Kosher Wine Hashgacha adventures with Rabbi Raphael Wolff

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. This week's episode of the Kosher Teruah is a conversation with Rabbi Rafal Wolf of the Top-K Hashkacha, a kosher certification organization founded in 1997 by his father, Rabbi Eliezer Wolf, based in France, Amsterdam, and Israel. Rabbi Rafal Wolf shares with us the tasks involved in producing kosher wines in one of Europe's highly acclaimed non-kosher wineries. From all the preliminary koshering of vats and barrels to the processing of each and every drop of wine. We also discuss topics like who is permitted to handle the wine, what a mevushal wine actually means, and some of the stories along the way from France and Italy. If you're driving your car, please focus on the road ahead. If you're home relaxing, please select a delicious kosher wine, sit back, and enjoy this very informative episode. Welcome, Raphael Wolf, to the Kosher Teruah podcast. Thank you for joining me, and especially joining me in Yerushalayim.

Hello, Simon. Thank you for having me, and that's a great pleasure.

Pleasure. So what we're going to speak about today is hashkachot on wine. Tell me a little bit about your background, You are a Rav, but you have a Hashkacha, and tell me a little bit about the origin of it, and just so that we have a clear picture of what you do.

So we are a French family. I grew up in France.

Where in France?

South France, mostly Nice, Toulouse, and Marseille. We moved a lot, so, but most of the time was Marseille.

Yeah.

And my father is a rove who runs an ashgoha. It's his own private ashgoha named Top K. And for many years in the wine, winemaking, wine business. And so giving ashgoha for French wines, but also in all other different areas.

When you said in other places besides France, do you give ashgaha here in Israel at all?

So we got reached by two small wineries to give them ashgaha in Israeli wines for export purposes. They have clients who want to know ashgaha in Europe, so they reached us, but we just got in there this year. And it's a place with a lot of different Argakhot. And so there is less room than in other countries. And we prefer to focus on places when we have advantage, such a local mashgikhim and people who speak French in France, Italian in Italy. And that's helped us to do a professional and good work in the wineries.

I know you also cover South Africa in that you provide the hashkacha for Essa.

Yeah, we have an interesting story how we got to give them hashkacha because they are working with the local hersher, the Beit Din of Cape Town and Beit Din of South Africa, and they have also the Orthodox Union for exporting to the US market. And they wanted to have what it's called in the slang is "Haimish Ershe," you know, to get to some market that are looking for a Hasidish Ershe or something like that. So they bring out, they bring in an American, very known Ershe, Hasidish Ershe, and they visit all the plants and they say, okay, everything is looking perfect, but we cannot give here. Why? The reason was because in this place they have women working as mashgichot.

Wow, okay.

So they say it's not according to our standard. And so Josh and Oyoun was thinking, which hashgacha that is considered to be— we are not a haimisher, but whatever, the rich world.

Acceptable.

Yeah, we, we, so we got contact by, by them, and they know that my father is using mashgihot in the restaurant in Amsterdam. So they say, if he's accepting it in the restaurant in Amsterdam, he should accept it also in the wineries in South Africa. And so my father went there, he visited the winery, everything was perfect, and so He could give them hashgacha for 2 years now.

So you went to yeshiva. Where did you go to yeshiva?

So I learned in Marseille, then I went to yeshiva ketana in Paris, and I came to Eretz Yisroel to learn in yeshiva gedolah. I learned in Kol Torah in Beit Vegan. It's a known yeshiva. My father learned there already under Reb Shomron Zalman Hojerbach, who was the reshiva there. And then I moved to Lakewood for one year also before coming back to Eretz Yisroel. I got married and I learned in the Koided here in Eretz Yisroel.

All right. So when you started, your father gives Hashkachat, but it's not necessarily only wine. It's all sorts of Hashkachat.

That's true. And actually, my main business today, it's the factories. Ashkarot.

Okay.

We, we have someone for now 25 years who is in charge of all the staff working in the wineries. He's a very professional man, knows wine much better than me, and he's in charge of all the process of the winemaking. Of course, I got involved in it, and I— but, but yes, I'm working much more on the side of the factories than the wines.

Okay. So when did you start with wine? When did you start working on wines?

Okay, that's a good question. Actually, just to come back to your last question. Yeah. I was in Bordeaux last week.

Yeah.

And but it wasn't for wine, it was for oil. So you see, we can go to Bordeaux many times in a year, but sometimes it's for oil, alga oil.

And which, what type of oil?

Alga oil.

Okay.

Yeah. And but also for wine, of course, we have many, many wine in Bordeaux and kosher wines. And yeah, okay.

So when did you start with wine itself?

