From Saxophone to Vineyard: Jeff Morgan's Covenant Journey

Episode Transcript
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S. Simon Jacob (00:09):
Welcome to The 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 uncork one of the mostfascinating journeys in the

(00:32):
world of wine.
My guest is Jeff Morgan, a manwhose life reads like a vintage
novel Jazz saxophonist in thesouth of France, wine editor for
the Wine Spectator.
Saxophonist in the south ofFrance, wine editor for the Wine
Spectator, author of books thathelped redefine Rosé and,
finally, the co-founder ofCovenant Winery, a label that

(00:54):
redefined what kosher wine canbe.
Jeff didn't set out to makekosher wine In fact, he didn't
even grow up religious but whatstarted as a tasting of Napa
Cabernet, shared with a latefriend and visionary, Leslie
Rudd, became a mission to provethat kosher wine could stand

(01:16):
tall among the world's finest.
Whether you're a longtime fanof Jeff's work or just
discovering the soulful side ofkosher wine, this is one episode
you don't want to miss.
If you're driving in your car,please focus on the road ahead.
If you're home, please pouryourself a glass of wonderful

(01:40):
kosher wine and let's dive intothe music meaning and mastery
behind Covenant wines.
Welcome to The Kosher Terroir

Jeff Morgan (01:50):
wait, aren't you even going to introduce me?

No, okay, welcome, Jeff Morgan from
Covenant, and it's a pleasure tohave you in Israel.
Welcome home to Israel, WelcomeHome.

Okay, thank you, Simon.
It's a pleasure to be back inIsrael.
I've been gone too long, yeah,and I don't.
I'm not going to let thathappen again.
Okay, please, god.

There's wars, there's plagues, things like
that.
Some of the things are out ofyour control.
Yeah, okay, yeah so.

Well, now I'm just going to have to fly ELAL,
because it's the only airline Ican count on.

Yeah, not to cancel my flight.
A hundred percent, I know so tosee, but they've been.

you know LL.
To their credit, they'veimproved things, because the
last time I flew ELAL I saidI'll never fly that airline
again.
But that was about 10 years ago, it was great.

They have great flights, great service and if
you're in business class you getlike seven wines that you can
select from.
You had two.

I had Shiloh Chenin Blanc which is quite good.

The Chenin is good.

And then we had a Vitkin Pinot Noir.
That was excellent.
And then I had a couple ofscotches, a couple of movies, a
couple of sleeping pills and I'mtelling you that was the
greatest flight.

I always say if the flight's not good, you
haven't drunk enough, so it'syeah, All right.
You started your career as asaxophonist touring Europe.
How did that artistic pathshape your journey into wine?

That's a great question, is it?
Yeah, so here I was a niceJewish boy with no religious
training whatsoever no education.
And I moved to France at theage of 19 to study music
whatsoever no education.
And I moved to France at theage of 19 to study music at the
French National Conservatory.

(03:51):
And I went for lunch first dayof school and they had a canteen
where you could go for 50 centsyou get 50 cents.
It was government subsidizedlunch and it was Friday.
So it happened to be fish.
Because it was Catholic countryin those days, it was fish.
So I went, there were all thesebeautiful salads.

(04:13):
I took a salad and I went.
The fish was the fish with thehead on the fish, everything, a
whole fish they gave you.
Remember, this is 50 cents.
Then, after the fish, there wasa cheese course, then there was
dessert and then there wassomebody at the line who I
barely understood because myFrench wasn't very good, and he
said, monsieur, oh, that's me.

(04:34):
Red or white, it'll cost anextra franc, an extra 25 cents.
And I'm thinking red or white,what?
And then I realized I saw theselittle splits of red and white
wine and I decided to splurge.
I took the white, and if you'veever heard of Dom Perignon and

(04:55):
the champagne, Dom Perignon, hetried for years to get the
bottles to stay in the bottlewithout exploding the bottles
and he finally succeeded and hemade his first successful
champagne and he popped the corkand he said I am drinking stars
.
I had that same experience withone sip of that white wine, one

(05:18):
bite of my little fish, whensomebody showed me how to eat it
, and I saw stars and I realizedI'd been eating and drinking
badly all my life with my momGod bless her, rest her soul who
made spaghetti with ketchup andother specialties of the house
that were not particularly good,and we had to drink the milk
with that, as a matter of fact,as I recall.

(05:39):
So it was an epiphany for me, aculinary epiphany that I did
not realize would take me closerto God and Judaism.
Wow, so fast forward.
I spent the next five years inFrance learning how to play
better music and also learninghow to eat better and drink

(06:01):
better, and ultimately I becamethe band leader for the Prince
Rainier of Monaco, and I livedin France for quite a few years,
and one night I realized that Iwas more interested in what I
was drinking than what I wasplaying, even though I had this
great band.
I was making a lot of money andI decided to become a winemaker

(06:22):
.
And that brought me back to NewYork, because nobody in France
would hire an American saxophoneplayer to become a winemaker.
And that brought me back to NewYork, because nobody in France
would hire an American saxophoneplayer to be a winemaker.
I didn't know anything aboutmaking wine, I just loved to
drink it.
And I got a job at a littlewinery in Long Island, new York,
worked there for a few yearslearning how to make wine North
Coast, the North Fork, northFork and after a while I was

(06:48):
making so little money at thewinery that I went back to being
a full-time musician.
But I started writing about wineand I got into the New York
Times as a writer.
The miracles happen.
You know, jews, miracles,that's our trademark.
And then the editor of the WineSpectator magazine saw my
byline in the New York Times.

(07:11):
I had a story on Long Islandwines and he called me and he
said you know, Jeff Morgan, areyou the Jeff Morgan that was
making wine in Long Island, thatwe liked your wines, that you
were making recently and I saidyeah, and he said, well, we
didn't know you You know, I'm awine writer now and I was
getting very excited because theWine Spectator is my dream, you
know, my dream is to write forthe Wine Spectator.
I'm also a wine writer.
They said, we didn't know youwere also a wine writer.
And I said, well, yeah, I am.

(07:31):
And they said we have a storyfor you.
And I said what is it?
This was in 19, that January of1992.
He said we'd like you to writeabout kosher wine for Passover
and I said that was a little ofmy reaction.

(07:52):
I started laughing I said what?

Comes back to bite you I said is this a joke?

