Unraveling the Intricacies of Kosher Wine Production: A Discussion with Etan G

Welcome to The Kosher Terroir. I'm Simon Jacob, your host for this episode from Jerusalem. As I mentioned in my last podcast, I reached out to my audience about whether it was proper or too insensitive to publish a new episode of The Kosher Terroir while our soldiers battle on the southern and northern borders, and we have our hostages held captive by Hamas. I actually held off for a week, but having received countless requests to continue, I am again publishing this, the latest Kosher Terroir episode. That said, I ask that each of you please pray for our soldiers' safe and speedy return home. And the rapid recovery of our hostages to their families. Also, as this podcast mainly focuses on wine, I have a favor to ask of you. Wineries and winemakers here in Israel are again faced with outside influences that are threatening their entire industry. This war has virtually stopped tourism, and the enlistment of so many soldiers has basically shut down most businesses, especially restaurants. Israel needs your help now, and one of the most pleasant and significant ways to help provide support is to buy Israeli wine. The commercial infrastructure is already in place, and this is a very pleasant and meaningful way to show your support of Israel during these difficult times. Today's episode of the Kosher Terroir is a conversation with my wild and crazy friend, Eitan G. The Jewish rapper from schlock rock fame. Eitan loves wine, and though his tastes tend to be more pedestrian than many of our listeners, he has a wonderfully curious nature, and our question and answer session clear up many common questions and misunderstandings. Please join me in this lively and fun wine question and answer exchange. If you are in the midst of your commute, enjoy. If you are home, grab a glass of your favorite kosher wine, sit back and relax. Welcome to the Kosher Terroir. It is really, really a pleasure to have Eitan G. here. You are an awesome friend, and what I really like about you is is that though you're interested in wine, you have a lot of questions.

Tons.

And I figured in today's world, and especially in the world we're living in right now with what's going on in Israel, it's very important to promote wine, especially Israeli wines, in the United States and abroad. It's one of the ways you can actually really reach out and help Israel, buying wines from here. And I'd love to talk to you.

It's very funny that you say that, that with bombs going off and all things going on, how can you help Israel? Buy wine. Wine? Really? They don't need bulletproof vests and guns? No, wine.

You know—

It's a fascinating thing.

Well, so the wine industry here, which employs a lot of people and is a huge industry in Israel. Most of their marketing sales go through restaurants, and the restaurants for the most part are closed, mostly because the chefs and the waiters and everybody else are on the front lines fighting. So it is not a place that people are going at the moment. And though you would think that people who finally get home to relax are going to open a bottle of wine to calm down, any of the soldiers who— well, actually, that is an interesting thing to mention. This is almost like a commuter war. Okay, people do not realize that. You know, when in the United States, when you send people off to fight, You send them off to fight, and they travel halfway across the world.

They're deployed wherever they are.

Right, and you don't see them for months. Here, there are soldiers who actually go home, not every night, certainly, but they do go home on some nights. They drive home, which is remarkable. And then they're with their families, and one of the things they can't do is drink alcohol.

Even if they're off duty?

Even if they're off duty, because they don't know how fast they have to go back on duty, and a lot of them carry their guns home. So, you know, it's a funny situation. You offer them a drink and they go, "Look, I really can't do that right now." You know, "But you're off duty." "No, right now I'm not off duty, as you know, I'm not that off duty yet." So, But you can get called in and get shot and that's okay, but you can't drink. No, because you might get shot if you drink. That's the problem. You know, they don't want you to be drunk at all in those situations. They want you to be as sharp as you can possibly be. What's cool is I went up north yesterday. I, you know, I have a cousin who lives in Dishon and I went up to visit them. Unfortunately, um, her husband passed away, not from the war, but from his age, had a heart attack and passed away, and I went up to visit him. And one of the things that I saw that was just— I never experienced this before. As you go north, the highways are filled with cars parked on the side of the road, because all of the enlisted guys— not enlisted, all of the guys who are going back into reserves drive up to their bases. They can't get into their bases, they can't accommodate all of these cars. So what they do is they drive up and there's buses, public buses that come up and down the roadways and pick people up and take them to their bases or drop them back to their cars. And the highways become the parking lots. And you just, you go up there and you'll see 5 miles of cars parked along the side of the road and it's just—

How do they get from their cars to the bases?

So these buses cruise up and down.

Like a shuttle bus?

These shuttle, well, they're like, What they do is they take the public buses and the public bus drivers and they allocate them. So the guy's now on duty for the military, he's a bus driver, he takes one of the Eged buses and he's driving up and down the street back and forth and they go in a big cycle.

It's like an airport shuttle that takes you to the hotel and back to the airport.

Or it takes you to the parking lot and drops you where your car is. So the parking lot just happens to be the highway. Amazing. And that's what they do. It's awesome to see that. So it's kind of like a commuter war where people are coming back and forth. And because of that, the wine industry here is suffering terribly. And one of the things they—

Are there many industries suffering or specifically highlighted the wine industry?

There are many industries suffering. I mean, obviously the restaurant industry is suffering. All the hospitality industry. It's not a big time for tourists to come inbound.

I'm here.

Yeah, but it's still not a big time for tourists. So there are a lot of industries that are suffering. Most of the high-tech businesses, the brightest and smartest and greatest guys are typically high-ranking officers within the military, and those guys are up front, front and center in all of the different, uh, all the different military units. So everything has kind of come to a stop. Uh, it's, it's almost like COVID without COVID. Uh, the schools are starting to open now. Until now, none of the schools have opened, none of the kids' schools have opened. So The single parents that are home, and there are women who are in the reserves, okay? So then their parents come in and watch their kids for them. Actually, an interesting point with that, they had a shortage of breast milk, because the women who were breastfeeding were called into the military.

So they got wine?

No such luck. But they didn't have enough breast milk. Now, Where is there a military in the world that puts out a call for extra breast milk in order to be able to accommodate their officers and their reservists who've come back in to fight and to do the task that they need to do? So it's a very unique country and a very unique situation with everybody.

