Natural Alchemy: Crafting Kosher Wine Without Compromise

Welcome to The Kosher Teruah. I'm Simon Jacob, your host for this episode from Jerusalem. Before we get started, I ask that wherever you are, please take a moment and pray for the safety of our soldiers and the safe return of all of our hostages. Welcome back to The Kosher Terroir, where tradition meets terroir and every bottle tells a story. Today, we are diving into a vineyard that's rewriting the rules of kosher winemaking with a pure, natural touch. Meet Betachya Winery, where ancient craft meets modern wine. Nestled in the heart of Israel's Ella Valley, this boutique winery handcrafts high-quality, additive-free wines using hand-picked grapes and zero preservatives. Led by a young visionary duo of Yakov Singer, the CEO, and Petachia Wittenstein, the passionate winemaker behind the bottle, Petachia Winery is all about authenticity, sustainability, and soul. From the cotton paper labels to zero plastics Every detail reflects a deep respect for the land. So pour yourself a glass of wonderful kosher wine and let's swirl, sip, and savor the story of Petachia Winery right here on The Kosher Terroir. Welcome to The Kosher Terroir. Thank you, Matt. It is a pleasure having you in the studio. It is wonderful. So I have with me here Yaakov Singer. Shalom u'bracha.

Shalom.

And I have Petachia Wittenstein, who represent Petachia Winery.

Shalom.

So, Baruch Hashem, welcome, welcome.

Thank you for having us.

I was quite surprised to taste a bottle of Petachia, and I was really kind of blown away by it. So we will discuss it a little bit, but welcome. Thank you, first of all.

I can say it on public record now. It is amazing to be in your house. It is a beautiful house.

Baruch Hashem.

Well, I first just wanted to start off with, a surprise because Ptahka has been telling me the whole way here it's my birthday today.

Yeah.

And I have to play it like I don't know— I didn't know about it. I said, no way, it's your birthday, that's so cool. But really, I brought a present.

Oh no way.

Yeah, and I wanted to bring it here because I said, you know, it's your birthday, wow, we're going to do this podcast, it's such a big, uh, big night. So I brought something he would enjoy.

Wow.

You can edit this out.

No, I think that's cool.

Yeah, no way.

Wow.

Oh wow.

Your favorite nuts. That's to the best winemaker in the world and the best brother-in-law.

Yes. By the way, brother-in-law.

Wow.

Yes.

That's cool.

This is for all to have. These are salted almonds, salted cashews, dried mangoes.

I'm a crazy cashew lover.

Oh, good.

But you know what I do normally is I freeze them.

Really?

I put them in the freezer. If you ever want to have, you know, cashews that are really crazy, just leave them in the freezer. You pop them out, it's an incredible snack.

I'm definitely going to try that.

Okay, yeah, it's cool. Thank you for the surprise.

Wow, yeah, it's a big day.

Cool. How old are you? Do you mind me asking?

No. Okay. 32. Younger than ever.

Wow.

Yes, 32 years young. Wow.

And you live in Beit Shemesh?

Yes, we both live in Beit Shemesh, not too far away from each other.

Okay.

Oh, thank you.

No problem.

And yeah, our wives are sisters. Cool.

And your wives are from where, Israel?

Originally South Africa.

Oh, they are South African.

Yeah, but they both were born and grew up here. The parents are from South Africa.

Okay. Cool. Very cool. So you are originally from?

I grew up, born and grew up over here. My parents are from the States.

Okay. And that is Bataya and Yaakov?

I am originally from Lakewood.

Okay. Wow. You heard of it? Yeah, I did. I used to live pretty close by. I used to live in New Jersey, a little town called West Orange. So does being in Israel ever get old to you?

No, not at all.

Isn't it the greatest thing on earth?

Greatest.

It's like unbelievable. There's no better place to raise your children than here in Israel.

I 100% agree.

It's like crazy.

I couldn't move back to America. I love visiting America, but living, I can't see myself living there.

It's kind of crazy. How did you guys get interested at all in wine?

Okay, so a few years ago, yeah, there was a few stuff that caused me to start making wine. One thing was also a little bit of a halachic thing, which was I wanted to create wine which would be perfect from all halachic point of view, which means not cooked, no additives, which sulfite actually is considered one of the additives, which is not really a gabim husbeach. And that was one reason how I started making it. Another reason is also because I realized that I buy a bottle every week. I am very creative, Baruch Hashem, I mean, I do different stuff. I am like, why buy wine if I can make my own? So I figured, you know, how hard could it be? The first year was not too great, also the second year was not, but the first year someone said, okay, maybe you should learn how to make wine. But then eventually, I was getting better at it and people started liking it.

So did you have a mentor? Did you have somebody that you went to to learn how to make wine, or you just researched it yourself?

So a lot of it was research, a lot of it was experience, just issues that I came up with as I was making the wine. And since, Baruch Hashem, I am sensitive to different small details, I was able to notice different issues coming up and realizing the issue and looking for solutions. And that's how the wine was perfected.

Give me an example. What sort of things?

Okay, so one of the big issues with natural fermentation, spontaneous fermentation, is that it could be stuck and then you have other stuff growing. Right. And as you mentioned, which is something which I've heard in other places also, that in a lot of wineries, once they have a commercial yeast, then everything is contaminated.

Yeah.

So we have a bag of commercial yeast which we don't use. It's just there to save if something— we see something stuck, which we actually don't use it. But in order to prevent this issue of having a stuck fermentation, having other stuff growing and evolving before we want the fermentation to start, I actually create a starter from natural fermentation. So the tests I do beforehand, that when I go to the vineyard and I'm taking samples and checking the sugar, and seeing how stuff are tasting and looking, I let it sit and ferment in different small batches. And I'm able actually to see that— I see one of them evolved into a much nicer smell, good smelling, tastes good, and I use that for my starter. So it's still natural fermentation.

Yeah, but it's not—

it's, it's a natural fermentation of your selected yeast, but it's the same, same vineyard.

Okay, no, that's great. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not— it's an interesting way around that. It's an interesting way around it, which is exactly what other people would do if they had the patience to do that. They choose to take, you know, buy commercial yeasts. I mean, I— many of the winemakers experiment with yeast all the time. They're, they're constantly— it's funny, one of the— I found that many of the winemakers started out making bread and pastries and stuff like that, and then they went into wine. And I said, you know, You notice a path, like you're a yeast addict, you know, you just like yeast and that's what you're working with. Yeah.

So I actually went the other way around because I've made, um, lechem hachmetzet from our yeast of the wine.

Yeah.

Using that.

Isn't that great?

Oh, tastes delicious.

And it's beautiful. Well, it depends what sort of wine you're using, but if you're using red wines, it's a beautiful pinkish color and it's just—

once it was started, once the yeast were taking over the The flour, I would just continue adding flour and the thing was alive and made a few breads from it.

Yeah, I know, it's amazing. It's absolutely amazing. Yeast is an amazing thing. I mean, it's this live vehicle that does everything. Right.

I like describing how the natural fermentation, I guess maybe we have a debate if you're considering this spontaneous fermentation, but—

No, it's not spontaneous. It's okay, but go ahead.

Okay, um, when there's this in, in the, in the wild yeast, even though I don't know, I'm not able to control a specific strain of yeast obviously because there's probably millions of them. Yeah, of different strains, even though they might be often the same family pretty much except from the bad ones. But, uh, when you're putting, when you're, when you have this fermentation going on, I like looking at it as this big battle, like this war battle. So there's different units, different types of soldiers, and everyone's doing their thing, right? Some of them are going to take over the battle in the beginning, and they're going to be dominant and start eating all the sugars, and sometimes also kind of cannibalistic, eating also other yeasts. And then eventually, something's going to cause them to die out, and there'll be some other strain taking over them. Now, the commercial yeast, from what I researched, a lot of them are just— they're so strong and dominant, and especially putting a lot in at one time, just going to take over the party, especially if you You started out with killing all the wild yeasts with sulfite, or maybe cooking, whatever it is. So having this whole battle happening together, a lot of these yeasts, when they get to the end line, which is the end product, the wine, so some of them are giving different aromas which you would not be able to get with the commercial yeast because it doesn't exist in the commercial yeast. It's its own strain, its own family. Not really its own family, but its own thing. Anything affecting it.

