A Wine Conversation with Joshua E. London (Voices 2)

I'm Simon Jacob, your host for this episode from Jerusalem. Before we get started, I ask that wherever you are, please take a moment and pray for the safety of our soldiers and the safe return of all of our hostages. Welcome to the Kosher Terroir, the podcast that uncorks the world of kosher wine. One bottle, one story at a time. Today we're joined by Joshua London, a seasoned wine and spirits writer with a deep knowledge of the global kosher wine scene. Originally from California, Joshua has written extensively on wines, spirits, and cocktails for top publications, offering expert insight into what makes a great kosher vintage. In this episode, we explore the evolution of the kosher wine market, emerging trends, and what sets certain wines apart. If you love discovering new wines, expanding your palate, and diving deep into the craftsmanship behind every bottle, you're in the right place. So pour yourself a glass, settle in, and let's explore the Kosher Terroir. Welcome to the Kosher Terroir, Josh. It's a pleasure. It's a real pleasure. Pleasure is all mine. Thank you. Okay, so tell me a little bit about how you got into wine, and what you're doing now. But let's start from the beginning. How did you get into this? Oh, gosh, so it feels like many lifetimes ago now. So I'm originally from Northern California, from Sacramento. I didn't know that. Oh, yeah, a small, firm community. Sure. You may recall... Do you know Steve Fischbein? Yeah, yeah. When we first met, we did a little bit of this Jewish geography, but it was right at the start of the Rothschild dinner thing in New York. Right, in New York. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, no, so Steve, in fact, even many more moons ago, the Fischbeins, when they first moved to Sacramento, so my father, Oliver Scholem, who was the chazer, and he was like, he was a small pond, he was a big fish. He's one of the folks, along with the Rove, who helped macarve Steve and Yvette. Wow. Helping them more to the fold. Yeah, and I remember all the kids growing up. Wow. It's a very, very small world. All right, so tell me a little bit about your background. Where did you start? How did you get into wine? Okay, so as I say, so I'm originally from Sacramento, and there were some family friends who were wine lovers, and who decided to sort of roll the dice, and have an attempt at making some kosher wine. It was, I can't recall off the top of my head now, I think it was Sonoma Grapes, but they were making it in Davis, California, I think it was Davis, right? UC Davis, yeah. In fact, that's what I did, my undergrad was UC Davis, and all of the Israeli wine folk who would come through, if any were Dati, they came to the Sacramento community. That time I met Chicky Rauschberger, I've known the Rauschberger family a long time. His time there, when he was doing the research on the Voshul, and all that, and at any rate, so friends of the family, you may know, you probably know Yitzi Appelbaum? Sure. So Yitzi, and a few partners, did a kosher wine. It's now a pretty mediocre, unremarkable Australian wine, Teal Lake. But when Teal Lake first began, it was a California wine, made it at Davis. It was, so it was Yitzi Appelbaum, Yitzi and Hilda Appelbaum, Doctors Iserhoff and Huntley, married, Rifke Iserhoff and Art Huntley, and there was one other partner who was not Jewish, whose name escapes me at this moment, and back then, this was before the industry was as big, and before the kosher industry was as big and as professionalized. And so, basically, they would, you know, grab the handful of Shomer Shabbos folks from Sacramento, and sort of push them into the winery. My father did, a bunch of people did it. I was in Yeshiva High School at the time, but every time I came back, I would be press ganged into the winery, and so I began as a cellar rat, essentially, in a custom-crush type facility. The Rav of Makhsher was a family Rav, Shlomo Rosen, who's now in Chicago, but he was a long, long time Rav of Sacramento, and I think it was under the OU, although I know I have some old labels, you know, pictures of old labels, but anyway, he was the actual Rav on the ground, and essentially the one making it, and it was Pinot Noir. It was actually fabulous. At one point, they did a Rosé, a Pinot Blanc, and a Pinot Rosé, which was also fabulous. Distribution was challenging, and eventually, they sold the label to Royal, who then kept the artwork, I think it was Rivka, I think she actually drew it, so they kept the name, they kept a version of the artwork, sold off all the stock, I think through Trader Joe's for, you know, two bucks, it was like a kosher two-buck chuck regionally, very locally, so everyone bought it up, and that was like the wine du jour until it ran out, then I think it was a year or two of nothing before they moved it to, at the time, Norman's Wines in Australia for like bulk Australian wine. I think they still release stuff in that category, maybe even some reserve. I stopped drinking the Australian teal like a long