Noa Maoz: Revolutionizing Israeli Viticulture with Precision and Innovation

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. The following conversation is with Noam Maoz, a highly respected agronomist and viticulturist residing in the Golan Heights in northern Israel. I was initially looking for an agronomist to continue the discussion of what to specifically look for in creating a new vineyard. While researching this podcast, I suddenly became aware of how pivotal and important a figure she is within the Israeli wine industry. Her expertise in vine management and experience in combating vineyard diseases and viruses has put her on the front lines defending and protecting Israel's constantly threatened wine ecosystem. The industry found a few years ago the presence of leafroll virus prevalent in many of the country's vineyards. In fighting the infestation, industry leaders were blindsided when they found that the new replacement vines that they were planting after removing the old dead ones were themselves already infected with the virus. The Israel Wine and Grape Board quickly decided they needed to take control over the stores of vine stocks and plant materials and named Noah their viticulturist, putting her in charge of designing and implementing an audible system of processes. She stepped up to the challenge, creating inspection requirements, procedures, and new relationships with trusted suppliers of plant materials. Please listen in as Noa details the selection criteria for locating and creating a new vineyard, as well as her continued steps in fighting to protect Israel's vineyards. If you are driving in your car, please focus your attention on the road ahead. If you are home listening, please select a delicious bottle of kosher wine and sit back and enjoy this detailed conversation with Noa Moes.

So Noa, welcome to the Kosher Teruah. Thank you very, very much for agreeing to be interviewed.

Thank you for inviting me.

Really a pleasure.

For me too.

The main reason I wanted to speak to you, but then as I started researching you, it came up to Wow, just so many things that I wanted to ask you about. But the main thing I wanted to start with, um, was I was looking for a person to explain to me or to spend some time with me and tell me about the steps necessary to select a vineyard as far as location. And location first, and all the different elements that go into location with the region In Israel, you know, here we're in the Golan Heights, but the Negev, Jerusalem Hills. Tell me a little bit about when a person's looking to create a vineyard, what should they look at as far as locations are concerned?

Well, there's a few basic things that are not different from Israel to France or the United States or anywhere else. Basic site selection. So you have to start with thinking, what do you want to make? What kind of wine you want to make? What's the characteristic of that wine? What varieties you want to grow? And then go back. So I always, when I, when someone comes to me and want to plan a vineyard, I always start with the final product because we really need to understand what is he looking for. Does he want to make a fresh rosé wines, or does he want to make a very heavy fruity Cabernet? Or, you know, all the options are there. So you have to first understand what they want and then go back, like I said. So if you want to grow varieties that have natural high acidity and maybe bloom late or ripens late, I can go to warmer climates. Again, it's true to Israel or anywhere else with warmer— when you have deviations of the climate. And if I want to, again, grow a super high quality Cabernet that will be relatively high in alcohol and very heavy flavors. I will pick an area that maybe is a little bit cooler, that I need to have a longer ripening time, that I can maintain the acid and still have developed flavors. So that's, that's the basic thing. And then of course we are starting to look at the soils. We will always prefer to have soils that would allow us to grow a balanced vine, basically. We prefer— and it's a general statement again— we prefer a site where you can plant a vineyard or vines and they will not be 100% dependent on us, on humans.

So they will be able to draw water from from below.

Yeah, to drop water from below, or even if we do irrigate them, that we won't have to irrigate every day or twice a day, or if there's a problem in our irrigation, the vine won't collapse. And there are sites like that, very sandy soils, or if we have very, very shallow rocky soils, there are places that have that kind of soils. It's possible to grow on it, but it's much more difficult.

I know in the Judean Hills I've seen places where there's limestone almost to the surface and they coat it with a layer of soil. And then they even sometimes break the stone and then coat it with a layer of soil so the roots can get into the— can penetrate in.

Yeah, so it's possible to do that, but that will require a lot of money, a lot of money that you have to invest before you plant. To prepare the soils, to prepare the site. And you're going to struggle through the— even if you do all the preparations the best way you can, when you go to sites like that, you will struggle throughout the life of the vineyard. And it's okay, it's a possibility. We know places around the world that have these kind of conditions, and there's also in Israel, but it won't be our first choice.

Choice, right?

Yeah.

What about, you know, initially it seemed like you always wanted to be on the highest place possible in order to get some of the cold. Also, there's an issue about solar radiation. How much sun do you get in those places? So which side should you be getting the radiation from? Meaning, if I'm very high and it's cold, I want to be on a southern-facing side. If I'm in a place where it's much warmer, I actually want to be on a northern or different face, you know, sun face, so that I don't have the solar radiation that's really cooking the vineyard.

Yeah, that is very true. So again, most winemakers and most growers would prefer to grow vineyards in higher elevations, especially in these days when the climate is changing and it's getting warmer. Yeah, so it's definitely a, a big advantage when you have in like where we're sitting now, which is 1,000-meter elevation, and you can see it's very cloudy and mild weather today. So, and, and most of the fruits in the Golan Heights, in this area of the Golan Heights, haven't been harvested yet. Haven't been, haven't been harvested yet. Um, the whites have, the whites were finished, but the reds are still hanging. And that's again, if you're looking for a long hang time, that's a big plus because again we have cold nights, the days are mild, relatively mild. And it's true that there is a higher radiation here, solar radiation. But it just makes the skin thicker. Yeah, the skin thicker and that's also an advantage in a way because you get more phenolics and tannins and anthocyanins. I didn't know that.