And they said what do you mean?
I said, well, I never had agood kosher wine, I haven't had
very many and I don't even knowanything about kosher wine.
And they said the editor, a guynamed Tom Matthews.
He says but you're Jewish.
Right, 30 years ago, 33 yearsago, they could say things like
you're Jewish.
I said, yeah, I'm Jewish, butlike no bar mitzvah, no nothing,

(08:22):
I don't know anything aboutthis Jewish.
But like no bar mitzvah, nonothing, I don't know anything
about this.
They said it's okay, you justwrite what you want.
Last year we had a non-Jewwrite the story and we were
accused of being anti-Semitic.
So this year you're our ace inthe hole.
Say what you like and we'resafe.
It's your foot in the door.
Morgan, you want to write forthe Wine Spectator?
So I took it, yeah, took it,and and I, I was completely lost

(08:50):
.
I didn't even know where tobegin.
But I I knew that there wassome company that sold a lot of
kosher wine and it was calledRoyal Wines.
Yep, and I picked up the phoneand I called them and I I didn't
even know who to call and Isaid you know, my name is Jeff
Morgan, I'm Jewish Doesn't soundJewish, but I'm Jewish.
I'm doing a story for the WineSpectator.

(09:11):
And they said oh, let me passyou to Nathan Herzog.
I didn't know who Nathan Herzogwas.
We now know that he is one ofthe biggest mockers at the Royal
Wine Corporation.
So he says well, this is great,but let me pass you to our

(09:31):
educator, somebody you know,simon, mr Jay Buxbaum.
He will tell you everything youneed to know, and more, about
kosher wine.
And that was really thebeginning of my whole thing.
Kind of crazy.
I never imagined that 10 yearslater I would be making a wine

(09:55):
that has become one of the Ithink one of the premier kosher
wines in the world Covenant.
But I had no idea at that time.

So that's actually a question that I have,
but I had no idea at that time.
So that's actually a questionthat I have.
When you're working on the WestCoast for the Wine Spectator,
you probably tasted thousands ofwines, okay.

No, every year I tasted thousands of wines yeah,
that's what I mean.
But I wasn't at that time.
I was still in New York a longisland.
Okay, all right, they moved mein 1995 to the West Coast, but
my job for the first three yearswas to travel around the world,
especially to France, to tasteFrench wines and write stories
about French culture, because Iwas one of the few guys who
spoke fluent French.

(10:34):
So they took advantage of thatand I was happy to go back to
France.
But what's the question?

No.
So the question is whatexperience, what pivotal
experience, made you decide thatyou want to make your own wines
?

Well I actually, before I got that job at the
Spectator, I was working in awinery in Long Island, so I was
making not my wines, but I was acellar rat and a vineyard and I
worked in a vineyard also.
So that was a very seminal timefor me to learn about
winemaking and grape growing.
And then, when I moved toCalifornia, I I lasted another
five years, so eight yearstotally, with a wine spectator

(11:10):
and um, one day I I was gettingreally bored.
Um, you know writing thesejournalists, you know start
recycling their, their articles.
I mean, kind of you plagiarizeyourself, even if it's not
intentional.
It's hard, it's hard not to.
After a while you do, how manywinemakers can you interview?
You're probably starting toexperience this right now, simon

(11:32):
, with your podcast.
Yes, and it's like well, I'mreally bored, I'm frustrated, I
don't want anybody to tell mewhat to write anymore and I'm
going to go back to, I'm goingto get out of here and move up
to Napa.
I was living in San Francisco,so I'm moving to Napa and maybe
I'll get a job.
I got a job as the winedirector for Dina DeLuca, which
at the time had a headquartersin Napa, and started making a

(11:56):
rosé called Solo Rosa, which wasmade from bleed.
I don't know if everybodylistening to this knows what
bleed is, but it was pink juicethat nobody wanted and I was
putting it in barrels andfermenting it and I was making
only rosé, solo rosa.
I was one of the guys whostarted the rosé revolution.
If we're drinking Odo Mountainright now pink wine it's because

(12:19):
solo rosa, which was not kosherand it was not from Israel, it
was my California rosé thathelped change the world of pink
wine, and I can say that becausethen I wrote a book about it
and the French governmentactually came and invited me to
come to France and tell them howto get Americans to buy and
drink more rosé.

So the question I was going to say your book on
rosé was one of the earliest totreat the category with serious
respect.
Yeah, why rosé?
And why then?

Well remember, I was living in Nice, france where
rosé is king.
So I was drinking a lot of rosé.
I didn't know that, yeah, roséis king in Provence.
Nice is in Provence.
So I was drinking a lot of roséand I knew it was good.
And then I knew it.
I don't know.
I just figured nobody else isdoing that so I'm going to do it
.
So first I tried.

(13:09):
You know, I was the king ofrosé, then I was the king of
kosher, it's like.
My father was called HardwayMorgan and I think his son has
inherited that moniker.

So Because I was going to say at that point in
time well, the question I haveis has public perception of Rosé
finally caught up with what yousaw back then?

Well, yeah, not only did it catch up, it
overwhelmed me.
I mean, when I started, nobodywas doing this.
And then all of a sudden peoplerealized, wait, maybe this is
something we can make money at.
And I started an organizationcalled RAP, the Rosie Avengers
and producers.
We had pink outs on the EastCoast on the West Coast and we
did all sorts of fun stuff andwe started with 10 members and

(13:53):
then within several years we had250 members and everybody.
You know when you're when you're, you know, yeah, I sound a
little full of myself because Isay when you're a visionary, you
know, when you're, when you're,uh, you know, yeah, I sound a
little full of myself because Isay when, when you're a
visionary, you know, the goodnews is you're the first one
with the idea.
But then, once it catches on,um, then you're overcome by all
the people who come after you,especially those with bigger,

(14:14):
deeper pockets and and uh, wejust couldn't keep up with um,
we couldn't give up with demandand we couldn't um compete with
all of the brands that came outby 2008.
Solo rosa was over.
However, in 2002 I was up innapa and we had a jewish tasting

(14:36):
group and none of us wereparticularly religious, but we
were all jews making some of themost famous wines in napa
Silver Oak and Harlan all Jewishwinemakers.
And we had a little tastinggroup and we heard that a guy
named Elie Ben-Zaken fromDementor Castel was visiting
Napa Valley.
We invited him to come do atasting and he brought his I

(14:57):
believe it was his 1999 CastelGrand Vin for us to taste and it
was absolutely delicious.
And two of us there, myself andmy late partner, leslie Rudd,
who had a very famous vineyardin Napa Rudd Vineyard.
We looked at each other and wethought, gee, maybe we can make

(15:18):
a great Napa Valley Cabernetlike this and as good as Castel.
And that was the beginning ofCovenant.
It was kind of on a lark andthe odd thing is that that wine
wasn't kosher.
The first vintage of Castelkosher was 2002.

Yeah, 2002 was half a year and 2003 was the
first full year.
Well, 2002.

