Sam Soffer: A Guide to Exploring Israel's Enchanting Wineries with Passion and Insight

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 episode took advantage of my wine friend Sam Sofer being in Israel with his wife, son, and some friends wanting to visit some wineries in Israel. Many people expressed to me an interest in seeing wineries while in Israel, and I thought this an opportunity to share some of Sam's extensive experience and some ideas and tips from his past visits. If you're driving in your car, please focus on the road ahead. If you're relaxing at home, please open a great bottle of kosher wine, sit back, relax, and enjoy this informative adventure into the Israeli countryside visiting wineries in Israel's Shomron region. This was actually recorded while we were in a van on our way to the wineries, so please excuse some of the intermittent background road noise.

Shmuel.

Yes.

Welcome. Welcome to the Kosher Terroir.

Thank you.

I had an idea that I wanted to ask questions of you because we're going to go around to a bunch of wineries and there's a lot of Americans who come to Israel who would like to do this but haven't a clue why or where or how or what. So I was thinking this would be a good podcast to basically, you know, short and sweet, but to basically tell people about why you're coming all the way from New York to go to wineries in Israel when you could sit home on your comfortable sofa in front of a TV and drink some incredible bottles of wine out of your cellar.

In fairness, I am visiting my son. Okay. Who's a yeshiva student at Tevarieh.

That's good.

However, whenever I come to Israel, I always figure out at least a day of wineries and sometimes even even more.

So why do you go to wineries?

I, I, I love wine. I love going to wineries. I love, I love learning about how they make wine. I love learning about some of the nitty-gritty that goes into, uh, each different winemaker has its own special way they make the wine. And I like to meet with people and find out exactly what it is they're thinking, how their approach to wine is. Um, I also enjoy— it's just, there's nothing more fun than drinking a glass of wine at a beautiful winery. Many of the wineries are located in these wonderful, lovely locations, beautiful vistas, beautiful wine country. It's just a joy for people to come. And I love wine, I think, you know, probably more than most. But I think even for regular people who are coming, it's just such an amazing— I've never heard someone go to a winery here in Israel, even people who don't even like wine, and not say, "Wow, that was a lot of fun." So it's awesome.

Do you have a wine background?

Not really. I'm a doctor. But I started loving wine about, really about 20, over 20 years ago when I was a fellow. And I got very, very serious about it about 15 years ago. I started reading about wine, read many books about wine, and then I took the WSET 3 course when they, when they offered a kosher for the first time a few years ago. And then I completed that course and I've become, I just become someone who I think people ask for recommendations from for wine. I'm not, I'm certainly not a big expert, but I do love, I do love learning about wine and talking about wine with people.

So today we're on our way right now first to Tora Winery, which is up north in Israel. And the question I have is, you know, that was your choice as to where we're going. So tell me, why did you pick Tora?

So I picked Tora. I haven't been to Tora. That's one of the first reasons. Excited to see it. They make wonderful wines. They're located in the northern Shomron. It's a little hard to get to sometimes. I think some people may be a little reticent to go up there, but it's a It's supposed to be just a beautiful experience. I met one of the investors, one of the owners of Tora Winery recently on a Bordeaux River cruise, and he invited myself and family who's up at the front of this bus, the Tabasinniks, to come visit the winery. Okay. And I got excited about it, so I re— you know, he made a connection with— for me with the winemakers at the winery, and we arranged a day there, and that's how we started our car day, and then I spoke to you and it morphed into a wine day up there in Chevron.

Very cool.

Is there a specific wine you like from there?

They, they make, uh, they make 3 different levels of wine. Their best wine is the Toura. I think it's the Mountain Heights. Is there a black bottle? Um, it's a blend and it's a, it's a lovely bottle of wine. They age it in oak for probably about 20 or 22 months. And it's just a lovely bottle of wine. And I'm curious about some of their other wines. I don't know their wines that well. So I'm actually curious today to taste a lot of their wines because I really don't know their wines quite as well as I should.

They have some very good people. One obviously is Vered, who is amazing.

Yeah.

And I hope Vered will be there with us.