It makes the skins actually thicker?

Yeah.

Okay, very cool. I didn't know that.

And again, there are years that we have extreme weather, like heat waves, and then the solar radiation can make damage. But that we can try to manage in our— like, as viticulturists and the growers, we have some techniques to manage how much light goes into the canopy and how much the fruit is exposed.

Right. The exposure.

Exposure. Exposure. That was the word. Yeah. So, and this is— and these are methods that are getting more and more popular all over the world to just to use the canopy that you have, like in growing with an open canopy or like bush vines that they do in southern France to protect the grapes from the direct radiation.

Now all of a sudden there's also— people are finding that these, like, stream beds that are coming off of higher mountains. The air comes down the stream bed, and it cools some of the vine— some of the wineries are actually looking to be at the bottom of the Judean Hills, not only at the top. But at the bottom, you get some incredible vineyards that get hot but they also have this cooling, night cooling breeze coming down the hillsides.

That's true. And another thing that is getting more attention in the last years is the topic of humidity. Because humidity was always considered as the enemy of grapes. We don't like humidity because we get fungus on the leaves or fungus on the grapes, all kind of disease. Diseases. But what we see again when it's getting warmer and very dry, when you have heat waves, the humidity is very important because it allows the vine to stay, to not get to extreme stress, and then protects the fruit again. So the humidity is also important. And these areas that you described of the lower areas and next to the rivers or streams get that humidity during the day, which really helps the vine manage.

Very cool. What about soil testing? You know, I was talking to a friend of mine who just is building a vineyard, and Carmel was looking at the grapes, and they made him dig test holes. And then pull the soil back to see whether the soil looked good. What are you looking for in that? I mean, they looked at one of the sites and they said, "No, no, there's too much—" Maybe lime, active lime.

Yeah, they didn't want that. So basically, every time we go and plan to plant a vineyard, as part of what we talked about before, of site selection, we will also look at the soil, like you mentioned, and we do these pits. And we're looking at a few things. First, the structure of that pit, because in many cases, like we said earlier, maybe there will be limestone or whatever. Here in the Golan, it's basalt that won't allow the roots to penetrate. Or sometimes there is good soil, but it's very, very compacted, and again, it won't allow the roots to penetrate. We're doing some chemical testing, so to see what we have in the soil, if it's nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, all the basic elements that the vine needs. And for example, if there is active clay, that will— we will have to adjust the rootstock to that situation because basically it prevents the vines from uptake— uptaking nutrients. So if you have high active clay, it won't uptake the iron or the potassium. So we have two options. Or if we have the option not to plant there, it will be one option. But if we still decide to plant there, we will have to choose the right rootstock for that situation. And we look at organic matter and—

I was going to ask you whether there's a way to get around the soil by choosing rootstock. Yes, definitely. Okay. There's certain ones that are hardier to break through stones and that have Absolutely.

So here in Israel, we don't have a very big selection of rootstocks, but we have enough. And everyone has their own characteristics. So there are ones that will have not many roots, but roots that can go very deep, penetrate very deep through the rocks, through cracks, and get water from, from deeper soils. There are rootstocks that are very, very shallow that If you go to a site that you have a lot of water in the soil or very heavy soils, you will choose a rootstock that is more invigorating. So you have— and you have then rootstocks that are— that can handle high lime or high salinity.

So let me ask you a question. These are rootstocks that then they— does that mean that I have to pick a certain varietal? No, no, but I can take it. I can take one rootstock and then graft a different variety to the top of it.

Yes.

Wow, I didn't— you weren't aware of that? I was not aware at all. I thought you really needed to vary the varietal. No, no, you can basically—

there are a few combinations that maybe won't work as well, but basically you can, with the famous popular rootstock, you can graft any variety on it.

Okay, because I've only planted stelim. Yeah, I've never, um, but they're already grafted.

You just wasn't— I wasn't aware. You weren't aware because you know that the grafting started from the phylloxera, right? So everyone is— in Israel everyone is grafting. Most of the world, I can— I think everyone is grafting. There's a few places that still They don't graft, but— and that's against also nematodes, phylloxera, of course, and other things. Wow.

So they're already, um, so they're already pre-programmed to go into the soil specifically for the soil that you're planting in?

Yes. Very cool.

All right, I thought that was only a varietal decision. It's not. See? All right, that was one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you. What about varietals? Are there certain varietals that, like up in the Golan, are there varietals that you want to stay away from?