We're tasting is 1999.
And 2003 was the first fullyear.
Well, 2002 we're tasting is1999, which was fully not kosher
.

But we were so clueless we thought it was
kosher because it was from.

Israel.
It's Israel, jews Israel.
So it's ironic that my entirekosher program and my newly
found relatively newly foundconnection to Israel came from a
wine that I thought was kosherfrom Israel.
That wasn't kosher.
Ellie knows this and I think weboth get a chuckle out of it
when I bring it up.

So I'm told and I'm not positive that it's
factual that Covenant was bornin 2003 from a single barrel of
Napa Cabernet.

False.

What False False See.

Yeah, who told you that I?

don't know.
That was the story that I heard.

No, what happened was I wanted to use Leslie's
grapes because he had this veryfamous vineyard, fantastic
Cabernet and I said so, let'sstart with your grapes, les,
because Les was a very wealthyman and he had this kind of an
empire.
And he said are you kidding?
What?
If you screw it up, it's goingto be the worst kosher wine in
5,000 years from Rudd Vineyard.
And I said well, what do youwant to do?

(16:54):
He said well, you find anothervineyard, we'll buy those grapes
and we'll start with that andsee how you do so.
That other vineyard we can,we'll buy those grapes and we'll
start with that and see how youdo so.
That other vineyard was a veryfamous vineyard called larkmead
which, until the for severalyears prior to 2003, had gone
into the rudd wines because ruddhad been replanting his vines

(17:19):
and so he had been using thelarkmead grapes.
And the winemaker at Rudd atthe time was a guy named David
Ramey, who's a very close friendof mine and a great winemaker.
And Dave told me that Larkmeadwas going to need to sell those
grapes because Rudd was nolonger buying them.
So I did a deal with the ownersof Larkmead and that deal

(17:41):
lasted, I think, for 10 years Isourced grapes from their
vineyard, from a single blockthere.
So it wasn't a single barrel,it was a single parcel, it was a
single parcel.
And it happens to be.
When I finally bailed on thatparcel, only because I hated the
owner and I didn't want to dealwith them anymore.
It was fantastic grapes.
They started using my parcelfor their top of the line wine.

(18:02):
So anyway, but we were veryfortunate to start with some
terrific grapes.
So we started.
I think we made actually I knowexactly what we did we did 14
tons the first year.
14 tons is a lot more than onebarrel.
Yes, you know, you get I don'tknow, maybe it's you get about

(18:22):
two barrels per ton.
So per ton, so it's about 28 to30 barrels.
Right, and I needed ShomerShabbat hands.
There were none at the time inNapa.
So I had a meeting with NathanHerzog of Royal Wine Corporation
prior to the harvest, prior tostarting the project, and I said
, nathan, I have this idea Iwant to make the greatest kosher

(18:44):
wine in 5,000 years.
And we were having a dinner ina restaurant in New York and I
told them this.
And then I burst into tears,crying, really sobbing, and it
surprised me, it surprisedNathan.
And he goes like what are you,m?
Are you my sugar?

(19:04):
What's the problem, jeff?
And I said I don't know.
I said, nathan, I just, youknow, I wasn't expecting to
start crying.
I was trying to get you to letme use your winery to make my
kosher wine, and so you can dothat as long as you let me be
your distributor in new york andnew jersey.
And I said, great.
But I think in retrospect welook back and we know that that

(19:25):
was the beginning, the dooropening to Jeff Morgan and his
family, to Judaism, which Ihadn't really thought much about
up until that moment.
Wow, it's kind of all on a darethat this started.
I don't think you can do it.
I knew you could do it becauseI knew from writing about.

(19:45):
I wrote about kosher wine forthe Spectator.
For eight years.
Every year I had to write thatkosher wine for Passover.
So I knew you just make kosherwine like regular wine.
You just don't work on Shabbatand other holy days and you've
got to have so many Shabbathands.
I've made Covenant the way I'vemade any other non-kosher wines
, so I knew we could do it, andwe did so.

Covenant set out to elevate kosher wine to kind
of world-class standards, Ibelieve.
What was the initial reactionfrom the kosher and non-kosher
worlds?

So I mean in retrospect, okay, we set out to
elevate kosher wine.
I think that is a bitpretentious.
A little bit of puss, thatwasn't really we just wanted to
make a great kosher wine fromNapa and I think it was more
about respect.
You know, like, okay, I've beenwriting about kosher wines.

(20:41):
Everybody denigrated them.
A lot of them were not so good,but there were some really good
ones too.
I knew this after all thoseyears of writing about kosher,
so it was more of a a quest forparody, so to speak.
I mean, I'd spent by that time.
I spent 20 years tasting thegreatest wines in the world,
from Chateau Petrus to DRC.

(21:02):
I mean, I've tasted thegreatest, greatest not kosher
wines made anywhere in the world.
And my goal was to make winesthat approach that kind of
quality and keep it kosher.
That was the goal and I thinkwe've been successful, because
we don't succeed every vintageto the same level, but some of

(21:23):
our wines are as good as thegreatest wines I've ever had.
And if we don't get 100 pointsfrom various pundits, it's only
because anti-Semitism is stillrife in the, even among Jewish
wine writers.
Nobody can believe it.
So they give us 96, they giveus 95, they give us 94, but God
forbid, they should give us the100 points we deserve for 100.1.

(21:43):
And they don't yet, and maybethey never will, but it's okay.

So, going back to your comment that you didn't
grow up religious, but kosherwinemaking became a major part
of your life.
What prompted that personal andprofessional shift?

Well, it was kind of that story I said the tasting
with Castel Yep Right therewith you know, it's like Elie
was there he didn't know it.
But I mean, I kind of we weretalking to, I'm kind of doing
sotto voce to Leslie Rudd, I'mgoing do you think we can make
something this good, you know,keep a kosher out of Napa.
And it was kind of like, well,yeah, let's try to do that.

(22:25):
And I really wanted to makeCabernet Napa Valley Cabernet,
not kosher, just any Napa ValleyCabernet.
I was living in there.
Napa Cabernet is the mostfamous of all their varietals
and we argued for a full yearFrom 2022 to 2023, we argued
about this and I said I reallydon't want to make kosher and he

(22:47):
said, yeah, yeah, we can dothis.
And I thought, okay, we'regoing to do it.
And so that was the pivotal.
It was kind of like the onlyway I could get started was to
keep it kosher.
I wasn't religious at all.
I'd never gone to synagogue inmy life.
In fact, I didn't join asynagogue until I was 60.

Was that Castile wine really good?

Yeah, it was good enough to inspire us to try to
make something equally good fromNapa.
I've had some phenomenally goodCastile over the years.

Me too, yeah, me too.
At my daughter's weddingrecently, I had a Magnum of 2003
cab and it was just great.

