Tuscan Hills to Kosher Cellars: A Discussion with Alessandro Cellia

Welcome to The Kosher Terroir. I'm Simon Jacob, your host for this episode from Jerusalem. Welcome back to The Kosher Terroir. Today, we're stepping into a rare conversation about ambition, place, and practice. On one side, Alessandro Cellai, the Tuscan winemaker whose fingerprints are on benchmark reds from the coast to Chianti. On the other, Dr. Ralph Madeb, a physician and longtime industry partner who spent the last 10 years building the bridge between Alessandro's cellars and Kocha production at a very high standard. How do you take a wine style defined by precision and translate it through the demands of Kashrut without losing soul, texture, or time in barrel? What compromises are myth, and what innovations actually move the needle? Today we will map the journey—vineyards and vintages, logistics and law—and the quiet moments where where trust turns into a truly kosher bottling worthy of the label and the land. If you're driving in your car, please pay attention to the road ahead. If you're relaxing at home or in your Tesla on full self-driving, please pour a glass of wonderful kosher wine, sit back, relax, and let's pour this story.

Alessandro, welcome to the Kosher Terroir. That's the, that's the podcast we're on. I wanted to, I just wanted to mention to you, in, you know, researching your background, it was amazing. It's an amazing background. There's so many things that you've done, not only wineries but wines that you've made. And, you know, there's a theme that goes through it. You're an extremely creative person, but you're also an extremely visual person. So a lot of the things that you've noted are all, you know, have these strong visual cues. And it's very cool, very, very interesting, very exciting.

Thank you so much for your introduction and presentation of myself. And so I spent all of my career until now for, for the quality. I had great privilege to have one of the, probably the best teacher, the best mentor in the world, as Giacomo Tacchis. Yeah, that he was the inventor of the most important Italian white wines, and through him, uh, I, I became strictly connected with his philosophy. And his philosophy is, of course, starting from the vineyard, bringing the passion from the vineyard into the glass of wine. And the philosophy of winemaking is— of Giacomo Tachis was founded on 3 different columns, extremely important. The first column was that in all great wines we must recognize terroir. The second column was in top wines we must recognize grapes. And the third one, that is we must recognize the DNA of the winemaker. So that was the vision I took from, from my maestro, from my teacher, from my mentor. Giacomo Tarchis.

He was the one who basically created Super Tuscan, wasn't he? Correct, correct.

He was the inventor of Sassicaia, the inventor of Tignanello. He was the key of success, of fortune of Antinori family. But not only, he was the creator of the new Italian wine renaissance. At the end of '70s when in many regions of Italy the wines was considered just in bulk. And now, and now that regions are making a big fortune like Sicily, like Sardinia, like Trentino Alto Adige, thanks to him because he, with his genius, with his mind, he create the best wines in that region. Just to consider what was Sicily and what was Sardinia before Giacomo Tacchis. You know, two regions to make wine and 95% in bulk and to export or to bring in other regions to make more alcohol content and different things. Now Sicily and Sardinia are two of the most important wine regions in Italy. Something. Very interesting, Alessandro.

I, I, you know, it's funny, I never— I know you for like 10 years already, I never heard you speak about your mentor like that. How did you— I don't even know the story. How did you even get to, to hook up with him?

The, the relation with Giacomo Takis was by a fortunate moment in my, in my life during the university. One day Giacomo Tacchis came to the university to make a seminar, and I immediately included myself in the participants of this seminar. And at the end of the seminar, Giacomo Tacchis was very kind to all of the participants and said, I'm here for half an hour extra time, so if you have some questions, or arguments that you want to make more deeper. So I'm here to help you. And nobody asking something. And I had a list of huge number of questions. And then I started to make question to him. After a few minutes, he say, okay, so listen, you have so many questions, come to my house. 'Come to my house next Wednesday and I explain you tasting the wines. You can understand much better.' And I felt at that time like a passionate man of Formula 1, for example, that are meeting with Enzo Ferrari. Enzo Ferrari inviting that person to make a tour in Fiorano. And maybe to have a trip with a Ferrari racing car. So I felt the same level of happiness, the same level of enthusiasm. And since that moment, the relation with Giacomo Tacchis was a very friendly relationship. So we became true friends. He considered me as his son. And he spent many of his times to teach me, to bring me in this beautiful world, and to help me to understand his vision. I spent many, many days with him, many time, many visit in the vineyards, visit in the cellar, tasting a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of wines with him. And that was for me one of the most One of the most important part of my career. My career.