So really, in the end, one way to support one industry for people outside or even inside of Israel is to buy wine.

It's a very easy way to support Israel. You can buy wine, you can enjoy Israeli wine, and while you're doing that, you're supporting the industry.

How does Israeli wine, wines made in Israel, compare to wines from, let's say, California or Italy or things like that? What is the difference Why Israeli wine?

Okay. Well, because we're Israel. And why is Israeli wine different or better?

Yeah, I don't mean from a political, I mean from a taste. You've tasted wines from all over the world. You're professional.

I'm not a professional, but I'm a hardcore consumer.

Okay.

Okay. As far as Israeli wines are concerned, There, um, there are some amazing Israeli wines and there's some, uh, mediocre Israeli wines, but there's, there's an Israeli wine for every taste level. Wine is a very subjective thing. There are people who only drink certain French wines and people who only drink certain Spanish wines. There are people who, who rank wines totally by pocketbook, as far as I'm, you know, as far as they're concerned.

Right. But the question with wine, yeah, is I, in my— just to give you a little background, I have no knowledge of wine.

Good.

For me, back in the day, it was Kedem, Manischewitz, and then some point in my early 20s, a guy introduced me to like Baron Herzog, or, you know, one of these. Yeah. And he was a wealthy individual, and I used to have Shabbos meals by him, and then he would laugh at me Manischewitz, where are you? And then slowly my taste for wines evolved. Now, when I say evolved, it means you put it in front of me, I drink it, and it tastes good. That is it. That is the evolution. The wines now, the amount, not only of wine options, kosher wine options, But the, uh, variety from all over the world and how it's become its own industry for me is a fascinating thing. And I equate it to, you know, guitars in my world, or cars. So when you say that there are different wines for different levels and it's subjective, I don't think anybody would say that a Toyota Camry is as good or better than a Corvette. I think we can all agree a Corvette is a pretty great car. Would the preference really is, um, well, do I need to go fast? Do I want to go fast? Do I need all that polish that a Ferrari has than a Camry? So I'm asking with the wines, uh, yeah, of course, taste is subjective. You like white, I like red, whatever it is. But there is— there's got to be something in wines, specifically in our world, kosher wines, that there's some barometer of not good and bad, but a wine and a great wine. There has to be some barometer of that. So that's what I'm trying to understand. You know, we've talked about different vineyards. You said there's some that are meh. That's— is that meh to you, or is that meh across the board? You see what I'm saying?

I do. And actually, your comparison with the cars is not a good comparison. Oh, I'll tell you what the comparison to you would be: a Les Paul or a Gibson or a Stratocaster. Okay, there are— the reason I'm bringing up different guitars is because though I can't hear the difference between those guitars, there's nuances in the sound that comes off of them that you definitely pick up and you listen for and you like. Um, that's something that I can't necessarily tell. I, I'll hear something, I'll hear a guitar cry or what have you from Clapton and I'll go, you know, whoa, that's, uh, that's beautiful, or that makes me feel something very different. But it's— they're nuances. Now, I rank wines in 3 ways. I, I put—

you understand those nuances? Yeah. Are to the musician playing it, he knows the difference. He knows what the kind of sound that he wants to get. But you, the listener, yeah, you don't necessarily— the average listener don't necessarily know whether it's a Les Paul or Strat. You don't know, but you know that that sounded good for that song. So now you like Clapton's thing, but you don't know if he's playing a Strat on that or whatever.

I don't, but believe me, people who are really into guitar solos and what have you, they know exactly what he's playing. And that's, that's why I was comparing it to that. So you're talking about 80% of the people, or even 90% of the people listen and they don't know anything about it. They just know that it sounds good. Same thing with wine. I'll be honest, I put wine into 3, 3 categories: red wine, white wine, and blue wine. Okay, what's blue wine?

That's that lady—

No, Moscato. Oh. Moscato. Moscato wine. The blue bottles. Yeah. Okay? 80% of the kosher wine that's drunk in the world is blue wine, is Moscato bottles. Okay? You can, though, today, in today's world, it's not just the blue bottles. You can buy Moscato from Israel. They've got very delicious Moscato. Sold here.

Is there a taste difference?

No, very similar taste, very similar taste. They're sweet, um, they're really delicious sweet wines. Uh, they're very consistent, which is one of the things that's amazing. People think that Moscato is made, as an example, um, like Coke, Coca-Cola. You take water, you take sugar, you take some grape juice, whatever, you mix it together and you come up with this That's not how Moscato is made. Moscato is full-on wine. They actually take the grapes, they crush the grapes, they ferment the juice, they take that juice and they ferment it over time and then they blend it, put it in barrels or actually they don't put it in barrels, they put it in just steel containers and then they go through and they blend those to make sure that they get a consistent flavor.

So the process for a Moscato is the same as a red or a white?

Actually, it's the same as a white wine. A normal white wine would be.

Same grape, same—

Not the same varietal. It's a Moscato grape.

Okay.

So it's got different characteristics. It's sweeter. And they— when you take a grape and you squeeze it, you get sweet grape juice out of it. All right? The difference between a dry wine and a sweet wine is that in a dry wine, they let the fermentation process go until the yeast has taken all that sugar and turned it into alcohol. So the alcohol level goes up. In a Moscato, in a sweeter wine, and other, other varietals where they take it and they want to get a sweet outcome, they take it and they stop the fermentation somewhere in the process of going through it. If they let it go to the end, it would become higher alcohol, much— almost no sweetness. Okay? So that's the difference between them. In Moscato, in the blue bottles, what they do is they stop the fermentation process at a very precise point in order to get a lower alcohol, like 9% or 9.5%, and a higher sweetness. And that's the outcome that they want from it. The ability to get that consistent flavor so that you can pick up a bottle of, you know, blue Moscato here and a bottle of blue Moscato in, you know, from 2 years ago and you drink it and it tastes almost the same is an awesome amount of work to get that to work that way.

And does the Moscato made in one region taste different than another?