So here in— I'll say just a general statement first. Here in Israel, it's a very young industry. So it's an— besides the fact that 11,000 years ago there were— I know there were some, uh, wine varieties here, but basically then the modern industry in Israel, it's pretty young. Yeah. And we're still learning, and we're just now starting to define our area, like our wine regions, and starting to kind of learn where— what does best where. So there's no— it's not like in the rest of the world that they have the history and they can say it's not 300 years of being here. Yeah, exactly. Or even 500 or 800 that you could say, okay, in the Golan Heights you can grow only Cabernet Sauvignon and Sauvignon Blanc, and then in Judan Hills you'll do Chardonnay and, I don't know, Syrah. Right. But I get the feeling that we are starting to have some ideas about what is right and not wrong, but less equipped to some areas. What I can say again in a general statement that as you go up again in elevations, you have more possibilities. Okay, because almost everything will work here, maybe besides the very, very late varieties, because bud burst here can be about 3 weeks and maybe even a month later than the rest other areas in the country. So only if it's a very, very late variety, it might not get to ripening. Yeah, until October. Harvest here is usually— ends by the end of October. So if you get to a situation, you get to the end of October and it's still not— but I don't know of any varieties at the moment in Israel that can't handle these conditions. So basically, If you go higher in elevation in Northern Golan or Upper Galilee or in the Shomron, some areas, let's say about from 800 meters and above, you can basically grow everything. Then as you go to lower elevations, some things are less fitted. So for example, Gewürztraminer or Pinot Noir. It won't be the best idea to grow them in warmer climates. And now as we go on again and research it, we see that there are varieties that work really well in warm climates like Chenin Blanc or Syrah, even in the Negev, Petit Syrah and varieties like that. And then there's things that like Sauvignon Blanc that really performs well in higher elevations. Chardonnay has a bigger range. Chardonnay can even bring really good results at 500 or 600 meters. So yeah, we're starting to get the feeling of it, but as a thumb's rule, let's say as you go down in elevation and get to warmer climates like the Negev, you have less and less possibilities. You have to choose varieties that have higher acids and slower ripening because over there it ripens very, very fast.

Right, right, right, right. Can you talk a little bit about the vineyard layout? When you're creating a new vineyard, do you look at alignment as far as solar is concerned? Absolutely.

So again, at the beginning when in Israel we started planting, almost everything was north— south to north oriented. Again, because that's what they thought was the best thing. That was the knowledge that we brought from the world, let's say. And then there was a really, really big shift and change, and a lot of vineyards started planting east to west because most of the winds here in Israel comes from the West. Yeah. And it helps us manage pests and disease. But what we saw, again, mostly in the last 5 to 7 years, that the east-west orientation has a problem with the southern part of it. The southern part of the world, it gets a lot of heat and a lot of solar radiation, and we get a lot of sunburns. So actually in the last few years we figured out that everywhere between 45 to 60 degrees to the east, that's a very good orientation for us because then we also get the wind and prevent the extreme heat on the southern side. We have a little bit of a northern exposure, so that works pretty well. Of course, it's not always possible. Depends on the block that you get where you have to plant, and people are considering trying to maximize the plot and not lose a lot of— because of row orientation. But if it's possible, this is the way we're going now.

What about row spacing and lengths of rows?

Length of rows is mostly technical things. It's the length that we need of the structure to hold the vines, the weight. Okay. But spacing is an interesting issue. That's the trellis?

Yeah. The trellis work? You can only make it so big because it can only support so many vines?

Yeah, because the weight on the wires and on the poles at a certain point gets too high and just can't hold it and will collapse in the middle. So usually the average rows will be around 120 meters. You can do more, but— This is a good— and about spacing, it's a whole world that you can talk about. Most of the vineyards in Israel are spaced somewhere between 2.5 to 3 meters between rows. And it's mostly because of practical mechanical reasons. So the tractor that sprays can go through conveniently and do the work that it needs to do. If you go to narrow rows, then you start talking about competition between the vines and these things, the high density spacing. There's a lot of talking about these things around the world. For that, it has— in some places it has advantages, and you can make maybe more intense or interesting wines.

But that requires— Because they're competing with each other? Yeah.

They're stressing the vines more because of that? Exactly. Every vine grows less grapes. The vines are basically smaller. They will grow less grapes and then it can give you higher quality. Of course it doesn't work in every site. Like we talked about soils, if there's very fertile soils maybe it's not— won't work as well if it's a medium soil. But for doing that you will need just specialized equipment. Here in Israel, we are not very strong in that. There are some vineyards that work like that, and you have to bring a small tractor and equipment that are adjusted for that kind of—

Does automated harvesting change what you're doing?

The harvester— No, the harvester is not really a problem because it rides above the rows. Yeah, so of course if you do very, very small spacing, like if you go to a meter and a half, I don't think the harvesters— these harvesters that we have here in Israel can do. But there are harvesters around the world that can do that.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay, um, what about, what about the surrounding terroir around the vineyard? Do you look at that? Is it something that's important? I mean, number one, is there a problem with having like industry next to the vineyard? Is it better to have—

obviously it's nicer that you're in the— in nature. Yeah, no, in nature, do you have trees around you? Or it can also be a problem because we have Here in the Golan, for instance, Galilee as well, Judean Hills as well, we have a lot of wild animals that can do a lot of damage to the vineyards, to the pipes, to the grapes, to everything. I know. So it's really nice to be in a nature surroundings with trees and everything, but then you have the birds and you have the boars and you have— so that's different challenges. It shouldn't be a problem to be next to a city or an industry. Usually the problem is opposite, that we're scared that the sprays that we apply will go to people who live there or neighbors. But yeah.

What about What about actually purchasing the, the grapes when you've got the vineyard laid out? Well, there is one other thing with that I wanted to ask you about. What about plots, the plot alignments within a vineyard? Who decides that? I mean, the viticulturist does that?