That's who I've been reaching out to. And I think she sounded like she was going to be there.

So we'll see. Did you mention to her how many people are coming?

I did. And it keeps growing. It started at about 6 or 7, and now we're up to— it looks like we're about 13. Yeah, I did tell them we're bringing 12, so, you know, there's always room for one more.

That's fine, that's perfect. Um, okay, second on the day we're going to is Gvot.

Right, so that's— that is for me, um, my favorite winery in Israel. It's for a couple of reasons. First of all, the wine is fantastic, and they make, um, just lovely different wines. I know their wines very, very well, and at the— they don't make any, any bad wines. They make, um, at the highest end, some of the best wine in Israel. I'm also very, very interested and really I follow their winemaker, Shivi Drori. He's hoping to be with us today. Shivi Drori, awesome. Who Simon and I and Kenny Friedman had the opportunity to spend time with about a year ago.

Yep.

Less than a year ago actually. And we spent time with him. He is an incredibly gifted winemaker. He's a professor at Ariel University where he studies indigenous grapes of Israel. He's going to teach everybody about his work. He has 4 postdocs that run around the country finding grapes indigenous to Israel. He then genetically maps the grapes. He then begins to grow them. He's actually made 8 wines from the grapes, 2 of them commercially. He's actually growing one of the grapes in his own vineyard for the first time now. He hasn't come out with that wine just yet, but he's a fascinating winemaker. He lives in Emoshav, called Har El. And the moshav is in a tough neighborhood in the Shomron, in the southern Shomron, very close to Shilo Winery also. Shivi actually was at my home earlier this year. We had an incredible, incredible wine night at my house where he taught everybody about wine and we raised some money for his moshav security. It was really just one of the highlights I've had in the last year from a wine standpoint.

Any favorites from, from Givat?

My favorite is the Masada. I think it's a lot of people's favorites. It's, it's, it's for me the most interesting wine in Israel. I don't know if it's the best wine in Israel, but it's the most interesting. And it's one of the wines in Israel that I think really can age. And I, I, I was joking with Shivi, I've never opened the bottle of Masada. I've had them back going to, I know, 2005 or so. I've never quite opened the bottle that I thought was was too old. Yeah, every year I open one on Sukkot and I write a note to myself to open another one in 2 or 3 years because it's usually a little too young. The wines mature, they evolve, they change. There's a lot going on in his wines. They're really, uh, just a special, special blend of wine. So I like those the best. His Pinot Noir is also excellent on different years, some years a little better than others, but His Pinot Noir is, in my opinion, the best Pinot Noir made in Israel.

So the last time we were there, we had the opportunity to taste his Latouni, which was like a Pinot clone from Israel, which was really spectacular.

It's a very interesting wine, and it gets better every time I taste it. The first time I had it, I thought it was a little bit thin. He was just experimenting with it at the time. Time. And now it's a finished wine, and it's, it's a nice, nice interesting Pinot-style wine. I think it's going to be even better in another year or so because that's the one that he actually has a planted vineyard in Gvaot. So he'll now have control of the growing. He now gets the, um, the grapes from an Arab vendor, um, and the wine is, is, is really interesting. But I think it's going to be even better when he has a truly estate-grown wine, which most of his wines are. And he'll be able to, and he'll be able to have complete control of the winemaking process. He also has another wine, Marawi, a white.

Yes.

That Shandali Marawi that he actually brought to my house in New York when we had the wine tasting. That is a very, very interesting, very complex white wine. That's, that's wonderful. Maybe even more evolved, at least right now, than the Batumi from a winemaking standpoint.

I'm looking, I'm looking forward to tasting that. Yeah, I'm really looking forward to tasting that.

The—

I know you're, you're a fan of Merlot. You're a Merlot fan, right? So how's the Merlot from there?

From, from there, it's interesting. It's so— it, it, it's in some vintages, it's for me the best Merlot that's made in Israel. That's another reason I just love the winery. It's a very nice Merlot. It's an entry-level wine. It's not part of his higher-end series. That's an affordable wine, and it's usually a very, very delicious more delicate wine, and it's usually a terrific, terrific value. I think Merlot in Israel has some— there are some people making nice Merlot in Israel, but you know, when you say I love Merlot, I love French Merlot.