time ago, but the original one was actually very nice. So, at any rate, I caught the bug then, before it was legal to drink it, and also, so going up in Northern California, so, you know, all the wine personalities that either were in kosher or dabbled or supportive of kosher, were sort of people I got to know, you know, so Ernie Weir, Craig Winchell, Craig even more than Ernie, only because at some stage, Ernie sort of upgraded the hashkacha, but there was a brief period where some people drank it, some people didn't, that kind of thing, but my family, my father, Elie Wiesel, was always very supportive of all of this stuff. There was a mainstream winery in Napa that was owned by the Jewish Shaskali family out of Languedoc, and they did a kosher run for a couple of years, Mount Maroma and Mount Madrona, and we used to drink that. This was before- I remember seeing bottles of that. I remember seeing bottles of that. Yeah, yeah. It was actually excellent as well, and nothing was that expensive back when. This was also the days when Bob Weinstock, Robert Weinstock, was making Weinstock wines himself before he sold it to Royal, and he was actually making fabulous wines. They used to have this Chêne Blanc that was really six times better than the price. Right. I remember them being super quality at a very reasonable price. Yeah, that's right. There was a sort of thing of folks in the industry who, again, either weren't themselves from or maybe not even Jewish but were highly supportive, were generally supportive. Dan Berger used to write for the LA Times. He used to give positive reviews. The Cordy brothers, which were supportive of kind of ethnic and other sort of more out-there wines, Cordy had a big influence on a lot of the kosher producers just by being supportive, helping to open doors, helping to make connections. It was a smaller world, less corporate in many, many respects. Some of it still is that way in Napa. I kind of grew up with all that, and it wasn't until a little bit later that I kind of realized how rich the experiences were. It was many years later that I started writing professionally about it. I went from California, just swirled for a bit, and then back to California. Then graduate school, I went to University of Chicago, and it was while in grad school that I started writing professionally. Basically, I just sort of realized I had a facility for writing that was just slightly better than my peers, but enough. Initially, I was doing mostly politics and stuff like that. At the time, my writing was more politics and cultural commentary, even though I was a kid, but I come from the American Jewish school of thought where everyone in the world is entitled to my opinion. I love it. I'm tempered a bit now, and even more so by politics. It's a bloodsport of a different nature than it was when I was growing up. At any rate, I became a professional writer. As a sideline, I was always doing other stuff too. Once I moved to Washington, D.C. after graduate school and after I was married. I married my wife in 2002. It was around 2003 or 2004 that I first started writing about wine, kosher wine and spirits. It became a national thing, but there's a local paper called the Washington Examiner. It became a big chain with examiners all over the place. At that exact moment, it was basically just a local paper. The wine guy for it, who's Jewish, never wanted to touch anything kosher, whatever. I had met him through someone else. I asked him, what are you going to be reviewing for Passover? It's the one time of year when everyone does. He says nothing. I contacted the editor. I said, look, I nominally know the wine guy. I know he's not going to touch it for Passover. You have a sizable Jewish community. Can I write the piece for Passover? Sure. I did. They loved it. Because they had a regular wine writer and at the end of the day, there wasn't a market for a regular kosher wine column, I ended up doing a cocktail column. Cocktails, spirits, food occasionally for the weekend section. I ended up with a weekly column where I was basically doing like storytelling about cocktails, the background, the history, different recipes. There's a handful of cocktails that have their history in DC. I would go sort of like the Army Navy Club and the photographer would come. I was like having fun with it. I was a very tiny minor, not even celebrity, but a minor figure in the drinks world in DC. Very tiny. My stature is almost infinitesimal, but amongst them, they knew me. Then from that, let's see, around the same time, kosherwine.com, which back then was Hungarian kosher foods in Chicago, they had just started sort of revamping their website and getting people to do reviews of the wines. I and my friend Gamli O'Connor, who's also a wine writer, we started just uploading our notes of the wines because it was an easy way to keep track of our notes without having to be too pretentious about having notebooks or this or that. It was early days. In short order, I'm a bit of an insomniac. When I would have dead time, I would just start uploading