My first mashgiach job when I was young was in the wine, because, you know, in France you have many different areas, many places you do kosher wines, and it's a seasonal work because you have one or two guys working all the year around to make all the prélèvement, how it's called in the maintenance of the wines. Yeah, all the different steps for the wine. And, uh, but, but when it's the harvest, you need many, many people to do the job. So they have a lot of— we have a lot of young bachrim coming in the wineries for the harvest. So that what— that was one of my first student jobs. I was probably 16, and for a few years, every harvest, we got in the wine.

So when you were making wine in those harvests, you were making wine in special kosher runs in non-kosher wineries, right?

Yes, that's correct.

Okay. So let's talk a little bit about the steps, because I know it's a huge job, and people, I don't think, understand. They just think, A rabbi comes, he blesses the wine, thank you very much, and everything is done. Let's talk a little bit about all the different steps that are involved. Is there anything involved from the steps of picking grapes or selecting the grapes or what have you?

Yes, it can be. Just before that, I want to say you made a real point that in the wine, it is very different than other products that you make ashgaha because you have products that you can do annual kosher certification with few audits. And that's it. It's not complicated. Wine needs to be done only by Jews, and it includes a lot of costs. So always when I got a new client, a winery want to do kosher wines, I advise them before coming and doing the kosher wine, find a good client, someone that you can rely on, that you will have sales, so we will not have any costs that are not covered because wine is complicated to be done in a kosher way.

So I'd asked you, is there a difference between varietals with regard to hashkacha? Is there?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Regarding Kos, if you're speaking about Kos, you can have a simple white wine that will be done in a few days. You don't have so much work on it. So it's the harvest, all the work of separating all the the grapes from the juice.

Yeah.

And then it's a few days of, you know, testing, fermentation, testing. So the mashguerre have to come for a few days. There is a cost, but it's not a huge cost. When you're doing a Saint-Émilion in Bordeaux and you have sometimes need— you need sometimes 4 or 5 mashguerres in the same place to do the different jobs, and it can be 50, 60 days of work. So you adding that to the price of the wine. And of course, there is a huge difference on the cost between a sophisticated red wine and a simple white wine.

Tell me the steps through it though. In selecting the actual grapes itself now, you have to have a mashgiach who goes through picking the grapes through, manually picking the grapes through?

So if it's manual picking and you have just you're picking the grapes, you don't need a mash gear.

Okay.

The problem comes when you have machine picking, and then you can have some kind of double, you know, separating the grapes from the— because the grapes are very, very soft. Yes, they're already, yeah, at the end of the way. And the, all the hochma in the wine, it's to know when to pick the grapes, right? So, so you got a lot of juice when you're picking the grapes already. And if you're separating in the machine already the grapes and the juice, so you have hamshacha, and that's a problem for us. So we must make sure that there is no separation of the grapes and the juice. We have no problem if it's juice coming by himself from the grapes, but we may— we need to make sure that there is no on purpose separation of the juice from the grapes.

Okay. So anytime you are in a situation where it is squeezing the grapes in some way and creating juice on purpose, you know, like crushing, part of the crushing jobs and what have you, you need to make sure that that is handled by a mashgiach.

Yes. So we spoke now about the picking of the grapes in the field. Of course, when the grapes arrive to the winery, winery, and we start separating the, the, the raisins from the— can separate the, the woods of the grapes. Yeah, yeah, you know, to, to have all the raisins by themselves. So that's already have to be done only by Mashtiach. When the, when the grapes arrived to the winery, everyone knows we're not touching nothing, we're not starting any machine. Every, every different step is done only by mashgiach, who is selected by Dosh Gacha to do the job.

So that's crushing, then you have to put it into fermentation vats?

Yes.

So all of the transfer of the wines into the fermentation vats all has to happen by mashgiach?

Yes. And we have also a job that we didn't spoke about. It is made before the picking of the grapes. It's the kosherization, of course, because we're speaking in a place that is not kosher all the year round. And Chazal made a very complicated rule about koshering the vats of wine. You know that we need to have 3 times milui ve'irui shlosha par mim. That means we need to fill the vats with water for 3 times 24 hours.

Boiling water or regular water?

Regular water. We can do boiling water, but that's Bediavad. It's the best way to kosherize vats of wine, the vats where the wine stays. If it's just some kind of pump, how to say, that can be kosherized. That just needs to be clean because it's used with wine that is not hot. So there is no problem of cross-contamination if it's clean. It's okay. But places where you put wine to stay in and ferment, and ferment, or, or if it's only for aging, every, every different barrels or places where you put wine and the wine is staying there. So there is a discussion what it— what is the definition of staying, if it's to stay more than 3 days But when the definition is a place to make the wine staying in, you need a kosherization.

But 3 milui ve'ruy gimel par mim, that means fill it and empty it 3 times with water.

