Avi Feldstein: Redefining Israeli Wines with Tradition and Modernity

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Solomon Simon Jacob (00:09):
Welcome T he Kosher Terroir.
I'm Simon Jacob, your host forthis episode from Jerusalem.
Before we get started, I askthat, wherever you are, please
take a moment and pray for thesafety of our soldiers and the
safe return of all of ourhostages.
Today we have an extraordinaryguest, a true pioneer of Israeli

(00:32):
winemaking, Avi Feldstein.
Avi's name is synonymous withinnovation, bold experimentation
and a deep respect for the landand its native grape varieties.
From his transformative work atSeagal Winery to founding his
own boutique Feldstein Winery,Avi has shaped the way the world

(00:54):
perceives Israeli wine.
In this episode, we'll delveinto his journey, explore the
unique terroirs of Israel anduncover the fascinating stories
behind wines like his Grenache,Debouki and Sauvignon Blanc.
Whether you're a wineconnoisseur or simply curious
about the evolving Israeli winelandscape, you won't want to

(01:16):
miss this.
If you're driving in your car,please focus on the road ahead.
If you're relaxing at home,please select a wonderful bottle
of kosher wine.
Sit back and enjoy this episodewith Avi Feldstein.
Avi Feldstein, I'd like to saythank you very much for inviting
me to come up to the winery.

(01:38):
I'm happy to be here.

Avi Feldstein (01:40):
I'm happy you're here.

I'm very happy to be here.
It took us a long time.
It took some time, but it'sokay.
We went through.
You know, the Lebanese kept usapart for a while, hezbollah
kept us apart for a while.
So, yeah, it's okay, but we'rehere.
I was afraid.
This morning, last nightactually, I was listening to the
radio and they're talking abouthow the whole peace thing is

(02:05):
breaking down and I'm saying,just leave it for a little bit
longer, please.
You know we don't need missiles.
The last time I came up to seeEffie not the last time, the
time before the missiles wereflying everywhere.
I mean there was as you'redriving down from, as you're
driving from, sfat, the sides ofthe roads were on fire and

(02:26):
everything right.
It was crazy.
But thank you for being on TheKosher Terroir.
Okay, it's really a pleasure.
I need to tell you that you'veimpacted my life for so many
years.
It's a pleasure to meet you inperson.
One of my favorite wines thatactually made a believer of wine

(02:52):
out of me was the SeagalUnfiltered.
It was so special, it was justamazing, awesome wine.
I have some questions for you.
Tell me a little bit about yourjourney into winemaking and

(03:13):
what originally inspired you onthis path.

Wow so long.

It's not so long, come on, come on.
Come on, you're younger than me.

I started, I wouldn't say by accident, but it
was quite an unusual path,Because I started working,
started my adult life as aearning While I was studying.
I was studying literature andphilosophy at Tel Aviv

(03:47):
University.
Where Tel Aviv University, TelAviv yeah.
And I was an active writerliterature, and I was publishing
, not for the door.
I was publishing considered tobe a great promise, a great
promise, a great promise, andwhile doing that I need to

(04:12):
sustain myself, because I'm notcoming from a wealthy family.
I started work.
My work life started atrestaurants and bars.
Quickly I became an instructor,because I have a nature To
teach, to study, okay, maybealso to teach, teach and delight

(04:37):
.
It's a Renaissance idea.
So I started to teach.
Then I started to write, towrite on the subjects in the
newspapers, etc.
About drinks, about wines,about food, and on one hand I

(05:00):
became quite famous in thatrealm.
I was writing for Hadashot.
Hadashot was then a new thingand it was a newspaper that
invented the modern Hebrew ofnewspaper writing, and the new
style of writing about food wassomething half intellectual food

(05:23):
and wine.

You were living.
Where then?
Tel Aviv okay that's yourorigin.
You were born in Tel Aviv.

Wow, people from all Israel are coming to Tel
Aviv.
Right, there's very little TelAviv that was born there.
I was used to say that I'm TelAviv-ic because from habits, so
from any choice or Right, thisis what I know.

(05:57):
I'm living in a street next tothe street.
I used to roam with my mothernext to the streets.
I used to roam with my motherbuying food, buying fish, buying
herring in newspaper.
They used to roll it innewspaper.
Yeah, I can close my eyes andimagine that while I'm there,

(06:19):
this is the last part of TelAviv still resembling what, what
?

was in the past.

So I was in Tel Aviv doing that, started to
write, starting to work also asa consultant to importers in the
field of alcohol, because I waseducated there in
Neuropsychiatry and before Iknew it I opened the first

(06:48):
Israeli bartender school, whichwas a financial disaster because
it was like I don't know 60meetings, there was no way to
earn one shekel out of them,only to lose.
But it was a terrific thingbecause it was also about

(07:12):
cocktails, which is now verypopular.

It's only a few years early.

Yeah, a few years but also had that chapter long
and and and very elaboratedchapters about beer, about wine,
about the the making of liquor,balkonia, brandy, whiskey,
actually going into distillingdetails and stuff like that.

(07:41):
So quite a few of the wine andalcohol trade people went under
me through that school, wow.
Then came my good friend tillthis very day, alex Segal, which
was the son of Tzvi Segal,which was the CEO of Segal Wine,

(08:04):
and he decided that I shouldleave everything and come work
for Segal.
It took him like one year ofworking on me but finally I did
that, stopped writing foranybody, started to work with
him, first in marketing.
The import of Segal wasunbelievably large Because

(08:27):
Israel drank actually so littleof imported wines.
You could have everybody, allthe wineries and agencies, under
the same roof.
I mean Galo and Mondavi wereboth I just say the word the

(08:48):
only place in the world, becausethey are rivals and they used
to go to different.
So I was exposed then to a hugequantity of quality wine from
all over the world, from France,from the United States, from
Australia, from the UnitedStates, from Australia, and this
started to form my education.
In those years I advanced, Iended my management life at

(09:17):
Segal as vice president forbusiness development.
This was my last job there, mylast job, my last job before I
switched and crossed the linesto winemaking.
It was progressive.
As a manager, as a developmentmanager, I did something very

(09:42):
unique Not all people have thisopportunity and it was to
rebuild the winery.
It was a winery with a greatpast but with an uncertain
future.

Reuben Ruvie Taub (09:56):
Okay.

Because there was revolutions in the country,
Golan winery came.

Changed the whole world.

Yeah, came to the center of The center of the
world.
Segal was still under the oldparadigm that wine growers are
producing grapes and thewineries are producing wine and
you should not mix.
Let everybody do his job, which, of course, is so unrelevant to

(10:29):
quality, good wine.

Today yeah, for sure.

So I came to change that and during that
project I decided that thewinery is rebuilt from the
ground, from the vineyards, andwe should have our own vineyards
, and embarked on a journey ofplanting quite an acreage for
historical independent Segalwinery.

(10:53):
And the unique thing about thatwas that I decided that the
region to do that is this one isthe gallery.
You may be surprised to know,because it's so not relevant to
what I hear today, that theDalil was empty from grapevine
Empty.

Everything was empty?
No, but the Galilee wasdefinitely empty.

Yeah, because the Judean hills had vineyards.

What year are we talking about?

We're talking about mid-'90s, mid-'90s,
mid-'90s, mid-90s Golan.
All the buses with touristswent to the Golan Heights, the
planes with the news reportedbecause we used to fly them To
Amnur, yeah, and the privatecars with visitors all go went

(11:41):
to the Golan and the Lille wasempty.
To me, this was outrageous.
I tell you why, because of twothings.
First of all, it looked to meas a classical wildlife, which
it is, which it is proven to be,it has.
It is high elevation, it iscold, it is fertile.

(12:04):
It is high elevation, it iscold, it is fertile, it is
diverse and you get sunshine infact the Golan is a terrific
place to grow grapes, don't getme wrong but it's quite
monotonic.
Well, you have these littledifferences, but it's not like

(12:27):
in the Galilee.
In the Galilee you can go with10 minutes drive 450 meters
elevation in Dishon Valley to900 meters at Manara Cliff.