It really depends. In an ideal world, the viticulture— you have a viticulturist that that is, the grower will have a viticulturist that is working with him, and they will plan the plots smart. And when I say smart, I mean that we want to design the plots that the soil in the plots will be as uniform as possible. Because when it's not uniform, first we're getting— it's hard to maintain it, so you have to irrigate it differently, or I have to trim the canopy in different times, or shoot thinning, and all the works that we're doing in the vineyard will be different within a block. And also when you get to harvest time, the ripening is not the same. Right. So you have half a block or a quarter of the block that ripens faster or slower than the rest of the block, and then the winemaker has a very big headache. So really when we plant a vineyard, we want to try to design it, the blocks within the vineyards, to design it as uniform as possible. So we're using, like we talked about before, the pits that we're doing, but there are also all kinds of technologies now that help us design and see if the soils are uniform. We do electromagnetic mapping of the soil, and we can do some satellite images of the vegetation that was there before that helps us design the plots.

Yeah. What you brought up, technology. What sort of technology are they using? I mean, I saw at one time years ago, I have never seen it since, where they had even sensors that were sensing the flow of water going up stems. Yes. And stuff like that. So we have that.

So we have, um, I think, I think vineyards are one of the, of the sections of agriculture that usually, that relatively uses a lot of technology. So we have probes in the soil that can help us understand what's happening in the soil water-wise, when the soil is drying up, where our roots are active, where are they, where are they pulling the water from. And then if we irrigate, where does our irrigation water get to, how long does it take to to dry between irrigation. So there's a lot of soil probes. There are, like you mentioned, probes that are measuring the vine itself. You were talking about sap flows, but there are also other probes that have other methods to, to, to basically understand the, uh, the vine water status. So we have these, and then we have of course climate probes that you We measure the surroundings, you can do radiation inside the vine or outside the vine. And we also use satellite images that I mentioned before, before planting, but also when we grow the vineyard to see the variance inside the vineyard. So yeah, there's quite a lot of technologies that we can use.

The technology is usually radio-controlled, or does somebody have to go around the vineyard and collect samples?

No, no, these days everything is Fortunately, all have a cellular SIM and it just exports the data to a website and then we can look at the website.

Amazing. Plant health detection, that also comes out of these probes as far as pests?

That's an area that's still been developing. There are a few companies that are trying to develop cameras, infrared cameras and all kind of hyperspectral cameras that can detect, let's say, the eggs of certain bugs, like a moth, the eggs of the moth, or maybe a powdery mildew, downy mildew, that are fungus that's on there. But As far as I know, there's still no company that the technology is being used on a commercial—

So how often do you have to go out to look at the vines to feel comfortable that you're catching anything that might be happening?

So when we're talking pest and disease management, every grower has a person that— this is what he does. And he goes to the vineyard? You have to go once a week. Okay. Once a week throughout the vineyard and look for these, uh, these, uh, these pests and diseases and get the decision, know what to spray and when to spray. Yeah. Uh, and then there's the grower or the viticulturist that works with him that we go again. We also go between once a week to 1 to 10 days to just make decisions about the practical things that we want to do. Again, if it's pruning or shoot thinning or cluster thinning or or leaf pulling or whatever.

For the first few years, once a vine is planted, is there something more that you do in the first, you know, in the first 3 years? Is there more monitoring that has to go on? More irrigation? More—

Usually there will be more irrigation because we're trying to establish the vine. Most of the attention in the first 3 years goes to fertilizing, irrigating, in order to actually design the vine, to build it. Build a structure. Yeah, build a structure. So we usually in these years we don't use probes, it's more like something that you see. Yeah. With experience, but yeah, that's most of the attention goes.

Is there thought So when you're doing the vine training, obviously you've got to decide what type of, um, what type of vine you want to do. I know now they're doing these goblets, and some of them are even actually using kind of a ground cluster that's like, um, growing on the ground rather than putting it up on, uh, in very windy places. Yeah, they, like, in Greece they do that. Yeah. With the— and I know in Spain they put them on single, you know, single poles. They just grow it up the pole itself.

So definitely it's a very big decision what kind of trellis system you want to use and how do you want to design your vine. You have to decide that before you plant. Who does that?

Who Who thinks about that? Is it the—

It's usually the viticulturist. Yeah. Okay. Or the grower, if it's a very experienced grower. Again, in other countries there's tradition and there's knowledge that's going from father to son. We don't have that much in Israel. So yeah, the viticulturist has the knowledge that most of us went to university or saw vineyards around the world. And then you have to decide what trellis system is again equipped to or situated to your site, your site that you selected. And if you, if you build a vineyard in the Negev, for instance, you will want big canopies, a lot of shades. So maybe you will even use a V system or trellis system or other canopies.

You know, I saw in Germany they were talking about putting photovoltaic cells over the top of vineyards.

Yeah.

And I'm, I'm, I look around Israel and I go, why didn't you, why don't we do this?

So we were working on it actually. There's a small pilot in the Negev next to Yerucham. Okay. And that they already have it, and there's gonna be one in the Golan next year. Again, it's definitely on the table. I know that there's a few in France and Italy as well. It's on the table. We need to try it. We need to understand how to harvest with the system because, uh, hand harvesting or being 100% depending on workers in Israel is becoming a problem. Yeah, yeah. I think it's becoming a problem all over the world, but also in Israel, right? So, uh, you can do small plots that you need to handpick, but if you're going to do big vineyards you need to be machine-equipped. So you have to have the possibility for harvesters to go underneath this. And then the structure needs to be high. It's quite complicated. But they're working on it, definitely.