It was just wonderful, and I think Castel
maybe has possibly the mostbeautiful winery in Israel.
I'm terribly jealous.
What can I say?
I want that winery.

I know you could eat off the barrel room floor.
You know it's crazy, I love it.
Yeah, so that I mean thatwinery.
I know you could eat off thebarrel room floor.
You know it's crazy, I love it.

So I mean, that's how it all happened.
It was kind of certainly notplanned.
And then what happened is, youknow, I was bringing my wines,
driving my grapes, down in a bigtruck to Herzog's winery down
in Southern California, yeah,working with his very dedicated
they're a very dedicated team ofcellar guys who were Shabbat.

(24:06):
And you know there were tworules.
One rule is I can't touch thewine.
The other rule is they couldn'ttouch the wine unless I'm there
.
So, because I want to make surethey do it my way and not
whatever other way they might doit, so we, you know.
So I spent a lot of time withthem during harvest and I

(24:27):
watched them do things I'd neverheard of something called
Menchah, something called Marav,something called Tehillim.
They were reading I don't knowall this stuff and I realized I
really don't know anything aboutwhat it means to be Jewish.
I know nothing.
And that was, I guess, thefirst year I realized that maybe

(24:47):
I should learn something Ididn't know.
The covenant was going to be sowell known, but I had a feeling
that if I was going to become akosher winemaker, I better know
something about Judaism.
So I started learning.

I was going to ask how did the Jewish tradition
evolve along with your winejourney?

I think it was really inspired by the guys in
the cellar at Hertzog WineCellars.
Originally, jonathan Haydu wasthere, the Weiss brothers were
there, all these guys and a guynamed Josh Goodman was there.
Josh is fantastic.

(25:25):
We're still working for Royal,but he's not in the cellar there
.
All these guys really wereinspirations to me when it comes
to getting more connected toJewish tradition and I'm very
grateful for that.
Nathan Herzog, very, veryinstrumental in keeping me
connected as well.

Have you found that you've got an increasing
number of non-kosher wineconsumers buying Covenant?
I don't know how you know that.

I'd like to think we do, but when we sell a bottle
of wine, we don't ask are youJewish?
You're not Jewish, so we haveno idea.
I suspect that maybe 80% of ourcustomers, or more, are
observant.
I think non-observant Jewsmight dispute this, but they're

(26:16):
our worst customers because theycan't believe koshers.
They're the only ones whoreally don't believe kosher can
be good.
Are the guys, are the non?
the secular Jews who will spenda thousand two thousand dollars
on a bottle of Petrus, but, godforbid, they should ask, pay 200
bucks for a bottle of Covenant.
No, there's no way it could bethat good, but they don't know,
they're clueless, whereas you,at super famous restaurants like

(26:39):
the French Laundry, they justbought a case of our Syrah from
the Biennacido Vineyard.
There are plenty of famousnon-kosher restaurants.
We're by the glass at somesuper famous restaurants in San
Francisco, so nobody knows thatthe wine's kosher.
In those restaurants it's notmarked.
There's no billboards flashingkosher, kosher.

(27:02):
So I think people drink ourwine they don't know.
Which is fine with me.

Covenant once had a thriving Israeli wine
operation.
Looking back, what did thatchapter mean to you and the
winery?

Whoa, that's a big question, I know.
So why did we come to Israel?
In 2011,?
Leslie Rudd, my late partner,and I we had become, thanks to
people like Robert Parker, whowrote the Covenant's, the
greatest kosher wine on planetEarth.
We became pretty famous, atleast pretty well known in
secular and religious circlesActually, more in the secular
world, because the religiouspeople didn't even read Robert

(27:41):
Parker because he's reading.
99% of the wines reviewed byRobert Parker were not kosher.
So, but we became pretty wellknown and I don't know, around
2010, 2011, les and I said gee,you know, maybe we should go to
Israel, maybe we should like seewhat's going on over there.

(28:04):
I came to Israel for a monthwhen I was 19.
On my way to France, I stoppedin Israel.
It was 1973.
I got out just before the warbroke out, not knowing there was
going to be a war and Leshadn't been back for 20, 30
years either.
So I came to Israel.
I have family here, saw myfamily and looked around, went
up to the Golan, went up toGalil.

(28:24):
Particularly in the Galil,where there's a lot of red soils
and a lot of limestone, I wasthinking, wow, this looks just
like the Rhone Valley and itlooks like parts of Napa.
I mean, this is a great placeto grow grapes, and, of course,
it's a great place to growgrapes because this is where it
started I mean here and thenother areas right around here
thousands of years ago.

(28:45):
And so then I thought in mymind, I thought you know, why
are we not making wine here?
We're Jews, I mean sure, we'reAmericans, we live in California
, but this is really ourhomeland.
We should make wine here.
So we started here in 2013 withmy dear friend, the winemaker
Ari Earl, who's still here.
He makes wine for Bacelomo andsome other wineries.

We just had a rosé by him last night.

He makes a nice Debuki also, and I think that
might be his own label.

Yeah, it was, it was his own label.

And anyway.
So Ari had been living in Napaand we knew each other from Napa
Valley, so I knew he was hereand so we hooked up.
I said look, you want to makewine with me here?
I got to make wine here.
So we started in Israel.
We started with three barrelsin 2013, which we made at
Bachelon.

(29:38):
Not at Bachelon, we made it atJezreel, because Ari was their
winemaker at the time also, andI made the first couple of
vintages at Jezreel.
And then I moved up to Adir, upin the Galil, where they had
more space, because we weregrowing and I was sourcing
grapes from different vineyards,most notably at Sivon, which is
a biodynamic vineyard not farfrom the Dalton wine groups.

(30:04):
Yeah, it's just north of theTanajish.
And our blocks were bombed inthe last year, yeah, but in any
case, so you know, I thought,well, I make wine in California,
I can make wine here.
And we did.
We made wine using my methods.

(30:24):
I was going back and forth, Iwas here, believe it or not, I
was here like four months a year, but you know, two weeks, three
weeks at a time, then back toCalifornia.
It was kind of exhausting, butit was very exciting and, of
course, getting to know Israelfrom a viticultural perspective
as well as a culturalperspective was, for me, very
exciting.
We became Israeli citizens threeor four years ago, as Jodi did.

(30:48):
My daughter, zoe, was livinghere.
She'd gone to the University ofHaifa and eventually married
her Israeli boyfriend, and Zoeworked with us as long as we
were operating here, and nowshe's working with us in our
California winery and it wasjust awesome.
And I, you know I have so manygood friends here who are
winemakers and connected to thewine business.