He talks about him like we talk about our rabbis. Yeah, I know. But he was.

He was so instrumental in Italian wine. It's just crazy. It's unbelievable. Was he a businessman too?

Or he was just like a person in the vineyard, enology and things of that way?

All of them. He was a— a great winemaker, a great vineyard manager, a great philosophy. He was a great of everything. So one hour with him was much more than— with him, much— I have a deep respect for all of my professors during my student career, but one hour with him, the value of one hour with him was much more than 5 years with anybody else.

He passed away in 2016, so it wasn't—

Yes, correct. It wasn't so long ago, but correct, correct. And, uh, but he was an older gentleman, right? He was an older gentleman, I think, uh, 70, 77, not, not really old.

Yeah, he was born in '33.

So yeah, now that is, uh, that, that was one of the two big fortunes of, of my career. The first fortune was to have my uncle as a Catholic priest. You know, Ralph, that my uncle was a Catholic priest. Yeah, yeah. And I spent all of my younger age with him. And he had a little vineyard around the church to make the wine for the community. And since I had 4, 5 years old, He bring me into the vineyard, teaching me how to make the wine. So I probably, it took from myself, from inside of myself, the germ of wine that I was born with that because no other person in my family was involved in the wine industry.

But you know, that wine industry connection, is— wait for a second. No, the wine industry connection is really, really good, but Giacomo instilled in you a creative bent that most people don't have. Most people aren't that creative. And between— even in business, all the different businesses that you've created, I mean, I, it This is like the resume of a guy who's 100 years old and you're still strong and healthy and well, thank God, and amazing. So I want to start at the beginning though. We jumped a whole level. You started in Siena and your early years were in Rocca del Machia.

Allora, I did two levels of graduation. The first level of graduation was to become a winemaker, and in Siena, in the agricultural school. And the second level of graduation, when I met Giacomo Tacchis, was the chemistry university in Pisa. Okay, wow. And then my first experience Before to be graduated in chemistry was in Rocca delle Macchie, that is a big company, big winery in Castellina in Chianti. Okay. Where I had the first 3 years of my career. And after that experience, I moved to Castellaria. Okay.

So Castellaria, Castellari is or DCC, as people call it, really is an incredible— that was in 1996. Yes, you, you started there. So what did you start as, as a winemaker? As, uh, yeah, yeah, the, the, the—

I, I met, uh, at that time in 1995, Mr. Panerai.

Okay.

And Mr. Panerai is the owner of, of Castellare. And in that year, he owned only Castellare, and he was looking for a person to follow not only the winemaker section, but also the management section. And I was extremely clear with him and I say, I'm very excited to think about this, this venture with, with you. But I'm very honest. I can feel very confident about technical aspects because also I have the best guide in the world. But in terms of management, especially in terms of sales, commercial things, I have no experience at that. And Mr. Panerai answered to me with an answer that I still have in my mind. And he said, one great winemaker can become for sure a great salesman. A great salesman can never become a great winemaker. Perfect. That's great. That's good. And with this sentence, I started with a lot of energy, with a lot of emotion. And then we grew immediately a lot with Castellari. A few years after we started the project of Rocca di Frassinello, the joint venture between Castellari and Château Lafitte Rothschild. And then we started also in Sicily, the Feudo del Pisciotta. And I took the position of general manager, winemaker, salesperson. And so on, and the CEO of the company. After almost 30 years, I decided to take another challenge. I spoke very clear with Mr. Panerai and said, this is the right moment to take another challenge. And I took the project of Vale Piccola in 2019. And that's a different family, right? Yeah, this is a different family. They was asking for me for many, many, many years. So at the end, they asked me to became a general manager, to became like a guide of this new, very, very important project. You visited, Ralph, you know how important is this project with 100 hectares of vineyard, the second largest investment in the wine industry with 7,000 square meters cellar, 2 hotels, 4 restaurants, and so on. And I took this challenge without to lose Castellari because I'm still making the wine for Castellari. And I preserved my position of vice president of Castellari. And but at the same time, I took the position of general manager for Valle Piccio.