these things. All of a sudden, I had something like 500 wines reviewed across the price spectrum. Suddenly, my name was like people all over the place would email me out of the blue and say, are you the same one who does this? What would you recommend, et cetera, et cetera. And Dan Kirsch, who at the time, the Kirsch family owned Hungarian kosher foods, he ran a wine of the month club through Hungarians, kosherwines.com. He had a newsletter and he needed someone to write the newsletter. At some point, and here, I don't remember the history. If David Rocca was doing it first or if Rocca took it over from me, I just don't remember. And maybe Rocca knows. But at some point, I started writing the newsletter, not under my name, just writing it for them. And for that, I needed to research. I needed to know information about the wineries. And at this stage of the game, the only way there was any information was whether or not the individual winery doing the kosher run had a marketing department and decided to do anything. Royal wasn't on top of it outside of the Herzog label, maybe a couple of Israeli ones. And I was pushing a lot of stuff that I found interesting and that reached my price point for Kirsch and that he could get enough supply. And through that, I became very friendly with the Royal Wine Corp marketing people. At some stage, I moved on, I can't remember exactly why I left the newsletter. At some stage, I think partly, maybe we were running out of information on the wines. I had sort of tapped the interesting ones, and then Royal didn't have any information. And the wineries, this was early days. The websites weren't so information-heavy. So at some point, I- Certainly no internet. Yeah. I mean, this was- The internet was really low. It was low. It just wasn't as user-friendly certainly as now. And everyone's computers were dialed up or whatever. Everything was slower. And then, so let's see, this is probably, I'm making up the times, but it's something like maybe 2009, 2008, 2009, something along those lines. At some stage, my cocktail column came to an end because the editors changed. The examiner got bought out, became a much larger national thing. And essentially, I was dropped. I and a bunch of other people, and one fell swoop. And then I started doing some freelance writing. And at some stage, I became the weekly columnist for the Washington Jewish Week, a mantle that our friend, you know Jules Polonetsky. Sure. Yeah. So Jules now has that column, and he's doing a great job. And Jules is an older neighbor of mine from Potomac. That's one of his columns. But so I had that column. And then my friend, Galmiel Kronemer, had a regular gig with the Jewish Week in New York in the print edition. And they were just launching their website, like a food and wine website. And so I started writing heavily for the website. Again, sort of ended up with a weekly column, and periodically also for the print edition. And this was, I don't remember the exact year, but at some stage, they began an annual wine magazine, the Kripke Sachs thing. And so I became very involved in that. I became a judge a little bit later in the process. The whole competition was basically Yossi Horwitz. I don't know if it was invention, I think it was invention. Either he came up with the idea or he professionalized it for them. I don't remember. He'll tell you. He remembers. But he and City Winery guys, Steve Dorff and folks like that, they began it. Galmiel, my memory of this is he became a judge maybe the second or third year in. And they kept inviting me, but I, you know, just wasn't practical. And then by the fourth or fifth year, the publisher said, we'll pay for you to come up and stay in a hotel. I said, okay. And then I became a judge. But the whole time I was writing for them. So, you know, by the time that just before COVID rolled around, when we finally met in person at that Rothschild dinner in New York, that was probably the height of my very relative name recognition in this niche. And then COVID blew the whole thing up. Well, it did in some ways and didn't in others because it evolved. It changed. Totally evolved. Yeah. But for me, it's like my, my column in like the Jewish Week in New York folded. It's sort of back as an online thing, but all different people, but they never did reach out to me. And I think I never heard of it. I tried, I tried emailing them the new crew and never heard a thing. So like my regular writing gigs evaporated. What about the link? What about the link? So the moment the Jewish link started up, so Elizabeth Kratz is a long time friend. I knew her. Actually, I first met her brother in, who sadly passed a few years ago. He was a, finishing his PhD at University of Chicago, just as I was entering University of Chicago. And he and his family were friends with my brother who lives in Chicago. And through Robert, the brother, I met Elizabeth. She was working on Capitol Hill at the time for, I think it was Pombo, Congressman Pombo. And she was like, had a whole career on in politics. And, you know, and when