So what's your favorite French Merlot?

My French— I mean, I like, you know, Right Bank Merlots a lot, maybe too much, and there are many, many wines wineries on the left bank. We were, we were there, um, in the Bordeaux region, um, as a group of people who love wine, a number of, uh, about a year ago. And, um, um, one of the— we went to a couple of different châteaux, but one of the ones that was great was Château Vallandroff, which is a, which is a beautiful, uh, winery in, uh, one of my favorites for many years, that makes fabulous, fabulous Bordeaux, 100%, uh, Merlot. Most Bordeaux wine, as you know, is a blend, but on the Right Bank you will find some of the really excellent wineries making 100% Merlot, and that's one of them that stood out. We were also at a winery called Le Dôme, which is a very, very boutique winery. It's called a garagiste winery, made by— where they spare no expense in making wine. They made a kosher wine for the first time this last year. It's an expensive wine. But it's a fabulous, fabulous wine. It's hard to say what it's going to be. It's a wine that really shouldn't be open this young. Probably needs at least 20 or 25 years till it's really going to be in its element. There was another wine from that winery, from— there's a guy named Jay Maltus, JCP Maltus. Do you know those? Yeah, JCP Maltus. And he, um, he's made a lot of— he's a— he's one of the really interesting wine owners and winemakers in, uh, in the Right Bank of Bordeaux. And he's made several of his wines, including the Le Dôme, uh, kosher runs. There's a wine coming out shortly called Les Astéries, and I'm butchering the name, um, but, but it was, it was a revelation. It was really one of the most absolutely delicious wines. I don't know, I think it's 100%, I don't know, actually I think it's a blend. It's a blend of Merlot and Cab Franc, but I'm not sure. It was just fabulous.

What makes a wine delicious to you?

So it depends on what I'm looking at. Today we're going to taste wines that have a real fruit-forward character to them. And that's a hallmark of many Israeli wines. And that's why people love, particularly when they start drinking wine, one of the reasons people love Israeli wines Some of the wines that are from France are a bit more complex in the sense that they have more earthy elements to them. They have elements of mushroom and different kinds of elements that as you drink more wine, you begin to crave. Yeah. So I think that— and it's interesting because you can like both styles, you know. You can love Israeli wine, which has a more fruit-forward element to it, tastes sweeter. It's not sweet, the wines are dry, right? But they have a sweeter kind feel. So whenever I'm introducing people to wine, I have people in my house for shabbos, you got to feel your crowd, right? So if you have a crowd, it's always nice to serve maybe an Israeli wine, a California wine that maybe is a little more fruit-forward, um, as opposed to starting them on a French Bordeaux wine, which they won't understand or really like, and maybe would even turn them off, right? Um, but I think as you drink more and more wine, you begin to like wines from Bordeaux. Um, I'm hooked on wines from Burgundy, which is a bad thing to be hooked on.

There aren't very many kosher wines from Burgundy.

There are, there are some. No, but there are some amazing ones. Very, very amazing ones. In fact, Simon, I brought one here to Israel that hopefully we're going to drink together.

Love it.

That I think is one of the finest Burgundy wines that I've ever had, made by a winemaker called Di Mantille, which I think many of the folks on your chat know about. Okay. A Volnay that from 2020 is just fabulous.

So the last of the wineries that we're Well, we're probably going to swing by Shiloh.

Absolutely.

And say hello to Amichai.

We've got to say hello to Amichai.

And see the visitor center.

I should also mention, you know, last time we were here, we spent time with Amichai.

Yes.

Who is— who people— Amichai is a big, big winemaker now. I mean, this is— they're making a huge amount of wine. But he's a very excellent winemaker. And we were there and tasting some of his experimental— not experimental wines he's playing around with that are going to be coming out that are also fantastic. Fantastic. He's located right next to Gvaoth. So you asked me about people planning a day. Um, Gvaoth and Shilo, for example, are easy to get to. You don't have to go to the northern Shomron. You can go to— this is in southern Shomron. It's an easy, easy, uh, day to, you know, rent, uh, rent transportation so nobody has to drive, and you can go to these wineries and have fun.