And so you're still the winemaker on both?

Absolutely, absolutely, absolutely. That's what's amazing.

That's honestly, Ralph, that's like crazy.

Simon, he's very humble, you know. I know. When I walk around Chianti, I feel like the Pope is walking through Chianti. Everybody stops me and And he's the king, king, king, king winemaker of Tuscany. There's no doubt about it.

Well, now, just, just 3 days ago, I got an interview from the most important Italian newspaper, is Corriere della Sera. Maybe you are familiar with this. Yeah. Yes. And this journalist called me to, to make me an interview, to dedicate for me a full page. Should be next week. About my career.

It's, it's really incredible. It's really incredible. I have some questions with regard to the specific wines that you produced. You've been jumping faster, but in Castellari, is there a specific wine that you feel that you touched and made an amazing wine? Is there a particular one that is the Isola di San Nicolò?

Simon, you know, it's funny you ask that question. I met Alessandro through our good friend who you've interviewed in your podcast, Nunzio Castaldo. You know Nunzio? Yes. We ate dinner with him and he introduced me to Alessandro. And, you know, we, we will tell you two funny stories. So when Nunzio introduced me, I was coming off my French kick. Alessandro, I know you know, When I started this business, you know, we don't make money in this business. We're doing it for pleasure, making wine. Hopefully maybe in 10 years it'll become something big. But we were coming off the French and the French, it's almost impossible to deal with them, Simon. You know, it's like, you know, everything is like, you know, you have to have this special, you know, demeanor and decorum and this and that. You sit with Alessandro Cilay, the whole town thinks he's the Pope. And he's hugging us and kissing us and talking to us like a regular guy. But I'll tell you one of the most impressive stories. We made this wine because of Yisrodi. We made kosher wine because all I hear from my Italian sommeliers, "Oh, you wanna taste a good Chianti?" I love Chianti myself. And he says, "This Yisrodi is something else. This is something nobody knows him." So I called Nunzio, I said, "What the hell is Yisrodi everybody's talking about?" 'Cause he saw me, he's my best friend. My best friend, Alessandro Cilay. When he came in, that was the wine that actually put me in the heart of Italy. That's the first wine we made that was, it took many years to produce, right? Because it's not, it's an IGT, believe it or not, because it doesn't use the classic designations. But it is probably the pinnacle of why we made kosher wines. And I wanna tell you a story. I want to tell you the story because it is going to attest to who Alessandro Cirai is, Simon. Whenever I leave a French winemaker or French thing, I have to kiss their feet for giving me the honor or the pleasure to make kosher wine. You can't tell you what I do. When we had our first drop of kosher wine, first drop that was pressed, put in, I wasn't even there. I was here in America. Alessandro, I'll never forget this till the day I die. It's in Greek. It's like Like when you do a surgery and you see the tumor, you know, you have razor-sharp eyes on how you're going to get around it. This comment penetrated right through my heart, and it was, "Ralph," he called me doctor at the time, he says, "Doctor, I want to thank you for giving me the privilege of making kosher wine." Yes. When I say it, I want to cry. You understand? It was a bond that formed That only people who appreciate wine and appreciate winemaking can understand one another. That's who Alessandro Cellai is. Not kicking you out and saying, "Okay, just pay me the check, I'll see you later." It was a vision. It was, and that, it tests who Alessandro Cellai is. The second story that we'll tell you is when we were in the middle of COVID Alessandro Cellai in Florence got sick. He got very sick. And I was so scared for him now because at that point he became like a brother. I had all my medicines here, the monoclonal ready. I was ready to get it shipped. And I told him, do me a favor, don't listen to anybody. Go there and get the monoclonal antibody, please. If not, I'm shipping it FedEx. I had it ready to go, package ready to go. He went, he got better. 2 years later, I come, I brought him 10 doses of monoclonal. So we're sitting in one of the big conferences. When he saw me, he gives me a hug and everything. So the people around him ask him, why are you so worried about it? I told him, this guy houses more kosher wine than the entire French. I got to make sure he stays alive.

Now this is, uh, you anticipate me, dear friend Ralph, because that for me was one of the most dark moments in my life because he was very sick.

He was in the hospital for 2 weeks.