So, you know, today water have a huge cost, and of course people are thinking more and more how to save water and not to use water. So that creates some time complication with koshering the places. So there is, but the abad, we can do with steam, with hot water, we can do kosherization. But the proper way is miluy ve'ruy gimal pamim. And we can do also— the question that we got asked is, can we reuse the water from the first barrel to the second one? Because we need, let's say, 6 different vats to kosherize. So they will ask, we will fill 3 Then we will move the water to the 3 others and we will fill. So we can save water. So actually, Harav Eliashiv said that if you adding some chomer pogem, something that is doing the water not drinkable, you can reuse the water for kosherizing the different other vats. So that can be done.

So what sort of thing do you put into it?

Any product.

Even soap?

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, but you have to be a strong one that can make the water not drinkable.

Okay, got it. Okay. All right. Anything with the vineyard? Because, you know, here in Israel, we make sure of making sure that people aren't growing other things in the vineyard.

Kelayim.

Kelayim and what have you. Is that an issue in a place in a place like France?

It can be an issue if it's in Jewish wineries.

Okay. When it gets to the point where you're filtering it, after the fermentation, you're filtering the wines and what have you, that's also something that has to be totally handled by a mashgiach.

Yeah.

You know, you mentioned to me before that it's based on moving. Yeah. Tell me that again.

Okay, so every, everything that made the wine moving from a place to another is considered something that can make the wine non-kosher.

Okay.

If it's done by someone who's not approved by the Ashgaha. So we need to make sure that, and that's the rules that we have in all the wineries, that only the rabbi touch anything. So that way we can get out of any troubles.

So as an example, if you connect pipes between a vat and barrels and what have you, because the wine is moving, it does not make a difference whether somebody is touching the wine or not touching the wine. If you are moving the wine within a winery, that is enough to make to have an issue.

Yeah, we have a rabbi doing all the different— he is putting the pipes and he is pressing the button or he is opening the valves. Everything is done by the mashgiach.

So if I go— okay, so if I want to taste wine from the vats, they have a spigot where you can turn it on and get wine out. To taste it. That is something that a rav has to do because you are moving wine.

Yes. So the spigot is closed by Chotam Be'Tochotam. When you go to wineries, non-kosher wineries, and you want to see the kosher barrels, vats, you will see that everything is closed by Chotam Be'Tochotam. That means we have double signs on every opening of the vats. So that means on the top, on the bottom, but also on these special valves where you can extract wine.

They have— so you put like hashgacha tape over all of them?

We can put a tape, hashgacha tape, but we need chotam betochotam. That means we have the mashgiach signing on the tape with letters.

Yeah.

So we can know if someone touched the tape, that if it's open, so we can recognize that it was not retape in the same way that it used to be.

Transferring the wine into the barrels, we talked about. We talked about preparing the barrels, sampling the barrels. When the winemaker is trying to get samples from the barrels in order to decide what they want to do, whether they want to grade the different barrels or what have you, that is something where they make a request to the mashgiach, and the mashgiach goes and takes the samples from the from each of the barrels.

Exactly, exactly. So there is, of course, the mashgiach, khalil, that have huge knowledge in winemaking and knows what he have to do. But we also have some mashgiachim that working in the wineries, that it's a summer job, you know, then don't know exactly what to do. So of course everything is under the supervision of the oenologist, of of the winemakers in the winery. And one of the important rules that we apply on the Mashgirim, that we say how important it is to follow everything that the winemakers are saying, because for them is very important to have the best results on the wines. And of course, they are doing some work on them themselves to allow us only to touch the wine and not touching anything. And so, of course, it's important for us to have on the other side professional workers that know how to follow all the instructions and to do the job properly. And that's one of the keys to succeed in the winemaking of the kosher winemaking, because, you know, people in Bordeaux speak to each other and they say, 'Oh, this Rabbi team was terrible last year, you know, they didn't do the job correctly.' So that's very bad for kosher wines. And of course, we need, we must do the job properly and professionally. That's one of the keys for the— you can, you know better than me, you see how the kosher wines grows through the years. And probably 20 years ago, we didn't have such good wines in the kosher market. Yeah, that's one of the reasons, because people was afraid, you know. You saying to someone who is doing his own wine with passion, do not touch the wine, do not do nothing, only the rabbi will do the job. And they're afraid. And if they see that you do the job properly with professionalism on the other places, so they got interested because there is a market, of course. They can do business, but you need to be very professional.

Yeah, they need to make sure that they can depend on what you're doing.

Exactly.

You don't take their, um, their commands lightly because they're the ones who are in charge of the wine.

Exactly.

In the end. Um, okay, as far as maintaining barrels, So when they are maintaining barrels, and you know, there are a few things that go on with maintaining barrels. In some instances, they actually turn the barrels. In some instances, they actually top them. They have to top the barrels over time. So what happens? There are mashgichim who stay in the winery then all the year?

Okay. So of course, the mashgiach is difficult for mashgiach to stay in the wineries all the year round.

Yeah.