(31:11):
I feel, uh, and I haven't beenback for three years, which is
partly because of the war,partly because whatever we got
you know there's covid and yeah,so, um, but I feel very
connected to israeli wine, eventhough and here's what happened.
Uh, basically, we just had alot of trouble.
Um, cost, the cost of makingwine here is not necessarily

(31:33):
more than it is in the states,but I don't didn't have my own
winery here, so I couldn'tcontrol my costs.
Uh, the way I can control them.
Um, you know, with my own space, my own winery here, so I
couldn't control my costs.
Uh, the way I can control them.
Um, you know, with my own space, my own, my own crew, um, there
are just uh economies of scalethat work really well when you
control your winemaking space,and if you don't, every bottle

(31:56):
costs you a lot.
We just couldn't make enoughprofit, even though we sold a
lot of our wine to the states.
And then we finally, afterabout six, seven years, people
started to believe me that whenI said, yeah, I really, I really
believe in israeli wine.
And so we were doing very wellin tel aviv in the uh restaurant
scene here, secular restaurantscene, uh.

(32:17):
But then um, covid came in,killed the restaurant scene, so
we had, like two years, noincome whatsoever from, you know
, israel, practically, and itwas a challenge selling enough
wine making and selling enoughwine in america.
So we for our israeli products.
So we just in 2021.
I tearfully listened to my wifeand my cfo here and we realized

(32:39):
we're just going to go way,broker, than we already are here
in israel and we had to stopand I didn't want to.
I still don't want to and ifanybody listening to this
podcast very important here thisis the most important part of
the podcast.
If you know anybody with sevento ten million dollars, I have a
spot that's for sale.
I know where it is.
I can tell anybody and I knowwhere I want to build that

(33:00):
winery that I never was able toraise enough money for here in
Israel.
So I'm still trying to do itand I want to build my winery
and plant my vineyard here inIsrael.

So you still think there's potential for
world-class kosher wine fromIsrael?
When you're talking aboutpotential, come on, sam, I love
it.
No, no, I'm asking you.
You've been in California.
You've been in wine for almostall your life.
I've tasted more wine andreviewed.

I've made so many people rich at the Wine
Spectator.
I know what good wine tasteslike all over the world.
In fact, nobody, Not onewinemaker on planet Earth, has
tasted and reviewed as much wineas I have.

Okay, I've got a master's of wine.

I mean, you know they've also tasted a lot of
wine and I respect them for that.
But I know what great winetastes like.
Sometimes we make great winetoo.
It has nothing to do withwhether it's kosher or Israeli
or whatever it's like.
You get a good vineyard and youdon't screw it up and you make
awesome wine.
So yeah, but the only thingmissing from my equation here is

(34:03):
that I just I didn't start withenough money.
You know, it's true what theysay about the wine business you
make a small fortune, you startwith a large fortune.
Well, I didn't start with asmall fortune.
I started with, like a bankloan in Israel and in America as
well, and I just we justcouldn't make it work fiscally.
But I haven't given up, I'mjust kind of.

(34:26):
You know, let's talk about oldJews who made it late in life
Moshe, he started kind of late.
There are others who got a latestart Akiva, he didn't start
what like 46 when he got started.

Yeah 40.
40, I don't know 40 when hestarted.
It's a little bit, I know he'sdone.

Yeah, so we can do this.
You know, I just need the moneybecause I'm not coming back
without having enough money.
It costs a lot of money to getstarted.

There you go, so you've worked closely with your
wife, jodi.
Yeah, co-authoring cookbooksTen Building compliments Ten
cookbooks Ten.

Wow, Because that's what you've got to do when
you're not making enough moneyin the beginning selling the
wine.

So what's the secret to that creative and
marital partnership?

Ah, that's an excellent question that I will
answer, because Jodi doesn'thave a mic, even though she's in
the room here listening.
You could wear mine, I don'tmind, I have a great answer.

I don't care, it's a good answer.

So you know, a lot of people say, oh, how can you
work together?
Well, I think what makes agreat marriage is having shared
vision, shared goals, and thatcould be your children, your
family.
I think that's shared vision.
And I think for Jodi and me,jodi and I didn't always work

(35:46):
together, but after about a yearor two of trying to run
Covenant by myself, back in, say, 2004,.
2005,.
I really needed Jodi was asocial worker and then she was
an executive director for afruit and wine organization in
the States that was founded byJulia Child and Robert Mondavi.

(36:07):
So she was very busy.
But I said, honey, I need helpand she graciously agreed to
stop doing her other things tohelp me run Covenant, which she
has done, thank God, for thelast almost 20 years.
And it gives us a shared goalin life to make it work, to make

(36:30):
it sing, to make it successful.
And so you know, we don't comehome, we don't leave the house
in the morning, go off to workand then come back and say, well
, how was your day, honey?

We know how our day was, because we lived it
together.

She's got the big office at the winery.
I have a smaller office.

You're out in the vineyards, I'm out in the
vineyards a lot.

So anyway, it's great.
I think that if you like yourwork, you like the vision.
Even though it's challenging,it's hard, I think the work has
brought us closer together andso I'm very grateful for that.

Your daughter, zoe, has taken on a growing role
at Covenant.
What's it like to see the nextgeneration step in?

Well, it's fantastic.
I mean, Zoe is now the generalmanager at Covenant and that's
very important.
She kind of keeps everythingmoving smoothly.
She has to deal withpersonalities and logistics and
all sorts of stuff, and she doesa great job at that.

(37:43):
She grew up in the winebusiness, she grew up in Napa
Valley.
She grew up she also speaksfluent Hebrew.
She's Israeli and so and shespeaks, by extension, fluent
Jewish.
She gets our people, ourcustomers, who come in various
sizes, shapes, colors andperspectives, and she's

(38:03):
invaluable, uh, in terms ofrunning covenant, along with our
other, the other members of our, of our team.
But I, uh, I hope that my kidsmy other daughter is a, her
sister, sky is in the restaurantbusiness.
She's the publicist for a smallrestaurant group called the
French Laundry Restaurant Group,which is actually a very big

(38:25):
restaurant group in America.
So both of them are into foodand wine and I hope that they
will continue to do so and maybetake Covenant to an even higher
level, along with our fabulouscrew, which includes the famous
Jonathan Haydu, who's beenmaking wine with me for 20 years
, 21 years and who has his ownbrand, as you know, haydu Wines,

(38:46):
and Segi Kleinlerer, who is ourmanaging director, and he has
his own brand now, which justbecame kosher Kleinlerer, really
, yeah, and both of them maketheir wines at Covenant, so
that's kind of cool.
And then we have just anawesome group in the cellar Nomi

(39:06):
Furman, who is our, who is ouroenologist Dashiell what's
Dashiell's last name?
What is it?
Dashiell Ferguson, who is themaster of piping the right music
into the cellar to work, andalso who's a terrific.