What have you learned since you've been coming and visiting wineries so that if a person is coming for first time and they're going to visit a winery, is there mistakes that you made to begin with?

Well, I don't know about mistakes. I think that it's not as hard as you think. You know, if you're staying in Jerusalem, the easiest thing to do is pick a winery in the Judean Hills. They're close. There's fabulous ones. Castel and Sorelle and Flamme, just to name a few. There's others.

Agour as well.

Agour. There's some beautiful wineries in the Judean Hills that are relatively easy to get to. Yes, they, they know how to do this. You simply— and it's not complicated, you don't have to know anybody— you simply call the winery, make an appointment so they know you're coming. You don't want to just show up to a winery without an appointment because, um, it's, it's not going to be a great experience for you.

Yeah, some of the wineries you can't do that.

Correct.

If you show up at Castel without an appointment beforehand, right, you'll get turned away.

And it's a shame because they have a, they have a very formal formal, beautiful wine tasting, um, that they show. And they'll take you around the barrel rooms, which are magnificent. It's a new winery, it's beautiful. So you just have to call.

Yeah.

And these— you don't even— you could call, you text people, WhatsApp, you know, whatever. It's just arrange a time, a date. They're very organized. They're more organized than we are. And they, they will, they will give you a time, a date, options, food, all kinds of things you can do. So it's really very easy to do. Where we're going today is also not difficult, but maybe a little bit more adventurous to the Shomron. But the Shomron wineries, and there you have in addition to the ones we've talked about, you have Psagot, you have other wineries that are located fairly close by that you can visit. All you have to do is just call, arrange an appointment. Many of the times the winemakers would actually say hello, meet you, you know, and it's just a— it can be just a wonderful experience. Exciting day.

In Pisagot, as an example, we actually passed Pisagot. It's probably the closest winery to Jerusalem on this side, and we'll see it from the road as we go past. But it's also a wonderful winery. Sam Siroka is a fantastic winemaker. So make an appointment. Don't drive yourself. Get a driver, get a cab, for the day to take you around, especially where we're going. You can hit Giv'a'ot, Shiloh, um, where we're going up to Tura. It's not that much further away, it's a little further north.

It's further north and it's the— and it's actually easier. Well, we're going to go the way we're going to go today. Yeah, we're going to go up through an access road. They used to have to go through a, a rough neighborhood to get there. Tura's before it. Tura's before Hawara.

Oh, okay. The access road, if you go to—

I'm talking about Har Bracha. Yeah, if you go to Har Bracha, you go to Itamar. Beautiful area. Tom Winery up on top of Itamar. So there's beautiful places up there to go to that are now accessible.

Yeah, around Huara. So you don't have to drive through the middle of Huara.

Yeah, we went through Huara on my son's bar mitzvah. We actually made a bar mitzvah up in the northern Shomron and then stopped at Vaot on the way down. We'd spend time there.

We did a bar mitzvah at Tom winery.

Really?

And it was, we had a barbecue out on the mountain and with all the sheep.

Were you Tom with me?

It was crazy.

I was at Tom. Oh no, I was at Tom. I have a friend, if you don't have a driver, I have a friend who doesn't drink and he was a designated driver. We went up to Tom, which is just a fascinating little tiny, it's not a winery, it's like a tiny little grape growing region at the top of the mountain. And making really excellent boutique wine, which is just a revelation. It was a revelation. I remember when I tried it, I was like, "Wow, this is weird." Where did this come from? It's like, "Wow, this is really weird." It's unbelievable wine.

It's great. And I've planted there and I've harvested there. And it's a lot of fun. It's just beautiful. It's a beautiful area.

I think our wine guide that day was like a 15-year-old kid. I think his son was the wine tour guide that day. Um, which was really, uh, interesting to have a 15-year-old, uh, leading you on the tour.