Actually, in a cheese factory, we had that. We had a mashgiach working in cheese for also the non-kosher cheese. He was an employee of the farmer.

Yeah.

And he did the cheese, also the non-kosher one. And when we had the run of kosher cheese, he did the kosher one. So that can happen also in a winery. We have also in Italy wineries that it's run by a Shomer Shabbat Jewish, very serious guy. And so he can do the small jobs during all the year-round, he can do by himself. So that's going to happen that we have someone available in the winery all the time. But usually, it's someone who lives close by and we have mashgichim in Bordeaux, we have mashgichim nearby in France. So they can come, they know in this date you need to come to make some samples, in the other date you need to come to do fermentation, you need to Every time they have a schedule, very, very— it's not a fixed schedule because, you know, in wine everything depends on the weather, all the different, uh, uh, state of fermentation and, uh, and then, and how the wine is going. But, uh, but they have a— they know that they can be called at any time to do whatever job they need to do. There is something that I can add.

Please.

Okay. Um, in the process of kosher wine, we need to make sure that we spoke about professionalism and how important it is for the winemakers. Um, there is a notion in halacha that the winemaker is bahul on his wine. He wants to make sure that his wine is doing correctly. And that's the reason why we cannot be, I will say in Hebrew, metayer yayin oshel hakum. We cannot make kosher wine on a non-kosher winery. You ask if we're doing kosher wine in a non-kosher winery. I said yes, because that's what we are doing.

Yes, but go ahead. I'm sorry.

Yeah, no, no, it's not. But that's not allowed by the halacha. You cannot go and do kosher wine in a non-kosher winery. So how we handle that? Um, so the, the way to do, to do it properly is that you need to buy the wine before that you're doing it. Not all the wine, but part of it. You need to have a down payment for the wine. So the wine is not called anymore a wine that is made on a non-kosher plant because you have part of it. So that's the solution that we have. We make a contract between the winemakers and the client. So he's buying, paying already a down payment for the part of the wine. And that way we can save the problem, the issue of making a non-kosher wine in a non-kosher place. I have an interesting story about it.

Very, that's very interesting. I don't think anybody, I mean, there are very few people who know about that. Okay, okay, go ahead.

So the story was like that. We had one year kosher wine in a non-kosher winery. They signed the contract, the client paid down payment for part of the wine. And then at the end of the year, it was a very bad year for the winemakers in France. So the wine— but the wine was good. So let's say tripled the prices of the wine.

Wow.

So the winemaker had a client say, I will pay for your wine, whatever you want. And he didn't have any more wine, non-kosher, conventional wines. So he said, what he say, okay, I will give you the kosher wine. He went, he sealed all the kosher wine, and he sold it to his client. Then the client of the kosher wine came. Said, what happened? He said, don't worry, I will pay for any damage that you had. I will pay for all the mashgichim. I will pay for everything. But you know, the wine was so—

the price was so up, raised up that I could not, I could not sell it.

Yeah, yeah. So they had a dispute. The, the, the client said, okay, it's my wine, I paid for it. I had a down payment. I paid for the wine. We had a contract. So they went to court and the judge said, well, this sale was only a religious act. It is not a proper sale. It was done only for religious reasons. So the winemaker is totally right. It is his wine and he can sell it. He has to pay for damage, of course. He will pay for the mashgichim, for the work, whatever you spend on your side, but it is considered to be his one. So my father went to Rav Eliyahu Shevesein, na phala binyan. We had a heter.

Because of this contract, and if they are going to throw this contract out in court, it destroys the whole basis for how we can do this.

Yes.

Okay.

So Rav Eliyahu Shevesein, that the judge, is a reversible judgment. I mean, he said that way, but maybe another judge— if it was voted low by parliament, that's a problem. But a decision of a judge doesn't make the al-Ahadh to change that way, because there can be a second judge that will say, yeah, it's a contract, it's serious. It's— so that's not a problem for us. But it was a very interesting question. You know, it's some details that we can forget about, but are the base of kosher wine for, uh, yeah.

That's, that's really, really interesting. Do you like drinking wine?

Yeah.

Okay. Do you have a preference?

Um, so I'm French.

Yeah.

And I like French wine.

Well, now you're Israeli. Yeah, yeah, that's right, my friend.

Yeah, that's right. But I have some difficulties to, to get used to the Israeli wines. Of course, there is great wines in Israel. There is great wines and the weather is Baruch Hashem, there is bracha, special bracha in Eretz Yisrael. But the wood, you probably know what I'm speaking about. They like the wine, you can feel the barrels in Israel. And I prefer more smooth wines.

Softer.

Yeah, softer.

Softer wines.

And then like in Bordeaux, you know, they can do very, very high-level wines, but there is something soft in the wine. Of course, not all of them, but I can find that in France easily than in Israel. But of course, I'm living here, so what I'm doing usually when I'm, when I'm in Israel, I'm drinking the Israeli wines, and in France I will drink French wine.