(39:26):
He's basically the cellarmaster.
And then, of course, we'relosing.

we're losing Nelly Sagi who's been with us
for three years three years.

yeah, this is Israel's gain and covenant's
loss, and anybody who needs areally great hands-on Shomer
Shabbat cellar worker should nothesitate for a moment to hire
Nelly Segev, who knows all mysecrets and who will be here in
July.
He's moving back home to Israel, so what else?

so you recently returned to music with your band
free run and love the name, bythe way.
Yeah, how was we?

yeah, I love it my wife is just kibitzing here.
She's reminding me that all ofmy best ideas come from Jody,
including the name Free Run,which is a reference to the
first wine that we let flow outof the tanks after fermentation.
It's the best wine.
It's not the press wine, it'sthe free run, it's the free run.

How has that reconnecting with jazz
influenced your day-to-day lifeas a winemaker?

Well, it hasn't.
What it has is influenced myday-to-day life, because then I
have to practice every day.

I thought it was a way you could let off steam.

Well, you know what it is.
It's kind of like covenant.
What does covenant mean?
Covenant is about a connection,okay, connection to each other,
or us, god, religion, ourheritage All that stuff is about
connection.
Well, the saxophone I had notplayed for nearly 20, 25 years.

(41:12):
I stopped playing because I gotbusy with wine and during COVID
, when I had time on my hands, Ithought maybe I should start to
play again.
So the horn reconnected me tosomething I loved and I had
forgotten how much I loved.
So we have incorporated somereally interesting wine tastings
into the music.

(41:35):
For example two years ago we dida concert with some of my old
buddies who are super famousmusicians now and we did a
concert at City Winery in NewYork where we did, in addition
to the concert, we did 20vintages.
We poured 20 vintages, everyvintage, practically of Covenant
.
That was really cool and wefilled the room 200 people.

(41:57):
I don't think they came for mysaxophone playing, but it's okay
, I play pretty well but theycame for the wine and that was a
lot of fun.
Are you going to repeat itagain, maybe?
I mean, it's not so easy to geta room at the City Winery, it's
a pretty expensive venue.
We also did a concert in Parislast year that was a lot of fun,
at a jazz club where I thinkthey had some of our wines,

(42:21):
which was good, and we haveconcert series at the winery
where I just played.
One night, about two weeks ago,I played a gig with my quartet,
with the Free Run Quartet, andthat was a lot of fun drinking
Covenant.
So somehow we try to connectthem.
But I wouldn't say that thewine is.

(42:42):
It is somewhat of a spiritualpursuit, just like the wine is,
and it's an aesthetic pursuit,just like the wine is.
So in that way I would saythey're related.

Okay, any new directions or projects?
Exciting you at Covenant.

Twist my arm.
Let me tell you about it.
Oh please, I'd love it.
So have you heard of the BlackLabel?
Yes, I have actually.

I've heard only great things about it.
So the Black Label.

So you know the Black Label is.
For years people have beenasking me to make Mavushal wine
and we finally succumbed to theMavushal requests.
I don't know, maybe seven,eight years ago, to the Mabuchal
requests I don't know, maybeseven, eight years ago we were
using something called flashdetente, which is used by a lot
of wineries in California toheat the grapes before

(43:36):
fermentation and then you don'thave to heat the wine.
Okay, it's not very nice, itdenatures the tannins a bit in
the reds, but it's good enough.
But that wasn't ourtop-of-the-line wine and our
business partner, jeffRochwarger who lives in Beth
Shemesh, by the way, and whotook over after Leslie Rudd died
and became our partner and hasbasically been an extraordinary

(44:01):
support for us in the six orseven years since Leslie died.
So Jeff is a wine lover,obviously.
And he said you know you,really you got to make a
high-end Mabuchel.
And I said ah, come on, jeff,you know we're making Mashiach
wine here.
We want Mashiach.
We want our best wines to belike, not Mabuchel, because

(44:22):
that's what we're going to giveto Mashiach.
And Jeff said well, there's amarket for high-end mabuchal.
Do you think you can do it?
And I said I can't do it with asplash detente.
So I went back to the drawingboard with Jonathan Hadu and
Jonathan, who's a really goodtinkerer inventor, he created a
new mabuchalizer for us, a newmabuchalizing machine, which is

(44:45):
just awesome.
It's very small.
It's only about I don't know,maybe three feet four feet long
and maybe two feet high.
We are able to push the winethrough it, heat it super fast
and get it out of there, cool itdown really fast.
And we did an experiment withhigh-end Cabernet and to my

(45:06):
surprise we discovered that thisMabuchalizer softens the
tannins a little bit andheightens the fruit quality, so
it actually makes a youngerCabernet taste pretty damn good.

You're the second winemaker who's told me
that, so yeah, so I was kind ofsurprised.

And then Wow.
So then we also make Pinot Noir.
But we make a Pinot Noir withour Lanzmann line, which is a
club wine which is not sold inretail shops, but I wanted to
try it with Pinot anyway.
So we use some of our Pinot andwe mouvouchalize the Pinot and
we also noticed it was prettygood.

(45:46):
So what are you going to?
What are we going to call it?
Because I don't want it to havethe same label as the Covenant
Regula, right, regula andMabushel.
The same label would beconfusing.
So we decided we kept the logo,the Covenant logo, we kept the
gold.
But then I was thinking what islike an immediate, immediate

(46:09):
eye catcher, immediatelyrecognizable as quality?
And I'm thinking well, there'sJohnny Walker Black Label, it's
going to be Covenant Black Labeland, by the way, covenant Black
Label came out way before theCarmel Black Label.

I'm sorry, really, I already saw that, but
the good news is that my BlackLabel costs $100 more than
Carmel's black label.

So how about that, guys?
Yeah, and our black label is atthe top of the spectrum and we
have.
Last year I lost a Petit Syrahvineyard that was going into
most of which was going into ourRed Sea blend.
So I was looking around foranother vineyard and I found a

(46:53):
vineyard right next to theMatanzas Creek Winery which came
out with the first $250 Merlotin California about 20 years ago
Very famous vineyard for Merlot.
And this vineyard is right nextto Matanzas Creek and they
didn't have a buyer and I said,well, I'll take those grapes.
I don't know what I was goingto get out of it.

