Capçanes's Kosher Pivot, That Saved The Spanish Christian Winemaking Cooperative

Send a Text Message to The Kosher Terroir

Nestled in the rugged hills of Montserrat, Spain, lies a winemaking story so unlikely you might think it's fiction. Jürgen Wagner, a German-born winemaker who now leads exports for Capçanes winery, takes us through an extraordinary journey of transformation, tradition, and unexpected salvation.

This small cooperative of just 55 farming families was on the brink of collapse in the early 1990s. Having been downgraded from bulk wine producer to mere grape supplier, their future looked bleak until a Barcelona Rabbi made an unusual request: could they produce kosher wine? That decision in 1995 not only saved the cooperative but catapulted them to unexpected fame when their second vintage was rated the third-best wine in all of Spain—kosher or not.

Wagner reveals the fascinating parallels between ancient kosher winemaking laws and modern natural wine practices. The prohibition of animal-derived fining agents, commitment to minimal intervention, and reliance on indigenous yeasts creates wines of remarkable purity and expression. Working with century-old bush-trained vines yielding just 1800-3000 kg per hectare (versus a potential 15,000+), Capçanes crafts wines of extraordinary concentration and character from their mountainous terroir.

Perhaps most compelling is their innovative approach to vineyard management. Through a point system that rewards quality farming practices, organic methods, and continuous education, they've created powerful incentives for their member farmers. 

Today, Capçanes exports to over 60 countries, with 15% of their 600,000-bottle production dedicated to kosher wines. As climate change presents new challenges, they remain focused not on expansion but on strengthening relationships and maintaining their commitment to quality. Subscribe to hear more remarkable stories of wineries where tradition meets innovation, and cultures connect through a shared love of exceptional wine.

For more information:

Celler De Caçanes

Carrer Llaberia, 9 – 43776 Capçanes – Tarragona (Espanya)
Phone: [phone]
[e-mail] 

Jürgen Wagner (Export Manager)
Móvil. [phone]
[e-mail]

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Episode Transcript

Solomon Simon Jacob (00:09):
Welcome to The Kosher Terroir.
I'm Simon Jacob, your host forthis episode from Jerusalem.
Welcome back to The KosherTerroir, where we uncover the
stories behind the wines shapingtoday's world of taste and
tradition.
In this episode, we head to therugged hills of Montserrat,

(00:29):
Spain, where a small cooperativeof just five families grew into
one of the most dynamicwineries in Europe Capçanes.
At the heart of thistransformation is winemaker and
export director Jürgen Wagner, aGerman-born visionary who
brought precision and passion toCantalonia's old vines.

(00:51):
Together, we'll explore how arequest for a kosher wine in
1995 sparked a revolution, howterroir speaks through ancient
Granaccia vines, and what itmeans to balance tradition,
innovation and faith in everybottle.
If you're driving in your car,please focus on the road ahead.

(01:16):
If you're relaxing at home, orif you're near Tesla on FSD,
pour a glass of wonderful kosherwine, relax, enjoy and get
ready to taste history, culture,character all poured into one
glass.
Jüergen, welcome to The KosherTerroir.

(01:38):
Thank you very much foragreeing to be on the podcast.

Jürgen Wagner (01:42):
Thank you so much for having me on your podcast.
I feel very honored.

Solomon Simon Jacob (01:46):
My pleasure and it's my honor, thank you.
So tell me a little bit aboutyour origin.
How did you get into wine?
Where are you from and how didyou get into wine?

Jürgen Wagner (02:11):
Yeah, originally I'm from Heidelberg, from
Germany, so I started winemakingin the early 90s, and I'm not
at all from the wine industry,so I'm an outsider.
None of my family was everinvolved in the wine business,
and this was also my.
Somehow, it was an advantagefor me, because after my studies
, I had the chance to dowhatever I wanted to do and yeah
, so I ended up in Spain.

Solomon Simon Jacob (02:28):
What did you study?
What was it?
What was your major?

Jürgen Wagner (02:31):
I started actually winemaking at the
university in Geisenheim inGermany, so it's the main place
for winemakers, for winemakers.
And in my third year my fourthyear I got the opportunity to go
to Spain.
So I got a scholarship forSpain and I was for one year.

(02:56):
I was halfway Barcelona andhalf-time Barcelona and
half-time Tarragona in Catalonia, in northeast of Spain, at the
university.
Over there too.

Solomon Simon Jacob (03:03):
So how did you end up in Capçanes?

Jürgen Wagner (03:06):
Once I decided to stay in Spain, you can imagine,
I was non-experienced, I wasyoung and I was a foreigner.
Nobody, the world was notreally looking for me.
So I took every opportunity Ihad and so I did lots of little
part-time jobs and I worked alsoin.

(03:28):
I did lots of little part-timejobs and I worked also in.
I did lots of a stage, I didlots of training programs at
different wineries and at one ofthose wineries, by the way, a
really famous one, clos deRasmus in Priorat, I met the
owner and Daphne.
The owner is married to anAmerican importer and this
American importer so far onlyimported French wines and his

(03:54):
goal was to build up a Spanishportfolio as well and he looked
for a wine scout, for somebodylooking for Spanish wines.
So this was one of my firstserious jobs in Spain and, yeah,
in that position I heard aboutCapçanes, fell in love with our
wines and three, four yearslater they made me an offer to

(04:17):
become part of Capsanas.

Solomon Simon Jacob (04:20):
So your role at Capsanas now is what?