I when when I reconnected with her in DC, I and Gamliel and a couple others helped sort of cultivate for her a love of wine. I won't take credit beyond the spark. It's all the rest of it's all her talents. But we used to have very fun wine tastings and stuff in DC with a nice little heifer for this for this stick. So yes, I've known Elizabeth a long, long time. So when she when when the Jewish link took over effectively from the Jewish week, she also always invites me to come up and be a judge. It's just again, it's just not practical in terms of the distance. But I've been writing for them from day one. Just basically just a magazine. I think she's encouraged me to write much more often on I think now she probably has an embarrassment of riches of people who write, which is nice. But so you know, I've reached that stage where my name seems to be recognized by some by others, it's more of a sounds familiar. And there's plenty of people who have no idea who I am, which is perfectly fine, too. So what prompted the move to the UK? So COVID COVID was an interesting time period in Washington DC. So I was living in Potomac, Maryland, sort of a Washington suburb, lovely community, very nice area, just outside of DC. Well, when COVID struck, the politics of COVID, particularly in DC, was even more toxic than Coronavirus. And a lot of different people handled it in many different ways. A handful of people remain level headed and, and good and many, many, many panicked and it brought out, shall we say their worst traits, including, you know, in some cases, people have either nominal or official leadership capacities. I'm saying to Anna, like, look, what do our jobs in our remote, we can do this from anywhere in the world. Why don't we find some place where a there's family a little bit closer. And B, maybe we can find Jewish schooling and it's not online. You know, my son was essentially eating crayon stage. So to do that remotely is silly. And at that time, the school because of the politics of Corona, they were talking about the early stages, they were talking about, you know, if they ever reopen to, you know, and then and like a kindergarten would be six feet apart, then you'd have like a little, not quite a cage, but you know, a plexiglass box. Yeah, it's like, I'm gonna pay, you know, close to 30,000 ahead for this. This is ridiculous. Right? So, and it wasn't till I want to say it was maybe chivalrous. It was it was the basic was the hard game of like, no guests, no nothing that that helped convince my wife that that we did need to move on. I think it was post chivalrous that she finally said, you know what, this is ridiculous. Also, you know, we never we didn't know when we'd ever see my in-laws again. Thank God they're in good health, but they're older. And, you know, it was like, it just didn't make sense for our kids. It was just it was too, you know, sterile environment. So finally, we we decided to explore the options. We came to England thinking to get to London thinking this would be, you know, maybe a six month experience, like, you know, wait, wait out COVID, essentially. Long story shorter now, basically, we stayed, we're still here. And it's been a it's been a great move for the family. My kids who don't really remember America pine for it. But, you know, just because it's other, but the only thing that amongst the things that transitioned was professionally. Until that time, my day job is I was a lobbyist for various Jewish groups, Israel lobbying, basically. And once once remote work was no longer the method of the day, that was untenable to maintain that kind of position. I jumped back and forth a little bit. And the the January 6 stuff in DC and the politics around that kept the capital shut for even longer than Corona. So that allowed me to hang on to that job for a bit. But at some stage, you know enough. So I let my boss know I wasn't coming back. And we moved on, we sort of been involved a little bit in the local scene, with with Ketam Europe, which is like the royal family here. And a couple of the other, you know, folks, it's a much, much, much smaller market. But, but it's a it's a vibrant community. Well, they seem to, you know, I'll tell you something, the Ketam team that has the has the wine club in, in the UK and Europe, the refined wine club, that is really incredibly well run. They always have the best product of any club, any wine club anywhere in the world. I'm always super impressed with them. Well, they have a fabulous portfolio, as you know. So I mean, for every iteration of the Royal Ketam Herzog family, you know, that they have, bar none, the largest kosher portfolio of any one, you know, group. And with with tremendous variety and some amazing quality. And they had the, you know, I don't know who invented the club. I don't know which of them came up with it. I believe it's currently run by Yankee Herzog, the son of Shia Morris Herzog, who's the head of Ketam Europe. So his son currently runs it. I don't know if he came up with it or Shia or somebody else, but they run it very, very