(47:15):
The grapes are extraordinarilygood and we decided that they're
so good that we're coming outwith a black label Merlot and
we're bottling it in July.
So we'll have the black labelPinot Noir, black label Merlot
and the black label Cabernet,and none of it is Napa anymore.
But it's just awesome quality,very, very fine vineyards from

(47:40):
Sonoma.
All of them are from Sonoma andI'm really excited about this.
Now we're still making ourflagship Napa, not Mabushal
Cabernet and the Solomon, whichis even more expensive, and I'm
proud of those as well.
But I'm really happy that thediners in kosher restaurants and

(48:00):
also at Sim Khaz, where theyactually want to spend real
money on real wine, have ourblack label available.
Then we have a, you know?
So we have a bubbly, that'salso a babushal and that's our.
Okay which one?
I'm getting prompts here, soit's ever loud.

That's why she's here.

Wait, you think I was going to forget about this.
So that's the next project.
This is very exciting.
By the way, we didn't talkabout our brandy, which is the
double-edged sword brandy, whichwe started making about four or
five years ago.
Okay, it's pretty expensive,but it's way better than the
crappy, crappy cognac that I seea lot of people drinking,
that's artificially colored, notmade with good grapes and just

(48:48):
not worthy At $350 a bottle.
Thank you very much.
I'll pass, but our wine, theDouble-Edged Sword, very simply
made Chenin Blanc, distilledaged two years in covenant
barrels, tastes pretty damn goodand I defy anybody to tell me
it's not better than youroverpriced cognacs that people

(49:09):
are buying because they thinkcognac is good.
So the double-edged sword iswhat?
175 bucks in the states, and,yeah, you're not going to drink
a lot of it.
It's a lot of money to methat's my go-to during pesach
that's right.
Listen, I drink a lot of scotchtoo, okay I drink a lot of
scotch, but I'm a cognac yeah,we were at a pesach, we were at
a.
We were at at a Pesach week at aresort in Cancun this year and

(49:36):
they just like drink that stufflike it's water.
It's very smooth.
But anyway, the next newestexciting project is just
starting to come to fruitionbecause we spent the last eight
months trying to get thelicensing for it, and it's our
Woodacre Spirits program.
That is a joint venture withthe great Jonathan Haydu and

(49:58):
Covenant Winery, so we'repartners in this, and Jonathan
is you know, he lovesdistillation, he loves to
distill things, and so Is itvermouth or something
distillation.

He loves to distill things, and so Is it
vermouth or something.

No, he makes a vermouth, but we're probably,
maybe we'll make a vermouth, adry vermouth.
He makes a sweet vermouth,which is not appropriate for
this Right.
But so we're coming out withgin.
Everything we'll make will beKosher L'Pesach, except the
whiskey that we're going to doalso.
So the gin and the vodka we'regoing to do in-house, and the

(50:32):
gin is made with herbs andbotanicals that we harvest
ourselves in the hills of thetown of Woodacre, which is in
the mountains just before youget to the Pacific Ocean, in the
village of Woodacre, and sowe've decided to call this brand

(50:55):
Woodacre and it's really good.
And we're going to alsoeventually come out with a most
likely Kentucky bourbon thatwill be aging in Covenant
Barrels.
We'll have to source it out ofKentucky and eventually we'll
get to the mezcal also.
So we'll have four new spirits.
They will not be stupid,expensive, but they'll be very

(51:19):
affordable.
Yeah.

Wow.

Yeah, so that's going to happen soon.

Talking along those lines.
Are there any varietals orstyles that you've always wanted
to experiment with but haven'tbeen able to?

Well, how about the ones that I always that I've
been experimenting with, thatI'm crazy about, like the
Viognier that we?

made in Israel.

And so when we came , when we stopped making wine in
Israel, I thought I've got tomake Viognier.
And I found a really greatsmall Viognier vineyard in Lodi
California, and so we were we'reon our we started with that,
next to the Zinfandel.
Yeah, well, it's near theZinfandel and we started with
150 cases that sold outimmediately and then we went to
300 cases that sold out way fast.
Last year we did 450 cases.

(52:01):
I don't know if I'm are quitegood I also.
What else do I want to?
What else is unusual that we do?
I love Chenin Blanc and we madesome extraordinary Chenin Blanc
, one of my favorites For ourDouble-Edged Sword Spirits

(52:25):
program.
But the problem was was it wasso good that he didn't want to
distill it all, so he kept someback and we bottled it and I
couldn't sell it.
Nobody wanted it, so I drankmost of it myself.
It was fantastic.
I don't know what's wrong withit.
Anyway, I'm not ready to startup with Shannon, but I love

(52:47):
Shannon and maybe I'll I love itas well.

It's becoming popular here now.
Yeah, what's wrong with it?
Anyway, I'm not ready to startup with Shannon, but I love
Shannon and maybe I'll I love itas well.
So I don't know.
It's becoming popular here now.
Yeah, I know it's becomingpopular.
I told you.

I had Amichai Lurie's Shannon Blanc on the
plane coming over here fromShiloh.

It was fantastic .
I had it with half a week ago.
Are there any of your winesthat you don't feel get enough?

correct attention from consumers, that's a good
question.
I think that Syrah is still notgetting the respect it deserves,
although we make three Syrahsand they all sell pretty well.
But when confronted with an $80Syrah and $120 Cabernet, most

(53:35):
people will go for the Cabernet.
And I look at them and I saywhat's wrong with this picture?
Syrah is an extraordinary grape.
Some of the greatest red winesin the world are made from Syrah
in Israel, which I think is thesuperior red grape in Israel.
Don't talk to me about Arguman.
It's very nice but it doesn'teven come close.

Just be patient.
Everything takes time.
No, no, no, I know, I know, Iknow what you're saying.

It's very nice.
No, no, no, forget it Okay.

I hear you, I hear Maybe they're right.

Wine is definitely made in the winery and not in
the vineyard.
Let's remember that.

That's a question I normally ask.

Well it's totally made in the winery, because you
can have really great grapescome out of a vineyard and one
yucky winemaker screws it up andthe other does a great job with
it.
So where was that wine?
Where did it achieve itspotential?
In the winery.
Now, it's very hard to make agreat wine from mediocre grapes.
I'll give you that, but that'sobvious.
But it's made in the winery anddon't let anybody tell you

(54:35):
otherwise.
But it's nice to start withreally good quality grapes.
I'll give you that and the.
Argumon, it's nothing.
I don't think Argumon is a goodgrape.
It's a very good.

I'm not saying that.
I just haven't had any that wasthat moved the needle at all.
Beyond just being beautifulcolors, it's like Zinfandel.

I like Zinfandel, but I don't think Zinfandel can
ever achieve the same greatnessas Syrah or Cabernet.
When we make Zinfandel, it's my, it's my go-to least expensive
wine.

It's easy to drink, it's lovely, but any
updated feelings about Mavushelthat you talked about?
Yeah, great surprises.