And his son now, who's like takes over when he's not there, is now in the army.

I think I was there 6 or 6 or 7 years ago.

Yeah, his son's already in the army now. Any other ideas? Um, you mentioned a couple of great wineries to go to in the Judean Hills.

3 or 4, certainly. Um, and it's been difficult obviously over the last year, but there are, there are many wineries up north that are worth visiting, um, and that are worth working into if you're going into, you know, now hopefully things are going to be opening up again. People are going to go back to the Galilee and the Golan Heights and on trips and all that. And there's a lot of beautiful wineries to, uh, go there, starting with Golan Heights Winery, Dalton, many other ones.

Have you ever gone to Recanati?

I have not been to Recanati, but what a great winery. It's one of my favorite Israeli wineries. They make fabulous wines. These are good winemakers. Many of their wines are of good value. It's really one of the— I don't know if it's unsung because people know about it, but it's one of the better, one of the really good wineries in Israel that makes great wine. I have not been there, but it's definitely on my bucket list.

It's actually the visitor center. They have a brand new visitor center up there that's being managed and run by Effie Kots, who used to be the sommelier at the top of the, um, Mamilla Hotel. Really, really special guy, right? And it's just a beautiful, beautiful location.

It's funny, and I love their wine. I'm surprised I haven't been there. Um, but it's, it's—

I know why you haven't been there in the last year.

I know, in the last year, but I'm surprised I haven't been there before that.

They just opened it. They just opened it about a year ago, and the last year has not been a great time to go up there. Of course. But, um, now with God's help, it'll be, uh, a little fun fact.

You know, they're, they're, you know, everybody goes home and they buy wineries at duty-free, right? They have the two best value wines at duty-free. Really? You can buy the, the Recanati, the gold label, the special, their special, is it a special reserve? It's a gold label. It's unmistakable. It's a blend that they make, and that's, it's one, it's their flagship wine. It's a beautiful one. You know the wine, I'm sure, right? Yeah. And then they also make a wine that I don't think people know quite as much, but they make a wild Carignan. They make a Carignan. Yeah. And there are a lot of winemakers in Israel making good Carignan. I think they make the best one. And it's a great, great value. I always pick up when I'm coming home, I always pick up Recanati wine at the airport. Those are the ones, that one and the Carmel Limited Edition is often at the airport. These are the, these are people sometimes call me, which I get at the airport. And there, there's a lot of nice wine, but those are the ones that I always kind of look for.

So one of the things I think is especially really good about going on a wine tasting like we're doing— and to be honest, this time of the year happens to be a great time of the year to go because they did the harvest and the wine is already starting to percolate and there it's already going through fermentations or finishing. Some of them are already finished fermentation. And we're, um, we're getting to a point where you can actually taste some of the wines that are in process that you could never do from home. All right, so one of the things that excites me about going on this trip is I happen to like rosés, but I like rosés especially when they're still in the steel where you can actually draw a cup right out of the steel vat, and it's crisper, it's cold, and it's usually incredibly delicious for me. A little more fruity, a little less acid, though there's acid as well, and I just love them. So I'm hoping today we get a chance to taste those.

It's also, for me, it's an interest— the vineyard cycle is always interesting to me, the nitty-gritty of the vineyard. It's an interesting time, you know, in December, The vines have been picked long ago, usually in Israel, probably in September, October. But this is a time where they're thinking about pruning, and I find that very, very interesting because, you know, I like looking at the vines now, see how they look, see if that— they probably haven't been pruned just yet. They probably prune in February here. Yeah. Um, but, but they're going to prune the vines in preparation for the next vintage, and people don't realize what a critical time it is, and critical decisions are made during the pruning process. We were just in Bordeaux, and, um, I, I was, I was showing folks on, on the riverboat some of the, some of the decisions that they're making in the pruning, uh, because it was the same kind of, uh, same kind of time of the year. Um, and I, I love that. I love that time in the, in the cycle of, uh, it's always nice to see, you know, you know, right before harvest, the grapes, you know, full bloom. But it's also really interesting to see it when the canopy's gone and, and, and what's going to— what the potential is for the next vintage.