Right.

In a few minutes' vibe you go through, let's say
I call it the entry, the port,the gate, the gate to the upper
valley at Tzomet Golani.
You see, on your left, theTu'an quarries and you see the
mountain cut open because theythey hang, and you see the white

(13:04):
uh limestone chalk, chalk ofthe of the lime uh rock.
On your left, on your right, yousee basilic boulders, volcanic
boulders, so you see the mixture, a centering, and in the

(13:26):
Galilee you have a mixture ofthose in every different, in any
possible way.
You have vineyards facing thenorth, facing south, facing east
, high elevations, valleys,mountain ridge within valleys,
mountain ridge within thesestraight heights.

Incredible terroir.
Incredible terroir yeah.

So if you were interested in that, in multitude
of possibilities, and in theconcept of terroir, which I was
very interested in because Ithen wore more Bordeaux train
than any other Terroir andLongevity was the two helmets of
the good, while for me itchanged with years.

(14:14):
It changed.
I'm suspicious about theconcept of Terroir.
I know that this is likepissing on everybody's parade,
but you know it is what it is.
I can elaborate later.
It's an important concept, itis a working concept, but it's

(14:35):
not the one and only concept, infact, being the one and only
concept to many, this is areligious side of secular people
.
So the gallery was empty inthis sense, and it was vacant.

(14:56):
It burned with emptiness.
The other thing was that oneculture, one environment are
connected.
The wall is a triangle, theangles of which being a variety,
a place, a place of climate andsoil, and a man in Europe.

(15:19):
It's a community, the communityof Santa Milion, which formed
the ways in so many hundredyears In the New World.
It's an artist, a winemaker, awinemaker, one person with his
vision.
It's not a community, it's aperson, it's a creator, the
creator of wines as images.

(15:41):
But the man is there, theculture is there.
The background is there.
The background is there, thehistory is there.
The history is there, and theGolan Heights, being as good as
it was for Greb Govan, is emptyof Jewish history.
It has some.

(16:02):
So if they excavate a temple orwhat they take the stone, they
bring it to the winery to proveoh okay, we're Jewish as well.
But there's no comparisonbetween the Golanites and what
happened in the Judean years orwhat happened in the.
Galilee is the capital of theMishnah and Galilee is filled

(16:27):
with Jewish history, religious,secular, in fact.
I can take you with the car 10minutes drive from here to Jish,
the Gush Halav.
Go on to the valley of GushHalav of the river Gush Halav.
200 meters downstream we findthe remains of a synagogue, very

(16:49):
well preserved, with the stonebig stone that used to be on the
pork, with lions carved intothe, and this was the synagogue
of a Jewish settlement in theVadi, not of Gush Halab.
Gush Halab was a Jewishsettlement and then there was
another one.
The other one was a completelyagricultural settlement, making

(17:11):
a living out of olive oil andwine production.
This was at the time of theRomans, which means 1,000 years
ago.
The place is just full of wineancient… 2,000 years ago.
Yeah, yeah, 2,000.

2,000 years .
We do strike, but it's yes, Iagree with you 100%.

So it being empty from wildletting was outrageous
too.
So I decided that I'm going tothe gallery.
It was as a manager, and Iplanted some 750 dunams,
including vineyards that becameunicorns or became icons as

(17:54):
Dishon, rignard and Dover.
During that I met.
I made a transition becauseduring that I became, I started
to make wine here, because I washere all the day with the
Riyads.
I started to make wine togetherwith Jeff Marks Ziffonon,

(18:14):
yivracha in Kibbutz Amiyad, asmall operation named Dalili
Heights Wine, and then some timelater I became the winemaker,
the chief winemaker.
Self-taught, I taught myself.
I used the connection of Segalwith the wineries all over the

(18:37):
world to go there and see, notwhat people teach, they do, what
they actually do at the bestwineries of the world.
I could be with us from closerange because I was a
distinguished guest.
We'd open the doors too andstudy myself from books.

(18:59):
I was already a universitytrained man, but I also felt
that, you know, in the westernculture the basic intellectual
institution is not university,it is the library.
It was always the library.
It's the library of Alexandria.

(19:21):
For the secular it's the wayJudaism was learned in rooms
full of books, people studyingand the concept of somebody that
reads a book, stands on thepodium and tells you what's
written in it, then testing yourunderstanding of what he taught

(19:42):
you.
This is a modern concept.
I went classical on that andtaught myself, and so when those
vineyards new vineyards gavefruit first time, I was in the
winery waiting for them to makethe first pies.

(20:02):
It was a closure of a circle,so this is like the way I went
in.
Come here, by the way, comehere Half-exit donkey to this
specific location.
I found the diffill at the twoof these ponds and spanks.
If you stand up, you see, abovethose two black, there is a

(20:29):
hill.

Yes, yes, that's it.

This is the grave of Abiyo Seagiri At the top of
that hill.
Yes, wow, abiyo Seagiri, a sideof the Inverness, a fellow in
the Pesach camp, is a veryinteresting figure.
First of all, he's calledBrilik, so this was close to

(20:55):
start with from the name.
He was very original in Mery.
He used to eat chicken inbutter until they forced him to
comply with the general rule.
But another verdict of himwhich is relevant is that he

(21:17):
said that you don't bringBikurim from Ever Ayerden.
Don't bring Bikurim from EverAyerden, which means that he
drew the lines of what iscultural Israel, what it really
is, and it doesn't contain theGara lights.

(21:41):
The line crosses down in thevalley, leaving the Naftali
mountains as the northern partof classical Israel, growing,
agricultural growing region.
Why is this important?
Because it came together withmy vision.
Look, here is Vili, his grave.

(22:02):
Down there is a vineyard ofmine, the Rosan.
Between and over that is EmekAchula and on the other side you
can see the.
The geographic map is very clearfrom here and it includes what
I've done in Zagallani, becauseafter I there was a few

(22:22):
vineyards here, very few.
There was the Sochnut plantingsof the beginning of the 80s in
Ramad, alton, okay, which was in.
They had to put something inmarginal soils, so the vineyards
were the only thing possible,but it was the majority white

(22:43):
and the majority sovereign.
Nobody knew what to do with it.
And also one vineyard at DishonValley, the vineyards of Ramot
Daftali, which was a vineyardthat Kamel planted, then
abandoned to Ramat HaGolan.

(23:05):
Ramat HaGolan started inMechatzor HaGlilith before they
went to the Golan, when he washere, and they took the vineyard
with them and it was the heartof Kabar, nei Arden and Ktzerin.
They had the fact that theirbest wine, best grapes are
coming from.

(23:26):
Galilee.
But this was it and it wasbetween the moment I started to
plant in the mid-90s.
There have been 20 years thatpassed without any grape
planting in the Galilee.
So I was starting a new thing.

(23:46):
I put not alone because alsosome other people was starting
to vision the idea, but becauseI planted 750 dunams and because
I brought everybody that waswilling here and because I

(24:13):
brought everybody that waswilling here newspapers and news
writers about food, abouttourism, well-being Everybody
stood in line to get grapes at99 when it first yielded and
everybody got because it was mymission.
I had more and everybodyplanted after here so it became
everybody who got grapes from meplanted a vineyard near to me

(24:35):
in the next few years.
So the Galilee went on.

Griltsburg.
Yeah, was there a particularmoment or vintage early on that
solidified your passion forwinemaking?

It was something that caught all my being, so I
cannot figure out one vintage.
That was the proof.

Okay.

Maybe the proof.
Yes, it wasn't the motivation,but it caused the proof that
something very good is.
I think the 1999 vintage wasthe new vineyards in the gallery
yielding which one 19?
1999.
1999.
, Okay, I had a few vineyardsuntil then, of course, but the

(25:29):
new vineyards in the first yearwhich is not expected gave such
magnificent fruit that the wallsof the winery were shaking.
Wow was a trial.
Shaking Wow.
And to prove that some of thosewines are still alive in the

(25:52):
bottles.