Do you know of Israeli wines that kind of follow that taste profile? Do you know of any?

Yeah, there is one, uh, so maybe the one that I can think about, um, Matar. You know Matar?

Sure.

Yeah, so this one is, uh, so you mentioned Matar up there, Pelter. Pelter, yeah.

Yeah, so they, they make Matar as their kosher line, the kosher wine. Okay.

So I don't know the winery. I was close by last vacation, but I didn't step in because I was with all my family and my kids. But yeah, I think that's the kind of wine that I can like.

Are there any specific people, winemakers or wine owners or people that you've worked with that you've especially enjoyed working with?

Okay, so I will mention my guy. It's Rav Éliaou Khalif, that is for 25 years doing and running all our stuff in the wineries in France. And he's a very professional guy, really. And I always, always have good comments. I'm going to wineries, speaking with the people there, and they're always very happy with his job. So that's the first guy that I want to mention.

He manages over— he manages the team.

Yeah, he manages the team and he's working also all the year round. I mean, I told you that We have 1, 2, or 3 people working all year round in the wine. So he's one of them. He's working all year on kosher wine. That is his job. And he's really all over France. He can be in Bordeaux and the day after in the Beaujolais and in Champagne and in Pays de la Loire, whatever, all around France, Côte de Provence. And that's that special job that he have. Because working in the wine is something beautiful. And if you also know the kosher side and the professional side, so you are a blessed man.

You are very, very blessed. Are there any specific wineries? Can you mention some of the specific wineries that you give hashkaka to?

Yeah. So we have a good partnership with someone that you know in Dr. Wine. Dr. Ralph Madep. Yeah, so we're doing many wines with him in Italy, so I would mention him. We— I went to Pescaglia. It's one of the wine that he's doing. It's not the expensive one, but it's very, very good value for money, on my opinion. Yeah, it's extraordinary wine, very precise. All the process are so professionally done. On my opinion, it's a very— it's a great Italian wine and Of course, it's not a very expensive wine, but it's very good wine in my opinion. In Italy, if we want to stay in Italy, for many years I know Elie Gauthier. You probably heard about him. So we're giving him ashgaha for all his debuts, and also he's doing an extraordinary job in Italy. Good wines and very beautiful bottles. And on the personal side, I love Eddie. It's, it's a good friend above all. That's in Italy. And in France, we're working with GSI. His name is Monsieur Azria, and he is doing— he's one of the, of the first person doing good kosher wines with very, very attractive pricing. His market is very— he's doing attractive prices for many different types of wine. You can find a Saint-Émilion, kosher Saint-Émilion, for less than €10, and he's doing an extraordinary job to have a good value for money on the wines. So we're working with him for many years. His father unfortunately passed away, and he was running the business. Now his son is running the business. But that's people that we work with for many years. You ask about wineries, not only— okay. When I was young, I worked in different wineries in the harvest and in different steps. So I will mention two of them. One of them is Tavel wine. It's a rosé in France. It's probably not one of the most known rosé, but it's the The story was interesting because harvest happens sometimes in Sukkot.

Yeah, it happens in the middle of the chagim.

In the middle of the chagim. It's always complicated. I have a nice story also about it, but maybe later. But in Tavel, we went, me and another mashgiach that was much more experienced than me. I was very young and it was chol hamoed Sukkot. So we bring our arbat aminim because you're going there early in the morning for the work. We stopped in the middle for davening, and so the winemaker saw us with the albataminim, and he was not understanding what is it. So I had to explain him that we take 4 different type of people and we join them together. We say we are all joined in one in front of Hashem. So he enjoyed the explanation, and then we decided to make the sukkah. We built a sukkah in this place and we had them. Of course, Olched Rachim are not obliged with sukkah, but if you can do it, why not? So we built a sukkah and he was very impressed and he came with not a wine but a whiskey because his wine was non-kosher and he offered us to drink, and it was a very, very nice experience for a young guy.

Very cool. Yeah, that's— it's a great way to build, um, to build connections, uh, so that people realize that Jews are not, you know, uh, um, evil. Yeah, that, you know, that we do things differently. It's not because we don't respect them or their own traditions.

Yeah.

So it's important.

That's right. That's what— because as your podcast is named Terroir in France, you can find that, that people are very in the tradition. And so when you come with a different view, sometimes can be, uh, there is a tension sometimes. So, so as you say, it's very important to, to, to make things that we can work together with— on a nice way.

Okay, you said you had another story.