I was very very, very sick. And doctors, when I entered in the hospital, I asked, 'So, doctor, what do you think? I can think to come outside and to survive?' And they said, 'We don't know,' because at that moment many people was dying. And so just 2 days before to be recovered in the hospital, Ralph recommended me to do monoclonal. I did. And when I was outside of the hospital, just the day before to have the admission to the hospital, the major doctor of the hospital say, you can be 100 thanks to monoclonal because if you survived, 99.9% is thanks to the monoclonal. Because your COVID level was, your pneumonia was very serious. Your COVID level was very, very, very high. And so that's the reason why I can never forget what Ralf did for me. And I always say to everybody, nobody can touch my best doctor, Ralf. Nobody can touch. Because we became, as he said, very, very big friends. And I think we remain friends for the entire life.

So, but the Yisrodi, by the way, but to get to the original point, the Yisrodi was what actually pushed me into this market.

So the Yisrodi, so that's another situation. The name Yisrodi is like— Here's the wine, by the way.

This is the wine you see. Can you see that? Yeah.

The one with the beautiful, with the beautiful bird.

Yeah. And this is the vintage. This is the vintage. The '19 was our inaugurated vintage.

Very cool. So I— yeah, I've shared that with you, Ralph. Yes, I've loved it. So I, I love that wine. It's, it's interesting to me because that was the first thing that like woke me up. I said, this name is so complicated. What does Isodi mean?

Isodi means— I know what it means in Tuscany. In Tuscany dialect means a strong soy.

It's the soil is very strong.

Yeah, and rich in rocks, right?

The skin is also very dark. Yes, which is the local clone. And it's around the parish of Saint Nicolau. Yes. So which is the church. Yeah. And I said, who names a name like that?

The Mr. Panerai with Luigi Veronelli, just in the middle of '70s when Panerai bought the first land in Castellare. Yep. Luigi Veronelli was at that time was the major wine journalist, we can say like that. And he recommended to grow this wine through the soil and through the location of the vineyard. And that's the reason why I say Isodi di San Nicolò.

It's, yeah, it's a beautiful name. It's a beautiful name. It says it all. Says it all.

And the Sangiovese of Isodi is in a special area in that area compared to the Castellari Chianti in the reserve.

Yes, this is the, uh, it's a specific clone, a specific owned clone of Castellari.

It's, it's, it's a blend of Saint Giovese?

And Malvasia Nera. Sangiovetto.

Sangiovetto, right. It's not a Sangiovese exactly. It's the name of the clone.

Right.

Sangiovetto is the name of the clone of Sangiovese that we are using for the Sobi.

Right. And the Malvasia is the other 15%, right? It's usually 85-15?

Yes. Yeah. The next question I had, was, and again going along with this whole visual thing, is you— the Renzo Piano winery. Yeah, it's crazy because one of the most famous renowned architects. Yes. And, and that's— and, and because of that, it's had all sorts of special things like gravity flow, natural light. You know, it's, it's an incredible winery, and it's an incredible, again, recognition of something very creative but also very visual. So I, I thought it was very interesting.

How did that, how did that form? How did that relationship form?

This is, uh, Renzo Piano was, since the beginning of his career, a big friend of Mr. Panerai, the owner of Stellare. And when, of course, when we started to think about Rocca di Frassinello, Renzo Piano was already very, very famous. And Mr. Panerai invited him to create the project of the cellar. Renzo Piano never did before Rocca di Frassinello is a seller and also Never After. Rocca di Frassinello remained the only one seller designed by Renzo Piano, and he was very, very excited to do that. And he was very humble because I still remember when he decided to, well, accept the commitment of Mr. Panerai. He said, OK, but Alessandro has to be at least for one week in Paris to spend time with all of my architects because I really want to understand which is the needs of the production side versus the architectural side. Because it's much more important to produce a beautiful cellar, but that must be at the disposal of the technicians, the people that has to work inside. Then it's a beautiful cellar, but not useful for the people that has to work inside. So that was very, very humble. I spent a week in Paris giving all the information to the architects. So we need this, we need that, this level, this this must be the bottling line, and this must be— and then they put the dress around my request. That was very, very important because at the beginning when Mr. Panerai informed me that Renzo Piano accepted the project, I was a little bit scared because I was thinking that maybe this artist And they think just to the architectural side, the beauty, but not by the real use. Functionality. We have to do the opposite. Renzo Piano was an amazing architect. And he was thinking about the idea of production, the idea of family reunion, and The Sagrato was made just this because it was considered the cellar, a point of reunion of people that working, that are enjoying the production of wine, that are drinking the wine. So that is a beautiful thing.