well. And because of the funny bits, you know, related to the three tier system in America, they have a lot of American members, because I guess I don't know if they ship it. I mean, I know they ship it there. I don't know if most of the members get it shipped or they pick it up as they pass through London for business. But apparently they have a very large subscription base in America. And I guess it's just easier. So like the Herzog Winery in California has a wine club. But because of the distribution networks, it only makes sense for people who are within certain states or whatever. And so Refined Club is like, I think is the club du jour. So it's, it's, it's multiple countries. And, you know, and they seem to be very good about just giving people variety and quality. And yeah, it's a good operation. Have you ever tasted non-kosher wine? Yes. Okay. So some years ago, when I was first sort of becoming professional about it, when I was still in Chicago, I had extensive conversations with Dayan there, passed away, but he, and this was an area of expertise, so wines and related issues. And I actually from him, I got a Hector to taste and spit. The person who gave me the Hector was Rolf Gedalia Dove Schwartz, is that so? And so in the early days, I did a lot of educational tasting in educational settings, you know, go to a trade show and a lot less these days, I feel like at this stage, I'm I have a pretty well educated palate in many respects. I still sometimes will taste the spit if it's truly, I mean, taste and spit Sam Yenim, if it's, if it's something I've never had and I just read about it, you know, I just, I want a sense of really what it is, but very sparingly now. Just, no, I'm curious because that really frames, you know, questions that I have for you as far as that's concerned. We've just gone through a number of trade shows, specifically in London, KFWE London, and also the Kosher Wine Show. Okay. So anything interesting? Lots of great and interesting new stuff. Just to take it first with KFWE, which I think this was like the 19th, 19th show, maybe or 20, something like, I don't remember off the top of my head, but it was, this was like the third or fourth one I've been to in London and it was phenomenal. And it was a packed house. I think it was over a thousand people, but hard to tell a little bit, but really, really packed. And so it's all the Ketton portfolio, but they have some astounding wines coming through. I don't know if you've yet tasted the new wine. David Galgazano. So he's only a couple years in, I mean, so he's new in the sense that I think this is the first iteration of wines where he's been more in control in terms of his style, you know, breaking free of the formula stuff a bit. So Joe Herliman, you know, was an unbelievably talented winemaker and a great guy. So David had big shoes to fill, and he's filled them well. So you're talking about the Essaud? So actually across the board. So Essaud is like new-new, but all of the wines that he makes, which is basically the whole lineup, many of them he's begun to sort of tinker with and make changes. Some of them subtle, some of them a little more so, but they're all like a step up in quality. And you can, it's distinct, you can taste them. Two of the wines in particular that, so not as high as the Essaud price-wise, but they have a new sort of reserve Chenin Blanc. Unbelievable. David, he like, he had a vision, you know, to take the Chenin that they grow there and just kind of take it to a different place. So it's still California, it's still distinctly a New World wine, but he had in mind essentially to go to the Loire, to Sauvignon, which is a particular region that makes a very particular style of Chenin. And he's basically channeled it in ways that are just astounding. The wine is really good. I had previously, Joseph Herzog, Matthi Herzog from the winery had come through London and they did a tasting. So I had sort of tasted all the Essauds and the Chenin and the reserve Pinot, which are also incredibly good, and a handful of others. But to taste them again at KFWE, and in some instances, like with the Chenin, they do both the Mauvuchel and non-Mauvuchel, and I was able to kind of taste them back to back. Just an amazing wine. I really, I think, I think if people give it a chance, they'll fall in love with it. It's just, there's a complexity, a weight in the mouth, just so unbelievably food friendly. And it's just, it's a different, it's again, it's still distinctly California, but very much channeling the soul of Loire, of Sauvignon. And I think it'll become, it's a little bit pricey, but I think it will probably become my house white, because it's just, to me, it's really astoundingly good. The Essauds are amazing, but they're so young. I mean, frankly, it's hard to taste several years. Yeah, right now they're just a bit too inky. The Pino, the Sonoma Pino, they had the reserve, excellent. Their sort of champagne method bubbly is even better now than the previous. So like across the board, Hertzog, they get better every year generally, but