Jürgen Wagner (04:22):
It's a small company.
We are 18 in the team.
When we started there were onlyfive of us, so we did
everything.
I was also part of thewinemaking team.
I was the only one with someexperience from abroad, also
from different winemaking views,so I was pretty much in

(04:43):
creating new wines and openingand widening our wine making
portfolio.
So at the beginning I waspretty much in the cellar and
then the more wine we did andthe more wine we produced, the
more market we needed and themore customers we needed.
And, yeah, languages is notreally the strength of our team,

(05:06):
so I was more and more, yeah,told also to take over the
foreign markets or the exporttoday.
Yeah, so today I'm in charge ofexport.
We export to, yeah, to 60countries around the world and
and, yeah, I'm also doing themarketing communication, but

(05:27):
also in charge of new wines Inthe mountain.
There's very little input.
Whatever is happening out therein the world, it's that easy.
By traveling new things andwith all this new input, yeah,
we are constantly changing andadding our range of output for
you.

Solomon Simon Jacob (05:46):
I guess, because, since you're the export
manager, you're the one who'sdealing with the world at large
and receiving feedback andgiving feedback to the team
there.

Jürgen Wagner (05:57):
Yeah.

Solomon Simon Jacob (05:57):
So that's a pivotal place to be within a
seller.

Jürgen Wagner (06:01):
It's very important.
For me, this is one of the mostimportant positions, because
once you're out on the market,you get the good, but you also
get the bad.
You have to be very open andyou have to accept critic and
whatever happens.

Solomon Simon Jacob (06:18):
it is my job to bring this message to the
team and to grow together withall these new yeah, new
informations tell me a littlebit about capsanus as a whole
and the cooperative that goesback to I think it's 1933 is the
origin?

Jürgen Wagner (06:38):
yes, yes, that's right.
From 33, said Capsanus, it's acooperative.
So a cooperative means we don'thave just one single owner or
several.
In our case we have 55 owners.
The owners are the viticultures, the vine growers, the grape

(07:01):
growers, and so the whole placeis owned by the farmers, and in
the team we are 18 in the cellaritself in charge of the
winemaking.
So the farmers, they do whatthey can do best, which is the
vineyard work, but in the cellaritself, and when it comes to
the business, we are allprofessionals.

Solomon Simon Jacob (07:24):
And there's a different team involved.
Wow, in that that sounds likeit's difficult, because you've
got all of these farmers growingwhatever they grow.
How do you pick between?
How do you rate quality and howdoes everybody end up sharing
properly within that?

Jürgen Wagner (07:43):
It must be a difficult task.
Let's call it challenging, yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, kapsanas,
it's the name of the winery, butit's also the name of the
village.
So in the village itself, weare 400 farmers.
Sorry, we are 400 people.
We it's a tiny place.
There are only 400 peopleliving and most of the families

(08:06):
they're shareholders of thecompany.
So we're 55 farmers, 55families let's put it that way
and 400 people.
So in israel you have kibbutz,yeah, so a cooperative.
It's not exactly the same, butI guess some of the challenges
are pretty much the same.
So what happens in in thecooperative is it is very

(08:28):
important to guide, to guidelinethe farmers.
You need to have a very clearphilosophy, you need a very
clear strategy, and so what wedo have, we have a vineyard
control manager employed by thecooperative, so it's a colleague
of mine and he's taking care oflooking over all the farmers.

(08:52):
So, juan, he's taking care ofanalysis of the soils, of
fertilizing, of pruning, ofwhich products can be used in
the vineyard.
So we do everything, but thehands-on people are the people
who are actually doing the work,are the farmers.
So they have to follow ourinstructions.
But of course you can imagine55.

(09:15):
Not everybody is willing tolisten and not everybody is able
to listen, and so of course wecan't force them, but we can.
We can give them some extras.
So if they listen, they getwith something like a point
system.
So the more they listen and themore they follow our

(09:35):
instructions, the more pointsthey get, and the higher the
prices are.
We pay their crapes, forexample.
We do this, we give lessons, wegive just like a team building
program, etc.
So when you follow those, whenyou participate in those
programs, you get some extrascores.

(09:55):
You get some extra points.
When you, when you, for example, when you take part in the we
have an organic program whereall the organic farmers, all the
organic vineyards are you alsoget some extra points.
And yeah, to give you an idea,the farmers who don't listen and
the quality we like less.
And so let's put it the minimum.

(10:17):
The lowest price per kilogramof grapes is around 50, 60 euro
cents per kilo.
At the high end, 100 years oldbush wines.
For our La Flore old wines wepay up to 5 euros per kilogram.

(10:37):
That is a huge deal.
So it's 10 times.
So that's, I mean, it's thatsimple, but we are all humans.
This is by far, it's the most,it's the strongest motivation
system system which exists.

(11:02):
Yep, wow, crystal been togetherto kindergarten, they went
together to school.
So all of the families, theyknow each other.
And I like to call ourcooperative 55 farmers.
It's a bit like two schoolclasses and in a school class
you have every kind of person.
You have them three, four, fivetimes.

(11:22):
You have the clever one, youhave the one, you, you have the
clever one, you have the one youcan trust on and you have the
one you should never trust.
And we have all of them.
We have them whatever six,seven, eight times.
So we know each other perfectly.
The farmers, they know eachother.
Who you should be a little bitmore, yeah, care, taking care of

(11:42):
, and the others you can 100trust on.
So that that's also veryhelpful very cool, very cool.

Solomon Simon Jacob (11:50):
So tell me a little bit about how capsanus
ended up being in the kosherwine business.
What motivated that?
How did that come about?