Very cool. Very interesting.

Was he tied to the project, do you think? I mean, he made crazy things, Simon. He did The New York Times building, he did the Museum of Art.

I mean, he did the airport in Japan. He did one of the two top architects in the world.

But when he did the winery, what was his emotions? Was he emotional?

Yeah, he was very, very excited. And because he had, he's a young age with his uncle, that his uncle was a little wine producer in Liguria. And he spent time with his uncle, like me. But I spent much more time with my uncle. And so, and he was very, very interested since he was a child about the wine world. And so that for him to design one of the most important cellars in Italy, for him it was a big A big enthusiasm.

I mean, whatever he's describing is nothing— No, it's— To when you get there. And I tell you all the time, we have to make a trip. When you walk into that barrel room, you've been to many wineries, you see they're all stacked on top of each other. When you walk into that barrel room, it's like you almost feel like you stepped into heaven. It's so beautiful. And it's not made like a barrel room. It's like they had made concerts in there. They, they, they have, you know, it's just open space. It's just so beautiful. I'll send you some images from when I was there. It's something unbelievable.

Okay, so I want to, I want to go to the next subject, okay? Because it's like never-ending, and I don't want to take the whole, the whole evening from you here. I really promise to cut this back a little bit. Buffanero has become like an iconic 100% Merlot. Why did you decide to plant Merlot and Marima?

By the way, here's the image of the bottle I pulled out from my cellars.

Yeah, that was one idea of Mr. Panerai when one day in, uh, when we just planted the vineyard, he said, because At that time, Masseto, the best Italian Merlot, was already created and was already famous. And Mr. Panerai asked me his desire. He said, "I really want to make a Merlot with the attitude that became a great Merlot like Masseto." And I said, "Okay, we try to do. We have a great soil, we have great vineyards." And I started to study how to work to make this beautiful combination. And in 20— in 2007, I decided, so we have the right, we are at the right moment to produce this Tokkoriol. And I started to produce this wine, 2007, immediately since the beginning. The recognition of the best wine writers around the world was impressive. And now it is one of the 2 or 3 top Merlot of Italy and one of the 5, 6 top Merlot in the world. Little production, we pick the grapes individually, berry by berry. We do the fermentation in concrete and we age for 2 years in French oak. And then totally manually moved, not the machine touching the swine. And we destem the grapes by hand. That's the reason why we pick and we select individually, berry by berry. And then this is an extremely great concentration, but at the same time, there is a beautiful finesse, a beautiful elegance. And a great, a great taste.

Who came up with the name?

Baffonero is the name of the piece of soil where the vineyard is located. Baffonero means black mustard. Yeah. A black mustard. Yeah, that was the name of this soil and we took that name to bring into the wine. Love it.

How does Baffonero differ from Ordo or a Right Bank Merlot?

Of course, it's better. What is completely different, we are, we are near the sea, but at the same time we are in the middle of the hill. So we have a beautiful influence of the sea, but at the same time we have a limestone. So that it's, it's a very particular micro terroir that we have in Rocca di Frescinello. And especially the main difference is that in Bordeaux, the top Merlots always, you can feel when you taste, a little green, green character. Yeah. In Rocca di Frescinello, you can never taste like that. So that is much more, for my personal palate, much more elegant, much more enjoyable since the beginning. Of course, although maybe we are talking about 100 years life, uh, Baffonero, we don't have yet 100 years of experience, but I am almost sure that we also can taste and appreciate this wine for many, many years.

So, so, Sharon, Just to touch on it so people understand. I've been there, I've been there. You're standing on the top of Rocca de Francinello winery. You have a big outdoor patio. If you look into the distance, you could see the sea. Maremma is on the coast. And then on the right, you'll see 3 huge mountains, big mountain hills. So you get this, you go there, if you go there early in the morning, you get this very cold, it has crazy diurnal variation. And you can get— you can actually see the sea from the background while you see the mountainside. It's an incredible sort of microclimate that he's describing. So you're getting a lot of influence off the ocean and it's being protected by these big mountains on the outside. It's a very fascinating place. Besides the fact that Renzo made it and it's beautiful, just the actual vineyard in the area is something that you don't see in many places.