Mechus.
What do you think are Israel'sbiggest strengths and unique
challenges as a winemakingregion?

For speaking about the strengths, the unique
strengths, I'm compliant tospeak about the local nature.

Are you talking about the grape
varieties, the local grapevarieties?

What the style is what the history is, how they
can all combine to one story.
Because I think making wine isstory making.
It's not a 100% and there is anobligation to the winemaker to
write that story and to make thewine tell it.
But if you want only theadvantages, something that came

(26:42):
to me in America was speakingwith people representing myself,
people that didn't know me butwere interested in new,
innovative ways.
It's a changing world.
It's a changing world.
It is changing climatically andwine world should adapt.
It is changing culturally.

(27:06):
I think that the concept ofterroir is related to the in a
deep sense to the former century, not exactly, not so basically
connected to what's happeningnow.
It has influence.
So because it's a changingworld, because Israel is in the

(27:30):
midst of a changing world,because it's a changing climate,
because Israel is a hot climate, in a way, winemakers that try
to accommodate to hot climatesfirst for others, they are like

(27:51):
the pioneers of the future.
The whole world will look likethe hot climates of today.
So in fact, we are pioneeringthe wilds of the future.

I strongly believe that I was so.
In fact, we are pioneering thewines of the future.
I strongly believe that I wasprivileged to be one of the wine
pourers at the president'shouse a couple of years ago.

Ah, it was a wonderful thing.
Who organized?

it.
I can't remember her name.

Yeah.

No, I am already.
Yes, yes, she's the one whoorganized it, but I was there
the first year that it happened.
There's been two years thatthey did it.
I was with Iakovoria and atthat time they were just

(28:51):
bringing out Pinto wine andbecause we said Pinto, everybody
said oh, it's a desert winery.
There wasn't an ambassador fromeverywhere in the world who
didn't stop by our booth tospeak to Yakov about making wine
.
It was like we were the canaryin the coal mine, where you know

(29:11):
we're the ones who are impactednow, but they all knew what was
coming in the future and it wasan amazing interaction.
Everybody wanted to know howwere you doing it?
What were you doing?
How can I connect you to someof the winemakers and large wine
people within our own countryand back and forth.

(29:35):
It was very.
There was an enormous amount ofinterest about Israel because
of that, because of the desert.
Enormous amount of interest.
By the way, I was also mixed upwith that Because of the desert
.
Enormous amount of interest.

By the way, I was also mixed up with that Because
Segal Winery was theindependent Segal even before
Bakan purchased.
It was in connection with allthe little wineries, little
vineyards, coming in the NegevRight.
Yeah, I forgot the name of thatproject Netioti Chidim or

(30:15):
something like this.
People got a land Right, thestate gave them a land, they
gave them some loans to starttheir own vineyards, to start
their own wineries in the desert, and those days if you wanted
to plant a vineyard you had toget a letter from a winery that

(30:37):
said that it is willing to usethe Greeks.
So we gave some quite a fewcontacts with those people.
We had also some wines fromthem.
This went to.
Bakan.
But Bakan took over that also.
So we were even producing themtheir wines, without telling

(31:02):
everybody it was behind thescenes, but we were buying the
grapes for ourselves, a portionof it.
We would transform the wine andleave them back to sell.
And Bakan was quite innovativethose years.
I mean, I think the vineyard,the Chardonnay Pinot Noir

(31:28):
vineyard at Zperamon, was thefirst really big industrial
vineyards in the Faus.
And I remember the picturesfrom helicopters.
There was no drones those days,so it was an expensive picture.
You know from helicopters,there was no drones those days,
so it was an expensive picture.
You charter a helicopter andsend it up to picture your

(31:51):
vineyard and there's a run andthen a bright green vineyard
sitting in the middle of it.
It was all over the world, inthe Balkans.

Wow.
So you've been working recentlyhighlighting indigenous grapes,
special indigenous varieties.
What draws you to thesevarieties and which ones do you
think have the most potential?

What drives me to them is the wish, the need to
establish my local identity as awinemaker, because this is what
people do.
They produce things and theywant to know what is unique,

(32:36):
what is related to the area, andthis is a question that came to
my mind a long time ago.
It started with the 90s.
In the 90s, becoming the chiefwinemaker of Segal, working a
lot with Alderman as a varietyfor entry-level wines and doing

(33:05):
huge quantities, hundreds ofthousands of liters for it.
I felt that there's somethinghiding in the variety.
It was something that took me along time to understand what
was hiding there, but I was surethat something was hiding there
, and also the fact that it wasa local cross.

(33:25):
The sons of those white peoplehiding there.
Also the fact that it was alocal cross, spoke to me,
because a local cross issomething that involves the
environment.
There's always the questionabout a young man, a young
person.
Which is more important?
The genetics or the education?

(33:46):
This could be the same questioncould be transformed into the
grape world.
What is more important?
The genetics of the parents,because it's a cross, it has
parents.
It's not a vegetativepropagation like industrial
vineyards that you bring onegrape from France, you put it in

(34:12):
a nursery and you start to cutthings which are 100% identical
DNA to the mother.
So when you do a cross, youdeliberately mix up the genetic

(34:34):
charge of those parents of thecross and encourage it to make
all as much as possiblecombination of it.
Then you plant these seedsbecause this is not vegetative
propagation, this is like inchildren.
That's what real seeds not onlythe mother, the mother and the

(34:58):
father and start to look at whatyou planted and to check it, to
check it by values of growth,of health, of yield, of quality,
of yield of time, of harvest,of anything.
So as you advance, you pick,you pick some and then you take

(35:22):
the sum and you multiply thequantity and you replant them
and you still are all over thevineyard looking and learning
and choosing.
Where are you doing that?
You're doing it in a specialsoy, where are you doing it In a
special climate.
So the outcome is completely anoutproduct of that climate and

(35:54):
that soil.
So Agamon was completely localto me.
I could saw it.
Of course it is different forKarinial, it is different for
Susarial, it's different forSusar, the two parents but it
was local and I felt that as awinemaker, the question is not

(36:17):
why should I make a wine fromArdaman?
The real question was how can Iafford not to draw wine from
Agamal?
This is the question.
It was in front of me.
It was a son, a child of thisland, the vine, it was
representing it.

(36:40):
It took a while until I did thefirst commercial one on 2006.
The bottle I still get it.
I will ask them to be in thecity for a year.
He realized that on the labelit is written 2006,.
I mean that it is a moral dutyto make wines, to look for local

(37:01):
identity in wine.
It's written black and white onthe bottle.
So this was the beginning ofthe project to move.
The first commercial product was2006, but I was playing for 10
years with it and I planted thevineyard in Dovev, in Agamon of

(37:22):
Agamon in Dovev.
At 2000 or at 1999, I plantedit.
So this was a completely LizaDurable story because I just
felt that I'm taking the DNA offrom the roots of the main

(37:47):
plains in Israel and took it toa very good university at an
elevation of 850 meters in theGalilee and training it and
teaching it to speak as a ladyand see what was coming out, and

(38:07):
it was the historical Agamon,which David Roboff wrote about
the test vintage.
There are three good scenes inAgamon Color, color and color.
So I tell David Thank you verymuch.
They say, david, you are goingto eat your hat, and when you

(38:31):
are going to eat your hat, Iwill supply the best salted
peppers.
So it's more, he was Spider-Man.
So two years later, when thewine came back from competition
all over the world and wasdecorated, etc.
He had a piece written in arts,the headline being I'm eating

(38:56):
my.
So I still have it somewhere.
But this was the very firstbeginning of trying to work with

(39:16):
the concept of local identity.
Look for me.
Israel has a long, very ancientwine production history.
Yes, everything around showsthat In the ancient days it was
a huge producer.
The last wine press that wasexcavated near Yavne is

(39:40):
approximated to produce onemillion bottles annually, can
you?

imagine.
Can you imagine?