Okay, regarding haggim and wine. So that's a very interesting story. My father was approached by someone very known in the wine in Bordeaux, in Saint-Émilion. Monsieur Thunevin is the owner and winemaker on the Château Vallandreau. Valandro, you know, one of the big difference between French wine and Israeli wine, that Israeli wine, there is the, the knowledge and the learning for all different areas from the, the winemakers. And, uh, but the rules are very smooth in Israel. In France, we have very, very strict rules. I need to check that again, but I think if I remember, you cannot buy more than a certain amount of sugar in Bordeaux area because they don't want you to mix sugar in the wine. There is very strict rules on what you can and cannot do in wineries in France, and that, that's the way that you will get the appellation, what it's called. So Saint-Émilion Grand Cru, the designation. Yeah, if it's a Grand Cru Classé Saint-Émilion. So that was the case of Mr. Thunevin in Château Vallandroit, Grand Cru Classé Saint-Émilion. And one year they decide to make the taste with covering. It was raining, so they decide to cover with plastic. Yeah, the, the, the, the wines, the, the vines, the grapevines. Yeah, the grapevine. And they cover it to try to see how it can protect them from the raining, because when it's raining, it's taking all the sugar from the wine, from the grapes, and that's very bad for, uh, for the wine. Um, so they made it try, and he decided to— that it was good. So he continued with it, and Saint-Émilion said, okay, we made a trial one year, but you're not allowed to continue with it. We decide to not doing it. And he said, okay, I want to continue. And so they took all the designation from his bottle. I mean, it can be only a wine table with not any table wine, no, with not any specific designation. So of course, that kills you. Yeah, that kills you. Okay. So, but he was smarter than them. He decided to make big, huge promotion of this wine. He called it the forbidden wine. And it was all over and he doubled his sales and the pricing was very high. Everyone wanted to try the forbidden wine of Vallandor. And so the wine became famous. So the year after, a Jewish client said, I want 6,000 bottles of this wine, kosher wine. And they approached my father to give the ashgaha. Okay, everything was done. And there was some Vinexpo in New York, or I don't know the name of the specific show that They went to, but Mr. Tunneval said to my father, you in charge of the kosher wine, you should come with us to New York to present the wines. Okay, my father is a rov, it's not exactly what he'd like to do, but it was part of the experience. So they went to New York and Robert Parker, you know Robert Parker, of course, that if he gave you a good note, the sales are growing, and if not, uh, so he's the Yom Kippur of the winemakers. Yeah, if he's trying the wine and tasting the wine. And, uh, so he tastes the wine of Valandro, blind test, and he gave, he gave a very high note. I don't remember if it was 97, 98 to the non-kosher, the conventional wine. And when he tastes the kosher, he gave 1 point more than the non-kosher. So that was too much for Mr. Tounva. He said to my father, you young guy that don't know nothing about winemaking cannot do a better job than my winemaker that have 40 years of experience. It's not possible, just not possible. How that's gonna happen? So they sat and they spoke, they check every step of the winemaking to make sure What was the difference? It's the same grapes, the same barrels, the same— everything was the same. So just with less experienced people for the kosher one. So how does happen that you get the option that Robert Parker made a mistake was not an option.

Okay.

And they check and they finally got an answer. They decide to pick up the grapes on the date that was Shmini Atzeret for us. So in Chutz Laaretz, we have 2 days. So they called the mashgirim, nobody was answering. So they decided to leave the grapes of the kosher wine on the vine. And it was 2 days of beautiful sun and we got a moisissure noble, a noble moisture on the on the, on the grapes that was for the kosher wine. And they say probably that was the reason why the, the kosher batch got a better note than the non-kosher one. So my father always bring this story, uh, you know, when you have for some reason, uh, kosher, kosher procedure that brings you to some delays or something that you're afraid of He said, you see, if you're doing the things properly, you have the bracha, and you can have some good results.

Wow, that's amazing. That's an amazing story.

I know we spoke a lot, and we went in some different directions, and I come up with stories every time. But maybe to make some order in the way that the kosher wine is done, so I mean, it's the same way non-kosher wine is done. We spoke about the importance of having a mashgiach available all the time. It's from the beginning of the harvest, I mean, when they picking the grapes, until the bottling. I mean, so you also have the different steps coming after fermentation, after filtration. You have the wine is already, is ready, it's, uh, in, it's an aged wine. If it's in some Saint-Émilion, 2 years passed already, and now you coming for bottling. So some wines are bottled in the, in the castle, in the same place, but some wines can be bringing in different areas in France, and there is specific places doing bottling for wine. So every, every step need to be done under the supervision of the mashgiach. He's in charge, of course, of doing the chotamot on if the wine needs to travel on every truck.

In some instances is they will take the wine and they will move it in bulk out of the winery to another place in order to bottle it. See, I did not even think of that. Okay.

Yeah, they can do that.