If it's, uh, yeah, it's the reason they use commercial yeast is control, right? I mean, that's what they're trying to do. They're trying to control it. They don't— they— you're a risky guy, okay? But I'm just telling you, I get it. Yeah, I attest to it. Okay. Um, and we're talking, uh, the winemaker here is Petachia, so that's, that's one who's talking the most in the conversation, at least at the moment. But, um, So I get it. You know, what you're doing is finding ways to make the variety of yeast, number one, from a natural source that you're seeing, and then being able to control it so that that yeast strain wins out or the yeast strain you want wins out over the other strains that are there because that's the reason why once you use it, a yeast in a winery, it's very hard to say, "I'm going to use wild yeasts," because these strains just, once you develop them to be stronger, just kind of take over. Yeah, then you can't get them out there in everything.

You're talking about the risk, so I'll just— I don't want to sound too radical.

No, go ahead.

But I'll try being natural about it. I've been thinking about it when I went into the whole into making wine. You know, everyone's been saying it's such a big risk, and I get it. I understand why people are saying it's a big risk, but one question keeps on coming up to me is the whole ancient world made wine like this. Now, some people claim and say their wine wasn't so great. Um, okay, I think that it's hard to prove, first of all. Second of all is that the wine— ancient wine industry was a massive part of the industry, so it's hard to say that it was just like something like people forced down their throats, especially if it was coming from Yavneh, which is—

they just recently found that, uh, they were producing millions of bottles of wine in Yavneh.

Israel was one of the biggest distributors in the country. Yeah, I wonder how their systems worked, how they— what their process was like.

A lot of manual effort. A lot of manual effort. But it was— there was also a lot of, you know, variability. In it. We are getting very crazy about trying to make consistent wine every year, and we want it to taste a certain way, and we want to taste it the way it used to taste, to taste it when we made it last year.

When we are talking about consistency of the product, we are not trying to be consistent. We are creating the— we are letting the wine, we are letting the grapes pronounce themselves. And a lot of our work is really preventing stuff that could ruin them. If it's temperature, if it's us— like, for example, the whole process of the creating, making the wine. Every time you come into the winery with gloves and masks, which I don't know any other winery who do that. And that's because preventing minimal— not having any spit or any other bacteria coming in. So stuff like that, which keeping it clean, sterile. Kituy and different stuff we're doing to make sure that we're not having other interference that could ruin this wine. But again, going back to the point of how they made wine in the ancient times, I always have the question, how did they manage making— it must have been some industry that was worthwhile because everyone was doing it. So obviously it wasn't going bad as much as people today are feared that it might go bad, and they were, they were managed to do it. So there's some, there should be some system And I believe that we are not experienced enough yet, because we have other solutions, that we do not have to get to that experience. So we are just going around it. And I want to suggest something even a bit, even more extreme, is that I think that a lot of wine, you have this amazing vineyard, unbelievable terroir. So we have this amazing land, temperature, a climate, and someone making the wine. Everything is amazing. But then, after you made this unbelievable wine, you have to sell it because someone has to eat at the end of the day. Even with all of our love for wine, we also want to make a profit from it. So the Teitas take this amazing product, and technically they have to do a process, a little bit of ruining it, hoping you are not going to ruin it too much and still continue having this unbelievable product with this preventing it from going bad, giving you longer life on the shelf. And hoping your wine still stays good. In other words, obviously today we were able to control it, and there's lots of different methods to make sure the wine still comes out good. But I think that pretty much everyone would agree that if you were able not to put in any additives, you wouldn't do it, right? There isn't any reason to add something which really doesn't add to the wine. At the worst case, it's ruining something. If you're lucky and you know what you're doing, so it's— you're not ruining it, but it's also— it's not definitely not adding anything. Okay, there could be a little bit of argument on that point.

No, I'm—

but, uh, yeah, I hear you. So, so that was— so again, if we're talking about like, uh, being looking at risk, our chazon, like our vision of what we're trying to do, is figure out, you know, sort of cracking the system of how to create natural wine with, uh— I'm not going to get into it when I say minimal intervention. Yeah, so I'm not, I'm not getting into the whole like the what, what like the different laws and the different taghdarot, how people are going to describe it exactly. But I'm saying giving this grape, letting it pronounce itself, and moving away all the stuff that could ruin this wine, which is also one of the reasons why we haven't done wood. We haven't used oak also for this reason, because I believe that oak, even with the complexity that adds, I feel that that's also an additive. It's an external additive, which is fine if people enjoy it. But if we're trying to capture the pure taste of the grape, then adding other stuff, I'm considering it in a certain sense additives.

So you use amphoras, you use clay.

So actually—

Or concrete.

Right.

Ceramic.

Okay, ceramic.

Yeah. So this year was very exciting because we actually built our ceramic vats.

Okay.

So we have these gigantic ceramic vats, the concrete on the outside and ceramic on the inside.

Okay.

Um, and yeah, and glass. And we're, we're going to move to, uh, when we grow a little bit more, we'll get, uh, either also concrete and also amphoras. And, uh, I'm actually— I experimented in, in wild— in wild clay, in clay from the mountains, right? And created different vessels from it. Uh, it's a little bit complicated because they leak.

So, you know, people don't realize how many variables impact wine. It's just crazy.

That's my favorite part about wine. Yeah, is every little nuance affects the wine. It gives it a different, uh, flavor.

You've got an interesting thought though, that, you know, all of the things people do to, um, to control, uh, the fermentation gets away from just naturally letting it do what it wants. As much as you are trying to be pure and this and that, you end up having to deal with what the grapes throw at you and what the weather throws at you and what Kadosh Baruch Hu throws at you. So that is, you know, that is part of it.

Yeah, it is one of the very fun processes. I am not as creative and in touch with nature as Petachia. But one of the things that is a lot of fun being in the winery is all these things that come up during the winemaking process that I like follow rules. Like I ask Pitaka, like, what should I do now? Like, okay, do this. Okay, I'll do that. Put the wine here, put the grapes here, do this, do that. And when things like start going a different way, like I get stuck, like what should I do? And that's like where Pitaka is at his best, you know, just feeling out the situation, coming up with solutions, doing things with the wine and coming up with creative ideas. And yeah, that kind of brings the wine. We have like probably 30 different wines in our winery actually, from these things like, let's take the peels from here and the stems from here, mix it with this water. And he just has like 30 experiments like all around.

That's the fun thing. Yeah. That's the fun part. That's how— You know, not a lot of people are able to experiment like that. So you're in a very special position to do that. So tell me a little bit about what you're doing. I was surprised when I tasted the wine that was given to me that it was an Argaman. That's a crazy grape to— I mean, I've tasted some fantastic Argamans, but I also know it's difficult, and I was, I was impressed with how good it was.

Exactly.

So that's one of the things that surprised me.

Yeah.

Yeah. Clapping is in order. It is. No, yes. Yeah, um, can't even do that.

So, so this, uh, this vineyard This is more sophisticated than I thought.

Now tell me about what— yeah, where is this vineyard?

So this vineyard is right outside of Zahrim. You know Zahrim? Zahrim is a Kfar Naal, Kids in Risk. My brother, he used to be an avbayit. Now he is sort of in charge over there for different stuff. It is not a Haredi place, by the way. And so I was exposed to that area. It's Shvelati Uda, which is also ancient grape area also. And this vineyard originally was planted— I don't know who planted it, but it should be close to 20 years at least. And Zarym, this kfaranot, used to take care of it. Sometimes better, sometimes it wasn't. I don't know if it was specifically their responsibility, but sometimes it was not really taken care of so well. And when we took them with grapes the first time, which was 2 years ago, last year, it was— the thing was pretty much abandoned and still made grape. This Argaman, I feel like it's like it decided— even it was developed here and it found its home. It was born here, but it wants to stay here. And it just developed so nicely and it really rooted nicely and it fits even though it's like it comes off a little bit as a heavy wine because of deep color, but it has something very pleasant and not so heavy to it. And I feel like it was just, when it, from the second I saw it and tasted it, I was like, this is my grape. Like, I love this grape.