Those days.
It's unbelievable numbers andthose were exported all over the
world, world right and but themodern history and there is, you
know, there is the researchersthat say that the very basic DNA

(40:17):
of grapevine comes from.

This was very much in parallel, where
people have said for years thatGeorgia was the beginning of the
wine industry.
That's not true.

They were parallel to them and they were
mixed.
Yeah, and they mixed Through theages, through the.
I think it was a process, youknow, because we sent wild and
purple bee vines outside ofIsrael.
Right, they got mixed up withDNA from Georgia and then the

(40:49):
Roman soldier brought themBecause he wasn't doing it for
the wealth of the world, but itwas a habit, you know.
In the backpack, right, therewas the gladiola, the sword of
the legionnaire, and grapecuttings and wherever they went

(41:09):
they planted vineyards.
You can look at the vineyardmap of Europe and it is like a
historical map of the Romanconquest of Europe, historical
map of the Roman conquest ofEurope.
If you see Spain and you seethe Ebo and the Duro, the two
valleys, two big, serious winevalleys.

(41:34):
This was the roots of the Romaninvasion of Spain.
So they just planted vines allover.
So the Romans brought back intoIsrael also some of the mixed
DNA.
So it got more rich.
The culture that did theopposite, while the Romans

(41:55):
enriched the wine scene inIsrael.
The Islam, the.

Islam.
Islam did exactly the opposite700 years ago.

The last change of the Romans was 1,000 years
ago, I think.
The vineyard was again changedmassively 700 years ago.
They plant out everything thatseemed to them intended to

(42:24):
alcohol production and whatseemed to them as table breaks
they would leave.
It was big and flashy, and thisis the real source of the
distinction between wine grapesand table breaks, the real
source of the distinctionbetween grape, between wine

(42:45):
grapes and table grapes.
When people asked at thebeginning they were annoying me
why are you making with thezabuki, why are you making a
wine from table grapes?
My answer at the first year I'ma polite guy I responded
politely.
After that I would use to askthe guy that was asking me are

(43:08):
you Muslim?
So me Muslim, why?
Because you were asking me aMuslim question.
You are using a Muslimdistinction, right?
Nobody said that this is atable grape.
The Muslims said it was a tablegrape.

So, Debuki, you brought it up.
What do you think of it?

The Buki was so Agamar was the first one.
Then, when I started my Ilikentwineries, there was the Buki in
the middle of the scene, theBuki was everywhere.
When I was growing, the Bukiwas one of the main table grapes
in Israel.
The vineyards of the Buki werefrom the Galilee to the south.

(43:48):
Do you know Rami Naaman fromNaaman Winery.

I don't know.

There's a winery in Ramot Astali.
A good winery, rami, told methat when he was a kid he got
beaten up because he was caughtstealing the Buki grapes at
Ashkelon shoreline Shorelineyeah, so we understand that the

(44:20):
Buki was planted even on thecoastline of Ashkelon, ashkelon,
ashkelon.
So this is where the ancientname of Segal wines came.
By the way, it was calledAshkelon winery Before it was
called.

Segal, I remember that, I remember.

Because Ashkelon was growing yeah, now considered
to be the desert.
So you see, there's not a lotnew when you dig deep enough.
Of course, in the legate wouldtell you that the Labattic

(45:00):
culture grew grapes and didwonder.
They're just renovating culture, grew grapes and did wine there
.
They're just renovating orredoing the history.
But what I want to tell you,that in modern wine making not

(45:22):
in the ancient world, in themodern world, in the modern
world the history of grapegrowing in Israel and my life,
let's say it's 100, 100 andsomething years from the bar on
the road to plantings, and thislooked to me as the infancy
years of the industry.
It's like the years that a babyis learning how to walk and how

(45:43):
to talk, years that a baby islearning how to walk and how to
talk.
Eventually, he knows.
Then he wants to use this newfaculty of his and he wants to
say something, something thatthe baby Israeli industry wine
world wanted to say while itmastered its language, the
language being how to growgrapes in the hot country, how

(46:04):
to produce wine more and moreelaborated and overcome the
difficulties you need to replace.
What was in the mouths of thisbaby was a question of local
identity more and more and more.
Of course, when you're talkingabout supermarket wines, it's
less evident, but as you climbup the pyramid of quality, you

(46:29):
find the question more and moreso.
For me it was very basic.
I started to do that at the endof the last century Agamann,
and then Dabuki in 2014.
And Dab book was everywhere.
I said you make a winemakershould make wine from grapes
that are in front of his wife.

(46:49):
Agamon was and the book isstill the book.
The book is diminished in thearea because people were tend to
eat seedless grapes.
Which I till these very days.
I don't understand.
The tendency is like eatingpeeled sunflower seeds All the

(47:13):
fun is in spitting the Grapes.
That's spitting the seeds, theseeds.

Yeah, no, I agree.
And the taste is so different,I know they mute the taste so
much.
It's kind of crazy.

So little bubbles of sugar.
I know, If you find a littletaste, wow, it's a good table
grape because it has a littlebit of taste, a little bit of
smell.

What about the other varietals?
Have you done anything with theother varietals?

I've done because I also was a consultant, etc.
I started to use Marawi andJandali as little additives to
the Buki a few years ago.
Yeah, I made also some winefrom Petuli.
Yes, why the wait?

(48:06):
The wait?
Because Agamon was waiting forthe world wine to change.
In what way?
There are two reasons whyAgamon didn't succeed.
At first, even though it waselegant, I proved it to be an
elegant worthy of anyrespectable dealer or wine

(48:27):
tasting.
I proved it in 2006.
But Agamon will be veryunwillingly producing high
levels of sugar even in the mosthot years and there will always

(48:52):
be a very in your eyes, yourface acidic side to the wine.
These were two features thatwas against the wine.
These were two features thatwere against the mainstream 25
years ago To make a wine,because the wine should have

(49:13):
been very sweet and veryalcoholic and the Agamon, in its
nature, is the opposite.
It's very acidic and very lowin alcohol.
Today this is one of thevarieties all the world is
looking for.

Right.

The varieties that are making refreshing wines
, that are making drinkablewines, that are lower alcohol,
drinkability being a hallmark ofthis winery from its very first
day Locality drinkability.
Coming back to Derbuki, just tocomplete my answer Derbuki.

(49:55):
Why Derbuki?
Because it was here, because Iknew the grave.
Let me tell you a secret.
There were times that we lackedwhite grapes in Israel For
various purposes, let's say foralcohol production.

(50:16):
Alcohol for aging would bebetter coming from grape white
than red.
Artisanal Arak producers arecompletely convinced that the
base wine that they aredistilling should be the bouquet
.

Really.

Yeah, wow, when I was studying, this was my
competition.
Wow, people wanted to buy thefew vineyards remaining to our.
They're making in Kyiv andDibas, raisins and Dibas from it
.
But there was time that before,the red was dominant until,

(51:01):
let's say, five to ten years,which is quite a scullery back
because of global war.
Right, there was a red winedomination, but before that
there was a white craze.
It was what years were that?
The beginning of the 2000s.

(51:23):
It came together with theYappie movement in the States,
because Yappies establishedYippies.
They find themselves in veryvaried cultural features, also
by so you're talking about likethe Chardonnay movement.
By the food and by the wine theydefine themselves.

(51:45):
They define themselves, let'ssay, by colorless beverages.

Reuben Ruvie Taub (51:50):
Okay.

This was connected also to health.
If I'm wealthy and I'menlightened, I take care of my
health.
If I take care of my health, Idon't eat artificial coloring.
I will drink transparent sodasand I will drink.
You know it's a metaphor and Iwill drink.
Even though it's natural color,I will drink white.

(52:14):
So here there wasn't enoughwhite grapes.
The book was all around Israel,the viastic remains, and the
Abuki was the grapes of the EastBank.
There's no question whether itis Israeli or Palestinian.