In the harvest itself, what's the normal, you know, progression for a harvest? When you're monitoring the vines beforehand, Um, is there like lead-up testing to harvest?

Um, yeah, so basically what we do is we go throughout the vineyard, sample the grapes. We, we test usually for, uh, brix, which is sugar content, uh, pH and TA, which are both, um, acidity, uh, variables. It's a little bit of different, uh, test, but it basically indicates the acid, uh, content. In the grape. And so that's the analytics of it. And then the winemaker usually will go throughout the vineyard and taste. And a lot of it depends on taste, if you— when you see the flavors are where you wanted them to be. And then of course the chemical—

The phenolics are really coming from the taste testings?

Yeah, you can test phenolics. There's one maybe one or two wineries in Israel that do that. Okay. Uh, it's a complicated test, and also there's a lot of variants when you test the grapes. Yeah, there will be a lot of variants in that, but there are some wineries that do that. But again, you can, if you have experience, you can taste it. Yeah, uh, you chew the, the skin and you look at the seeds and you can see, right?

You can see whether it's, whether it's developed or not. Yeah. Okay. Post-harvest, what's the process?

So usually after harvest, we will irrigate and give some fertilizers, fertilize. And then again, it depends on the block. If there's a block that you can see, and we also do leaf analysis during the season to see what's the condition of our nutrients. So if we know that we have a problem with a special nutrient, we will give some fertilization after harvest. And again in the spring the next year, if it's necessary.

And then they prune it back when?

We start pruning usually around January in Israel in general. January, February, March, mid-March. Because by then, then they start Then they start, there is the bud burst. Okay, the bud burst.

All right. Tell me a little bit about your origin story.

So just a little bit of history. I was born in the Golan Heights in Katzrin. Okay. I had nothing to do with agriculture.

I was going to wonder how you got here to Meron.

Yeah, to Meron Golan. So I was born here. So all my life I spent in the Golan. I love the Golan Heights. I think it's the best area in Israel to live in. To live in. So it was really natural for me to establish my life here, but I had nothing to do with agriculture as a child because I grew in a settlement that is not— my parents had nothing to do with it as well. But I studied in the university, I studied environmental studies, so I always had that appealing to nature, to be outdoors and And I really got into the wine world by accident. When I was a student, I just found a summer job in Golan Heights Winery lab— laboratory. It was the perfect job for students between the years, and I kind of got into this world. And after that, I did a master's in environmental studies as well, and when I finished there was a position opening in the viticulture department in the Golan Heights, and they offered it to me. They knew me, and what I studied is not directly viticulture, but it was close enough. And I got into this world, started working there, and that's when I actually kept living in Katzrin for another few years, and then I thought about where I want to build my house, and my partner and I looked around the area, and we always wanted to go up, upper in the elevation, just because of the climate. We really like that, uh, cool, cooler climate areas, and the view, of course, landscape and nature around us. So that, that's how we found ourselves here, and very happy about it. We're here about for about 10 years, almost 11. So yeah, when did you go to Australia? So I started working in Golan Heights Winery, and 5— after 5 years that I was already in the viticulture department, they offered me to go and study. So I went to Australia for— it's a year and a half, uh, to do the master— master in viticulture, right? And then came back to Golan Heights Winery, worked there for another 5 years. And after 11 years there, I went to what I do now basically, which is I'm independent. I have my own— Consulting company. Company, yeah. Consulting also growers and also wineries that need the help, that don't have their own viticulture. And I also work for the Israeli Wine Board. Yeah, uh, started working there, uh, on a project that was related to plant material, to clean plant material. And over the years, we expanded that job a little bit, and now what I do is basically— I, I also— I'm also in charge of all the plant material, but I also, um, uh, every challenge that our industry has in the vineyard side of it, of course, because the industry has many challenges. But everything that is related to vineyards, if we have challenges or problems that are related to the whole section, I would be involved in it. So for instance, now we have a new disease that is new in Israel that is very It's very troubling, basically. It's called the Pierce's disease. It's very famous in the US. And it's— we only discovered it 4 years ago in Israel in grapevines. Right. It's a disease that is very lethal. So it kills the vines pretty fast. So now we have a big project that is going around that. And again, if there's any challenges that the industry is facing, I will be involved in it.

So when I started doing some research, I found this— I know you got involved with the Israel Wide and Great Board. And they actually put you kind of in charge of— or in charge of a project that was just— I don't think anybody here knew how to even tackle, which was the leaf roll infestation. And you came to grips with what to do with it, and you created a partnership with one of the organizations. Istil. Istil. And instituted things that they instituted, some things that they're only keeping, um, they're only growing these, uh, the stalks in greenhouses and all off the ground and, you know, their own containers and what have you. But are these, are these plants now that you're growing, um, resistant to leaf roll?

No, no, they're not.