Yeah. It's only really, really recent that people have started to make, not really, really recent, you know, It is really, really recent to me because I'm over 70. But, you know, I think one of the first people who made Argaman, actually probably the first who made an Argaman that was its own varietal, meaning that he made wine out of Argaman directly, not blended, was Avi Feldstein. Avi Feldstein. And he, you know, people looked at him like, are you crazy? And made a great wine. And the trick is to do it consistently. So you have got your hands full trying to keep that going.

I can attest that it has been at least 3 years now in the making. It is fantastic. Delicious wines.

The vineyard has its charm. We have been through it with hard and hard times and good times. So we actually have a nice story with this right now in the world. When we're picking, we do picking by hand, even though a machine could pick over there, but we do picking by hand. And we're getting phone calls from our wives, there's a missile coming from the hoodies. And we're lying down in the vineyard, and over us is these big booms. Like, wow, this is like, this is Eretz Yisrael, and it needs to be assumed we're here, we're here to stay. This is We were lying in the vineyard on the ground. It was the most unbelievable feeling.

I think that goes into terroir. Yeah, definitely, sure.

100%. I agree with you. They only shoot Iron Dome to protect areas with populations. So if it is an open Shetach, an open field, open fields are all vineyards. So anytime somebody says, oh, do not worry, It landed in an open field. Oh, God, which vineyard did that land in? So that's the problem.

That's why I got so nervous in this field, because we're in the open field. This is where they let it drop.

Yeah, this is exactly where they let them drop. So yeah, it's been a challenge. It's been a challenge. And the best thing to do is lay flat on the ground. Yeah. So you don't get any shrapnel.

Yeah.

But it is crazy. And I have seen some vineyards up north where there are sections of them just gone because of missiles. So it has been a tough couple of years now. So you are in this vineyard. It grows what varietals are in the vineyard?

This vineyard itself is Argaman. It is about I think it's about 30 dunam. The whole thing is 30 dunam, but that first part is Argaman. The second part, there's the one next to it, which is not Argaman. Some— it could be a Tbilisi, I'm not sure. Some white grape at the end of it. Across from it, we have where we got our Cabernet and Merlot from.

Okay.

And then we have Shiraz, which is also— it's all pretty much in the same sort of valley.

Yeah.

So that's all very much Emek HaYela.

That's such a beautiful place. Emek HaYela is just an incredible area.

Yes. I heard that this vineyard was pretty much abandoned and I could get from it. So I went, I got from there. And then we decided to make from it. The grapes were just— there's always the argument if only good grapes can make good wine. But in this case, we didn't need the argument because it was just great grapes. The, the color and the taste and the aromas, and they were just, just delicious just as they were. Um, even though this, this vineyard itself is not so consistent— some grow much bigger fruit and some grow— it's almost like I, I, I've been trying to track down who planted it to find out if this was one of the experimental vineyards they planted. So in this vineyard, it was, it was like even more extreme. It could be this is more common. Yeah, but like some parts of it where the sugar was like 14.

Yeah.

And some was like 32.

Yeah.

And we had to, in order to get a good balance, we had— I was going all over the vineyard to get the samples to see exactly what area we need to pick.

You really need to, you really need to segment it and then go through it. And that's the only way you'll know year after year how it, how it does, because there's so many things. What it's you know, what's under those vines, uh, and there's a lot of rocky areas, and some of them actually cause the, cause the, um, vines to, uh, stress, which actually makes the grapes better, right?

Yeah.

So it's really kind of, you know, kind of crazy. Yeah.

Um, so again, another human-like phenomenon. Than grapes.

That's stress. Good stress.

Stress makes people better. Well, that's the whole thing with Kaddish Baruch Hu and us. You know, we're supposed to be like, you take silver and you refine it, right? And then it gives off some stuff. And then the more you refine it, the more you, you absolutely, um, stress it out, burn it, and what have you. That's how you end up getting, you know, the finest silver.

So Yeah, I heard a nice idea about this from some guy called Malachi. He's in Tzahalim. So he said that when we prune, we call it z'mira, right? And he said it's a funny thing calling it z'mira, which sounds like music, and what you're doing is you're chopping off the plant. It seems like you're ruining it. He said, but the truth is the music without the beat, without the cutting of the tunes, won't be music. What creates the music is the fact that you have the stoppings in the middle. So when you take this vine and you're cutting it, you're calling it Tzmirah because you're actually doing what music does. That's what's going to create this better thing, is by cutting up these, making a cutout.

It's very true. It's basically, instead of having noise, you're improving it. And that's what we're supposed to do with everything in the world. The difference between us and the The Buddhists, the Buddhists are supposed to go through life and not even leave footprints. If they could walk through the sand and not leave footprints, that's exactly what they ideally want to do. And with us, it's exactly the opposite. If you've walked through life and you haven't even left footprints, you've wasted your life. God put us here to improve everything. So it's really special. So what are we going to taste? Let's taste something.

This is my favorite time.

Go for it.

A little carignan maybe. Okay, so this carignan is from a very, very special vineyard.

Okay.

I started telling you before, it's a very nice—

Oh, you want to start with the carignan first?

Well, you start.

Let me ask you a question.

Yes.

You don't make any whites, do you?

So this, we actually, I wasn't able to get white grapes like the ones we wanted to get. Yeah, but there was— this is the surprise wine, and I'm letting you know, this is like for just because I know you appreciate interesting, you know, out-of-the-box style wines.

Yep.

Or at least to put it on your portfolio that you tasted this wine. Yeah. So it's actually made from edible grapes, what's called edible grapes.

Do you want to try the white first?

Yeah, yeah, the white is the— let's just say it's sort of experimental. I brought it here just for for people who appreciate wine. Okay, but, uh, it's Crimson. Yeah, Crimson. You've heard the grapes? Okay, let's see how, uh, I, I, we, we finished picking, we finished the harvest of the, what was it, the Shiraz or the—

yeah, either the Shiraz or the Cabernet.

We're sitting there, it's dark outside, it's getting dark, I have my flashlight on And there's another vineyard of fruit which they finished picking already, and whatever's left, the guy told me just pick. So I'm like, okay, I'll take some for my kids to eat. And I'm smelling these grapes and they smell so delicious and so aromatic and just very unique. It's actually more— it looks more like a rosé. You'll see.

I just want you to look at the bottle for a second just to appreciate something. Wow, that looks fantastic.

Crazy.

Just look at the actual label. Look where it says Crimson. I love these. Petachia wrote that. That's handwritten.

Just because we don't have labels for it, I figured let's make it nice.

That's crazy.

That's Sapphirus. And also the Carnian. I just saw this for the first time.

Yeah, let's keep it interesting, you know. It's part of the creativity, you know. Creating wine is more than just making the wine, it's creating its environment.

It is.

Yeah.

Wow, the color is beautiful.

Okay, now if anyone is not— this is not anyone's palate, so feel free. I won't get insulted.

We'll try it, we'll try it. L'chaim tovim, shalom.

This smells like— I would wear this as a perfume.

This is the color of, um, of, uh, what do you think, candy? Yeah, it has like a candy color. Um, it's, it's not really a white. It's, uh, it's like a rosé, but it's not like a rosé that I've ever—

yeah, because the grapes are sort of off, sort of this color, just in the grape. They're not red, but they're not white. There's some type of combination.

I can't believe this is what it tastes like now.

Yeah, yeah. This one tastes—

this a few months ago, it was, it was like a watered-down, just completely out of balance. I actually cooled this off a little bit, which, uh, it would be great if it was a little chill.

Yeah, you could.

Yeah, yeah.

So this is actually, uh, as we said, Crimson. I don't know if you ever tasted that.

That's what they call a grape.

Yeah, it's, it's actually sold as a, uh, just a table grape. Yeah. So this again is part of a little bit, uh, being a little bit naughty, breaking the, breaking the rules a little bit. Yeah, because I feel like, you know, it's— we're creating, you know, we're making new stuff, so why not experiment and see what, what could happen?

Cool.

As, uh, the cork.

Yep.

What's your thoughts on the wine?

It's— it is It's really, um, it's really interesting. It's not— that sounds bad. No, I don't, I don't mean to be bad.

It's, it is, it, it'll open up a bit more. Yeah, it's, yeah, it definitely is.

It's taking a little— it's going to take a little bit of time. Um, I've never tasted anything like it.