It can definitely taste different. It can definitely taste different. Um, Again, there are nuances to flavors. Sometimes those nuances are overpowered by just sweetness. So, when you are drinking something that is just super sweet, when you are drinking something that is super sweet, you do not, you do not notice the nuances. But there are, there are nuances. So, the Israeli Moscato's, then there's a few, um, brands that actually make Moscato here. They're— they will be just as delicious to you as to most people as the blue bottles are. Actually, in some instances more. They've got some, again, some nuanced flavors. Um, but that said, uh, there can be variations or nuances between them. It's like grape juice. Grape juice, you know, if you drink Kedem grape juice, Kedem grape juice has a very specific Concord taste because it's made from Concord grapes. They don't have Concord grapes here.

What are Concord grapes? Is that a place?

No, it's a varietal of grapes that are grown in New York. In New York.

And it's just called Concord, Concord, New York?

No, it's called Concord.

The Hotel Concord in the Catskills.

It could be, but that's not why. It's probably got its name for the same reason. But Concord grapes are a varietal that comes from New York State.

And are those same grapes also used for wine, or specifically for grape juice?

I think that they're— well, I don't think, I know that they're used for sacramental wines. Okay, so that's why you get Manischewitz, is Concord grape wine. So that's what's there.

But a Kedem grape juice, if you look at the ingredients, It's—

it—

to me, it looks like it's just all sugar. It's hardly grapes. In other words, they may have thrown a grape in there. I could be wrong. I don't know.

I just take a look at the label again. Yeah, it specifically says no added sugar.

I thought that was a marketing thing.

No, it's not a lie, right? No added sugar. Okay, these are very sweet grapes, but what they do is instead of— instead of making them highly alcoholic, or blending in more grape juice after the wine is actually made. They can do that for, for Manischewitz wine, I think. I don't really know. Um, but for the grape juice, the grape juice has no added sugar. It's all sugar that comes from those grapes.

Does grape juice have to be supervised, um, yes, to be kosher the same way as—

it's grape products. It's not just grape juice, it's any grape product.

So explain that whole Grape— why are grapes a thing in Judaism? Why does it have to be supervised? And why are— what makes— a grape is a grape. I can go to a store, buy a grape from anywhere, and I can have it. So what from that beginning process of grape until I have that bottle of wine on my table is, is the Jewish portion of it?

Okay, so good question. It's a really good question, but it actually takes on different nuances. All right, you can buy grapes at any supermarket. You can walk into a field and grab grapes off of a, off of a vine if they let you, and eat them, and they're wonderful. Okay, um, that said, as soon as you start to make grape wine, which starts in the process of being juice, that suddenly has a very different halachic level to it. It's funny, I asked the question actually of Rabbi Riskin because I wondered whether or not I could just drink juice— I could drink wine from a Jewish winemaker in Israel, and what's the big deal? I know that this stuff is all kosher. This is a guy, this guy is a Jew. Why can't I drink that wine? Grape juice or grape wine, grape products, have a different level of kedusha in them than anything, any other fruit. All right? They just do. This is something that came down. That's the reason we say beripriah gefen on grape juice. We— there's no—

and on regular grapes you might say beripriah eitz.

It's beripriah eitz. Yeah, yeah, it is beripriah eitz.

It is.

So the reason we say gefen and gafnah, depending upon whether you're in Israel or in, uh, in Hutzlaritz, is because it has a level of kedusha associated with it. And that level of kedusha is there. It is just— there are people who say that it is there because the pagans used to use it, and all these other religions used to use grape juice and what have you. And because they use grape juice, or they used wine for all sorts of ritual things, we are not allowed to use it. There are all sorts of religions that use all sorts of alcohols. We don't have a distinction of any other alcohol besides yayin, you know, kiddish wine.

Rum.

There's no limit on rum for us at all. Oh. Zero. There's no problem with rum.

Does it have to be kosher?

No, it doesn't.

Rum?

Rum, no.

Southern Comfort?

That's because Southern Comfort is because it has cognac or other grape products mixed in. Ah, okay. If you're going straight rum or straight— and okay, the whole discussion with whiskeys is that you might put them, or you do put them, into sherry casks which held wine products before, which may have not been kosher, which, yeah, were probably not kosher. And then there's a question of Does that wine product impart a specific and desired flavor into what you're drinking? There's some people who say it only changes the color, which is not an issue. There are people who say it changes the taste, definitely changes the taste. Well, if it definitely changes the taste, then there's a path to say, hey, you can't use it. Because that taste came from a non-kosher wine product.

Now, as we were saying before, the grapes inherently are not non-kosher.

They're all kosher.

They're all kosher. So—

Wait, okay.

Yeah.

Unless you grow a grapevine that you don't follow Orla' on. If you grow a grapevine—

What is Orla'?

Okay.

For the—

Yeah, for the world. Yes. Okay. Orlah is that in Israel, when you plant something, you need to leave it alone for 3 years. In the 4th year, you can harvest it and use it and what have you. But if you use it and produce a product in the first 3 years from it, that product is not kosher. It's absolutely forbidden to use it. Okay? So any product, any vines that are grown, when they put the vines in the ground And there's a technical aspect about how you count those 3 years, so I'm not going there, all right? But if any vine that you grow, that you plant, that is less than 3 years old, you can't use the grapes off of it.

We're going to keep going down this path, but the question I have to ask is, is the term kosher appropriate for what you're describing?

No.

Right.

Okay. It isn't really. It's permitted or not permitted. Oh. Okay? So, but when you say that it's not permitted, but it's kosher, you can't really go there. Right. If it's not permitted, it's never kosher. All right? So, the term kosher has to do with how the grapes are handled. Okay?

The process.

The process.

In the Torah, animals, fish, birds. It's specified how you deal with them, that these are the things that are permitted to eat. We've ascribed the term kosher to these things. If it was slaughtered in the ritual process, uh, does it have hooves and chew its cud? And all these things are what make it permitted to eat. So with grapes, which would normally be, uh, kosher no matter what in and of themselves, once you start processing them. Much like an animal, there has to be a ritual procedure, I guess, in order for one to be permitted to drink that wine, that grape product.