Jürgen Wagner (12:00):
vines were grown in our area for 700, 800 years.
Everything started in 1933.
But the first 50 years of ourbusiness, the first 40 years of
our business, we only did bulkwine.
We only did tank wine Meaningat our property.
We never bottled our wine.

(12:22):
We sold it off to third partiesin bulk, on big trucks, in big
tanks.
It was sold mainly to Tarragonaand to Barcelona and in the
cities we had nature bottlingfacilities and they bottled wine
with their own labels and youcan imagine all the markup, all

(12:42):
the benefit was on their side.
So this was our business untilthe mid-80s, when Spain became
part of the European community,of the European Union.
In the beginning of the 80s, themid of the 80s, Spain changed
completely Suddenly.
You had lots of new facilitiescoming to Spain, lots of money,

(13:03):
lots of knowledge.
First people left the countryto study abroad.
The whole wine industry waschanging pretty much and the
first people who introducedmainly from France the new
winemaking technique were allthe big players around Barcelona
, the big players aroundBarcelona and those big players

(13:25):
used to be our bulk wineproducers.
But in 80, 85, when theyintroduced stainless steel
facilities and nitrogen coveredfacilities, temperature
controlled winemaking,everything what you need to make
high end to make much betterwines.
When they introduced these newfacilities to Barcelona, they

(13:47):
decided not to buy any more bulkwine from us, so unbottled wine
.
But they decided to buy ourgrapes because, in their
understanding, they preferred tovinify our grapes in their new
facilities under much betterconditions.
So from 85 to 92, 93, 94, theworst happened.

(14:09):
What can happen to a winery,bulk wine producer?
You can imagine bulk wineproducer, socially wise, you're
already at a very low level.
But when you are suddenlydeclassified to become only a
grape supplier, yeah, that's thelow level the worst.
Yes, it's definitely the worst.

(14:29):
So you can imagine, from 85 to95, the whole facility, our
winery, yeah, was run by twoperson and they only worked six,
six weeks a year during thegrape harvest, after grape

(14:49):
harvest, just to wait the grapesand to put it on the truck and
to send the trucks to Barcelona.
Wow, so that was our businessstill until 1902, 1993.
And then something happenedwhat really nobody expected.
The area we are located, it'scalled Priorat Monsant and this

(15:12):
area nowadays in Spain it's oneof the hippest, one of the top
quality of the high-end qualitywine growing areas.
In the beginning of the 90s, inthat area you had lots of young
people around and those youngpeople started to make wines in

(15:32):
different ways, much more in anorthern European way, with less
oak, with more fruit, much moreconcentrated, much more complex
, but a completely differentidentity compared to the old
school of Spanish winemaking.
In the old days in Spaineverything was put for a very
long time in old barrels and youhad these oxidized raisin fig

(15:57):
flavors on top of everything.
But this new generation, theywanted to go for fresh fruit.
This new generation, theywanted to go for fresh fruit.
And those first wineries inMont-Saint-Priorat, suddenly
they put Spain reallyinternationally on the wine map.
Those wines, they became stars.

(16:28):
Former bulk wine and grapesbuyers saw that in our area
something is happening with thebusiness vision.
They thought that bulk winebuying is already clever, but
grape buying is even more clever.
But the best is if you stillbuy all the land until before
the, the prices are going up andto grow your own grapes, your
own vineyards.
And so in 94, 95, the one andonly customer we had for grapes

(16:54):
and for bulk wine, suddenly wesaw him buying vineyards in our
mountains and of course you canimagine our only customer
suddenly said decided to farmhis own vineyards and then it
was just a question of time thathe wouldn't need us anymore as
a grape supplier.
So we were really in adangerous moment, in a very

(17:18):
difficult, very dangerous moment, and we looked desperately in
1995 for an alternative marketto become independent from him.
And the most bizarre, thestrangest idea, definitely the
strangest idea we had waslistening to the rabbi in
Barcelona, Because in 1995,there was no kosher wine made in

(17:38):
Spain.
And the rabbi in Barcelona, hewas forced to buy the kosher
wine from the French.
And you can imagine the Spanishrabbi had to buy the wine from
the French, from France, whichis not really ideal for the
Spanish people.
He was looking for somebodydoing kosher wines in Spain and
by chance he met our formerpresident of the cooperative and

(18:03):
he convinced Francisco, ourfarmer, to go for kosher.
So in 1995, we did our firstPère Habib and the great thing
is that the second vintage ofour first Père Habib, it was
actually the first bottle winewe ever did.
Yeah.
So the second vintage, the 96vintage, got refued by José

(18:26):
Penín, who's the mostinfluential wine writer, he's
the big wine guide in Spain,Behind Pingus and Lemita, to
become the third highest scoredwine at all in Spain, being
kosher or non-kosher.
So from one day to the other,suddenly we were put on the map

(18:47):
and our Pere Habib wasconsidered to be the third
highest got wine at all in spain.
And just to give an idea, thethe pingus.
Nowadays pingus costs youwhatever a thousand or thousand,
two hundred euros a bottle.
A limiter should be aroundanything whatever six, six,
seven hundred, eight hundredeuros a bottle.