Yeah, me too. Listen, it's part of training our palates.

And I don't mean that in a bad way. It's— no, I don't mean that in a bad way. I've never tasted anything like it. But, um, I never tasted anything like orange wines either until I tasted them and I said, this is not for me. Um, this is more, uh, you know, closer to, you know, a something that I would like to drink than an orange wine, but I've become very— I'm a big fan of orange wines now.

So I'll keep it closed and you'll chill it a little bit more afterwards and taste it again if you'd like.

Okay, this is for the, uh, Carignan.

Yep.

So the story— shall I tell a story about it?

Yeah, please.

So this, this person, um, he He's older right now. He's probably around 80 years old or so. Yeah, he has— he got a few plots from Rav Kana in Moshabbet Meir. This yeshiva originally, when it opened up, was actually— it's a Haredi yeshiva which was originally opened up as sort of what you would call today tarva varda. They actually worked the fields. Rav Kana's father was— he was part of the guys from the Yeshiva who came from Shanghai. And eventually the government were looking for people to populate other different areas in Israel, so they gave him this big piece of land in Moshav Bet Meir to open his Yeshiva. So this person planted over there these two small vineyards, and he has a little winery there until today. He comes every Monday there and he does his stuff in his pace. He has this little room, and he's— He does his thing. And the way he started making wine was actually when he was getting close to Yiddishkeit in Russia, and there wasn't any way to get any wine. And anyone was looking for getting to get wine. So this is how I heard the story. I'm not— I don't know about historic details, but whoever would look to get wine, the, the KGB would look for him and know that he's looking for Jewish. I guess they knew where to track someone who was Jewish looking for wine, right? So eventually he got a hold of a of a grapevine, and he planted it outside his window and trained it into his window, and he literally made wine for Kiddush from his window. That was his first, first, uh, vine that he planted.

I just want to say it, I feel like I'm listening to the podcast itself and enjoying wine at the same time. I feel like I'm drinking wine listening to a wine.

There's a difference than when you take taste the last? Doesn't it?

I don't know, maybe he needs to open a bit. I don't know, I haven't tasted it. I just want to say it's fantastic listening to our podcast with you talking to Simon. I would listen to this podcast.

It's fun.

So this, this Carignan is about 30 years old.

Yep.

The, the vine, um, in a very unique spot. It's like the corner of the top highest part in Beit Meir. Looking over to the ocean pretty much. And this vineyard I started because of teaching yeshiva there. I this year got a hold of it, I got in charge of it, and we're starting, really starting to revive it because it's not— it's getting a little bit old, and it's— but it doesn't get— it didn't give so much fruit this year. We had like maybe 30 kilos, used to give about 300.

So this year For some reason, a lot of the vines gave very small amounts. There was a definite decrease in yield. I don't know why exactly, but you know, you said that this is wine and people and what have you. The country is like, after October 7th, is really hurting. The harvests were done. Before that. The year after, which is 2023, or 2023, I guess, or 2024, 2024, yeah, 2024, the harvest was like almost sad. Yeah. It just was not giving the same amount of fruit as it had. Not that it was suddenly, you know, it's just the mood that it's in at the moment.

That's interesting.

And it was across many, many winemakers that I spoke to said that.

Also, just the fields were not kept up like they usually are. Like a lot of farmers didn't have staff. Right, work the fields where we got from. They said 80% of their, uh, yeah, of their crop is, is non-existent this year. They're only dealing with 20%.

I actually spoke today to our guy from the vineyard over there. Yeah, he got, uh, guys from, uh, Thailand.

Oh really?

Yeah, just now. So they're doing— hopefully they'll— he sounded very hopeful, which is good because last year was, was tough.

It was.

Yeah, yeah, you saw it on him.

Yeah, he saw that. I, I was like These guys are like growing grapevines. How could they be so, so tense? Sorry for saying it. No, it was very hard.

It was because between the bombs dropping and all the workers going into Milouim, I mean, people were in Milouim for 200 days, 300 days. I mean, it's crazy.

Our wine gang was also.

And what are your thoughts about this one?

This is not typical for me of a Carignan.

No.

Carignan is usually extremely intensely tannin. Um, this has some tannins, it has some acid as well, but it's, um, much more fruity.

Yeah.

And, uh, and it's also kind of candy-ish, you know, there's like kind of a candy.

I'm trying to taste that smell. What is it? Candy? Like toffee maybe? Like something like caramel, maybe a little bit burnt?

Yeah.

Has it gotten more fruity from the past. I don't recall this either, right?

Yeah.

Yep.

I don't know, I didn't taste it originally, but the finish is, is, is quite long.

Okay, so the thing that's cool is it's really nicely balanced. The front of the palate is nice, the mid-palate is nice, and it's got a long finish as it goes through. I'm still, I'm still tasting it. Yeah, and it's, um, which is, you know, really nicely done.

This is also a natural fermentation and, uh, no additives. Also not cooked, no sulfites.

And, uh, did you mention that you pruned these actual vines?

You take care of these vines? Yeah, these vines are the ones I— there's the only vine that right now I'm pruning and taking care of, dealing with the water and the other stuff that are involved in it. So it's very exciting.

So as you see, the more he's involved in the bottle, you see just the more flavors there are. Yeah, it comes out with the, uh, you're getting the human grape connection.

Yakov is the marketer.

Yeah, Yakov is. Yeah, you're noticing that he does his, he does his work amazing. He really is. Listen, Artist, how do you say, artist starve, right?

Starving, uh, you know, so yeah, I'm just taking his art.

I'm enjoying his art.

The way we started it, because I wasn't planning to get into this thing at all because I was making wine, enjoying it, lovely to drink it, giving to everyone, throwing party. And, uh, he meet where we're flying to together in England, to England, the whole family for our sister-in-law's, uh, sons' bar mitzvah. And, um, he— on the plane, he's like, listen, you got to sell your wine. Like, listen, I don't know how to sell. I'm an artist. I make the stuff, right?

It's going to my perspective for a second.

I'm—

to cut you off for a second, sorry. No, is that for a few years? A few years. He's been making wine now for 4 years.

Yeah.

So, um, and he's my brother-in-law, so we, we eat a lot of the same meals together. We'll be at my in-laws' house. We'll both be there for Shabbos. And I'm the recipient of this wine every, like, every week. I'm just enjoying it, and I'm loving this wine. And, and I noticed, like, I can't get this wine anywhere. It's unique. You're not finding this. Like you said, like, you could tell a Castel, you could tell, uh, you could tell this Petahia.

Amazing.

And it's, uh, yeah. And eventually I said this gotta— this has to get out there. This wine has to get out there. And what's interesting is, is that there's actually been a lot of people who said the same— say the same sentence. Like, like, once they, they're drinking this, it's like it's a whole nother, uh, a whole nother world in wine. Like, it's not— so someone actually— I don't know if there's a good thing or a bad thing— someone's like, he tasted this, he's like It doesn't taste like wine. He's like, it's missing the wine taste. I'm like, you're probably referring to like the wood flavor in, uh, or whatever sulfites, whatever it, uh, it might be. But it's definitely— it's a unique, uh—

no, it's definitely— it— I don't know what he meant by that. It's definitely wine. It tastes like—

it's not what he was used to.

I know, I know.

It's not the characteristics.

It's— yeah, yeah.

One thing I like to do with people who are not so like experience in lots of wines, but they try to describe just in a practical way where you taste the sulfites. As I say, take a wine you like that has sulfites, the Fiat Tekken, yeah, and drink it together with wine without, and you really get the idea what— where the sulfites are hitting you and the different little bit of a metallic taste, slight metallic taste, which the sulfites are adding. Now the better the wine is, they're able to— I don't want to sound too extreme and say to disguise it, but it blends in and you don't taste it too much, which that's obviously what we're trying to do. I do have a theory that a lot of wines are overwooded. Yeah, because sure, they put too much sulfites because they have to protect the wine. And the wood— this is my palate's opinion, if I can say it that way— the wood is able to sort of disguise the sulfite, the off taste of the sulfite, which is why some of these wines are— they taste very layered and very nice, but there's something happening that there's like some type of a, like a rough taste or feeling maybe, and the wood is sort of like disguising it.