We make 20 wines at Covenant Wow.

Yeah, 20.
I didn't realize that, yeah.

And six or seven of them are here are still sold
here in Israel.
I don't have any Mavushel winehere, but I think it's coming.
We make a really nice, lessexpensive Cabernet, uh, called
the tribe.
Yeah, um, tribe cabernet, it'svery nice, and, uh, we make a
tribe chardonnay.
That, I think, is like reallyfantastic.
Reminds me of really goodchablis from france, both mouche

(55:40):
wines and they're, you know, 30, 30, 30, 35 dollar wines in the
states.
So they are quite affordable.
But just because I think we canmabouchalize successfully, my
basic wine philosophy is notinterventionist, so we don't add
any yeast, we don't addanything really you don't add

(56:02):
yeast.

Why would I add yeast?
I'm asking.

No, I'm not adding yeast.
Actually I was, was justharassing you there.
We don't add yeast because I'mnot a chicken shit winemaker.
Okay, okay, that's very simple.
Okay, okay, you know, when Istarted, I was using yeast uh,
commercial yeast, commercialkosher yeast because I was
terrified of, like, stuckferments or whatever.
And uh, in 2008, my friend andmentor, david Ramey, who was a

(56:31):
pioneer of indigenous yeastwinemaking in California and who
taught me how to make wine,basically said to me Jeff, how
come you're not using nativeyeast?
Really, try it.
It's a slower ferment and itgives you, I think, more
complexity.
You can buy yeast.
It's going to give you morebananas or more apples, or more

(56:52):
red fruit or more, you know.
Whatever it's going to gofaster.
It's going to go slower becauseall these yeasts have been
developed in laboratories to docertain things.
Or you can use yeast fromHashem.
The yeast from Hashem, whichbasically native yeast, comes in
.
Either it comes in from thevineyards, it's on the skins,
maybe it's overwintering in thewinery, I don't know.

(57:13):
We don't know where it comesfrom, but it works really well.
So in 2008, I started and Ihaven't used it.

I haven't looked back everything we do is native
yeast so I want to tell yousomething.
The comments I get from peoplethat I hear from people about
your wines are definitelyshowing an increase of
complexity, so maybe that'swhat's been precise.

Well, we ferment.
We have changed our winemakingprotocols over the years, so, in
addition to native yeast, I'vestarted fermenting at cooler
temperatures than I used to.
I used to let it go a littlewarmer and then at the end I
would raise the temperature inmy tanks and, you know, give it
a to try to get more extraction.

(57:56):
And then I've I've decided Idon't like that extraction, I
like something that's moreelegant and perhaps more complex
, and so we keep it.
Um, you know, around 78, 80degrees, uh, fahrenheit.
So I find you get a slowerferment, you get the native
yeast and you get more levels ofcomplexity.
I don't have some like menuthat I follow.

(58:20):
I don't really know why itcomes out tasting good almost
all the time.
I don't know why I learned howto make wine from David Ramey
and another guy named MichelRoulon.

Okay, yeah, slightly famous person.

And these guys were very generous and shared their
so-called secrets with me Notsecrets, really, but their
techniques.
Yeah, you know, if you get goodgrapes and you just let it
happen and you control thetemperature of your ferment
native yeast, you can make somepretty good wine.
So, not too much oak.
I don't like to have too muchnew oak, except a few of our

(59:04):
grapes Like my.
Syrah is like 75% new oak and aSolomon can be 75% new oak, but
typically it's 20% to 30% newoak.
If that much Red Sea has no newoak, okay.

You've worn many hats musician, author, editor,
winemaker.
What do you consider yourgreatest legacy?

Well, I do think and it was not necessarily
intentional, but I do think thatI, along with a number of my
colleagues, like Elie Benzacan,we have raised the bar for
kosher wine, wine and, um, wehave given our uh, our wines

(59:57):
more respect, uh, throughout theworld, in both the jewish world
and the secular world, and, um,I, that means a lot to me.
I mean, you know, we invented,you know psychology, the atomic
bomb, physics, you name it,everything right.
Why should we get less respectfor our wines, which basically
are part of our heritage and ourreligious practice?
So, like I said, that wasn'tnecessarily my goal.

(01:00:22):
Okay, I just want to make areally great kosher wine, but,
looking back, I think that's ashared legacy.
I share this legacy with manyof my colleagues who have also
raised the bar here.

S. Simon Jacob (01:00:36):
So you mentioned a little bit, but I just want
to ask you one last questionFuture dreams what do you still
hope to achieve?

Jeff Morgan (01:00:45):
Well, aside from building that winery and
planting that vineyard in Israel, that's a huge dream, it's you
know I'm not getting younger, soanybody with the money, let's
talk.
Yeah, um, I know what to do, Ijust need capital and uh and you
even know where I know where, Iknow how to do it.
Yeah, I know this stuff.
I mean, I've been doing thisfor a long time now future.

(01:01:06):
Well, I'd like to work a littleless, but I don't ever want to
stop.
So I would like to manage myteam in California a little less
hands-on, a little moreintellectually, and I would like

(01:01:27):
to have time to manage a newteam in israel very cool.

I can't wait till you come back.
I can't wait till you come backand I'm not telling, I'm not
wishing you bad by that, I'mwishing you only good.
Um I I was so excited when wetalked in the restaurant, you,
jay and I, and you took out thisbottle with the map of Israel
on it and I, just like I,freaked out, I started to cry.

I think that was one of the more fun moments of
my life because you were sittingthere and Jay wanted to
introduce us.
Jay Buchbaum of of of uh RoyalWine fame, right, and we're
sitting in this restaurant andJay had been talking to me about
you.
This is, you know what?
12, 13, 14 years ago, yeah, andhe said you know, I want you to
meet this guy, Simon Jacob, buthe only will drink Israeli wine.

(01:02:18):
And I said well, Jay, I gotsomething to show and you were
one of the first people to seethis.

Yeah, I have a bottle of the 13 from you.
It's pretty good.
Yeah, it's still amazing.
It's great.

Why do these wines last so long?
I don't know.
You make them and you bottlethem when they're stable and
they've been in barrel longenough.
And this is unfiltered,unfiltered, unfine, what can I
say?

Thank you very much for being on The Kosher
Terroir and especially allowingme to take over your dining room
to record, so I can't wait tillyou come back again.

Well, simon thank you for having me on the show.
Being such a great supporter ofCovenant, and I love your
enthusiasm for all of the winesin Israel and all of our
winemaker friends.
You are really no.
We need people like you to helpcarry this message to the
public, please.

God, thank you, please.
God, thank you.
Thank you very much.

(01:03:44):
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