(19:07):
And then on the third place youhad our Perich Habib.
Wow, and this was just a yearwhen I started to work for this
American importer.
I explained to you earlier,looking for Spanish wines, and I
heard about, I read about thiskosher wine in the press.
I didn't know Capsanus and I'venever had in my life kosher

(19:31):
before.
Definitely it awoke my owncuriosity.
So I came to Capsanus taste thePeresh Aviv, the first kosher
wine, fall in love with thekosher wine and, based on this
kosher bottled wine, we decidedto build up a non-kosher wine
range.
The story of Capsanus is a bulkwine producer became a grape

(20:00):
supplier, then a kosher bottledwine producer and finally a
non-kosher bottled wine producer.
In Capsanus there's not onesingle Jew living.
There's not one single Jewishdollar invested in the company.
So the Catholic, narrow-mindedmountain farmers invested their

(20:25):
own money in the kosherwinemaking to become independent
from the grape and the bulkwine sales.
And then a German winemakercomes, tastes the kosher wine
and based on the kosher wine, wedecided to make non-kosher

(20:45):
bottled wines.
So it's a really bizarre story,Really bizarre.

Solomon Simon Jacob (20:50):
Yeah, I don't know how you get there
from here.
It's really amazing.
It's an amazing story.

Jürgen Wagner (20:58):
You can't make it up these kind of stories.
Only life itself can write.

Solomon Simon Jacob (21:05):
So, tell me kosher winemaking.
What's different about theprocess with non-kosher
winemaking?

Jürgen Wagner (21:16):
Yeah, maybe.
First of all there's somethingvery curious.
I'm not Jewish, I'm notinvolved in, I'm not familiar.
Nowadays I am, but I was notfamiliar with kosher at all.
But from the very first momentthere's a big difference the way
we focused kosher and the wayyou look at kosher.
When you look at the firstpereshavib from 95, 96, 97, on

(21:41):
the first labels, you would bescared, you would laugh about us
, because on that first kosherlabels, on very big letter, on
the front label, we wrote forPesach, kosher wine, in very big
letters and whenever Jews seethose old labels it looks

(22:03):
ridiculous in your eyes becauseit even looks cheap that in my
world, in our world, in thenon-Jewish world, all those
Hebrew letters, they evoke a lotof curiosity, just the other
way it happens.
So everybody wanted to know oh,what's the story?
What's about kosher?
Tell me what it's, yeah, thehistory and why they do it,

(22:25):
whatever.
So we you, in my experience youalways hide the fact that it's
kosher and we do just theopposite we shout out to the
world that it's kosher and inthe non-kosher world this really
opened.
It was for us, it was even likePR, like public relations For

(22:48):
me and maybe I'm not.
I'm very sorry there might besome things which are not going
to be 100% correct, but the wayI learned it and the way I was
taught by rabbis.
For me in the cultural world, Ilike to explain that there are
two lines you have to follow.
One line is the religiouspurity, the religious part, the

(23:12):
religious aspect, and on theother side you have the food and
beverage aspect.
When it comes to the religiouspart, everything has to be done
under the supervision of therabbi.
So whenever the rabbi is notthere, I like to call it, it's
like a winery in the winery,because the difference in Kapsan
is in most other places aroundthe world, 100% of the winery is
kosher.
In our place, 20% of the wineryis kosher and 80% of the winery

(23:37):
is non-kosher, which makes itmuch more complicated.
So in our case, the kosher partit's sealed.
It's not only the rabbi has thekey to this facility, so it's
like a winery in the winery.
It's completely hermeticallyclosed, got it To guarantee that
only serving Jews get access to, only the rabbi and his team

(23:57):
get access to the wine.
We keep this.
We keep it with a lot ofrespect, and then this is for me
.
This is, for me very important.
We should be respectful witheverybody.
Religious believings.
For me there's this religiouspart, but of course this does
not change anything.
On the wine, there's nodifference if the rabbi is doing

(24:20):
it or if we do it, if they dothe hands-on work or if we do it
.
As long as the rabbi is trainedin the winemaking, yeah.

Solomon Simon Jacob (24:26):
Yeah, the process is not any different
between him carrying out yourinstructions, and what?
You're doing.

Jürgen Wagner (24:33):
Exactly.
Frankly, I like to say there'sno reason why kosher has to be
bad.
There are many reasons whykosher can be bad, but there's
no reason why kosher has to bebad.
Okay, so that's the religiouspart.
For me, as a winemaking, theother part is the interesting

(24:53):
one because the kosher lore,it's thousands of years old and
nowadays, in the non-kosherworld, we are much more into
natural and sustainable and weare going back to the roots.
Yeah, we are more and more intominimalism.
We are more and more thinkingthatism, we are more and more
doing, thinking that the lessyou do, the more you get out of

(25:14):
the grapes.
Yeah, okay, so when it comes tothe kosher, for example, we
don't use fertilizer in thevineyard, you know, because the
fertilizer in the old days, theolder fertilizer which existed
in the old days, used to be theextra mints, the extra mints of
animals.
And, of course, when you bringthem out to the vineyard and you
walk and you work the vineyard,you run the risk to bring back

(25:39):
home the fecal bacterias andthis is something which you can
become ill and, worst case, youcan even die of those bacterias.
Not to use the fertilizer, youreduce the yield, but the little
fruit you obtain is much moreconcentrated.
So this is for us one of thefirst major goals we try to work

(26:01):
with the lowest yield at allpossible in the vine.
Just to give an idea, when youfertilize and when you irrigate
the vineyards and you do intenseviticulture, you can do
anything up to 15, 18 000 kilosper hectare, theoretically, yeah
, yeah, in capsanes, in our oldvines, we do roughly 1800 to

(26:26):
3000 kilograms per hectare.
We do very little, but that'sthe start of everything.
So the low yield.
And then, second, whenever Italk about those laws, we talk
about the origin.
There have been some changes inthe last decades.
For example, in the old days,whenever you do winemaking, you