Yes, correct.

The balance of Sangiovese and Bordeaux grapes— has the climate change shifted the blending decisions with that?

Honestly, in all the wineries where I'm working right now, I never, never had the feeling that the climate change is modifying my touch into the grapes and into the wine. Because the vines are trees that are extremely able to adapt themselves to the change of the microclimate. And never I had bad experience. Of course, we had some, for example, this year we had 1 or 2 weeks extremely hot, it was 40, 42 degrees. But during the night, we have a big excursion of temperature. So temperature during the night is going down rapidly and then fast. And then in that conditions, the ripening is going beautifully without any effect, any damage or any needs to modify the management of the vineyard. But the trees, the vines are beautiful trees, very smart trees, and they adapt themselves very quickly.

I mean, you know, in the testament to that, the percentage of Merlot and Cabernet that you put into the Super Tuscans, it's been relatively the same from what we described. Yeah, even since I've been working with you.

Absolutely. I was going to ask that, how do you decide on the proportions? How did you decide on the proportions?

The proportion, of course, we have a kind of idea that we decide years ago, but normally, normally every vintage is a different story. So in every vintage I can decide to use a little bit less on this, a little bit more on that. But because depend the feeling, the taste, the balance, this is extremely, extremely important to verify every single vintage what we have in front of us.

All right.

I want to change the subject again. What attracted you to Sicily, to the Sicilian vineyards? With your project in Sicily?

Uh, the project in Sicily, it's another very exciting project because Sicily, following also the idea of Giacomo Tacchis, the Sicilian terroir is the best to produce anything you want because the sun is beautiful, the microclimate is amazing, the terroir is fantastic. And Sicily for me It was an amazing experience and it still is an amazing experience. And especially where we are located, we are in a beautiful hill between 200 and 300 meters elevation and in front of us we have the sea. So we have all the benefits from the sea, so bringing a lot of breeze. Especially during the evening, cooling down the temperature. And we have all the beautiful benefits from the sun, giving texture, giving power, energy, without to lose the freshness, the elegance, and the beautiful drinkability.

So is that the difference between the Sicilian terroir and Tuscany? Yeah, a lot of difference.

A lot of difference because mainly The soil in Sicily is, especially in our side, is based by sandy. And in Tuscany, we have more limestone. So that is, it's a huge difference.

And the temperature, right? It's much hotter more in Sicily.

Yeah, temperature is also, is also, is also. But for example, no, that is the crazy thing. But this year, this year, the maximum temperature of Sicily was 41. The maximum temperature in Tuscany was 43. Wow. You can't believe it, huh? Yeah, that's the true thing. Because especially in our site, we have the beautiful breeze. Coming from the ocean and making the temperature a little controlled, especially during the last part of the day.

Just a few more questions. I love your designer labels project. What a great idea to come out with all the series of the different designers and how to unify art in Italy and the design, especially with the grapes and the wines. It's a beautiful idea, incredible idea.

Thank you. This is an idea from Mr. Panerai that he is in touch with all of the major fashion designers through his main business that is a publisher. And when he started the Sicilian project, he He was thinking about this idea to make a sort of combination of the most important and famous fashion designers to produce the label for the project and without any fee for them. But the opposite, we spend the same amount of money to help the renovation of museums and artworks of Sicilian culture. So that was a beautiful idea. The fashion designers was extremely happy because they advertised them, this project. Yes, they are bringing some of their profits to the renovation of museums and artworks of sustainable culture.

Very cool. Okay. So let's discuss a white for a second. Tursat is also a very interesting project with Chardonnay and Viognier. I know it's unusual for Sicily, but it's also, I think, unusual in the rest of the world. Uh, so tell me a little bit about that. What, what influenced that?

What First of all, this is the second winery that we have in Sicily. It's a little winery. It's only 5 hectares. And it's at the opposite side of Sicily. So, the Pisciotta is the southeast, this, so the Cura di Mare is the northwest. We are near Menfi. And we are just in a beautiful hill from 80 meters above the sea level and going down into the sea. So that is a beautiful hill starting with limestone in the top and arriving at the beach here with the last vine. So we have a variation of terroir, variation of everything, and that is the beautiful Combination between the power and the elegance of Chardonnay and the finesse and the beauty of the Meuse and the flavor taste of— Yonière. Of Yonière. That is the beautiful, beautiful combination. And you feel the saltiness because we are really close. We are 50 meters from the last vine. It's 50 meters from the water.