That grape product, yes, there is. And it is a little uncomfortable to really discuss this, because it involves whether or not a person touching that wine throughout its production is a keeper of mitzvot, shomer Shabbat. Okay? That he keeps the mitzvot, especially Shabbat.

Well, let us dig into it.

Okay.

Uncomfortability is my forte.

So the issue is that if a person is not shomer Shabbat, if a person does not keep Shabbat, The rabbis today say that they cannot touch that wine.

Why is Shomer Shabbat the thing versus, "He speaks lashon hara," or, "He keeps kosher," or any of these other taras mishpacha?

Because a person who is Shomer Shabbat, Shabbat is a symbol. To the world that we are following the rules of Kadosh Baruch Hu, that we are following the rules of God. Keeping Shabbat is something that is symbolic of a person following God. All right? You can keep a kippah on your head, you can believe all the things you want to believe, And it is very hard because in today's world people say, "Well, look, I am a religious person inside. I just do not keep Shabbat. I go to Giants games. You know, like, what do you want from me?" Okay, this is something that God has asked from you. Why is Shabbat more important than any other mitzvah? It is not really, but there are certain mitzvot that are symbols that are symbols to the world that I'm different. So, one of the symbols is Shabbat, keeping Shabbat. And that's probably the main one. But obviously, if a person didn't keep kosher and he wanted to deal with kosher wines, but he kept Shabbat, I'm not sure that people would allow him to touch kosher wine in the process and hold on to it and allow it to remain kosher.

Interesting.

So the thing that's crazy—

So it really is kind of a whole package.

Yeah.

It's not just Shomer Shabbat, but more of a lifestyle.

But I can't, you know, if a person speaks lashon hara, what does that mean? You know, like, people lie and cheat, you know, All the time.

Winemakers?

None that I know of, just so that you know. And I know a lot of them, but none that I know of or associate with. But that said, it is a symbol to the world, and it's an interesting thing. You can take a bottle of wine that's totally kosher, has OU on the outside of it, is totally prepared 100% right, perfect, great, Super. And then hand it to a person to open who is not Jewish. All right, I am going to distinguish here between what I follow and what other people follow. But hand it to a person who is not Jewish and have them handle that bottle while the cork is out of it, that bottle is now forbidden to me. Okay? It is kind of crazy, but it is. It is forbidden to me. That is one of the reasons why in restaurants in America they do not allow you to have any sort of kosher wines being served unless they are mevushal. Mevushal is— I am going to get into something else here. Mevushal is an issue where they take wine They take wine and they boil it, and because it's been boiled—

and this is something that goes from a taste perspective— is that a good thing or a bad thing? Boiled wine, is that a thing?

Okay, let me use a different term: pasteurized. Okay, pasteurized, a certain thing.

It is, because I can tell the difference between unpasteurized apple cider and pasteurized apple cider, and I deeply prefer the unpasteurized.

Okay.

They pasteurize things generally to keep them on the shelves longer, um, things like that, right? Um, there's, uh, milk pasteurized, but that's already been commonplace. But particularly my favorite is apple cider. Yeah, you know, I was in Maryland and they— fall, great apple cider, and all they had was Ziegler's, which is the general And it's pasteurized, and I can taste the difference so much. And unpasteurized, don't worry about my health. I'll take care of it. I'm drinking this. That's what I want. So with wine, you're saying?

Okay, so they're crudely pasteurizing it. They're not using the— these are not people, these are people who are pasteurizing it for shelf life, okay? When you're dealing with wine, There are a number of ways you can pasteurize something, and it's become a science in order to produce a wine that is pasteurized, boiled, so-called boiled, but that it doesn't really impact the taste or the flavors.

So is it genetically modified?

No, no, it's just boiled. It's just boiled. But they boil it differently. There's some people who boil the clusters of grapes before they crush them. There's some people who boil the flash pasteurization. There's, you know, détente pasteurization, which is this flash pasteurization where they take the juice and they raise it up to very high temperature and then immediately bring it back down to a low temperature. So that it doesn't impact it as much. But because it's boiled at any time in the process, by Jewish law, it's not considered wine anymore. So because it's not considered wine, there's not the rules of a non-Jew holding a bottle of wine that's opened.

And so when I'm drinking it, I'm not drinking wine, okay, from a halachic standpoint?

Okay? So, there are two sides to that coin. Okay? From a halachic perspective, it doesn't put on the restriction of a non-Jew touching it. Okay? And because of that, there are some rabbeim, some rabbis, who say the only wine you can make kiddush on is non-mevushal.

The ones that the non-Jew can't touch.

Right. Because those are the ones that are truly wine. And again, on times where you're really restricted to drink, you're required to drink wine. As an example, on Passover, you have to drink 4 kosot, 4 cups. If you're required to drink 4 cups, you really should drink 4 cups of wine, not almost wine, or not pseudo wine that other people can taste or touch, what have you. So there are rabbis who say for Passover you need to drink 4 cups of wine that is not boiled.

Would the old ancient rabbis, before they knew of pasteurization or anything like that, would they have said when they made this law that you have to have 4 cups of wine on Passover, would they have said, "Yeah, wine or pasteurized wine or, you know, given the— it would have been straight, pure.

If you're gonna— if you're gonna play the side that I can drink this wine with non-Jews touching it, um, then you can't play the side of, well, this is good enough for my kiddush. Okay, okay. And, and but everybody's life is a nuance. Everybody's life is is different. And again, when you go into a restaurant that has Mevushal wines, now the question is, I get this wine, what am I supposed to say on it? Shachol nie ed bet faro?

Because it's not really wine.

It's not really wine. Most people say berei pri agafen. Sure. Okay, because it's, it's wine. Um, so this is— these are leniencies that are there But with every leniency, it brings another question or another nuance to how you deal with that question. So I'm telling you, you know, how it is, but there are many people who follow different minhagim, different customs to deal with wine.