(52:36):
It grows also in the West Bank,but it covered all of
historical Israel.
And when you find seeds inancient wine presses which are
petrified, we cannot take outDNA samples for them, but their
morphology is completelyidentical to Dabuki, so it's a

(52:57):
good reason to believe that itwas a wine position back in the
ancient times.
Wow.
So all this spoke to me and mystory was a story with that
grape, outside the loudnarratives of the environment,
because it's not appropriation,because it's original here it's

(53:20):
still ancient.
You cannot mix in the I'm takingfrom the White Bank but from
the East Bank.
But my goal is well, at leastone of them is Palestinian.
So I'm giving parnassah to afellow Muslim dweller of this

(53:41):
country to a fellow Muslimdweller of this country.
You cannot involve me in anyone-sided political agenda, and
I like that.
I don't like to be put in boxes.
You know All my wives, by theway.

(54:02):
It's something I like to saybecause it's true, they're made
outside of the box.
Each and every one of them isdone with some features which
are unique.

Talk to me a little bit about your wines
today, because you justintroduced into America.
It's kind of silly to say that,even because I'm telling you my
favorite wine in America wasthe Seagal Unfiltered.
And so that was.
And actually I said we're goingto meet Avi Feldstein and he

(54:33):
said to me who's Avi Feldstein?
And I said, ok, I'm just goingto tell you one thing.
I'm not going to tell you thehistory or any of the rest of
that.
I'm going to tell you one thingSeagal unfiltered.
And he said, wow, that was likereal, that was my favorite wine

(54:53):
and it was I'm not putting it,but it was certainly mine and
there was a lot of people whoare drinking wine because of you
.
So it's amazing.

You know, first of all thank you.
But when Bakan took over,Sergal bought it.
After a few years, maybe two,not much the self-force people
of Tempo were coming to me andtelling me you know, you are
hurting us to sell beer.

(55:33):
I said how come?
Because if a restaurant wantsyour wine and wants the
unfiltered, they will say, okay,you must take the beer and then
you get the unfiltered.
And it ended up that they madethe Gold Star unfiltered, which
was a new influence of the wine.

(55:56):
It was coming into life of allmy efforts and my visions.
It was eventually done from theLouvignans in the Galilee.
It was made by mixing terroirs.
From the very first beginning Idon't believe Terroir is a value
.
It's a defending light of thewild world because if not

(56:16):
terroir, there will be nostoppage to the McDonaldization
of the wild world, the coppercolonization of the world.
So it's a defending right.
It should be respected for that.
But it's not only value, it'snot in any cause, it is even the

(56:37):
leading value.
When you are doing a wine withyour interpretation of the
variety, your search for itspure inner core, you might use
the same variety from differentterroirs to give a full picture
of the variety Because theclassical terroirs of the world

(57:01):
were made historically wherethey are.
Bordeaux became iconic toCamernet.
It doesn't mean that in anothercountry there should be
existing an area resembling inits nature to Bordeaux.
If it has other qualities ofplaces, other places' qualities,

(57:21):
then you might need to mix twoto get to the same outcome of an
iconic wine.
So what is considered to bealready iconic taste of a
variety which, of course, is acultural construct, Terroir,
then becomes one of his unspokenand unnoticed functions, the
commercial one, what's mutual toall the big terroirs of the

(57:45):
world.

Temperature change.

There are different patterns of
temperature change in the RhoneValley and into the Rhein Valley
Soil.
Nothing to do from the chalkystones of champagne To the ter.

Champagne To the Terra Rosa.

To the Alville Marine dried mud of Bordeaux,
which a Dutch engineer gave toFrance by drying the swamps near
the sea.
Climate again, the climate ofthe south of the Rhône is sunny,

(58:33):
burgundy and champagne.
You know, it's gloomy andchampagne, even at summer, is
not now, but in the past it waseven too harsh to ripen grapes
in certain vintages.
I think if you look into it youwill see that what is neutral

(58:54):
to all the big terroirs of theworld is that it is an
industrial, it is anagricultural area, not very far
or adjacent to a big and wealthycity, the rivers being the
commercial roads, the transportof the Middle Ages.
This is what transformed Tewato be paradigmatic and by

(59:23):
sending agricultural products tothe city, getting back good
money fluently and close range,making the agricultural area
able to develop itself, toenhance itself, to look for its
core.

(59:43):
People that don't have what weeat are not asking what is the
terroir of our land.
They should be with a fullbelly and the money from the big
city gets the opportunity.
There is nothing to say.
Well, it's not intrinsic, it'snot as if it's in the build of
the world that this ter, thiswar is, but in this way I mean.

(01:00:08):
It's a cultural construct.
It still has its full meaningand this is what was established
as iconic.
The concept of the tower in itsbeginning was the way of the
people living.

(01:00:29):
You know, they say in Bordeauxthat the best vineyards are the
vineyards that see water, thatsees the rivers.
A part of this answer is thatthe vineyards that saw water
could block the way to the waterfrom the vineyards that didn't
see it by drawing a terroirborder.

(01:00:51):
We say this vein of life, ofmoney, of wealth, of interchange
, is mine, it's mine and myfriend, and this friend and this
friend, you are not included.
You are not included.
You are not included, you arenot included.
It was a tool Because it'sconnected to a certain time, a

(01:01:11):
certain culture.
It's still active.
We enjoy it.
We should go on and enjoy it.
But we should understand thatwhen France is saying to me ah,
you can make a distilledcabernet only for mixing two
terroirs.
I'm doing it from one terroir,so I'm better.
This is the continuation ofwhat they did back then.

(01:01:35):
When they say you are notallowed to go to Biro Water,
it's violent.
This is a terroir.
You are outside the neighbor ofBordeaux, it's outside the war
of Bordeaux and I'm outside thewar of Bordeaux by the same tool
.
If I'm accepting the playinggoals that they set Right and I

(01:01:58):
do not want to do that I want tobreak those rules.

Solomon Simon Jacob (01:02:01):
So let me ask you a question, a primary
question, because it's actually.
You're talking on both sides ofit.
The question I have is where isthe wine made?
Is the wine made in thevineyard or is the wine made in
the winery?
Both Both.

Avi Feldstein (01:02:25):
I think.
When the making of the wine inthe winery is more basic or it
is more formulated, it'sautomated, it's a way people are
doing, then it has less meaningwhat you do, and then the
vineyard is shining out.
It's a matter of focus.
It's a matter of focus, it's amatter of value.

(01:02:46):
Choosing Again, you can choosewhatever the value could be the
artisanal work of a man, thiscould be the value.
And then terroir is becomingeven more marginal.
Listen, terroir is truth.
When you take a certain varietyX variety and you put in this

(01:03:08):
terroir or in that terroir, thewine will be different.
This is objective.
That's the way it is.
This is completely objective.
To say this is very good andthis is awful is not objective.
It's completely subjective.
But the fact, the scientificfact, this is awful is not
objective.
It's completely subjective.
But the fact, the scientificfact, this is objective.

(01:03:31):
But because it's objective, youcan use it as a material.
When people say, okay, terroiris the main thing, and I am
mixing Merlot and Cabernet toreveal this terroir in its most
glorious way, okay, I can sayokay, cabernet is the subject

(01:04:00):
and I'm using two vineyards, twoterroirs, as material.
As I used varieties in thefirst, I'm using now two
terroirs to show the glory ofthe variety.

Just because they set the rules
doesn't mean you need to play bythem.

This is very evident.
You cannot, you cannot, you arenot allowed to add acid in
France and want to make it Right?
This is very bad.
Everybody said is this originalacid?
Is this natural acid?
Everybody, you know there'speople that go to one of me and

(01:04:38):
treat it in their mouth and say,oh, we can taste condition of
acid.
I'm putting $10,000 that youcannot.
I will make you a tasting andyou will not know which is a.
This is bullshit.
But what is the origin of this?

(01:04:58):
Is this something some puritything connected to wine?
No, the reason you are notallowed to add acids to wines in
France because the onlysituation that you could be in
that you want to do that is ifyou want to forge wine.

(01:05:19):
If you want to add water towine, you have enough acid by
all standards.
If you want to add water to thewine and enlarge the quantity,
then you have to add acid.
So this is why it's not allowedoriginally in France.
But then they made it a two-lapoutfit.
Ok, we don't need hot countries, need.