It, it really is amazing. Really is amazing. In Israel, you can really get hands-on to all of these different things, which is, you know, kind of fun and spectacular. Any, any wines that, um, you're looking forward to, like, tasting that we—

I'm curious to see. I don't know if we'll do the Raz again today. It's a wine that Shivi has made that is sold at the winery, and it's a very special wine made from a vineyard right near his home that's very interesting. I called it a Massada on steroids last time I was there. Shivi liked that description. So I'm interested in that. I'm interested to try his new Pinot, and I'm very interested in the terroir wines because I must tell you, I don't know the terroir wines as well perhaps as I should. So I'm interested to try. I told them the 5 wines we might be interested in, and obviously if there's something else that people want, we'll open some of those too. But I'm curious to taste a lot of the terroir wines. I know at the end also we're going to meet one of your friends that's a winemaker potentially. Are we doing that today, or is that—

who we were going to meet? We're— yes, with God's help.

Okay. Um, we have—

we're gonna go from Givatot to a little place called, uh, Settler Cellars.

Settler Cellars.

And And the person there who's the winemaker is AY. AY is a real character. He's a cowboy.

Okay.

To be honest.

Yeah.

With a cowboy hat and a six-shooter and what have you. He's a really good guy.

Cool. I'm curious to try some of his stuff.

And his wines are extremely creative. Some of them are very robust, fruit-forward cabs. He's got some others. He has a wine that's a PV, that is Petit Verdot, that is, that he left in a barrel. And I think almost mistakenly. And it is crazy.

Cool.

He calls it Hashovav.

Israel makes some very interesting Petit Verdot.

Right.

Petit Verdot is a blending grape. In most of the world, particularly Bordeaux, where it's blended in very small quantities to add color and some oomph to a wine. But in Israel, there are single varietal Petit Verdot that are very, very interesting that are made by a lot of different winemakers. So that I always find Petit Verdot is very interesting. It's tough. It's a tough grape to really, as a single variety, it's tough to make. A wine. So I think people attempted— I don't know if they're always successful, but it's, it's really something interesting.

He had a difficult time with it, but it ended up being, you know, yeah, kind of very special. We'll see if we can taste it. He also makes some crazy Blancs Noirs, which are— he makes a kind of a rosé out of, uh, out of Cab Franc. Yeah, which is crazy. Sure, absolutely crazy.

Well, there's people experimenting. Chivvy makes, uh, he makes a, makes a white wine that's partly out of Cabernet Sauvignon where he takes the free run of the—

right—

and, uh, and, and, and makes a white, a white blended wine out of Cabernet Sauvignon. I think you told me your friend does this also.

Uh, this is a little pinker. This is a little pinker. Wines that are reasonably approachable Yeah, and, uh, I've got a few more years on me than you, so to buy a wine that I can't really taste for the next 20 years is like, uh, I was probably—

I'm catching up, but I always joke that my kids are going to drink some delicious wine.

My kids are already— in fact, my kids were all lined up to do that until I sold my, my, uh, cellar in America, and my kids cried, but B'rukh Hashem, we're still taking care of them. We're still taking care of them. So, b'rukh Hashem. All right, thank you. Thank you, Sam.

Awesome. All right. Always fun to spend a day with everybody. Yeah, it's just a wonderful, wonderful break. And yeah, I think anyone coming to Israel, whether you're a wine geek or not, I think would love at least a day, half day at some of these magnificent wineries. And I'll tell you, they really need us to come visit them. A lot of the wineries that are getting back on their feet, you know what I mean? And, uh, yeah, it's such a rough stretch. They need people to come visit them. They're so accommodating when you show an interest. They're so happy to see you.

They could really use the business right now, and it helps a ton of people. I mean, this— the wine business in Israel is so large and so expansive that it really is a major part of the economy in Israel. If you want to do something to help Israel and also get some incredible enjoyment out of it. Buying Israeli wine is just great for right now especially. Okay.

All right. Awesome.

Thank you.

Have a great day.

Pleasure.

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