So it goes like a slope all the way down.

Yes, yes. Have you tasted that, Ralph?

Yeah, we made it. It was our first wine. It was our first wine, one of the first runs when we made Paddy di Pisciotta. We made a Cabernet, which has the Missoni label. We made the Nero d'Avola, which is indigenous grape to Sicily, so we have to make that one. That was made by Versace. And then we made the Merlot, again because it was Valentino and because Alessandro makes Merlot. And then I told him, if we're already doing that, let's make the white wine. And we made white wine. It ages on the lees, correct? Also? Yes, it's not French oak. Yeah, it's just, it's a very old-fashioned type of white wine that ages over time. It was our first One of our first higher-end, ageable white wines.

Yes. I don't know if I ever tasted that. I must have.

You must have, because it was one of our really first. And obviously, we got it before we got the reds. So we were selling it out. It's a beautiful wine. In fact, one of the— you know David Satin, Jack and Albert, you know the Satin brothers? Their Uncle David, it was one of his alfè wines. He was walking up, parading down the street, talking about how great that wine is. That was our first. And it's so unique. He mentioned a very subtle comment, but it's really one of the wines where you're not getting a fatty, buttery California Chardonnay. It has the Chardonnay qualities of Burgundy, and what you find on it is that at the back palate, you get this minerality, this saltiness that is indescribable. And even if the guy says, "I don't know how to taste wine," it's so evident to him, and it's such a beautiful, different wine. Oh, we sold out of it a while ago. We only made one vintage of it.

And I want to say I want to say special thanks to Ralph because the past year he allowed me to make for the first time in my experience the Nebbiuschau wine. That was an amazing experience for me because we always made the non-Nebbiuschau, but this year Ralph convinced me and allowed me to produce in Valle Piccola Chianti Classico Nebbiuschau and in Rocca di Frassinello, the That means these are the pains of the Mashiach when an Italian winemaker is reminding us that he made Mevushal wine. It's unbelievable. Yeah, that was very— because honestly, and I'm very excited for two things. The first thing, because when Rav proposed me, I was a little bit scared. I'm very honest because as a winemaker, considering a pasteurization, even for a few seconds, is still a pasteurization. So it's a very high temperature for the wine and it's not always a good effect. But I can say tasting the wine with and without pasteurization doesn't make any— at the moment, after 8 months, 7 months, Never we are finding a difference.

That was the question I was going to ask you. Did you find a difference? No, not yet.

Not yet. I'm curious to taste time by time, maybe next year or 2 years to understand. But for the moment, no difference. That's amazing.

Yeah. By the way, we've been through a couple of renditions. We started with Pescaia, and I have Alessandro speak to Beppe Pescaia all the time. You know, he adopted it very early. I think what happened with— and the way it happened was that the wines are just so good and the restaurants want them. So when I first talked to Alessandro, he's like, no, no way, no way. I'm not best friends with him. There's no way I'm going to take my wine, especially Sangiovese. You know, it's a very lighter grape. It's not, you know, it's not the— it has like big tannins. The skin is not as big as the Cab, the Merlot, the Nebbiolo. So, we actually made one in Italy with an Italian pasteurization machine. It was horrible. De Montepulciano did well with it because I think it was also in that same ruggedness. But in the other ones, and we just threw it out. Then we went to France and we literally, the machine that we bought, Vale Piccola, which is his second winery, That's the machine we used, but we did 3 runs before, before we introduced it. And I remember Alessandro, I even sent you a couple of samples of non-Mebuchal and Mebuchal from the, from the—

No, but I say I want to thank you because I'm learning. I'm understanding that this is a very, very interesting process. And at the moment I don't feel any difference in the, into the wine.