(01:05:42):
Let's obliterate the hotcountries, say they're second
best because they add.
They add acid it's.
I don't know why they're addingacid, but they're adding sugar.
This is okay.
This is alright.
The reason we are not addingsugar probably the only

(01:06:03):
circumstances you want Israel toadd sugar is if you're adding
water.
We are not adding sugar.
We're in a hot country.
The only circumstances you wantIsrael to add sugar is if
you're adding water.
Again, if you're forging wine.

Okay, what wines now?
Are you proudest of that you'remanufacturing, what wines
really make you feel special?

Listen, I'll tell you all of them, Because you
know it's like.

Children.

Exactly, and it's a smaller family than it used
to be.
Because I was independent.
I used to make about 16 to 18wines, different wines every
vintage, partnering up withBarkan Temple.

(01:06:52):
It couldn't go on, because youcannot take a huge sales force
and train them to sell 16different wines every vintage
and just sell Sémillon andSauvignon and Sémillon Sauvignon
.
It cannot.

(01:07:13):
If you are transforming yoursurgical cell to a cell man,
then you can go and sell it, butno other one can.

Yeah, nobody else can sell it.

So I had to narrow it down.
I narrowed it down to four.
Now I'm back to eight.
I'm not finished with that.
I want to do some more becauseI continue to develop, looking
for local identity by selectionof graves, indigenous graves,

(01:07:46):
local crosses like Agamon,southern graves like Gernaschen
and Ossan, which comes fromareas that are serious to Israel
.
This is a good place to startwith and also it is a good tool
to compete.
Israel is making lies all thetime, but there's only a few

(01:08:11):
people that would say that youcan take an Israeli shadow and
put it on the same table withtheir leading wide-ranging
building the local hot, thelocal hot.
But you can take an Israelirossan and put it on the same
table with the best Rossancoming from the south of France,
even the iconic, or theunicorns like Gage De Pere or

(01:08:32):
Shator Rias White, and they willstand on the same table.
You might say that the Frenchis better, but they are
comparable.
It's the same entity.
So if you want to compete, whycompete with one hand tied
behind your back?
So this was all about varietyselection, but in French time

(01:08:56):
there was a lot of.
There was the trying to speakabout what the style of local
Israel wine should be.
This was unique.
I did it in my last years inSegal, but not all the way, like
he's looking with the varietal.
So the wines today are theoutcome of that search for a

(01:09:21):
local style which, for me, isquiet, contained, meditative.
Because it's a hot country,people might think, because it's
a hot country we should drink awhite wine which is like a foot
nectar, like a mango nectar.
No, your body, your mind wantssomething more pure, more living

(01:09:48):
, and it was easy for me in theStates now to explain to people.
But I said listen, the style inIsrael was like it was in Napa
Valley before 50, 20 years.
You wanted fruit bombs, youwanted fruit bombs, you wanted
wood bombs and actually inIsrael we have, as it is, too

(01:10:10):
much bombs.
At least the wine should bebombless.
Yes, so the style is meditative, is more Burgundy affiliated
than Godot Lighter lighter, yes,Summer warm weather.
Yes, lighter.
Lighter and summer warm weather.
Yes, you know, lighter in aword sometimes seems like a

(01:10:30):
pejorative term, but it shouldbe more drinkable.
Drinkable is a good word I wascoming into.
Plum is the name.
It's a supermarket, but it's agourmet supermarket and it has a
huge wine department.
Some of it is not kosher.
It has very extensive koshershelves and he was in the middle

(01:10:54):
of his day and we bothered himwith bottles.
That's what you're tasting.
He was on the counter andtasting at the beginning.
Then his eyes lightened up andthis is a guy trained with world
from all over the world.
You pick them.
You can see the good selectionthat he's selling.

(01:11:19):
You know that.
I tell the truth.
I have no shame If I say it's acheat.
I say it in the face.
He said this is world-classwise.
These are completely adifferent style.
These are refreshing anddrinkable, wise and drinkable

(01:11:39):
wines.
You know, when I was speakingabout Israel, I used to think
about something with a planttaste reds plus.
It's something with plant tasteand very sweet.
This wine doesn't have anythingreminiscent of that.

(01:12:01):
So all the reds are under thesame umbrella, even though they
are very different.
They are different for eachother.
They are done outside the box,so they are different for what
is done by others, but stillthey speak in the same way.
I'll give you an example.
Let's speak about Shemesh.
Shemesh is a new wine of mine.
It's the second vintage that'scoming on the market.

(01:12:25):
Shemesh is a new wine of mine.
It's the second, rich, that iscoming on the market.
Shemesh is a blend.
It's a GSA Grenache Syrah, butinstead of Mouverde, instead of
an M, it's A Argaman, argaman,argaman.
This is the blend.
All the parts are fermentedapart, they are fermented in all
clusters and then they are aged, not in wood, they are aged in

(01:12:49):
concrete.

In concrete .

And in clay amphora.

Amphora.

And this gives water.
Shemesh is because Shemesh isthe sun, two senses.
It's Shemesh is the sun, twosenses.
It's Shemesh.
The wine, first it comes fromvineyards bore under the sun
which are not ashamed.
They're not trying to be in aforceful way little, they're not

(01:13:15):
too early picked to resembleEuropean.
So this is on one hand, and onthe other hand they can be drank
under the sun.
In the Israeli summer you coulddrink a red wine and you can
drink it chilled without ruiningit.

(01:13:36):
Of course it would be very niceto see it evolving Cold, less
cold, a little bit warmish, butit would be nice even when
served chilled.
And this is a new concept.
This is a new concept.
This is a concept coming frommodern needs, from a global

(01:13:56):
warming world that is followingwhole hot countries like Israel.
All over the world you see theraise of white wines and the
diminish of reds.
If they plunk out Syrah,vinnyaz, the north of the Rhone,
and they're putting Rosan,something is happening.
You cannot ignore that.
And if red wine wants to live,you should adapt.

(01:14:21):
You should adapt, you shouldfight white wine.
You need tools and Shemesh isdoing that.
It is more acidic, it is.
It's not clean, but it's more,it's more sculptured.
So this is Shemesh, forinstance, and it shows you my
new style, my what I'm trying toto to give to the Israeli.

(01:14:43):
I'm trying to give to theIsraeli wine world and to
generate to the wine world,because these kinds of wines are
new all over the world.
They won't be there forever.

How do you accomplish that, though?
Because the three varietalsyou're telling me about
especially.
How do you make a lighter winewith a varietal Argumand?

You start with a fermentation.
We take the light side, whichwe prefer, the light side and
Argumand.
Don't let it fool you Even whenit's very dark, it's not
healthy.

No, I know it's not healthy.
No, I know it's not healthy,you're right the body is minimum
is at max medium do you evenlike what does.

What confuses people, it's the color the deep
color you expect.
Coming back to what Rogoff saidto me, the three worst
qualities of, yeah, the deepcolor you expect.
Coming back to what Rogoff saidto me, the three worst
qualities of a man are color andcolor, because I don't like
color.
I do long masturbation andtechniques that you lose color

(01:15:56):
with People.
Tell me it's not a pity, youdon't mind.
No, I don't mind, I'm not acolor worker.
Yeah, I'm not a pity you don'tmind.
No, I don't mind, I'm not acolor worker.

Yeah.

I'm not a painter .
Painter I'm not a painter.
I'm not a painter, I'm awinemaker.
By the way, those full of colorwines of the past look to me.
Genuinely Volkov.
This is the the word I cannot.
When God thought the first timeof the word wine, it didn't

(01:16:33):
mean something.
You cannot see the food through, I'm sure of that.
So I gave you one example.
Let's speak Cabaner.
Cabaner is the opposite.
Cabaner is supposed to be ashealthy as possible.
You won a jumper for one song.
Let's speak Kabane.
Kabane is the opposite.
Kabane is supposed to be ashealthy as possible, and I'm at
least one of the fathers of theheavy style of Kabane Is there?