(26:49):
need yeast to ferment sugar intoalcohol yeah, and then you need
bacterias to convert certainacidities in other acidities to
make the wine smoother, and thenyou need enzymes to extract the
color out of the skins.
And all of those, the yeast,the bacterias, the enzymes you

(27:10):
can find them naturally.
They're out there in thevineyard, on the berry skins.
They're out there.
But the problem of those ones,of those natural ones, they do
whatever they want to do.
Sometimes they are veryhigh-end, but sometimes they can
also mess it up, you move muchmore in the extremes, okay, but

(27:33):
the good thing of those naturalones.
At kapsanas we only have ours.
Yeah, so we don't you have yourown identity, nobody else, even
your neighbors.
They have other yeasts.
Yeah, so this gives natureproper identity to your wines.
In the non-kosher world nowadays, in winemaking generally, you

(27:55):
can get all those bacterias andall those enzymes and yeast.
You can also find industrialones.
If you use those, they do avery good job.
They make very clean wines, butby the end what happens?
Everything tastes like the same.
So that's another major aspectwe follow.
And then another one, and thismight be a little bit, maybe

(28:20):
even a bit scary for you.
In winemaking, there are certainmethods we can use to clean
wines from certain flavors andtastes and colors which we don't
like.
In this method we use themfining, so it's called.

(28:40):
What we do is we try to makesomething nice.
What was ugly by these finingmethods?
By these fining methods, theway it happens is you take a
product, you put it in the wineand this product acts like a
spunk and absorbs all theflavors and the tastes and the

(29:04):
particles, and it even takes outcertain colors which you don't
like.
The problem is and then youfilter it in the wine, so you
take these materials out.
The problem is all those finingmaterials which are used in
winemaking.
Unfortunately they're based onmilk, fish and meat derivatives

(29:28):
and of course, in the kosherworld, as the wine has to be
kosher, you're not allowed touse any of those fine materials
in kosher winemaking.
It's completely forbiddenbecause otherwise the wine
wouldn't be kosher anymore.
Gelatine, which you get out ofmeat and bones, or fishtail or
casein from milk, you can't useof that in in the kosher

(29:53):
winemaking process.
If you don't use those products, a law which is thousands of
years old nowadays becomes verytrendy because once you avoid
all those findings on on animalorigins, these wines are called

(30:14):
vegan.
So whenever a wine becomesvegan, it's by the end kosher,
it's almost vegan if you alsoavoid egg white in the
winemaking, which we don't do atall.
At Capsaicin, none of our winesand none of our wines.
And to make a long story short,the kosher, the fining.
The problem of fining wheneveryou fine a wine is you always

(30:37):
take out the bad, but you alwaysyou also take out part of the
good.
So you always you also losepart of the flavor and of the
taste.
Our wines are not fined.
Yeah, they're only slightlyfiltered, but wines are not fine
.
Yeah, they're only slightlyfiltered, but they are not fine.
Very long skin contact, onlynatural yeast, citric, citric,

(30:58):
no, no fertilizer, very lowyield.
So somehow we try to make ourwines like in the old days, yeah
, but, but with the hygiene andwith the winemaking skills, with
the knowledge from today.
You know, and that's definitelypart of the quality of Capsalis
.

Solomon Simon Jacob (31:18):
Is there something that you need to do to
avoid those negative tastes andwhat have you?
So it's not requiring you tofind it.
Are there things that you cando that get you into a better
position with the actual juicethat's coming out?

Jürgen Wagner (31:36):
Yeah, there are lots of things you can do, lots
of things.
First of all, a big differencebetween us and many other
wineries, I mean in the US andalso in Israel.
We own our own vineyards and wework our own vineyards.
We don't buy any grapes at all,so we only work our own land,

(31:59):
meaning we are very on top ofthe yield.
We work with very low yield andeverything we do it's 100%
handpicked.
It's 100% handpicked in smallvolume, percent hand-picked,
it's a hundred percenthand-picked in in small volume,
and when the fruit itself is allit's already high end.
You don't lots of the problemsyou bring it in when the fruit
is not a hundred percent at agood level.

(32:20):
Okay, so that's, that's thefirst.
Then the second is most of thefining materials you use it to
to take out tannins, to take outthis bitterness.
Yeah, and the bitternessusually you get it when you
either work with too much skincontact, which I think is one of

(32:42):
major problem generally in thewine industry.
People try to make wines thebolder the better.
Yeah, the bigger, the bolder,the darker the better.
Bigger, the bolder, the darkerthe better.
But when you work with too muchskin contact, you have the
problem that you not onlyextract color, you also extract
a lot of tannins and a lot ofbitterness out of the skins and

(33:04):
this needs to be finedafterwards to smooth it again.
So this is something you shouldvery much keep in mind.
And then the major reason andthis is actually something we
were obliged to do because therewas no alternative After
maceration of the skins for redwine making, after whatever week

(33:27):
, two weeks, three weeks, four,four weeks, usually you take
first the free run shoes andthen there's there's still a lot
of wine left in the berries andthis is put on the press and
then you press it and at thatmoment you can still get a lot
of wine out of those about, ofthose residual grapes.