I wish. I know. Yeah. So that's what I thought. So as much as you're trying to— I agree, then, and even with this new strain of disease, it's— I think the thing that caught everybody off guard was that you found that that disease was inside the stock plants that you had, which was like— So you're basically selling plants to vineyards with the disease, with it already sick. So that's absolutely the terrible part. And then, you know, so they created something called foundation blocks and mother blocks. And then, so how many plants are you controlling in a thing like a foundation block?

It depends. So just to go back for a minute, I'll just give the background to whoever It's not in the loop of that. So basically in Israel, grapevine, the way to propagate it, we do what we call a vegetative propagation. It's not with seeds like— Yeah, it's not with seeds. It's just canes of the shoots of the grapevines. You cut them, you graft them, and then you root them. Not necessarily in that order. Yeah. And you make plants. So in order to do that, you grow what we call mother blocks. Which is basically blocks of a vineyard that you grow to have plant material. That's their purpose. And there was one big mother block in the south of Israel and one smaller one which is not very significant. But this is where all the plant material came to all the growers. To all the vineyards. To all the vineyards in Israel. And that mother block was infected with leaf roll virus, as you mentioned. There were some other viruses, but leaf roll virus number 3, which is the one that is making the most economic damage, and that was infected. And it was found out for the first time in 2007. And then they uprooted that block and brought new plant material from from the US and some from France, and again did another mother block. And we found out that it was infected again in 2017, 10 years later. And then that one— that was when the Israeli Wine Grape Board decided that it's going into the plant material business because we have never been, uh, dealing with that before. And then they hired me, like you said, and, uh, and we decided that we will bring new plant material and we will control or at least inspect all of the process until it gets to the grower. So what we did is we signed a contract with a South African company named Vititec and bought plant material from them. And we established what we call a nucleus block. So the nucleus block is like the safe box. So the nucleus block is a safe box of the plant material, and this is owned by the Israeli Wine Grape Board. And what we did is we said whoever wants to buy plant material from us will have to sign a contract and grow it by the standards that we establish. And my job is to keep these standards, that they're keeping it. And a few companies, Hristil you mentioned, but there's a few more, signed that contract and established what they call foundation blocks. So from the nucleus block, you take material and establish a foundation block, which is bigger than the nucleus block. And then after that, you establish a mother block, which is bigger than the foundation block. Now, the size of the foundation block and the mother block is dependent on how many plants you want to create a year.

So how many, approximately, what do you deal with? Because you're planting all of Israel. I mean, you're dealing with the You're not replanting everything every year, but sometimes you are.

We want to replant at least all the infected blocks, but there are also expansions. The Israeli industry is growing, the wine industry is growing, right? So there's more vineyards than before. I can tell you in 2023, there was almost 2 million plants planted in Israel. Okay, that's about 10,000 dunams, which is 1,000 hectares. Okay.

So how many plants then do you have to take care of in that nucleus block?

Oh, in the nucleus block we have 5 plants from every variety. Okay. We have about 50 plants there. We have about 40 varieties, 42, and 6 rootstocks. Okay.

So that's what we're dealing with there. And then the mother blocks are how big?

Take it again, every company has a different mother block. It can be from— usually in this method, it's 5 to 10 dunams, which is pretty small. But the reason is that we grow— they grow everything in pots, like you said.

So even for that, 10 dunams of pots? Yeah, that's a lot. Wow. Yeah, that's what— that's, that's the reason I'm trying to get the scale. I'm trying to get—

if you want to grow the same, same amount of plant material in the traditional the way, you have to do 10 times bigger, about. Wow, okay.

So that's what I was trying to get a grasp of, because you're dealing with a whole country, and I know that the vineyards are growing here. Yes, that is true. It's amazing. It's absolutely amazing. I don't know how many vineyards there are. No, I don't know how many wineries there are, but it's well in excess of 350.

Yeah. Um, no, vineyard-wise, we have about, at the moment, sorry, about 75,000 dunams. 75,000 dunams? Yes, 7,500 hectares. Okay. Yeah, it's, it's, it's grown a lot in the, in the last even 5 years. I can tell you in the Golan Heights as well, um, it's, it's not, it's not as much as it, but it's the most most planted agriculture section. So vineyard is now in the Golan Heights, is the most popular, let's say, or most planted section. So we have apples and cherries and pears and everything, but vineyard is number one by—

as far as growing.

Yeah. Okay. Grown area. Wow. Yeah. And the reason for that, I'll just say that first, all the other fruits are very affected from climate change. And the prices on the market vary. There's export, and then you can have a good year and a bad year, and high price or low price, and it's very unstable. Vineyards, the advantage, the number one advantage first is water. You don't have to irrigate much. Just for an example, to irrigate apples orchard, apple orchard, you irrigate about 7 times as much as, as vineyards. Wow. Yeah. And then again, with vineyards, you have, uh, long-term contracts with the wineries, so you know what price you're going to get for 20 or 25 years. Of course, there's adjustments, but it's, it's very stable. So that's the reason many, many agriculture areas are changing to vineyards.

How do you protect protect the vineyards against having these diseases? Diseases. Where— how do they transport? How do they come into the vineyards?