Yes, interesting this is this is

(01:17:19):
that's the from here.
Very nice, very light, that'sthe Roussanne from here.

Reuben Ruvie Taub (01:17:25):
Wow, very nice, very light.

It's light, but it's.

As with floral.

Yeah, but it's also.

It's medium.

It's medium acid.
It's not low acid, but it'sgreat, I love it.
It's really nice, very nice.
It's nicely made.
It's great, I love it.
It's really nice.
It's nicely made.
It's balanced.
I like the finish on it as well.

And it's still a baby.
There's a critic that wroteabout the Rossan 22 which is in
the markets.
He dissected it, the scope,everything, but he generalized
it that to drink this Rosan islike floating in an infinity
pool a few days before autumn.
It's a beautiful description.

(01:18:14):
You might understand what I meanby doing a more meditative one.
The summary is even more thanthe Dora Sam, because it's not a
while that jumps on me.
It's not like Chardonnay or theFou.
It causes you to look inside X.

(01:18:36):
It is not.
It doesn't want to show itsconcentration, it looks for your
concentration.
You see the variety, you seethe honey-like nose, the white
flowers nose, even stonishmineral side of Rosanne.

(01:18:59):
And then you see the winerybecause you see the reductive
side.
It is all the style of thewinery because I'm trying to do
more and more reductive eachyear.
One of the main instrumentvehicles for that is keeping the

(01:19:19):
wine on the full leaves.

On full leaves yes, On the leaves on the
full leaves.
On full leaves yes.

On the leaves, on the yeast and on all the.
It was fermented in open.
They are just in front of you.
It was fermented inside andthat's the wheels.

That's why the wheels are there.
Yes, okay.

And it will stay for 12 couple of months on full
leaves.
The majority of winemakers willtake out the wine after
fermentation, even if it's barefermented.
Let the leaves settle, take outthe wine, clean the leaves, put
back the wine.
But this is kept on full leaveswithout batonnage, Without

(01:20:02):
batonnage in order to Withoutbatonnage.
Without batonnage In order toIn vintage.
With batonnage to help theyeast metabolism, also to
extract from the yeast.
When you leave it withoutbatonnage you are letting the
yeast to be the sediment of thereductive nose of the water.

(01:20:26):
So you see the style of thewhites.
I'm trying to be very specificin this style.
They are all except the Bupi.
They are bare, fermented andaged for 12 months.

(01:20:47):
That's a lot.
Usually in Israel you bare awife for five to six months, but
I'm bare for a year.
Part of me is consciously tryingto do things differently,

(01:21:08):
outside the box, going againstthe mainstream.
So my reds are seeking to beless and less oaky and the
whites well, not oaky, but allinfluenced.
I pick barrels.
That in the nature leaves avery light stamp on the wine.

(01:21:34):
They asked Paylot, who was aresearcher, philosopher and a
very good winemaker in France,Bordeaux Wine.
Lately he's the founder ofBordeaux Wine Lately in France
Asked him what is the rightquantity of oak in wine.
He said if you taste the wineand you can say for sure it was

(01:21:58):
in oak, that's the one.

Too much Zero Essentially.

Oh, you should hesitate, at least hesitate.
Hesitation is horrible.
It means it's in the background, lurking in the background.
We were thinking about thestyle.
You were asking me about myvoice.
I replied about the styles andthat they are all Chilean, the

(01:22:26):
same style.
We spoke about Cheles and Isaid it didn't really work for
them when I started the winery.
Well, first of all, if you wantto be a very up-to-date,
cutting-edge winery Italy bywinery you see the wines, they
were different, they wereextremelyery.
You see the wines, they weredifferent.
They were extremely modern,extremely on the notch, not

(01:22:52):
Parker style wines, the opposite.
People.
That doesn't know me.
I assure you this a winemaker of30, 35, 40 years.
I'm very happy with thatBecause I'm getting old, but my
wives are not getting old, sothis is a comfort.
Still, I'm making Cabernet,which is not popular Because

(01:23:17):
young, popular high winemakerslike to bend Cabernet.
I will not bend Cabernetbecause I think it's a noble
variety.
I think it is very successfulin the Israeli climate, not
everywhere.
Judean mountains are not makinggood cabernet, but the Galilee
is, and you know, on the GalileeHasid.

(01:23:40):
So everybody was doing a Kavane, not Veselos.
Venevich people were expectingof me to do that Twitter again

(01:24:02):
and I said well, I'm not well,I'm not a cow, I'm not going to
regurgitate, I'm not going tolive in the past achievements,
because this is a prescriptionof death in life.
If you continue to do what youdid, it means you don't believe

(01:24:22):
in your present, only in yourpresent, only in your past.
And because my style changed,I'm not the same way I was, I'm
more a kind of beggar.
Longevity is important, but itis less important than it was to
me when I did WISE 30 years ago, and I did WISE the truth ago.

(01:24:43):
And I did WISE the truth drumjersey that's still alive, and
Drake, and make people happy.
Coming to Cabernet the Cabernetshould not be a version of the
unfiltered, which I love.

(01:25:03):
It's a son of mine, it's aborn-up son.
He lives outside of our house.
It has all the old family, notso mad.
The Cabernets in first timeshould be 100 related degrees
from it, not another succession.
They are different.
The succession they aredifferent.

(01:25:24):
The way that they are differentis that if the Alfredo was an
example of parding, of muscularcabaner, of cabaner steroids,
even though it was element, thedifference between it and its

(01:25:44):
successors or imitators werethat they were not delicate.
And it still was a delicate one, very full.
But you cannot hide that itwanted to be big, it wanted to
be overwhelming, in a wayDelicate and overwhelming.
Watch, if this is, if I cangeneralize, that by Cabanel

(01:26:10):
steroid by Cabanel is nowCabanel is after a scalping diet
.
I'm in the Lesser Morcalos.
I operate in the LesserMorcalos.
I think my job is not to lowerthe head, lower the head more
and more nuances.
My main work is to clean, toclean from the grave what seems

(01:26:35):
to be less important, lesscentral, less pure, clean, clean
, clean.
The main way to do that incabernet is by non-macerations.
My cabernet is maceratedpost-fermentation of cereal.

(01:26:57):
It stays with the skin a lot oftime, a lot of days.
The least I will make is 45days, but it goes to 65 days.
It would be 100 days of skillhigh-code maceration which the

(01:27:17):
skills transform.
The function like this hugefilter within the wine, taking
off elements, color also.
But 34, I don't care.

That's interesting.
Okay, so I'm learning somethingnew Hypermaceration actually
lowers and filters and alsotakes off color.
Yeah, because I always thoughtthis you can measure.
No, no, I believe you.
It's new for me to learn.

At a certain time the skin starts To withdraw the
color, to take away from WowStuff.
And if you are on the wine youtaste it constantly.
You see the development.
You imagine the point that youwant to cut it down, stop it.
But until then it's a selectionprocess.

(01:28:13):
The few days of fermentation,first days of fermentation, is
building up process and then therest is selection and it has to
be building up process and thenthe rest is selection.

So the tannins reduce.
Yes, if you leave it inside, ifyou leave it in macerating
longer.

Wow, they become, I don't know.
They don't reduce.
They also reduce quantitatively, I think.
But the infusion of tannins isgoing down for sure, because the
wine is becoming much morerounded, much more ready to
drink.

Wow, wow, you have opened my eyes.

In fact in certain regions of the world,
like in Piedmont, they do thatfor centuries.
Because the viola is especiallywell fermented with olive seeds
.
It's a very tannic grape.
Especially when fermented witholive seeds is a very tannic
grape.

Right.

They macerate it for a long time.

I always thought the maceration for a
long time is what caused thatvery tannic.