To have the wood express itself so much so that you can taste the wood, that's not the goal of making good wine. But you know, there are some wines that are like that. Yeah. So yeah, would you like to—

should we open up the Argaman now? Yeah, let's go for it. It would be— it would be crazy if we— by the way, I'm just letting you know, I could sit here all night. What time do we have to be out?

We're okay.

We're good.

Yeah, we're good, we're good, we're good, we're good.

The question is, who's carrying us out?

There you go. It's okay, we're not drinking that much.

No, no, no. We're used to these little tastes.

Yeah, it's good.

Another nice thing I like to tell people when they drink our wine, it's— I think it's true for all wines. People like ask me, so should I let it air out? I say just taste, open it, drink a little bit and taste it. Because I think every wine in a certain sense is alive, but when there isn't something preventing the liveness, the— which I'm— I think it's a lot of the sulfites are doing that. As you're drinking, you really feel the process that's going through and really taste the process it's going through. Because we manage the oxygen so well, sometimes it's not even exposed enough to oxygen, right? But when, when we're trying to describe what oxygen does— you spoke about a little bit before. Yeah, I like saying, as I just— to help just understand it more, is if you have this beautiful fruit and it smells good and delicious, but when it's closed off there's no exposure to your nose or to open air, then you're not able to get all the good aromas and flavors coming out of it, right?

Right.

If you take a knife and start chopping into it, what you would do is you're actually destroying the fruit by chopping it, but you're actually letting out the aromas and flavors because that's how you're able to get it. Similar to that, when you're— when the wine is getting oxidized, part of what's happening is that the oxygen is ruining it, but it's really taking it apart, breaking it down. And that breaking down is what exposes the smells and the aromas and the flavors breaking out of it.

The Argaman, the Argaman has, um, is really pretty incredible in that it has great tannins. It's great, it's wonderful. I— it, it is. The finish is still going, um, but it's— the acid is more present, which is good, and the tenets are more present. I really like this expression of Argaman. Yeah, I was surprised. I didn't think I would. I really didn't think—

why is that? Because of its difficulty to—

yeah, and also that, you know, you guys are new at it and what have you. Um, somebody, the person who showed it, you know, gave it to me, promised— I think he promised you that he would share it with me. And he, um, and he said, well, you know, like, okay, what do you think of it? And I said, yeah, it's— and, and then I tasted it and I went, it's not that bad, this is pretty good. And, um, I was pretty surprised. So yeah, he's a good guy.

How would you rate this on like a, a qualitative level?

Like, I— this expresses a lot of things that a number of people would like, love. There's some people who are hardcore French wine people who will never go for this, okay? They just won't. Um, number one is because it's got like— it's got a a certain amount of, um, I don't want to call it roughness, but because it's, because it's natural, it has no preservatives, it has— there's no sulfites, so it's got this natural edginess to it that normally is killed normally is beaten down, and I kind of like it. So, um, I understand, uh, what you're trying to accomplish with it, and, and I like it. I would drink it. Uh, it's, it's interesting. My wife has a much better palate than I do, and she heard it a lot, and she likes it a lot. We had it here and—

Really?

Yeah.

I heard you had it a few, like it was a day after it was open, a few days?

Yeah.

That also surprised us was the—

It surprised me.

How long it lasts.

I find it lasts more than ones with sulfite. I can't explain it. It doesn't make sense.

I don't know. It didn't last that long for me because we drank it. Well, that did it. We had a group of people and everybody went, oh, we got to taste taste that, it was gone. So that was—

yeah, actually, this Shabbos, I poured myself a cup of two different wine, grapes, wines that I made, right? And I had this cup sitting, and I tasted it Friday night. And then after the seder, I tasted a little bit. Right before I went to sleep, I tasted a little bit more, sitting on the table with the napkin in it. And then when the siren went off on Friday night, You know, after everyone's back into bed, I go, you know, half sleeping, tasting it, really seeing its, its involvement. Within 24 hours, I finished it by Havdalah. And it was like taking this journey, you know, this Shabbos allowed journey with this cup of wine, these two cups of wine. It was really fantastic.

It's one of the most fun things to do.

The stamp at the time at the top of the wax is actually carved out from a piece of olive wood, Israeli olive wood, if you'd like.

Wow.

Because we were here, this, this, this part of it.

Yeah.

Oh, oh, you can have that one.

Yeah, yeah, I got it.

I want to get that. I want to get one more wine for you to taste.

Oh, you got one more?

The Cabernet.

You have a cab?

We have a cab.

Wow.

This is a roller coaster of a cab.

Okay, it's—

so usually we're able to manage the malolactic fermentation. Yeah, we've seemed to miss it with this Cab, which resulted with the second fermentation after it was bottled.

Okay, wow.

Yeah, okay, so it complements it. It actually, in my opinion, uh transformed, definitely more softer and nicer like the melalactic often does. But it, uh, we've been having a little bit of fizziness, so it's not a pet nut, but it's a little bit fizzy. It's, it's interesting. Yeah, it's, it's alive. Exactly. It's something which is just gonna— it's just giving its story, and you could either be part of the story or say this is not for me, but there's a story going on. I have 4 cups over here. And I'm smelling everyone as I'm— they're all developing, they're developing amazing. Like the— I tasted before the Carnián, it's— it had a little bit of that raisiny smell at the beginning and it sort of matured up. Yeah, even a raisin is sort of off.

Yeah, no, but it blew off.

And just, uh, I think that, uh, as we say, the party in the nose, the the different smells coming out and going, jumping from one smell to another. And as much as I, I find a lot of people are very developed on their palate, I've been always very developed in my nose, smelling stuff and sensing different stuff. And I just find it like, first of all, the liveliness— everything's so alive. I'm just really enjoying smelling one by one, jumping through them. It's almost like, uh Hearing this story, if I could be poetic about it.

What's interesting to me is how much they open up. I would have thought that wines with sulfites would actually open up a lot because they're more contained and closed in from the— like it needs to aerate and all that. And I thought natural wines would be more— what you get is what, you know, what you open is what you get from the beginning. But I was shocked, like, I'm still like, how much it develops along the—

I'll tell you why. Because, um, the sulfite actually protects the wine from oxidizing somewhat. The natural wines don't have that protection, so they might actually develop more when you open them up, but I don't know. Interesting.

How are they for you? How are they?

This is—

oh, is that the Cab? I'm very curious what your take is on the Cab.

It's unlike any cab I've tasted in the past.

We've been getting that so much.

I know, in a good way.

Yeah, no, no, it's not a bad thing. Um, it's, it's just there is a problem. Yeah, I'll tell you what the problem is.

It's too good.

No, no, it's It's almost unfortunate to put labels on these bottles because what happens is it's the same thing that happened when I first tasted orange wine. When I first tasted orange wine, I said, "Mm, no thanks." And I asked Yakovoria, "Why am I reacting like that?" And he said, because you've drunk a lot of wines, okay? You will find that the people who are real wine drinkers, drink a lot of wine, are not gonna be so open to your wines. Because when you drink a lot of wine, your brain creates boxes. And you put different flavors and different tastes in each of those boxes. And when something doesn't fit in a box, your automatic reaction is to reject it. Okay, I'm sure people who are like new wine drinkers taste this stuff and go, whoa, this is great! You know, when I've tasted wine in the past, it's been 'Not for me. This tastes good.' I, I think that that's what the reaction you're going to get, and I'd be surprised if it isn't.

Why, why do you think that?

Because, because it's not like this cab. Doesn't taste like a cab. It does taste like a cab after you think about it, but your initial reaction is that it doesn't taste like a cab. And it's like, oh, you know, well, this doesn't fit into the boxes that I have prepared for tasting this. I'm just telling you what my opinion is.

Yeah. I think that a lot of the— when you're saying it doesn't taste like a cab, I feel like this is what cab tastes like, if not for us interrupting it with a lot of other stuff. In other words, if you will keep this, we'll leave this bottle here for you. Open another cap.

Yes.

And try seeing where they link together, where they're the same and where they're not.

Right.