When I was in college, I got paid a lot of money to pour wine for dignitaries. We have this wine, it's non-mevushal, and they needed a Shomer Shabbos guy. Great. So they had me come and I did it. I kept Shabbos. But what we are talking about, the wine guy, he is making the wine, he keeps Shabbos, he leads a lifestyle, but not every— he makes mistakes along the way. When I was the guy pouring wine, "Really? Yeah, I keep Shabbos, but I am 8 times G." "Really?

Okay." Well, hold on. So, there is nobody on earth who does not make mistakes. Okay? And there are certain, at least in— I am not answering for the religious Jewish world. You have to ask your local rabbi for that Pesach.

Or make your own free choice.

And that is, that is fine, you know, as to what you do. The question is as to whether or not people make mistakes, or they They slip into things every so often. God knows that we are human beings. We are. We are human beings. So there are mistakes that people make. The laws are not really there for the mistakes. They are there for the purposefully thought-through things that you do.

The framework.

It is the framework, but it is also the kavana that you have. Kavana means your intention. Okay, if your intention is to, to break the rules, yeah, I, I mean, even then afterwards you look back and you say, I made a mistake, I, I got lured into doing something that I shouldn't have done. I just had a, you know, I had a— hey, I was with a bunch of guys and, and I wanted to, I wanted to be with them and, and they convinced me to do XYZ and I shouldn't have done it. Okay, you know, that is a mistake. People make mistakes. People get pulled by their passions, their heart. That is why there is so much in the tefillot about, even in the Shema, "Protect me from being pulled in the wrong direction by my heart." They did not write it there because people were all angels. They wrote it because people have passions.

So if that winemaker went out with his friends and he did X, Y, and Z, and he knew it was a mistake, would then the kosher supervision entity say, hey, we heard you were out with your guys and you did X, Y, and Z? Would they take away their kosher certification?

So the question is this: did the guy do it purposefully? Is he a good guy? Did he mess up once? Does he mess up every week? You know, like, the issue here is, you know, defining whether or not you are, you know, you have a certain level of respect for God. And that is where it comes down to.

So, if you are following the rules and you respect God, and that is what you are doing, So really what you're saying is that the, what the, the certification, whether or not you need a supervisor or someone, mashgiach, to watch over the wine or not, is really based on the rabbinical opinion of the winemaker.

Yeah.

So really, all right, I'm not the most perfect guy in the world. I might have a lot of money and greased the rabbi.

No, that's different. That's different.

But you understand how it becomes subjective.

No, no, no, no. That's not subjective anymore. That's not subjective anymore. In that instance, your intention is to break the rules.

Right.

Okay? If your intention is to break the rules, no matter how much you grease the rabbi, or who you get to bless you, or whatever, you're out. Good.

Let me give you a more nuanced scenario. The winemaker. Great guy. Shomer Shabbos, as we described. He married a woman when he was young. They got divorced. He got remarried, has a new family and kids, and he is still an amazing winemaker, Shomer Shabbos, everything, great guy. It just happens to be that the organization or rabbinical authority that is giving him the kosher certification, well, the first woman he divorced, was the niece of something, and the rabbi does not really like him, or might— I am just saying—

So that is wrong.

100%.

That is wrong. And in that instance, and by wrong, what is wrong is what the rabbi is deciding. What is not wrong is that the person should be able to touch wine and be kosher. Right.

So that is why when it comes to kosher wine, which the way you have been describing it, is a very sensitive thing. It is, yeah, he has to be Shomer Shabbos, which is a broad character assessment, if you will, in observance to God, Torah, that kind of thing. A Torah-observant Jew. We all know none of us are perfect, but that this winemaker is a Torah-observant Jew and that this winemaker will make the wine in the prescribed procedure as dictated by the community, the rabbis going back time immemorial.

Yes.

So you had mentioned to me earlier that if you were to go to a winemaker to taste a certain wine, depending on the winemaker, whether he was considered an observant Jew or was not, would determine whether or not you needed to have the assistant, the mashgiach, take it out of the barrel and put it in the thing for you. So I want to hear more about that, more about that procedure. Why? Why? Because I'm going to give you an example. The other day I had a meeting with, uh, at a restaurant, and inadvertently I didn't know— I'm in Israel— the restaurant, the wine that the guy gave me, I found out maybe after the first glass that it wasn't kosher because the restaurant wasn't kosher. So, oh, I look at the wine, I see Hebrew letters, I think I'm from America, so anytime you see Hebrew letters, it's got to be kosher. And here it wasn't. I don't feel bad about it. I made a mistake. It was good wine, no different to me at least than any other wine. But the whole thought about what makes kosher wine— what did this guy that does not have the kosher certification on it, did he do anything different to this wine than the guy that does have kosher certification on it? And if he didn't, is the wine that I drank really not kosher, or is it just not kosher supervised? You see what I'm saying? And that was the, um, the thought process that I had.

So in wine, because it's special, it's different. You can take food products and make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and have a person who does not keep Shabbat or does not follow anything, a non-Jew, make you a peanut butter and jelly sandwich out of kosher ingredients, and that product is kosher to eat. All right? In, in the situation with wine, because of that special condition, Even if the winemaker is Jewish, even if they put nothing non-kosher into the product, and in old days they used to use non-kosher things in order to fine wine. Fining means filtering, okay? So, wine, when you crush it and you ferment it and what have you, there is a lot of sediment that comes into wine. And in order to get rid of that sediment—

sediment, um, why would one want to get rid of that sediment?

Because it's gritty. It's, you know, it's annoying. It's not something you want. You want clean, you know, when I get wine, an apple cider.

Yeah, that's not pasteurized.

Yeah.

And it's got that sediment on the bottom, and I pour it in and I see it. I enjoy it.

Okay, so There are people who don't. All right? There are wines that are made where they don't filter them.

Keeps the sediment in.

It keeps the sediment in.

Like an orange juice with the pulp. Yes.