So when we talk about Lycra Virus 3, there's a vector that's called grapevine mealybug. Yes. And the grapevine mealybug is something that we have in the vineyard, definitely. Some years more and some years less. But the The females, only the females transport the virus because they're the only one who eats from the vine, feeds from the vine. And they're very small, they can't fly. They're walking with the little legs, very small distances. So it's relatively easy, not easy, but it's definitely controllable. So first we have materials that kill them. So if we identify mealybug in the vineyard, we can apply some pesticides to kill it. And what is most important is that we don't have vines that are infected with lethal virus 3. Because if you don't have the vines that are infected, the mealybug is not an issue. It's an issue for other reasons.

That's right, but it can't eat and pass it on to is something else.

If you don't have the virus in the vineyard, it's not an issue. But what does happen is that it can come from neighboring vineyards. So even if you have a clean block and your neighbor has an infected block, you are in danger of infection. But again, you can still control it within your block.

Okay. How prevalent is it here?

In Israel in general? It's still a big issue. Yeah. Last year we estimated that still 40 to 50% of the vineyards in Israel are infected. It's getting lower as we go with years because we're uprooting them and planting new material.

But is there a way to cure it? No, no. It's just to take out the vineyard.

Okay. Yeah. Wow.

So these sort of diseases are diseases that there's no way to reverse them inside. So if you've got it in your vineyard, why don't you just replace the vines?

So the trick is, the smart thing to do is to identify the very first vines that get infected because this is not a, it's not a 0 to 100 in the a year. Yeah, it's a slow process. So if you identify the first grapevine that are infected with the disease and you take it out, you can control the disease, the virus in the block, to be very, very, very low, and then the spread will be very slow. So we have vineyards here that were planted in 2009, so they're 15 now, next to 100% infected blocks, and they are still clean. And only by— you have to watch every year, you can see the symptoms of the virus around October. Yeah, you go throughout the vineyard, you look for these vines, if you have infected vines, and if you do, you take them out. And that's the way to control it. And hopefully over the years we'll have less and less vineyards with it, and it will be easier to control.

What's a normal lifespan for a vineyard here in Israel, for a vine in Israel?

Unfortunately, because of the leafhull situation that we had, what happened is that blocks were infected with— blocks were planted with infected material. Yeah, and they just spread it. People planted a block and a year or two or three years later realized they are 100% infected. And these blocks, by year 10, already the yields and the quality of the wines were so low that it wasn't economic to grow them. Right. So there's many in the last 10 to 15 years, there are many blocks in Israel that was uprooted only when they were 10, 12, 15, which is very young for a vineyard. Yeah. So the average years, I think, now in Israel, because of that problem, is somewhere between 17 to 20. But there's no reason, if you have a clean block, to not grow it for 30 or 40 or 50 years. There are vineyards that are 50 years old in Israel, but just a few percentages. It's—

are there varietals that it doesn't touch? No. Okay.

No, but there are varieties that are not showing the symptoms as much as others. Like Carignan? Yes. Carignan doesn't show it as much as—

Because I'm just thinking about what are the oldest vines that are in Israel.

But again, the Carignan vines that are still here in Israel, the potential yield can get to 3 tons per dunam, and now they have, I don't know, 600 or 700 kilos per dunam. And then they make great wines out of it because the yield is so low. Okay. All right. But definitely it's not—

So what about this new virus? How did this come about?

So the new disease, it's actually, it's a bacteria. Okay. It's a bacteria that is inside the vine. We don't know for sure, but we assume that it got to Israel from Lebanon. Okay. It's transported with a bug. It's a bug that has— pretty large and can fly. It's like a— it's very similar to sharpshooters. So we think it might have come to us from Lebanon. The reason we think that, because it was first found in the northern Hula Valley in the Upper Galilee, just next to the border with Lebanon. And it's slowly, it's mostly found at that moment, it's mostly found in the Upper Galilee, but there's a little bit in the Golan Heights and a little bit in the Shebron.

So if it's a bacteria, isn't it treatable?

At the moment, so this disease is known in the US for over 100 years. And they haven't been able to? They haven't been. There are a few things that they're working on. Some extractants from all kinds of things that you can spray, but there's nothing really—

And it also just kills the yield of the vines?

What they do is just, they kill the vine. It's developing in the xylem tubes that move the water up and down. And basically what happens is the leaves, turn yellow, the fruit dries, and eventually the vine takes about 3 to 5 years and the vine dies. And what we're doing at the moment is trying to locate all the, all the infected vines, take them out and slow the spread. That's the— so in the US, there's a few good examples of countries like California and Texas that have managed to control this disease, but the only way to control it is really uprooting the Brewing the gluttons.

Okay. One of the things you did for the Israeli Wine and Grape Board is that you focused also on transparency, being able to, with a website, to be able to discuss things and, um, and share information, which I, you know, I, I, I can only imagine how secretive people were about it at the beginning because it didn't packs a huge amount of the economy. So, but the way to deal with it is to do it, to open up the transparency and let people know what's going on. So that must have been an incredible challenge for you.