And I think that we've been getting a lot of people like, so this is, so this is, like what you're saying, this is our melon. Doesn't taste so much finer than I've ever tasted. It's almost like I don't have to force it down. I don't mean it to sound in a negative way. But we've compared our wines also to very— I'm not saying very expensive, but nice, for sure, $200 bottle wines. And again and again, we're getting something which is a bit more pure. Some people would consider it a bit less body, although I'm— I have a little bit of a debate, which I'm happy to hear what you think about it. I feel like a lot of times people are confusing a complexity and body with the wood and a little bit of a rough taste, a rough going down. Sometimes people consider something more sophisticated when it's harder for them to drink. If they have to force themselves— not talking about experienced wine drinkers, but some people, when they're drinking something and they have to force themselves not to make a face, then this must be good because everyone else says it's good, and now this is obviously what's, what's the right, uh, you know what I mean?

Okay, so One of the things that's special about Israel is that the varietals that come from Israel, there's some incredible varietals that were like Argaman, you tasted, but there's one called Debuki.

Sure.

There's Hemdali.

Jandali.

Jandali. And there's also Hemdali, I think, as well as one, Jandali.

Jandali, yeah.

They're— most of the wines that came out of Israel, besides Argaman, which was created recently, were wines that were lighter and brighter and more drinkable in a warm climate. I mean, now we're warm climate here now. With air conditioning is not like the warm climate was 100 years ago when there wasn't air conditioning. When there's— when it's hot outside, you could either drink something that's a little bit lighter and fruitier, or you can drink a heavy cab What do you think people are going to drink? They're not going to drink a heavy— in the middle of winter, you know, like last week here, this last week here. Yeah. Um, which is the middle of winter where the temperature went down into the 40s. Um, yeah, cabs are great, but when it goes up to the 80s by the end of this week, uh, the last thing you want to start drinking is a heavy, heavy wine. So these are a little lighter. Even this Cab is a little bit lighter, but it's, um, it's really lovely. It's fruity. Um, it's a lovely wine. Thank you. So I, I think you're going to get a lot of, uh Takers. Takers.

Takers. Takers.

People are going to want to drink this wine.

I'm still curious why you think that the first-time drinkers would like it over the, uh, meaning why if it's your first time—

because I'm a Cab lover. Yeah. So when I drink this, it's too light. It's not, it's not, um, the typical Cab, heavy-duty Cab, super fruit-forward. This is fruity, but it's lighter. I like it.

But people who are like starting out, you're saying they don't have a box yet what they're expecting, so it would—

The people who are starting out, a person would drink this and goes, "This isn't so tough to drink. This is nice." It's a pleasure.

Isn't that a funny statement though? I'm still trying—

isn't it a funny statement? Yes, it's a crazy statement, but typically you'd buy a French wine, it wouldn't be approachable for 20 years. You'd have to keep that wine in your cellar and hope to God that it would mature properly. Okay, typically those French wines are good for the first 6 months a year. All right, but they don't— they're drinkable, but they don't really show themselves yet. There's all sorts of extra levels of flavors and tertiary flavors and what have you, like chocolate and tobacco and all the rest of these other things that come at the beginning. They don't have that, but at least they're drinkable. Then they go into what's called a dumb phase, and they shut down. And when you drink them, then they're nothing. They're just— they're nothing. They're either acid or they're— they just really don't have a taste until you— they haven't— there's tannins and stuff that just are not pleasant unless you swirl them for hours and leave them open for hours and what have you to try to combat that. And then, but that doesn't bring out the tertiary flavors. That just brings— So that just lowers the hurdle of being able to get in and even put it in your mouth and not spit it out. And then after 20 years, 25 years, it might have developed these incredible tertiary flavors with chocolate and this and that and what have you. And there's some wines that I've tasted that are just amazing like that. But that's crazy. Why should I buy something and have to sit around for 20 years? Before I can drink it and it's drinkable.

I have a question for you about this.

Anything.

Do you feel that, or think that the view that a lot of wine drinkers have is if this wine, they look at a bottle and like, oh, it's 2024. Like they have expectations that a wine must be only good if it's like from 2000 and before that.

No, it's ridiculous.

It's like French, right?

No, some people have that attitude about it. But the truth is that that's not the way wine works at all.

I get messages like that all the time. They're like, "Oh, for a 2024." Yeah, yeah, for 2024.

Yeah, but the problem that you have is the older wine gets, it doesn't get any better unless it's made to get better. And most of the wine isn't. So you can take a bottle of Barqan and that's from 1998 and you can open it up and it can be absolute rubbish. It, it's, it's not about that. It's about there's certain wines that can age and certain wines that can't, right? And if you've got a wine that can age, it's the same thing with whites. There are certain whites— people realize that whites don't age, okay? Most people feel that, like a rosé, you have to drink a rosé within the year it was made. After that, it's not good anymore. Or if you drink a white wine, white wine might be good for 2 years, it's not good after that. That's not true. It depends on the winemaker. It depends on what he's made. There's a wine by Yakovoria that's a 2009, uh, Semillon that tastes fresh and delicious and wonderful. There are Italian wines that if you drink them the first year, the first 2 years, they taste like water. And it isn't until 2 or 3 years into it that all of a sudden they've developed other flavors and they're amazing wines. And you know, that's wine. The other thing is that there's no good wines or bad wines. I mean, there are, to be quite honest, there really are. But overall, it's not, it's not about what somebody else says. It's about what you taste. It's subjective. There's no— there's no, you know, it's like a scam that people come back and say, oh, this is like— and there are some wines that you'll taste that somebody will say to you, like as an example, some of the French wines that are pretty crazy, that taste like graphite or that tastes like, um, ink. That develop into something that's like really kind of special. But 99% of the wines don't have that sort of characteristic or capability.

So, you know, people always—

they—

any—

a lot of people I'll give the wine to, any wine, you'll hear it a lot. Yeah, they'll drink wine and they're like, wow, Like I really enjoy this bottle, but hey, I'm no connoisseur. So like, what do I know? Like, you know, for all I know, good for you.

That's what the whole thing is. You know, like if you like it, if you're enjoying it, enjoy it, go, go for it, guys. Go for it. There's a lot of wines that I don't like, but I enjoy wines that, um, that are interesting. These are interesting wines. So I enjoy them.

I think it's very important that you're saying this stuff because I feel like a lot of the young world, like we're surrounded with a lot with the younger guys, and a lot of people are like, they have like this fear of missing out from the sophisticated generation who are drinking what they believe in tradition and what they think is like considered a good wine. And instead of enjoying a wine they like, they're busy trying to taste wines that people are telling them that it's good. And they never develop enjoyment for wine even though they could, because they never experienced something which is suitable for them. I'm gonna have some of the Carnian.

You know what, I want some more of the Argaman.

I am the Sarah Mashkin as well.

It comes with the salesperson's job.

It's one of my favorite jobs. This is the Argaman. Okay, that's what you wanted, right?

I want the Argaman in this one and I want the Cab in this one. Sure. Thank you, Jakub.

You're getting it.

I'm so nervous every time.

Why?

I just— because, you know, I don't have that muscle memory yet.

No, no, it's okay, it's okay. I don't want to miss the, uh, the edge of that, the widest part of the mouth. Yeah, there it is.

Which one would you like?

Yeah, yeah, just the kanyans. It's like this cur— I'm so curious about it. I can't, I can't figure it out yet. Give me one second.

I feel like it's probably opened up. When we were looking for a name for our winery, we went through every biblical term there was. We searched everything that has to do with wine. It's all taken. Choshen, the Eifod, the Tabernacle.

Yeah, I just got to say, if you're already bringing this up, that it's a bit weird for me to have the name of the winery under my name. I call up the guy dealing with some part of the wine. He's like, so what winery are you? I'm like, Yekiv Tachya. Okay, good. What's your name? Tachya is like, oh, it's that guy who called it on his name. Listen, it wasn't my choice. I would give up the name. The other people, the people who are doing the sales, they said it's a good name, so I'm sticking with them.

You only have one name or you have two names?

I have two names.

Moshe Tachya. He stopped calling you Moshe.

I know, but it became too much.

It's so beautiful.

I appreciate it. I like the name also, but it was actually an interesting story about that because the top of the stamp— so when Annie designed this thing, the top, right? So this is a P, a peh in ancient Hebrew, but turns out that it looks more like a J, like some interesting J. Yeah. So it's like Hashem said, like it's Yakov, like people called him Jay for years. So it was like JP. Yeah, it just is. Hashem like put it in.

