who tells you that it's all data is lying. Like it's all fake. That's what I was told by professors at the end of my college. And they said like, if you're going to start to really make experiments and model and try to understand, well, I'm saying stuff. Try to understand like, you know, some discovery or whatever, something, a system you're trying to figure out, there is way more following, you know, what you believe in your understanding and making like, what data are you deciding to get? How are you deciding to plug the data? What's your interpretation of it? It's a lot more human input than I think they make it out to seem. And that's what I understand. And in the world of wine, been trying to understand how that relates, like where is Also, how concrete are certain of the ideas of what data does or what a certain X parameter means for the implication in wine? That's something that I haven't really been able to get much of an answer for. Like you'll read in a book and there might not be like X thing or X content or molecule and it'll give you this. I don't, how true is it actually? That's a good question.

Let me tell you something.

Let me tell you something.

One of the things that I found from Jacob, is that he is meticulous about keeping notes, and it's very important. So it refreshes his memory about what he's, what he's seen and what he's experienced. It isn't just like, oh, I've seen that. He needs to refresh his mind because there is so much that you can do in wine. It is so complicated. The things that you can do, the variables If you blend grapes together at the beginning of fermentation for the fermentation period, or you blend grapes, or you blend the liquids after the fermentations are complete, you end up with completely, totally, absolutely different In one instance, the phenolic chains go together like this, and another instance they go together like this. And they're totally different. So, you know, it's— there isn't one right approach. They're people who experiment.

I guess the question is less about right or wrong approach, but to be able to say, I think even in science as a whole, it's a hard thing to do. To be able to say this gives this, and then, you know, you know right or wrong or whatever. That's, I think, like you said, more individual and depending on what you're trying to achieve. But even more basic, the idea that we can pretty confidently say, and I'm sure it does exist, but that's, like I said, what I'm trying to figure out is where is it? Much more concrete and whereas it may be a little bit more abstract as far as like a more causal relationship between your outcome. But it's very hard to do because the only, like, in the lab, theoretically, the main way you'd establish causal relationship is by eliminating every variable except one, which is virtually impossible to do with anything in the winemaking process as far as I can tell. Very difficult at least.

So one of the things people strive for is consistency. Okay, so many, many winemakers strive for consistency in their winemaking.

You're saying the consistency kind of becomes like in the beginning a goal and in the end something that's more of a hurdle?

Well, it's, it's definitely a goal, and then you want it consistent, and you conquer that, or at least try to conquer it. It depends whether, you know, Wine is a natural process, so you can't really guarantee what you're going to get coming in and out. It also is— blending is something that's an incredible skill, and over time you get to a feel for it that's just amazing. I certainly don't have that feel, but I've been incredibly impressed in blending wines in order to get what I wanted as an outcome at the end.

Yeah, it's been an intense time. I left Israel— I was here for 2 years in college in Tel Aviv University, and I went to finish university in the United States, and I left right before October 7th. And then when I made Aliyah and I came back, it kind of— it's not over by any means, but you know, kind of looking— it ended in a certain way. And it's a very weird experience. Like, I feel like I missed something very important that happened here, which I guess I did. But I live here now, so it's a little strange. Like, to come back to a country that changed in a lot of ways.

It did. It really, really did.

It's very noticeable as well. I wasn't able to return. So when I was in the US, I didn't return at all for the 2 and a half years I was there.

Right. It was almost impossible to get back here.

Actually, for me, it was more a matter of that as well. But I was spending time in Israel before I went back to the US. And if I had came back and then met Aliyah, it would have really messed over all this period.

Right.

Yeah. Like I had to kind of reset the clock sort of and get around and not deal with all the bureaucratic mess that way. So I just didn't come back and I figured I was going to be here for my life. So I'll be okay for the 2 years.

Right.

This is Simon Jacob again, your host of today's episode of The Kosher Teruah. 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.