Well, the pulp is consumable, and I actually eat orange skins. So I don't have a problem with the pulp in orange juice. I actually love it. And I do like sediment in the bottom of my apple juice. The only difference is that with wine, there's a certain grit to it, and especially if you get a glass near the bottom of the bottle, that sediment can be unpleasant. It's like grit on your tongue that's not really edible. It doesn't really add anything to it. It's just grit. Okay. What they used to do, and actually it's what makes a wine clearer, wine that comes straight out of a fermentation tank is cloudy. Okay, they have to let it settle and they have to filter it.

What does that mean, settle? Is it just sit so the sediment can sink?

Sit, sit at full. Yes, so the sediment sinks out of it.

Like chicken soup, that all the stuff goes to the bottom and you gotta stir it up to bring it up again.

Well, the goal here is not to stir it up. The goal is not to stir it up. The goal is to take it off the top. So there are ways to do that. One of the ways they used to do, and this is not common practice, but it could be common practice in some of the very, very highest-end French wineries, they'd mix ground bone into the wine. Bone?

B-O-N-E?

Yeah, bone from cows. Cow bones.

Okay.

Or other animal bones, because that—

Kosher animal bones in this case?

No. What I'm talking about is, you're asking me about kosher wine. So, what could make a wine not kosher?

Go ahead. I see.

So, there are ingredients that they'll add to wine to make it not kosher, like bone. And even in times, they used to add blood, animal blood, because what it did was it, it would congeal and it would pull all the sediment to it. And then it was easier to skim that off or have it settle in the bottom so that the wine would be purified, and they'd pour off only the top of the wine. But they would add things that we would deem as non-kosher today in order to filter the wine during the so-called, the fining process, which is filtration. Okay? Now, we have these super filters and what have you, so 90%, not 90, 99% of the wineries do not use bones anymore or blood anymore or anything like that. But you should be aware that those are things that made wine not kosher as well. There were actually ingredients that they would introduce into the wines.

Are there wines nowadays made the way that they used to make them biblically, in the Temple, Abraham times? I don't know the process of wine.

Okay, so the question is—

I only know I Love Lucy, where she steps all the way. That's what I know.

Okay. So the process of wine is an ancient process. There are nuances to it today where they do things differently in order to preserve it longer and what have you, and to get certain flavors out of it. But overall, the whole process of making wine hasn't changed a whole lot in, you know, 3,000 years, 2,000 years.

What is that process?

What they do is, okay, for— it's a different process for red wines and white wines. But let's deal with red wines first.

I thought that was just the grapes that was the difference between the two. It's the process as well.

It's the process as well.

Interesting.

So, in a white wine process, they squeeze the grapes, they get the juice, they throw the grapes away. The skins and the seeds. They throw them away. And then they take the juice and ferment it. The juice has a certain amount of sugar in it. Some people use the wild yeast that's in it. Some people add yeast to it in order for the yeast to process and ferment, at which point in time it takes It takes the sugars that are inside the grape juice and it turns them into alcohol. And in that process, it gives off CO2. It gives off carbon dioxide.

At this point, it's in some kind of sealed container?

No, it actually can't be in a sealed container because it would explode. So what they do is they put it into a container and they put a special kind of float top on the top of it where the air can bubble through, but it can't come back in because there's a liquid in it. So there are kind of tops that allow air to escape.

A filtration system.

Well, no, it's like an escape valve that allows things to come out, but doesn't allow things to come back in.

Like on an 18-wheeler.

Yeah.

With that exhaust thing that shoots the smoke out.

With the little cap on the top.

With the cap on it, yeah.

Yeah, but these are much more sophisticated than the cap, okay? So yeah, that's what they do. That's what they do.

And then it sits?

So then it sits percolating for a couple weeks sometimes, or less, or what have you. But in the red wines, it's exactly the same as the white, except they leave the skins and the seeds. And they let it percolate in the fermentation tanks, and it ferments. And then they, after a certain number of weeks, depending upon what the outcome the winemaker wants, they'll pull the juice off and then they'll get rid of the— get rid of the shells, the skins and the seeds, and then just ferment that juice. And the juice at that point in time, because it's been sitting on the skins and the seeds, is red. That's what colors it.

So then my question is, at what point in what you just described is the point in which a wine could become kosher or not kosher?

Okay. So—

Permitted or not permitted.

So from the time it is squeezed and is juice, it is already kosher or not kosher. Really? Yes.

From the very beginning?

From the very squeezing of a grape. As soon as you squeeze a grape and the juice comes out—

Shomer Shabbos, not Shomer Shabbos.

It's as soon as that juice comes out of that grape, it's either kosher or not kosher because of the what you call, because of the person who does it. Overall, it's as soon as it's squeezed into juice, as soon as it's handled by a non-Jew, it's kosher, not kosher.

So the vineyard, so that's Jew, non-Jew. What about observant Jew, not observant Jew?

It's the same rules, non-observant Jew and non-Jew, as opposed to observant Jew and, you know, there's either a person who you can touch it, or a person who can't.

So a vineyard that's owned by an observant Jew, from top to bottom, the minute the grapes are squeezed, he picks it, his—

They're not squeezed. When you're picking them, they're not squeezed. Okay, right. So you're picking them.

Good. On that field, yeah, you can have anybody pick them. Yeah, Jew, non-Jew, doesn't matter. Yeah, pick them. The, the non-Jewish worker brings a barrel of grapes into the workhouse, and at what point does the non-Jew then have to step away?

Right then.

Right then.

But if, okay, there's some people who, there are nuances to this as well. There's some people who go nuts with that because they say the weight of the grapes themselves crushes, creates juice, and then those juice, the juice that's there isn't kosher. So they don't put, they don't typically pick grapes and put them into closed containers. They pick grapes and they put them into baskets. And then somebody takes those baskets and puts them into the closed, you know, into the closed container.

Someone, observant Jew.

Yes.

Okay. Yeah. Wow, it's complicated. It is a lot of, uh, it's totally, it's totally based on, uh, so when you see the kosher certification on the bottle, I now know that from pretty much the minute these grapes picked to the time it ended up on my table, it has been associated with an observant Jew throughout?