Mishamayim.

Nahal is amazing. Yeah, it's really amazing. So I guess we could also go for JP, also works.

I'm like the Purim story in this wine, you know, you find me hidden in the bottle somewhere, hidden in the cellar somewhere drinking the bottle.

That's me.

I'm also there.

Another thing about the enjoyment of making wine is there's nothing more enjoyment when you come to the winery and you taste wines. We're not big spitters, to say the least. Yeah, wine's meant for drinking, and we taste and taste and taste.

Yeah, but you really learn a lot. Like, you start from when the wine's like just developing, and you really follow the process. It's so amazing to be there through the whole story.

It, yeah, it really is special to do that. You know, I often tell people, they say, you know, like, what, when you buy a bottle of wine, you know, like, how long should you wait before you open it and what have you. I never buy one bottle. I always buy at least two. And what I do is I, I drink them at different times. As soon as I get a bottle I'm happy to open it. I don't wait forever unless it's a crazy bottle that I know is not going to be drinkable yet. And then I— but I normally open it and I taste it. And I taste it through a period of time. I taste it over a week or what have you. And then a year later, what have you, I taste the second bottle or if I get a case, I'll drink them periodically, and, uh, because I like to see how a wine develops over a period of time. And that's, that's the interesting part about it. It's a— it's like if you only met a kid when they were 2 and they were the cutest kids in the world, it'd be wonderful. But unless you meet them later and really see what the kid turns into, you're really seeing a very stifled view of that kid.

Yeah.

So it's another human grape connection.

It's totally very interesting theory. I want to ask you what you think about it. It's known that the wine— when the Gemara speaks about wine, they had to dilute it.

Yeah.

And I was wondering, tell me if this makes— just a theory I'm throwing out. I'm wondering, let's just— let's say that there was a strain of yeast that was strong enough to eat sugars up to 30-40%. So if you would have very sweet grapes and the strain and the yeast would not die out from their own alcohol environment, then theoretically we should be able to have wine coming up to 30-40%, which is pretty much like what you would drink, a Scotch, whatever.

Yeah.

Which wouldn't be possible to drink a cup of kiddush or four chais without diluting it. That would be a nice explanation for what they experienced then as wine wasn't able to drink, wasn't able to drink without diluting it. And if that— I mean, it's a little bit close in history to say that such a strain of yeast was distinct, extinct.

Extinct. Extinct.

Extinct. Yeah, so it's not so far away. But if that would be true, that would be an interesting explanation for that. What do you think about it?

I think it's a cool explanation. I always wondered, because the truth is that I've never met, I've never heard of a winemaker who made wines that you needed to dilute. Among the Sephardi Rabbeim, they don't want to drink, they're very careful about which wines they drink. Because they want it to be fully wine and they don't want it to be diluted wine. That's the one that was even more strange to me because I said, I've never seen any winery put water into wine in order to make it, you know, um, less, right?

So in fact, the Pasuk considers someone who's a cheater.

Yep.

Is the pasuk says, "Sovech mahul b'mayim." Yeah, that you're selling wine, you're putting water in it. That's like one of the examples the pasuk speaks about someone who's cheating in business. So it is an interesting thing. But with this theory, it's just interesting. I don't know, your audience is probably very smart people. Maybe someone would have any—

It's not about being smart. It's about— there might be people who have more experience in in it, but I think there are different theories. Where would you like to be in 5 years?

So I don't know about 5 years, but our vision for next year, for next year, yeah, is we're going to do, B'ezrat Hashem, more than we did this year. And I'm specifically looking to, very excited actually, to experience in lots of different also experiments, but also letting stuff develop. And let's say, for example, if we have this Argaman, then I want to make a rosé from the same Argaman and have someone who enjoys the Argaman and also enjoys a good rosé, seeing how they— what he thinks about them together. We're not—

I don't mean it's going to be interesting to make a rosé out of an Argaman.

Yeah, but Argaman itself as a single varietal grape was also interesting to make in the first place. I think that, I think that people are open especially a lot of the younger guys who are not like, they're not like you said, the boxes. They're looking for something a little bit different. They're looking for something that's going to, like you said, it'll strike them, it'll taste good. It doesn't have to be the most sophisticated, but it'll taste good if it's an Argaman, if it's an over-red rosé, because Argaman is probably going to be, sorry, an over-red rosé, like a much deeper rosé, but it'll still have that lightish acidity, like the liveliness that a rosé would have. I think that would be appealing to a lot of people who are looking for something a little bit different, specifically being natural fermentation and no added sulfites. I think that would be a nice— that's just one example we have. What I would like to do is to try to get a hold of— originally we thought about 4, I don't know why we decided 4, but get 4 different types of grapes, Viere, and experiment with them so we could actually see which grapes we like the most. And try working not only with what the market likes, which that also we'll try doing, which is typically like the Cabernet Merlot. You sort of can't go wrong with it, but we would like to try with lots of different types, as much as we could get our hands on. And also it's important to us to, yes, be involved to a certain extent with the guy growing the grapes, with the vineyards.

100%.

And it's a big challenge because they're very— a lot of these people who are growing the grapes are looking for you not to be in their business. They don't want you messing with them. So it's a little bit of a challenge, but I think we have some guys inside who— some guys working for us right now, and he's involved in the whole— that area. And we're hoping with Zadok Shamir to get a hold of different varietals and different types. It'll be good. Zadok Shamir.

Yeah, just to add to that, he also wants— besides for the Argaman and then the Argaman Rosé, he's also going to serve sourdough bread made from the argaman yeast.

Yeah, that would be cool.

So you get like a full—

right. And then we have the meat. If we ever do like a little bit of a, like, an eating type of barbecue, right? So the meat is going to be marinated with, with the, with the wine.

Yep.

The bread's going to be fermented with the yeast from the wine.

Yep.

And the cow itself ate, you know, the leftover of the grapes. And also, we actually have vinegar. This is not a mistake vinegar. We actually created vinegar from using the stems, and we actually had to add sugar because we wanted to get a strong vinegar. I have some at home. I gave you a bottle of that. Yeah, it's the most delicious vinegar.

That's a hot thing today. It's even more than wine. If you can make good vinegars.

Really?

Yes, that's a very hot thing. Chefs, all of these chef restaurants are looking for vinegar.

Yeah, okay, so I'll tell you another cool thing about it. We actually have it, some of it fermenting with this. I will use wood chips because I'm happy with it. So it's oak, but it's Israeli oak. Really? I chopped it down myself.

Okay.

It's delicious. I cooked it in the oven. I baked it to the right time. That's a very delicious nutty flavors. In fact, I was cooking in the oven and my wife walks in, she's like, "Are you making cookies?" Like, "No, I'm cooking wood." She's used to my crazy stuff. She's like, "Oh, okay." And it smelled delicious. Yeah, so we have some of that, actually use it every now and then.

Who's your customer base?

Our customer base right now, my target audience is the American community. Mostly—

Do you have an ability to sell to America?

No, so not in the American community here in Israel.

Okay.

Because that's just the people I know, that's where I could spread the word.

Beit Shemesh, where?

So mostly in Yerushalayim and also Beit Shemesh.

How about Ranana?

So I haven't gone out there yet. But what, the American community there?

They have a British community, Anglo. Instead of saying American, Anglo. I would just go for Anglo.

I guess that's more— I'm American side.

Yeah, more boxed in. Yeah, but no, I see the world as you—

you have anyone who's not—

Yeah, sure.

The Cleveland the Rabbi was— we used to be close to him. Who? Cleveland the Rabbi. Yeah, he's—

isn't that Tails?

No, Cleveland the Rabbi, it's an interesting guy. Yeah, but he's— he has his bases in Iran. His, uh— okay, he was a Holocaust survivor. I believe he didn't have kids, but his stepson is rabbinic right now. Okay, very nice, very nice.

No, but there's a lot of Anglos in Renana, Herzliya, Renana, what have you.

Yeah, I would love to get out there. Also the Israeli community. I'm not, uh, it's just if I have to take a starting point on where to start with my sales, it's going to be, you know, who you know. Yeah, who I know. Or have an easier time connecting to—

So what's your volume like of what you produce right now?

So this year we produced roughly 1,500 bottles.

Okay.