(33:49):
Yeah, the problem is in thisyou have a major content of
tannins.
At our property we only have onepress.
A press is a tank unit andinside in this tank unit you
have a plastic sack.
You have a plastic and underpressure you inflate this

(34:12):
plastic unit and that's the wayhow you get out of the skins.
We are not allowed to use thispress for kosher and for
non-kosher.
Yeah, because this plastic sackcan't be sterilized, it can't
be cleaned, 100% Meaning wenever use at Capsanus, press

(34:34):
wine for any of our wines.
So at capsanus we only use 100of free run shoes and that's, by
the end, a major issue, becauseall the all the rough part, we
don't put it into kosher.
So what we do is, once we takethe free run shoes, the first

(34:55):
quality, out of the tank for thekosher wine, the remaining part
of course we put it on thepress, but then of course it's
not kosher anymore.
And this one we use it for.
I mean, it might sound a bitstrange, but then we use it for
our local farmers, for our localconsumption, and we put it on

(35:16):
the press and we press it veryhard because this one it's
rustic, it's robust, it's black,it's tannic, it's yeah, but
this is exactly the style ofwine our farmers, particularly
the older, is used to drink fromthe old days.
This was the way how wines usedto be made in the old days.
So for kosher we only take thehigh-end free-run chews and of

(35:42):
the same grapes.
What's remaining, we declassifyand it's not kosher anymore.

Solomon Simon Jacob (35:48):
Wow, so that's so funny.
You really educated me as well,because I always thought that
fining was just simply a meansof filtration.
I didn't realize.
I thought it was trying to getparticulates out, but I didn't
realize that was also removingtaste and other things that you
didn't want to color.

Jürgen Wagner (36:10):
Yeah, there's one major difference.
The difference betweenfiltration and fining is by
filtration you take out somemajor particles and by fining
you can reach the next level youcan take out by absorbing much

(36:31):
smaller particles, much moreinto taste, flavors and colors.
So finding is much more.
There's a much bigger impact onfinding than on filtration wow,
amazing.

Solomon Simon Jacob (36:42):
Okay, so that that you educated me with
that one nick.
I have another question.
Let's talk a little bit aboutthe vineyards, and especially
the old vines, which Capsanus isfamous for its old Granaccia
vines.
Can you tell me a little bit?

Jürgen Wagner (36:59):
This little insect which destroyed all the
vineyards 100 years ago.
And after Phylloxera the vineswere replanted and we are in the

(37:23):
privileged situation that atCapsanus nowadays we still have
110, 115 years old bush vines.
It's incredible, but this issimply given to the fact that
the southern part of Catalonia,where we are in the mountains,
this was always considered to beone of the poorest areas in

(37:47):
Spain.
So those mountain farmers, theycould never afford to take the
vines out and to replant it,because when you replant it, a
vineyard needs three, four years, yeah, to reestablish.
So it was really sad for thefarmers during decades because

(38:08):
they saw the yield going downyear by year.
But nowadays, for us this islike paradise on earth.
We have lots of old vines andwhen you talk about old vines
they look like bonsai trees,those old vines, and you have
very little yield.
You have just a couple or threeberry grapes and the berries

(38:33):
are much smaller, they're muchthicker skinned, they're much
more concentrated, the yield islower.
And also, what happened inthose old vineyards over the
decades?
Only the best vines survived.
Only the best vines survived.
So when you have little plots,a vineyard is never the same all

(38:55):
over the same parcel.
So sometimes you have someparcels, they are better.
You have something in the soil,there might be some rocks or
whatever, and so over the yearsonly the best vines survived.
So you have the best vines andyou have the lowest yield.
This combination makes it Wow.

Solomon Simon Jacob (39:16):
Okay, so tell me a little bit about the
kosher wines that you make.
Pierre Habib, it was yourkosher flagship at one time.
Now it's not, but tell me alittle bit about the different
varieties that you make.

Jürgen Wagner (39:34):
Yeah, Perach Habib was the first kosher and
for many years, the only kosherwine.
We did.
Okay, and you can imagine, in1995, telling the kosher story,
we made a lot of noise and thepeople, they wanted to taste
something, they expected totaste something different, they

(39:56):
wanted to be wow.
They tell a lot, so the winemust be amazing and for that
reason we decided to make it inthe loudest possible way, to
make a noisy wine.
In Perachabib we have CabernetSauvignon, we have Carignana, so
those two they're more at theblack fruits, a lot of backbone,

(40:18):
a bit higher in tannins, a bithigher in acidity, but
definitely more at the smallblack fruit side.
And then we add one third ofganache, which is the beauty,
which I like to call her thequeen.
So she's civilizing somehow thetwo masculine parts.
So this was the way we startedin 1995.
But we talk about 30 years.

(40:42):
Actually, this year is our 30thyear of kosher winemaking.
Wow, we are not Jewish, we arenot in the Jewish community, but
we might be one of the oldestkosher winemakers.
I mean, it's definitely one ofthe oldest quality wine makers,
of course, wine makers bottlekosher wine makers.

(41:03):
Yeah, yeah, at the first yearsof the parish it's not terribly
expensive, but it has a certainprice point, yeah, and not
everybody can afford that pricepoint.
So in 2004, 5, 6, we decided tomake a baby Perash we call it
Perash Petita Also to make winein between the week, for all

(41:28):
days and also for everybody.
The cost price of Perash Petita, it's definitely a different
level and Perash Petita, it hasshorter skin contact, younger,
younger vines.
It's partly aged in barrel butit's also partly aged in tank,
so it's a bit more fresh, fruityand a bit more this more easy
wine drinking.
Yeah it's the same varietals andno, not, there's no cap,

(41:54):
there's also little syrah merlot, so it's a bit.
It's a bit more red fruit.
Forward looking, it's a.
So it's a bit more red fruit,forward-looking, it's a bit more
peeling.
Okay, and then in 1995, thekosher wine world, I mean the
kosher quality wine world didnot exist.