Certainly from the time it hit the crushing of the grapes, okay, it's been handled by an observant Jew.

And the process from the crushing till it gets on my table is significant. It's not, you know, peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

That's what makes it That's what makes it wine.

So then to your viewers, excuse me, your listeners, do you feel that when we drink a bottle of wine, because now we're so far ahead with all— I remember my father, we would have to trek 15 minutes to go to the kosher market and get a bottle of Manischewitz. And now at every kosher store, market, whatever, You can get all kinds of wonderful kosher wines, most that I have seen from Israel, fantastic. Do you feel that we have almost gotten spoiled, that we have almost gotten taken for granted the speciality, the beauty, the process, the tikkun of going through the process of the wine, that it has just become almost like beer? Just pop it open and drink it. Let us open a cork and pour a glass. Do you feel that we have lost that? Because it sounds to me like the making of wine is so special, from beginning to end, and holy, and that we have kind of made it just social, commonplace.

Okay. So that has a lot of nuances. I love nuances. I am sorry I keep nuances.

Yeah, yeah.

But there are many kosher wines now, not many, but there are a number of kosher wines now that are in cans. So, you can pop a can and drink it. Okay? Kosher, 100% kosher wines. Moscato, they make Moscato cans.

Blue Box.

Yeah, they now make blue cans. Blue cans. Okay? So, you can pop the can and drink it right there, yourself. We've talked about kosher and non-kosher, but we haven't really gotten into whether a person is pleased by drinking a wine or not. The issue is, has it made it more available I can't tell you why people— people drink alcohol for a lot of reasons, okay? Some people drink alcohol to forget. Some people drink alcohol to get stoned. Um, I personally don't do either of those two. I drink them because I, I like the taste of wine, and I especially like the taste of certain wines. All right, so Moscato, though it's sweet and it's refreshing and it's crisp. You know, if I'd just been working in the garden and I, you know, came back to my chair in the shade and opened my ice bucket and took out a can of Moscato and popped it and drank it, it would be refreshing. It's—

Like lemonade.

Yeah, it's like lemonade or like beer, for that matter. I mean, I could never understand why people drank beer until I had to do manual labor. And then once I did manual labor, I said, whoa. There's something to this. This is great. Um, and now I like beer on another level, but, uh, that's a different podcast. Yeah, that's a different one.

Get your own podcast.

But if we're talking about wines, um, there are people who really, really appreciate wines, and those people don't want it to be sweet. They don't want it to be, um just delicious. They want it to be different and interesting. They like the flavors that come across their palate. They want something different and something new and nuanced, and, and they're super excited if they taste a wine that has a different flavor that comes across their palate, like chocolate almost a leathery taste, or a vegetal taste, like a green taste, or a fruit taste. There's a white wine that I tasted once that had— it was a Sancerre in 2012 that was It is— which is a white wine from France, and it tasted like loquats and kumquats. It had this incredible oriental fruit flavor to it, just incredibly beautiful, very fragrant, very pronounced oriental fruit. As it aged, It lost the oriental fruit, but it became more citrusy, like a really beautiful grapefruit or orange or a citrus flavor. So, there are different flavors.

So, to jump back to the last episode with that thought, the process in making the wines, you've explained in the last episode with the grapes. With all these other additional flavors, the kumquats and the citrus and all that, that they add in?

No, no, no, no, no. These are flavors that come from the grapes.

How do they get that?

Because grapes don't have just one flavor. Grapes have flavor based on where they are grown. And that is actually the reason why this podcast is called the Kosher Terroir. It comes from the terroir. It comes from the environment. It comes from the elevation that it's grown in. It comes from the trees that surround the vineyard. It comes from the flowers that surround the vineyard, because the bees pollinate from the flowers to the grapes and the grape flowers, and that's what becomes the grapes. Flavors that are imparted by the entire environment that these grapes are grown in.

Really? It's not like the punch bowl at the prom that has oranges and— Really?

Absolutely not. In fact, that's the thing that's— that's the reason people go crazy over certain wines. They don't go crazy over certain wines because it's sweet or not sweet or what have you. They go crazy over certain wines because they're getting flavors out of this wine that are different and new and flavors they've never experienced before.

So you're saying that the, the roots of the vines that are in the ground are absorbing nature's beauty?

It's not just the roots, it's the environment around from the pollination of it and what have you. But it's certainly also the vines. As an example, when vines are grown in specific soil that's very rocky or that's like slate or granite or what have you, they absorb the minerality of the surroundings of the ground that they're in. And very often you'll get incredible mineral tastes coming off of the wines, off of the grapes. Wow. Now, that wow is the wow you see in one of these wine guys, tasting and they go, wow, and that's what they're tasting. I mean, they're not tasting like they just happen to taste something. They, they're tasting these incredible flavors and what have you.

I'm more fascinated with the whole creating an environment to grow something that is unique. To me, it's, it's a mind-boggling— my, my brain is racing You know, how do you do that?

How do you get consistency? Yeah, I've created this thing that tastes unbelievable. Now what do I do? Now what do I do from here?

I'm talking even before the creation of it. How do I create an environment to create something?

So you learn from other winemakers over time, or you learn in universities where they teach making wine. And these are all— this is all knowledge that's been passed down over the centuries from winemakers all over the world. But specifically from places like Italy or France or Israel. And to this day, we have winemakers who are making wine in Israel who are experiencing different, um, conditions that allow it to create a flavor that is not a flavor that's like that they've tasted before.

So maybe vineyards in the south now Bottles will start coming out with maybe a napalm flavor, or a gunpowdery flavor, you know, undertones of gunpowder, of dynamite. Yes, yes.

But I hope not. I hope not. But we definitely have, just so that you know, there are vineyards that are tainted by fire. Where that smokiness from the fire extends into the grapes and, um, and makes the grapes really unpalatable. There's some people who figured out ways to get that smokiness out, but it can do that.

I'd like to think that the wine that I drink is as the least manipulated as possible by by humans.

Why? Why?