And now they are actually transporting these wines, kosher wines, to Israel. Yeah. And then re-bottling it here in Israel. I got a bottle of wine from Carmel that totally confused me. Um, here's this bottle of wine, it's private seller, private collection Carmel wine, and, um, and it's usually in the cheaper brands of wines that you're doing it, but I've never seen this such Israeli branding on a bottle, and it was from Argentina, and it's like You know, like, wait a minute, hold on a second. This is Carmel's private cellar collection and it's wine coming from Argentina? So it's now they're getting into moving bulk wines around.

Yeah. So the Israeli Rabbinate was in charge of validation for all the— the Mahleket HaYivu that is in charge of accepting anything coming from outside of Israel to Israel. That is marked as kosher and not allowing to bring bulks usually. So that's something that is not allowed all the year round. I know there are some exceptions, but the known one is the one to the Shmitah. So that's the reason we have the year of the Shmitah. So this year there is less wine in Israel. So they're allowed to bring bulks of wine from outside of Israel. And bottling here in Israel. So probably that was the case. Yeah, the Shmita.

Okay. Do you get involved with Shmita wines at all? Not really.

Not really. We have the problem in France sometimes that you have products that are not really wines but can be grape juice. So you need the kosher grape juice, of course. And they're using it concentrate for different reasons in factories. And so you need to be aware that if it's coming from Israel, it can be sometime Shmita. Yeah, good.

So they actually send concentrates to France? Yeah, for factories. Yeah, many for jam and for other.

Yeah, exactly. And if we want to see something also, speaking about Shmita, you can have Israel drinking a lot of orange juice and different other type of juices. Juices, yeah. But they don't like pulp. So you can have pulp from Eretz Israel sold to be mixed with juice from, uh, uh, wow, different other countries. So you can have a bottle that is with Spanish orange juice, but the pulp is coming from Eretz Israel because the pricing of the pulp of Eretz Israel is better than the one of different other countries.

But that comes without Hashkacha. Well, there is no Hashkacha on it anyway. But if it is of a Jew—

It can be with Hashkacha, with a Tehillim Mechira. So that, I mean, you need to be careful if you are accepting a Tehillim Mechira. So you will have no problem. But most of the Hashkachot are not working with the Tehillim Mechira. So you need to be careful that the product that you are getting from Eretz Yisrael That's something that surprises every time the people that we're working with, that we're saying from— if it's a concentrated juice coming from Europe, it's less complicated than a concentrated juice from Eretz Israel. They say, what, that's Jews doing BDS? They don't understand why we—

why you're doing that.

Yeah.

You know, secondary issues that you'd never think about. I mean, Everybody— nobody thinks about it except people who are involved in the ashgacha and people who are involved in making wine.

If you are speaking about some things that are very secondary issues, but we need to think about when we are doing ashgacha, you have also barrels that are double jackets because they want to cold or heat the wine during the process of fermentation. So that's, uh, not, not many, uh, places are using it, but there are some wineries—

cold fermentation, the people that do cold—

yeah. And then, and then so, so, so, so you need to take out the water from the double jacket and change it in order to do kosher wine, because you cannot— if a product stay for more than 25, 24 hours in containers and there is water on the two sides of the container.

Yeah.

So there is a cross-contamination and the water of the outside of the double jacket becomes non-kosher. So of course you can say that, "Ya'im b'mayim b'shishim b'shisho," etc. But in this case, usually it's the opposite. You have a huge amount of wine in the containers and the water outside is much less. So there is this kind of issues that are secondary issues, but you need to come and think about it when you're doing all the kosher steps for wineries.

What about things like glycol? They're not water. They have glycol that flows through in order to cool and heat. That's also an issue?

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, every type of liquid. Yeah. Okay.

But even though it's not mixing with the wine?

Yeah, because that's what I said, that you have water in the two sides of the same surface. Same surface.

Same material.

Same materials. So if it's heated or if it's staying more than 24 hours at kavush ki mevushal, we say. Yeah. It's a cross-contamination for the water outside also.

Even when it goes through, so it goes through, that passes through the metal.

Yeah.

Okay, even though there's absolutely no way for that material to touch on either side. Yeah. What if the water was water that was non-potable?

Yeah, so that's changed everything.

Then it's okay.

Yeah.

Okay. Yeah.

Wow. So that's something that we do in some areas. We're using something to make the water not drinkable, but in the wine, I think that it's more complicated. They will not accept it. That's—

Wow. So the preparation that you need when you go into a winery is far more than I ever thought. I thought maybe you just have to clean out the vats and wash them out and what have of you. It's much, much more complicated than anything like that.

Yeah, sometimes can be very tricky. You have also a part of pasteurization. That is the bichoux for the wine, if you—

if you're doing the bouchon.

Yeah, if you're doing the bouchon. So you— on those days we're doing flash pasteurization, so it's a truck coming to the place and heating the, the wine to 93 degrees. Some agency accept a little bit less, but yeah, it's to around 93 degrees, um, centigrade. Yeah, yeah, I'm sorry, yeah, I don't know how to translate, but yeah, that's very hot. Yeah, that's very hot. And the boiling point is 100, so it's—

yeah.