(42:15):
There was very little demandfor high-end kosher wines.
But this changed a lot in thelast, I would say in the last 15
, 20 years.
Now you have nerds in theJewish world.
They go mad for high-end wines.
Nowadays, I think, the kosherand the non-kosher wine world is

(42:36):
getting closer and closer.
In 2010, 2011, 2012, we decidedto put something on top of
Perash Habib to show what we areable to do in the non-kosher
wines, to bring this also to thekosher world.
And then we did 100 years yearsold bourgeois Grenache, la Flor

(43:00):
de Flor.
And we also did one small plotof a hundred years old bourgeois
Carignana, which we in Spain wecall Carignana Samso.
Yeah, and so Samso andCarignana is exactly the same.
By the way, maybe you alreadyknew this, but in Catalonia

(43:25):
cariniena is samson and inHebrew samson is shimshon.
Yes, yeah.
And when you look at cariniena,at the varietal, it's black,
masculine rustic.
It's the big masculine muscularguy, the actually the varietal

(43:48):
samso carinina.
It's a bit like chimpshon, wow.
So it's very curious that thereare certain yeah where's it?

Solomon Simon Jacob (43:55):
wow, yeah.

Jürgen Wagner (43:57):
Yeah, and then a few years ago we made also.
This was very tricky becausered wine making with certain
skin contact it's a bit moreeasy when it comes to kosher,
because we have one bigchallenging factor.
We have one big challengeHarvest.

(44:19):
Grape harvest in our areausually is during the whole
month of September, and thewhole month of September you
have lots of holidays.
You have lots of Jewishreligious holidays.
When it comes to red wine, ifthe wine is a day less or a day
more on the skins, it doesn'treally make a very big

(44:43):
difference.
But in 2020, more or less, wedecided to make first also a
rosé and then second also awhite wine.
Here you have to be veryprecise, you have to be on top
on the day.
Here you have to be veryprecise, you have to be on top
on the day.
And so since 2020, we also havea white Parasch Petita and a

(45:09):
rose Parasch Petita.
And since this year and this isbrand new it's not even on the
market.
It's already bottled, but it'snot yet, not on the American
market, but also not on theIsrael market, but it will be
released soon.
We make Flor de Primavera, wemake an old wines, white
Grenache Wow, I'm lookingforward to that.

(45:29):
I love it.
It's amazing.
It tastes like a high-endnorthern French.
You have a beautiful freshness.
It's amazing.
It's like a sauceur.
It's like a sauceur, crisp,fresh, with a little hint of oak
, and so that's a new additionwhich is coming up soon.

Solomon Simon Jacob (45:51):
Looking forward to that Very much.
Looking forward to that.
Wow, very cool.
Tell me a little bit.
I got interested and I know itreally has nothing to do with
the kosher market, but I lovethe idea of your Knights of
Granaccia.
It's just such an interestingidea.

(46:12):
And could you tell me a littlebit more about it?
I just thought it was sospecial more about it.

Jürgen Wagner (46:18):
I just thought it was so special.
Yeah, you can imagine, in 1995,when I came to Capsanus the
first time and in the cellar wewere all young, we were all
unexperienced, by the way, wehad no idea, we were starters,
yeah, and what we did is weconstantly met other winemakers

(46:40):
from the area and there was avery big yeah, like a bit like a
trainee program.
We learned from them, that theylearned from us.
We exchanged all ourexperiences.
So in in around 2000 we startedto establish at the very first
beginning was just forwinemakers a little come
together.
And after a few years this cometogether was converted into a

(47:03):
party.
So we started with five, six.
After two years we were 20.
Then we were suddenly 200.
And after five years we were1,000.
And we opened the party also towine lovers, to trade, to
sommeliers, but also to winelovers.
And we opened the cellar on theFriday night before the 1st of

(47:30):
May, which is a holiday in Spain.
So on that Friday night weopened the cellar at 11 pm and
we made party until 3 am and wehad live music and we always
invited some other wineries andon that night we always showed
four ganachas, so four differentvinifications of the varietal

(47:54):
of ganachas.
And the only difference ofthose four ganachas is that each
of it came from a differentsoil.
So the vineyard, the vines,were planted on a different soil
.
So one ganacha was planted onsand.
The other ganacha vineyard wasplanted on limestone, on clay

(48:15):
soil and on slate soil, on claysoil and on slate soil.
And the same varietal, the samewinemaking, but from four
different soils.
The wines taste completelydifferent.
And during that night ofGrenache, during the party, we

(48:39):
always had two one-star Michelinrestaurants at our property and
they made the finger food forthose ganachas.
This was really, this was avery top event.

Solomon Simon Jacob (48:47):
I love that idea because it makes it.
It really exposes people towhat the differences of terroir
are, what the differences insoil.
It's not.
It's hard to describe thesethings.
Sometimes wines are extremelyminerally and what have you, and
they're wonderful.
But it really gives you whenyou're tasting things next to

(49:10):
each other.
It allows you to really compareeven down to very precise
little nuances between them.
It must be amazing.

Jürgen Wagner (49:21):
Yeah, it is.
It's yeah.
Who knows, maybe one day we areable to do something like that
in the kosher as well.
The problem is the lots aretiny.
I mean we do 2,000, 2,500bottles per each lot and with
the rabbi and with theadditional challenge of the
dates during September, but itwould be really.

(49:44):
It's an eye-opener.
It's an eye-opener, yeah.