Because I'm an old-school purist. I like, even my Torah that I learn, I like to go, just over the years it's gotten layered and layered and layered, and I like to go back to the original when it was pure. And when you presented to me just a few moments ago the idea, I mean, it's mind-boggling. You presented to me this idea that I think of a grape, it's just a grape. An orange, it's just an orange. But with grapes, and this goes again back to the first episode of the holiness of wine, is that it's not just that the wine itself was used for this or for that, religious and everything like that, but it's that it takes all, based on what you described, takes all of God's nature, the trees that it's around and the bees and the flowers that grow nearby and the air that surrounds it and the climate and the mountain and the valley and the river and the sun Is there salt water nearby? Whatever. All these variables have an impact on the taste of this wine that you might use for a kiddush or a Pesach or a sacrifice or whatever it is. And so really then, for me, when you pour me a glass of wine, Oh, it's great, good wine. I'm drinking, it tastes great. But I may not— I don't have the wherewithal to really get deep. And not that I won't, uh, it's getting more interesting to me because now from a deeper spiritual level almost, uh, I have now a deeper appreciation for something that I probably did take for granted. Yeah, the grapes grow, they stomp on it like Lucy, and they put it in a bottle, and now it's on Simon's table, and let's drink. But it seems to be, from what you're describing, it's a much more magical, mystical, spiritual thing.

It's natural. It's a natural—

which is all the things that I described. I love nature because of that.

And, and it— and maybe the reason why, maybe the reason why, um, grapes are special is because they integrate the surroundings. Of what's being grown around them into this nectar that's produced when you create wine. It's also a reason why people who drink wine don't just take it and guzzle the thing down, because you don't taste anything when you're drinking quickly. It's not like drinking water. And it's not just drinking lemonade to just drink it so you get refreshed, or Gatorade when you're running and you drink it drink it to rehydrate. Drinking wine ideally is to drink it with a little bit in your mouth, to move it around your tongue, move it around your mouth, and to taste and try to, try to taste every part of your palate, your mouth, your nose, everything from the front of your palate, from where it enters the mid-palate on the top of your tongue, and through the finish in the back of your palate, where now I've swallowed it, can I still taste that wine? Is it still there? Very often there's some wines that have a very long finish, where though I drank it 10 minutes ago, I can still taste that flavor in my mouth. It's got a very— and it's pleasant. It has a very pleasant, long finish to it. There are some wines where you taste and you can taste them in the front of your mouth, then there's nothing in the middle of your mouth, and then there's something at the end where they have almost like a hole in the middle of their tasting. Their, their wines like that. So, but you can't get that nuance unless you're unless you stop and drink it. It's the same thing with Scotch. There's some people, you pour a glass of Scotch and they just kick it back and that's what they do. That's not drinking Scotch. I mean, that's consuming Scotch, but it's not drinking it. It's not tasting it. The people who taste Scotch make a little, you know, spoon out of their tongues, put a little bit of, you know, a couple of drops on the middle of it, and they let it roll around and they wait for the aromas to come up through their nose and, and what have you. And they, they appreciate it. That's, that's what you're trying to get to. You're trying to get to a point where you appreciate what you're consuming. It—

I think that's a mentality that we should apply to everything, all the foods that we eat, everything we drink, everything we do.

100%. It's one that's running through life very quickly, and one is like stopping and taking This is my whole reason that I take pictures.

I love your pictures.

But that's, that's stopping. Very often those flowers that I'm taking pictures of are tiny little flowers that you could easily step on or walk past.

For you listeners that don't know, every day Simon posts pictures of flowers on his Instagram, on his social media, and he just puts it out, his morning walkabout, what he's seeing. And it is just flowers or plants or nature, and I personally love it. I think it is great.

There are a lot of people who come. I do not even know how many people who actually see those flower pictures. But it is kind of crazy. I was walking down Emek Refaim, and this—

The street here in Jerusalem?

Yes, straight nearby. It is with a lot of stores. And this little red sports car comes racing down the street. Um, and the guy who's driving it slams on the brakes, and he comes to the skidding stop right next to me. And he rolls down the window and he goes, "Are you Simon Jacob?" And I said, you know, I thought the guy was gonna— like, is this a hit?

Or I thought the guy was going to shoot me or something, serve you papers.

Yeah, or something. And he goes, "Are you Simon Jacob?" I go, "Yeah." And he goes, "I love those flowers." And then he rolls the window and he takes off down the street again. I said to him, it's like, slow down, man. There's people who live on this street, you know, like, but it was, it's crazy. There's all sorts of people.

It's something so simple. You don't even know.

Yeah.

The, what you had said previously about the, that the surroundings influence the grapes. And the final product, the wine, um, goes back— it takes me back to the beginning of this conversation when we were talking about buying wine from Israel. If the nature and the environment, the plants and all that stuff, by that logic, we can also say also that it's grown in Israel, which has its own level of holiness and kedusha and environment and spiritual energy would in theory get infused into those grapes and the final product of wine as well, don't you think?

100%. Though I know a lot of winemakers in the United States who would lynch me if I said that, you know, people should buy Israeli wine rather than the US kosher wine.

I think they'll give us a pass.

Yes, I think for this they would give us a pass. But certainly the environment is inside those bottles of wine. They're not just simply juice that comes from Israel the same way it comes from California. There is definitely a taste of Israel in them, 100%.

Amazing. Okay, and with that, yes, I'll give you back your show.

Thank you. All right, really a pleasure. Pleasure always to talk.

It's great.

Yeah, this is exactly great. Super.

It's nice to talk to an idiot that knows nothing because you can ask— I can ask the dumbest questions.

I thought— no, I thought you were talking about me.

No, I'm talking about me as it pertains to this subject.

Thank you very much for being on the Kosher Teruah.

Thank you for having me, Simon. I love you.

Really a pleasure. I love you too. 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. And whenever possible, buy and share Israeli wine. I hope you have enjoyed this episode of The Kosher Teruah. It was exciting and informative for me as well. 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. Again, thank you for listening to The Kosher Terroir.