And it came out, we made the Valle Piccola Chianti Nebbiolo. We also, we made the Super Tuscan, Le Sughere. We made it, we made it Nebbiolo, Salmon. And you know why? Because the demand for the high is so high. So we made Pescaia Arneis, we made Pescaia Nebbiolo Barbera. And I said, okay, fine. Northern, we have a little bit of Northern Nebbiolo. Now I want Tuscan, the heart of Tuscany. And I think this attests to who Alessandro Cellai is. He's not square in his mind. He thinks outside of the box. He plays with it. He investigates it. And you know what? The reason I picked him, I could have picked other people, is because I know he's gonna exhaust the options to make sure that his label is on it, that the wine is just as good.

And I think that's what we did. In 2021, what convinced you to join this relatively young project? Valle Piceno. Yeah. Yeah.

'Cause as I said before, it was for me, a kind of, you know, challenge for my career to bring a new project rapidly from zero to a very high level. And in fact, with the vintage 2021, so I started to work with the 2019 vintage. So after 3 vintages, the 2021 was included in the top 100 wines of the world by Wine Spectator. Wow. So from zero to the top 100 wines of the world in 3 years. And we are growing, we are having a big success. And the wine is very well appreciated all over around the world. We are selling the wine in over 40 countries around the world. And it's still a young project, but with a great material who became rapidly one of the point of reference in the Tuscan wine production. I mean, if you—

if we hopefully— I keep saying we're gonna go, but if you just to put it in your mind into that and your podcast members, Castellare is, as you would imagine, you're in 1950, old school, old brick Tuscan cellar. It's just old vines. It's an older, very mature winery. You know, how you expect wineries in your mind or envision it in the movies. Valle Piccola is brand spanking new, top of the line optical sorters from France that are brand new. It's a brand new, highly adaptive, highly, you know, sophisticated nouveau riche, so to speak. Sort of like the Rockefellers and the Jamie Dimon, you know, new money, old money. It's old winemaking, brand new winemaking. And you know the only common denominator? Is Alessandro Cilay. Is Alessandro. So you have the same winemaker making these paradoxical, one zelo ma ze, as the good book says. And that's the wineries. So Alessandro, yes, Dr.

Ralph has been talking to me about you for a long time. I've wanted to do this for a while and we've talked about it for a little bit, and I hadn't really grasped who we were talking about until I started doing a little bit of research. And then all of a sudden I went, wow, what am I— you know, like, I'm, I'm humbled by even you giving me the time to ask you questions because it's so This is just really so special. It's amazing. It's absolutely amazing. Grazie. Grazie. Okay, so now it's nearly 30 years of winemaking. I don't want to go into the details too much, but what do you want your legacy to be? What do you want to be remembered by?

That's a great question.

Ah, that is, that is a question, uh, So after, after I think a good, a good career, my idea, and I really hope because I have two kids, a boy and girl, both are graduated in winemaker. One is just finished a month ago and my daughter will finish in two months. And my idea is to bring to them all of my attitude, all of my feeling, all of my ideas. But of course, they have to bring also their idea by themselves. But I hope that they can bring and can continue to bring my philosophy for the future. That is That is my dream. So I want to leave my legacy to them.

I love it. Please God, they will be as creative as you.

I consider myself a very fortunate man because I had a lot of great, beautiful moments in my career. I had a fantastic moment in my life. I had the opportunity to meet wonderful persons like Dr. Ralf, and I had great experiences. And but always what I was thinking since my beginning, that always we can learn, always we can be better. Always we can do better. And that was my idea, was my target, vintage by vintage, to try to grow, to make a little step only. And that was my— never to consider myself arrived, never to consider, you know, the level I reached as the maximum. Always we can do better. Time by time is the idea, the motivation, the attitude must be to create something better year by year.

Amazing. I thank you. I feel incredibly privileged to have had you on this podcast. And I always feel privileged with Dr. Ralph, but it's your You're really— it's awesome to go through this. And I really look forward to meeting you in the future.

From Siena cellars to kosher barrels, today's journey reminds us that wine isn't just chemistry. It's conviction, it's culture, its community. Alessandro Cellai crafts the vision, Dr. Ralph Madeb ensures the bridge, and together they've written a decade-long chapter in kosher wine history. But the story doesn't end here. On our next episode, we'll open up another door into the hidden corners of the wine world— fresh terroir, new voices, and ideas that challenge what we thought we knew. So stay with us, subscribe if you haven't already, and let The Kosher Terroir be your passport to the next great glass. 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 Terroir, please check out our many past episodes.