The Israeli Wine Board, Grape Wine Board, is actually— I'll just say a few words about this organization. It's a nonprofit organization. And it's a volunteer organization. So in Israel, for instance, in the fruit section or the milk or the honey, they have these organizations like ours, but they are obligatory. So if you grow, I don't know, peach, you have to pay that amount of money to this organization. The Israeli Wine Grape Board is a volunteer organization. So whoever wants to be a member can be a member. And if you don't want to be a member, you don't have to be a member. And it's all funded, it's 100% funded by the wineries and the growers. We don't have any government funding as well. So about, we estimated about 80% of the industry at the moment are members. And all the data that is presented in the website, as you mentioned, is it's only data from the members of the organization. So it represents about 80% of the industry. Uh, it was— the data was always collected, but it was, uh, published on the old website only like in PDF files that no one could really do anything with it. Exactly. So what I'm doing is really make it very graphic and also do all kind of analysis like, uh, what is the best, I don't know, the 10 most popular red varieties, or what happens over the years with the plantings and with the harvests and all kinds of interesting information. I hope it's interesting. So yes, definitely, if you come into the industry now, you can see what's happening around you, where is the direction that the industry is going, and you can make maybe better decisions. And also what I tried to do that was, for me, was very missing. There's a lot of research going on in Israel for the last, I don't know, 40 years, and no one could find the publications. It was just all over the place with the researchers that did it, I don't know, 30 years ago, 20 years ago, and it wasn't available for the public. And what I tried to do, and I'm still trying, to collect all of the knowledge that has been accumulated here and all of the research that has been published and put it in one place by topics that again growers and winemakers can easily reach and read and learn.

So do you deal with the universities?

So yeah, we're in good contact. So, uh, Shivit Roy and also Ishay Netzer and and I will find from the Negev. So all of the risk, everyone who's— it's a very small industry. So basically all of the researchers that research grapevine, we're in contact with them and they give us the publications. Exactly. And we're trying to put the knowledge out there.

Is there a government agency that would have been there or that should have been there or—

It's complicated. So until the wine industry is kind of transforming hands all the time between the government offices. So it was under the Agriculture Department and then it went to Economics and then now it's in the Health Department. It's a new change of who is in charge of the wine industry. So we kind of feel in a way that we don't have a mother and father in the government. It is not inclusive. Which is crazy. It is crazy.

This is such a huge industry and it is such an important industry. In all of the countries around, surrounding Israel, this is like a key industry and the government views it as a key industry. And here, We don't? It's like—

I won't say that we don't at all, but we have to run between offices and speak to— so if we have a problem in the vineyard, so we'll go to the agriculture department. If we have a problem with regulation, you have to go to the economics or to the health. It's a little bit all over the place, and there's still like data. We're talking about data. There's no data in in the government about how many vineyards we have here, what's planted, when it was planted. The data is missing. Yeah, because there's not a lot of regulation in this area.

So you also have a consulting business. Yeah. Who are your clients? I mean, I don't mean precisely. Are they big clients, little clients?

I have all of the above. I can work with— there's a winemaker that used to work for a big winery and left the winery, planted a 7 dunam block, which is a very small block, and making his own label and his own wine. So I can work with some people like that, very, very small. And I work with kibbutzim, kibbutz and moshavim that are very big. So for instance, there's kibbutzim here in the Golan Heights that they have a vineyard that is about almost 1,000 dunam. So I consult them as well. And then there's wineries, like I said, that don't have a viticulturist that take me. Like wineries usually that grow, that have, that produce, I don't know, 100,000 to 150,000 bottles and can't afford to have a viticulturist's full-time job, I would do the consulting for them. So sometimes I'm hired by the winery and sometimes I'm hired by the grower. Okay. And I try to, to give each one of them what they need. That it's not always the, the same targets and same But I can say that I consult only growers that are growing for premium wines. I don't do any— I don't consult vineyards that are growing for juice or for bulk wines. It's not what I do, it's not my expertise. So it's usually to vineyards that are producing, selling, or producing high-quality wines.

Yes. So you're super busy? Super. I was going to say, do you want more clients? No. No, I don't.

Especially not from far away. So when I started my business, it was 8 years ago, everyone who approached me, I said yes. Because that's what you do when you start a business, and I was just driving all over Israel. And the last last 3 years, I'm more focused on the Golan Heights and the Galilee.

Yeah, you're just so close to such a huge chunk of the world.

Yeah, half of the industry is here.

Right. It's just a huge, huge— and there's so many fantastic wineries up here. It's just amazing. Absolutely.

So half of the vineyards in Israel are located in the Golan and Galilee. And of course, for the Israeli wine job, I still travel a lot because most of Most of the nurseries and the mother blocks are actually far away around Ashkelon.

Yeah, I could see them being in the middle of the desert so you can— Yeah, either—

well, not the desert, but it's— yeah, we have Ashkelon and that area, there's not a lot of vineyards there, which is an advantage, and the conditions are good for growing. Yeah. Okay. Very good.

Thank you very, very much. I hope it wasn't too— It was a pleasure.

It was a pleasure for me. I'm happy to share things that people maybe are not aware of that is happening here.

I really am so excited to have met you because it's— It's such an important component of the wine industry. Um, people, people look at winemakers. Not many people look at growers. True. And, and even less people look at the culturists. Right, it's true, it's true.

It's okay, I'm, I'm okay being in the background.

It's fine. I know, but it's such an important, uh, it's such an important role. It, like, it is. Yeah, it— so I'm— it's a pleasure to have met you. Thank you.

This is Simon Jacob again, your host of today's episode of The Kosher Teruah. I have a personal request. No matter where you are or where you live, Please take a moment to pray for our soldiers' safety and the safe and rapid return of our hostages. 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.