Now the question is that the Bichoux of the wine needs to have two critters. It needs to change the flavor of the wine. It needs also to evaporate some part of the wine. You need some— the wine to become less, yeah, evaporated. We need, we need some part of the wine to evaporate.

Okay.

And the question is about flash pasteurization, that we have quickly pasteurized, that you eating the product for 2 seconds and then it got cold immediately. So it's killing all the bacteria, etc. And so the wine will not change, will not be aged.

It doesn't evaporate.

It doesn't evaporate. And in our days, it doesn't change the taste of the wine. We did tests on the kosher wines that we pasteurized part of it and the second part was not pasteurized. And people couldn't say the difference. So really, it's a question about the quality of the mevushal that we have nowadays. And that's something that the Poskim have a discussion about it, if it can be considered as a bishul. So usually you will say on the bottles, mevushal by pasteurization, mevushal at 89 degrees. So you will have the precision. Who wants to be soymech on that, to rely on the pasteurization, to be a bishul, can do it. But for the people who say that it's not enough, so they will know that it's not a real mevushal wine. It's not like a grape juice that gets really pasteurized. Pasteurized, yeah.

Okay. What I'm always bothered by is the whole concept of Mevushal. I love it, to be quite honest, because without Mevushal wines, there are no wines available in restaurants in America. Okay. So I'm not going to a place where I don't agree with Mevushal or what have you. The problem I have is that in one breath you're saying Mevushal, In the other breath, you're saying you have to say alegefen, berepriagefen. If it's mevushal, honestly, is it berepriagefen?

Yeah.

Why?

Because grape juice is also berepriagefen.

Yeah, but it's not grape juice, it's what you call it. It's— but grape juice is the same as wine. Mevushal is making it not wine. Not grape juice even.

The criteria of mevushal is making it not accepted to be an offering, to be a korban, to be— For non-Jews? For Jews also.

Oh, for Jews as well.

In the Beit HaMikdash, you cannot bring mevushal wine with your korbanot. So for the Nissuch HaYahin, you use only non-mevushal wine. So the criteria is not that it's become non-wine by definition, it is a wine that is not accepted for the holy services. And that's, in my opinion, that's the, yeah, that, that is the point. Uh, of course it's wine. I mean, we calling it, it's not anymore wine because, you know, that's the easiest way to, to say it.

But, but that's not what we really mean.

Yeah, the, the meaning, it's that it's not accepted anymore for a services.

In the Beit HaMikdash.

In the Beit HaMikdash, but also for the non-Jews, because it's the same. Okay. That's what we want. We want to copy-paste on the Yayin Eser. Yeah, we know that we have two levels. We have Stam Yenum, that it's not a wine that's served for the Avodah Zarah. This one is totally forbidden. We have the Stam Yenum, that it's by rabbinical order, that we're not using any non-kosher wine. And the rules are copy-paste of the Yaineseh, of the one that it's used for service in, for the Avodah Zarah.

For Avodah Zarah, okay. Wow, I didn't even. So we feel that what we had, what we used for Avodah in the Beit HaMikdash was the same type of product that they would use in their, um, for Avodah Zarah. So as soon as we make it not usable for in the Beit HaMikdash, it becomes something that we, we can use, I guess. But that's okay.

But Stam Yehinam, It will not be used for the Avodah Zarah, is that what you mean? Yes. So you have no reason to worry about it. All what we're keeping nowadays, it's regarding stamina. We have no— the Rama said that nobody knows how to do Nissuch Hayayin in our days. Right. So there is no real Avodah Zarah in the wine today. But everything that we're keeping is regarding stamina. Just that the rabbis decide that the halachot, all the rules of Staminam, will be a copy-paste of the wine that is a Yayin Nesser. So that's the reason why we have very similarity in the rules between the two wines. But one, it's from the Torah, and the second one is Rabbinical order, and just it's the same rules and the same criteria on the kosher wine.

Very interesting. Very cool. All right, thank you. Thank you for clarifying that. That really even clarified it for me. I didn't think I was going to need a clarification, but it does. It helps. It helps tremendously. All right, I've taken over a lot of your time. So I really want to say thank you very much for being here, for being on the Kosher Terroir, and toda, and I look forward to speaking to you again in the future with more questions, with God's help. But thank you for all of the wines that you've been bringing in that are just amazing, especially with Dr. Ralph.

Thank you, Simon. Thank you for having me. It was really a pleasure for me. Pleasure for us. The conversation was good. I hope that I didn't I don't speak too much, but yeah.

I'm happy you spoke too much. It's good.

Thank you very much, and hope to have a long discussion with you.

In the future. Toda, toda.

Shalom u bracha.

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. 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. And thank you for listening to The Kosher Torah.