Solomon Simon Jacob (49:47):
I think it's just incredibly special to
be able to compare wines thatway.
Yeah it's fantastic.
Yeah, it is.
Tell me a little bit about,since you're in charge of
exports, which markets?
Have you been surprised by anyspecific markets?
Are you always looking for newmarkets, or are there certain

(50:09):
markets that are justexceptional?
And does the kosher help you inexport markets?

Jürgen Wagner (50:17):
Yeah, I mean it's a strange time.
We live in wherever you look inthe world, it's not easy, it's
not really a nice time, and sothere are challenges and there's
also sadness around the worldwherever you go.
And so in in the wine industryright now, it I would say it's

(50:38):
not one of the easiest times wefaced.
We are, thanks God, wepositioned ourselves in over 60
countries, so we have ourestablished network.
We have our establisheddistribution system, the kosher
distribution.
It's still growing and we'restill adding new countries in

(51:03):
the non-kosher world.
It's going a little bit in thewrong direction.
In the, for example, a verynice example is as a Spanish
wine, we are one of many, but asa Spanish kosher wine at that
quality level, we are one ofmany.
Yeah, but as a Spanish kosherwine at that quality level, we

(51:24):
are one of very few.
Right, and just the fact that Imean you travel a lot.
Jewish people travel a lot.
There's a lot of Jewish andkosher tourism.
Yeah, I mean, for example, wesell our kosher wine, we sell
Parashat to the Maldives Becauseduring Pesach, when certain
islands are converted, when theytake over the whole kitchen, so

(51:47):
we do Argentina, we do Brazil,we do Panama, we do Puerto Rico,
we do lots of Caribbean islands, and so this is also very good.
Vietnam just opened Thailand.
There's lots of small marketsstill waiting for kosher wines,
and so this is also very good.
Vietnam just opened Thailand.

Solomon Simon Jacob (52:06):
There's lots of small markets still
waiting for kosher wines.

Jürgen Wagner (52:11):
What's your volume that you actually produce
?
All in all, we do 600,000bottles and 100,000, roughly
90,000 are kosher.
So 15% is kosher and 85% isnon-kosher Non-kosher wow.

Solomon Simon Jacob (52:29):
Yeah, I had one.
I had just a couple morequestions.
One is innovationexperimentation.
Are there things that you'redoing now that are new, that
you're looking to towards thefuture?
It kept on us.

Jürgen Wagner (52:51):
New varietals or new.
No, I think the challenge forthe future is not that much in
the winemaking.
The future is not that much inthe winemaking.
We might use more and morethings from the non-kosher world
and move it also to the kosherwines.
There might be some additions,but which is not actually that

(53:14):
new to us because of thenon-kosher world, everything
started much earlier.
But the major work we have is Imean by far is in the vineyard,
because global warming is a bigissue and we are facing more
and more weather extremes.
We are facing heat waves, weare facing heavy rainfalls, we

(53:38):
are facing dry periods of fourmonths during summer in israel.
You're amazing when it comes toto viticulture and to
agriculture in the vineyarditself.
You are ahead of the wholeworld for by decades.
But there's no question theirrigation and and fertilization

(53:58):
in agriculture and you have somuch knowledge out there, and so
we have to learn still in thevineyard to face this global
warming issue here.

Solomon Simon Jacob (54:11):
Looking ahead, where do you see is the
future for Capsanus in fiveyears, 10 years, 20 years?
Absanus in five years, tenyears, twenty years?
Is there a goal to grow itbigger than what you have it, to
double its size or improvequality and keep it the same
size?

Jürgen Wagner (54:29):
Nowadays.
We should be realistic.
I'm sure there's.
No, there might be someexceptions, yeah, but the
overall wine consumption isgoing back, is going down.
I guess most people are notinto growing, into planting more
and more.
It's more about positioning andit's more about taking care of

(54:58):
your customers, building up thereputation and to strengthen
your position, and that's themajor goal and that's, yeah,
that's our, that's the job wehave to do and we're looking
forward to yeah.

Solomon Simon Jacob (55:06):
Thank you very much for all the time.
I really loved speaking to youand I really thank you very much
for being on the Kosher Terroir.
Jürgen, no, thank you.

Jürgen Wagner (55:17):
Thanks a lot, Thanks a lot and please.
One last word.
Yes, anything Whoever wants tocome and visit and live our
experience, yeah, please, please, check our website and on the
website you find the contactdetails and just look for my
name for Jürgen, and send me,drop me, an email and we'll find

(55:38):
a way to, yeah, way to bringKapsanis to you.

Solomon Simon Jacob (55:42):
So come visit us.
I really look forward to comingto visit.
I really look forward myself tocoming to visit, and I'll make
sure that the contactinformation is on the podcast as

(56:03):
well.
And that brings us to the endof our journey through
Montserrat, with Jürgen Wagnerand the remarkable story of
Capsanus.
From humble beginnings as asmall cooperative to producing
world-class kosher wines, theirstory reminds us how tradition,
innovation and sheer humandedication can shape what we

(56:26):
taste in a glass.
If you've enjoyed this episode,don't stop here.
There are more vineyards towalk, more voices to hear and
more stories waiting to bepoured.
Be sure to subscribe, revisitpast episodes and share the
Kosher Terroir with fellow winelovers.
And stay tuned, because nexttime we'll be opening yet

(56:47):
another bottle filled withhistory, culture and discovery.
Until then, keep exploring,keep sipping and remember.
Every bottle has a story andevery story is worth savoring.
This is Simon Jacob, again yourhost of The The Kosher Terroir.
I have a personal request nomatter where you are or where

(57:10):
you live, please take a momentto pray for our soldiers' safety
and the safe and rapid returnof our hostages.