Up until the time .
Up until the point.
Up until the point Wow, allseeds.
So then you see how, two sides,where Shemesh and Cabernet are
both wines outside the box, eachone in its own way, they are

(01:29:37):
very different.
This is a Mediterranean variety, this is a Cab, but you see how
they come into the same familybecause the less is more.
Philosophy is evident in withdifferent means, but is evident
in both as a general way ofthinking, and so this is the

(01:30:01):
philosophy of the rest trying tobe more drinkable, have
intricate noses, complex noses,ability to age, but first and
foremost, they should bedrinkable, they should be

(01:30:22):
suitable for hot climates andshould be able to compete with
whites, the whites, vice versa.
If whites are getting thecenter of the scene, then they
should have not only the freshstainless steel version, they

(01:30:43):
should have also the agingversion, and the aging version
is in oak.
So I'd like to take Ah, tryingto take oak is sometimes
investing in oak, because mycabaret, let's say the 19th
cabaret, the 2019th cabaretcabinet, which is on the market,

(01:31:06):
nobody that tasted would say itwas in a hundred percent new.
But it was.
But it was in the hundredpercent new that the the most
expensive oat.
You can imagine which the mainfeature of this huge money
expense being that the bird justrefused to leave imprint on the

(01:31:28):
wine.
It builds the wine whilestaying at the back.

Wow, so they give you the
micro-acidization without givingit the flavors of oak.

Yes, and also they cause the taste of the wine
to be more intricate, but notin an evident way.
And you taste oak because, well, after all, it's 100% new oak,
right, but it seems as a verydelicate second or third use of
oak.
Okay, wow, want to tasteanother one.

(01:32:00):
Yeah, sure, taste the silverone.

This is sitting in what now Steel, or in
what you call it.

This is in barrel .

It's in barrels.
This is the same tropical.

Yeah, very, the finish is a little different
than the other one.
Very Nice, nice light.

This is a souvenir that will age.
It's not a fresh fruity.
It's not a fresh fruity.
It's very fresh and fruity.
It's not fruity.

You know, this has got body to it.
This has got body.
It's got a lot of acid.
But this has got I think it'sgot a lot of acid.
You're right, but I don't swingup to say no but it's got.
I don't know enough to say no,but it's got real body to it,
it's full.

That's comfortable Use the oak.
It's very, very Tasty oak.
I think it's very, veryincurable.

I'm tasting almost mint Mint.
There's a mint Mint.
Yeah, there's a mint to it, andthat's a nice thing.
I like it.

After this there's some grapefruit.

Mm-hmm, yeah, but that's grapefruit.
You smell the grapefruit?

I'm a person who likes the pith from
Grapefruit From the grapefruit,not grapefruit, but from the
pamela.
This is like the pith of apamela.
It's delicious, it's great.
So this is 24.
So this is going to beavailable when.

I would take it out of the barrel.
In the first week of 25 vintagecap, let's say billion of
August, it will write a dieselinter G's done because it cannot
bought you in the little ofRyder a red house.

(01:33:57):
So if you people to the nextchapter, okay.

And what's it going to be called?

Sauvignon.

Blanc, sauvignon Blanc, okay, okay.
So I see the last one is a red.

It's a red.

yes, which red is this?

This is Grenache.

Okay, grenache, wow, these are all my
favorites.

Do you like this?

I like it too, but this is look.
This isn't a wine you can goout on a hot afternoon and drink
again.

I bet you didn't know we were there no
Shabbos brunch no it's nice thisisn't a picnic.

Southern fried chicken the southern fried
chicken I wouldn't have withthis, that's okay.
Maybe you would.

Southern fried chicken that's not too
greasy.
Yes, that is light.
Yes, as opposed to heavy, oilysouthern fried chicken.
There's no good southern friedchicken in Egypt.

I hope you noticed the width.

Width of the nose.

Of the nose.

It is.
That's what notice the width ofthe nose it is.
I was just smiling.

Like an overwhelming wave of red peat.
Yes, and this is in a hotcountry, from a hot vineyard.
And to consumption in thosedays also.
I tell you what it tastes like.
Maybe you should look at itthis way.
To consumption, you know thereis also.
I tell you what it is.
Maybe you should look at itthis way.

(01:35:28):
You're entitled to your opinion.
They're offering youperspective.
Okay, imagine we Israeli likewe sell dawn.
Is that fun, kim?

Manga Kim Kim manga.
I'll give it to you on.
It's a fun manga.

Yes, yes, manga, I like manga.
Imagine you having a big, nicesteak in the middle of the day
in a Yom HaTorah with a barbecuegrill.
Now imagine yourself with aclassic red glass of wine, too
heavy.
You will not be able to bringmore than two seats, I assure

(01:36:04):
you.
Then I, when we return, thereare no other kind of wine.
You will resort at the end forbeer, and I hate to lose ground
for beer.

You spend too much time working to lose
ground for beer, which they makein 10 minutes.

I love beer, much time working to lose grams
of beer which they make in 10minutes.

By the way, I love beer.
I'm not doing it anymore, notbecause I With age.
I know I earn a lot of gifts.
One of them is gout Nice.

Smell it's nice everything no, but it is
the smell.
But you don't get that with thelight wine.
That's nice everything no, butit is the smell.
But you don't get that with alight wine.
That's the difference.

It's a Grenache, it's a beautiful
Grenache.

The smell is beautiful.
I want to leave the nose, butmake the body one thing.

No, you can't rest it easily.

I like it a lot.

But all your wines have a unique or a very
pronounced smell Floral acid,whatever but all your wines are
made intentionally to have thatsmell.
I'm thinking about how do youdo that?
I'm keeping it light.
That's my question.

I had the general idea Picking the grape in a
certain regime of growth because, you know, grenache is very
versatile.
We can do black, intense,priorat style wise yeah and or
you can make this style which islike do it, like do in in, but

(01:37:46):
not in Brewery.
Sometimes it's not only amatter of tools, it's a matter
of instinct.
When you know what you want andyou taste the wine, your gut is
telling you where you're goingand you know if you continue
that path or you want to changeit.

How often do you change middle fermentation
or towards the end?
What are you going to dobecause you taste it not yet or
it's ready?
How often do you change themind?

Do you ever taste a wine in the middle of
what you're doing and decide,whoa, that's not going where I
want it to go?
That's what you mean, andchange your method, yeah.

And what is that change?

What do you do?
It depends on what you sell.

What's in that total?
You'll be deciding on your ownmethod.
It could be shortening it onyour old rubber side it could be
shortening it.
It could be changing the regimeof the fermentation, making it
more oxidizing or less oxidizing.

Is it a normal thing not to get what
you're expecting?

Yes.

Yeah, it's not a particular surprise.
It's like this is natural, it'sa natural process.

It's like, it's a natural process and you can
take this perspective.
In every milliliter, in everymilliliter of fermenting wine,
there is 10 to the 8th livingcells.

(01:39:34):
This is your kindergarten andwe are the gardener of ten
thousands of liters.
You imagine the quantity ofliving creatures.
You are managing billions, ofbillions and you are responsible

(01:39:56):
for the well-being, the healththe feeding the feeding, yeah,
and they also have to followyour instructions.

Their health the feeding, yeah, and
they also have to follow yourinstructions.

Yeah, At the end of the soup payback.

Yes, todah, thank you very much for being
on the Kosher Terwa.
Thank you very much forspending so much time with me.
You woke me up in a lot of ways.

(01:40:36):
This is Simon Jacob, again yourhost of today's episode of the
Kosher Cherwa.
I have a personal request, nomatter where you are or where
you live request no matter whereyou are or where you live,
please take a moment to pray forour soldiers' safety and the
safe and rapid return of ourhostages.
Please subscribe via yourpodcast provider to be informed
of our new episodes as they arereleased.
If you are new to the KosherTerwa, please check out our many

(01:41:00):
past episodes.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial

Good Hang with Amy Poehler

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Avi Feldstein: Redefining Israeli Wines with Tradition and Modernity

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Stuff You Should Know

Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial

Good Hang with Amy Poehler

All Episodes

Avi Feldstein: Redefining Israeli Wines with Tradition and Modernity

Stuff You Should Know