For sale.

Yes, I get it. You produce more than that, but you're keeping some of them back, right?

Not everything we're able to let out in the market, for sure. Not right now. Even like right now, we have with the, with the Cabernet, with the Cabernet which started out amazing, and then surprise, surprise, natural fermentation, second malolactic fermentation, which we were able to control it. I thought I was under control on that one, but we were learning. So, okay, yeah, but, um, yeah, so not everything we're gonna, we're gonna release. We want to release only highest quality and only stuff which, which we think it tastes delicious and something which someone would taste it and enjoy.

Okay, the non-sulfite is there are some people who are really, really allergic to sulfites, and wine just absolutely tanks them. Uh, so because you don't have any sulfite in it, I mean, there's some, some issues about how well it'll age, but most people buy bottles of wine and drink them. So, you know, that's— they don't sit them and put them in a cellar for, you know, 6 months or a year or something. So that might, you know, actually be useful, right?

We're still curious how long these age for. We don't have any—

no, we have them last year, right? We have a—

you know, they go at least a year and a half. Yeah, at this point, right?

No, that's all you can do. You can only go by the winemakers I know who are really, really experienced, have made thousands upon thousands of bottles. And, you know, when they ask them, they go, this is a new wine for me, I, I don't know how long it's going to last.

That's, you know, you learn on the job.

Yeah, that's what part of the deal is.

Yeah.

What about this Merlot? What are you going to tell me about the Merlot?

Oh, the Merlot. First thing about the Merlot, it was harvested earlier than I wanted. Okay, okay, that's, that's as a preparation.

Um, wait, here, pour that into the— what you call it— spittoon. Yeah, in the bucket. Yep.

Um, I, I don't want to say too much, but I have a feeling you're going to be like, this is not the Merlot you're used to tasting.

That's not going to be strange to me tonight.

How's that? How's the Merlot?

It needs to open up a bit more, but it's starting out nicely.

Yeah, our Petit Syrah is— you got us to tell them, you got to tell them the story of the—

no, by the way, we did, we, we, it came out, it was a very late harvest, and Nadav had a group of, uh, students from, uh, from the States, I'm pretty sure. Yeah. And they, they wanted to help out in the vineyards and help Yeshua to sow and everything, so they came to his vineyard midnight and did a whole harvest after his machine went already, after Yatir's machine went. So we had all these bundles of grape, half of them were already ripped off, so already some of them started fermenting on the vines. It was already like 32 bricks, very high, very sweet. And I make— we make this wine, and one night one of the vats we use. It was actually a demijohn because it was a small amount, blew up from the pressure. It hit the ceiling. It was lots of fun. But it happened. Blew off of it, or the cap blew off and the wine squirted 2 meters high and hit the ceiling. We have in the winery, in the ceiling, a big splatter. That was one of the adventures. But this is actually one of the wines that might— this is the example what you're saying before about the about people should drink wines that they enjoy. My wife doesn't like wine in general. It's a very sweet wine she'll enjoy, but this wine she's like, can I have some more? Like, I took it out, I say, I think you'll enjoy this one. She tastes it and she wants some more and she wants some more. And this is like a real— it's a sweet wine, but it's not like— it has also a lot of tannins and a very dark color to it. La Petite Syrah.

Right.

It doesn't have a sugar sweetness to it.

No, no, it's not a sugar sweetness.

It's a very wine winey taste, like very wine.

It's just such an interesting wine.

It's like a, what you call it, it's probably like a port.

It's like port but without the porty smell, like without the oxidized port, without that. Just a very much heavier, much thicker, just a very nice wine. Like I could drink it also very cold and also like room temperature. Both are delicious.

Cool.

What's your thoughts on the Merlot?

It's also— it's definitely a Merlot.

That's so funny, I always say that. I say it's so Merlot-y.

It's definitely Merlot, but it's also not like any Merlot I've ever tasted. It has all of the little trademark things of a Merlot, but it's a little different. These are all slightly different wines.

Do you feel they share a certain characteristic, or they're all just I think they do.

I think they do share a characteristic. I think if you gave me 2 wines or 3 wines from other people and one of your wines was in it, I could recognize it immediately. But that's not a bad thing. That's a great thing.

Well, I would think.

I could recognize it because—

I mean, I guess depends why you're recognizing it.

No, no. I think you're right that not having the sulfur sulfites or preservatives gives your wines a taste that I'm not used to.

Yeah.

Not bad at all. It's in fact very pleasurable.

Yeah, I like to call it almost in a French way, uh, Pierre, like Pierre, make it sound a little bit French. Yeah, it's interesting. I've tasted other wines, um, without sulfite, and I think the people, when, when they don't, um, when they're not— their expertise not in wine without sulfite, they often do other stuff to cover on the fact it doesn't have sulfite. So some of the fact that this also doesn't have wood and also there's no sulfite, but we made, as you can see with the colors, they're totally not oxidized and the colors have stayed fresh and nice. And, uh, and I think when you have a wine which is without sulfites but they were not careful with the oxygen management, then the fact that it's without sulfite doesn't always pronounce itself as much as it could.

Okay.

Because that a lot of the work, a lot of the benefits you got from not having sulfite was already ruined by not being careful with oxygen. So only if you manage the oxygen very well until someone's drinking it, then you really get the— what the non-sulfite pronunciation gives you. So I think that's one thing that we've worked very hard on.

These are not just run-of-the-mill wines. Each one is really interesting. There are a lot of wines that are available on the market, and these are different. So, that's cool.

Yeah. There's actually something when people— I wonder if you experience this also, because you said you made a few wines with Yaakov Ouriah. When I sell the wine, there's so much that's gone into the making of the wine and so much that I know about Petachia and so much about the story and all his ideas and theories and creativity and how I saw it play out. And almost like when I sell the wine to people, and people just say like, "Oh, here, I'll take 2," and they just take it. And I feel like, "Hold on, I want to tell you everything that's going on in it." But it's like, "Oh, hey, let me just try a different wine." And they just drink it like either good or bad and they move on. And I get so— I'm like pained by that. I just like, I wish you knew. I want to sit down with everyone and just talk to them, explain them about the wine. You know what I mean?

Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. All right. I know exactly what you mean. Because when you taste something that really hits home and you share it with somebody who also feels the same way about it, It's like, it's just incredible. One word, Shabbat table, and I'm talking to a couple of people who are really into wines and we're all into wines and what have you. And the rest of the table like just shuts down and goes like, God, you know, like, when are they gonna stop talking about wine? So in those instances, I go, I'm sorry, we gotta back up, let them, you know, like, And, you know, how did those Yankees do? You know, like, whatever. So crazy.

But, uh, yeah.

L'chaim. L'chaim.

L'chaim tovim shelom. Baruch Hashem. Aleh Marlo. But, uh, it's a bit, it's a bit lighter than the other one.

I don't know, they— I, I, my— what I know is, is that they air out properly, even though they do pick up a bit of a, a second fermentation. If aired out properly, they really, uh—

I think that that's an unusual thing for that cap to have the second fermentation. You just have to—

Malolactic fermentation is either a lot of— most places will manage it and put in bacteria, malolactic bacteria, and start the fermentation on its own before they bottle it.

Right.

I didn't think this would happen. And yeah, yeah, the truth is, in perspective of keeping the wine aging longer, safer in the bottle, I think it actually would help. I have a theory like that, that might actually help the shelf age. Shelf age.

Shelf life.

Shelf life, yeah.

As long as the bottles don't burst, right?

No, so the pressure wasn't— no, 100%. Yeah, no, the pressure wasn't, wasn't that strong.

Just, you know, it doesn't take—

the fizz was like a little bit of a—

it's a fizz, not unusual. No, there's sometimes when you see like a slight fizz in the car cup once you open the bottle, but it's like— I'm not seeing that, but I am definitely tasting a little bit of a fizz.

Well, this one we opened it this morning.

Okay.

Preparation for this.

It's cool.

Yeah.

Wow.

Wow.

Wow is right. We went through a lot of bottles.

Yeah.

Okay. So thank you. Thank you very much for being on the Kosher Terroir and for humoring me. And it's a pleasure for you to be here. Really enjoyed the conversation.

All right, it's been very enjoyable. Thank you very much.

Pleasure. 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.