they're even better. I think there's a real qualitative step up. And so all those were good. There was a whole variety of upscale French and mid-level French that were excellent. Probably the one that got the most attention is the Philippe Lohardy line of Burgundies. People are hot on Burgundies right now, because we haven't, we've been Burgundy starved for so long. Yes, and now there's an embarrassment of riches. And the Lohardy wines are excellent, really outstanding. They had a close of Rougeau, which is super, super expensive, but drinking incredibly well now, but will get much better. But to me, the Alos Corton that they had, exceptional right now. Again, a bit pricey, but if you can afford it, really fab. The base level Burgundy, I thought was excellent. For the money, I actually prefer that to the Premier Cru version of it. With a little bit of time and bottle, that'll reverse and the Premier Cru will become better. But in terms of drinking right now, the quote, unquote, bog standard one, fab, really, really good. Really exciting, a Drapier Champagne. They released a vintage Champagne, really, really nice. It's a bit different from if you're into that Champagne house, which I love, but I do love Drapier. And Michel, a real mensch, his son Hugo. It's a really good family. In general, they've been going for low dosage, dryer, dryer, dryer. And this 20, I think it was 2018 vintage is a bit higher dosage than we've seen from them of late. So depending on your palate, it may come across as a little bit sweeter than you've come to expect from them. Some people tasted it at KFWE and were like, sweet. It's not a sweet wine, but it's a very relative thing. I think that that'll actually sell better, to be quite honest. I think there's a group of people who are really adverse to any type of sweetness coming across the palate. But in the general public, I think the general public, it will move much better than... And you know, it's funny, just as an aside, if I'm boring, you'll let me know. This is an aside. This is not just kosher, right? Across the wine world, there is a strong bias by aficionado types, you know, wine mavens, against sweetness in wine, unless it's, you know, Dafka, a dessert wine, like a Salterra or whatever. And, you know, it's just, it's not right and it's not fair. I say not right because that's not, to me, that's not how you approach wine. That's not what it's about. It's about the grapes giving you the best that they can give you. In some cases, you do want to see it across the style range. Riesling, it's a shame that increasingly nobody wants any sweet Riesling. I mean, I love dry Riesling, don't get me wrong. I love a sweet Riesling and I love every gradation of the Riesling. And Chenin Blanc is the same. I love every gradation. And so there are some wines where a certain natural sweetness is not just acceptable, it's proper, right? And to convince people that if they like sweet, that they're unsophisticated, it's just not fair. Because it has nothing to do with sophistication or lack of sophistication. It's a preference. It's a taste preference. It's a subjective preference. It's very subjective. And not that long ago, in the big scheme of things, even the top wines of the world, even recognized names that are now, nobody would ever think, like Chenin Blanc, nobody would ever think of as a sweet wine. Not that long ago, high residual sweetness was the fashion. And so across Burgundy, Bordeaux, the Rhine, you had many more wines that had that to modern palates would be too sweet. And they were the wines. They were fashion, right? So like anything, there's the storytelling version of the product. And then there's the actual history. And all commercial wines, they want to appeal to the market. And if the market wants more dry, they go more dry. So all of that said, sweetness in wine is part of the human condition. It's right and proper at times. I always wonder whether the people who are, you know, it's the people with the voice. like the squeaky wheel gets, uh, you know, gets the, the oil. Um, I wonder whether the squeaky wheels within the wine industry who have the ear of the wineries, uh, the people who are saying, you know, um, Oh, I don't want any sweetness or I want a lot of acidity. And the trouble is then, then the market, um, is really not, not attuned to that. I, you know, I kind of wonder with consumers, um, a little bit of residual sweetness goes a long way to convince people that wine is something that's reasonable for them, where I'm hearing, like a lot of people will say to me, Oh, I don't touch, I don't drink wine. I don't drink wine. I have a cocktail, but I don't drink wine. And, um, and, and it's totally because of this, because I think of wine as being some acidity, um, non-sweet. I think it's a mix. There's, um, some of it is because the wines that they're told they're supposed to love, they don't love, but it doesn't fit the flavor. Uh, and I think a lot of it also is the, um, the, the sense that to, to, to be into wine requires, uh, sort of, uh, an intellectual commitment. Um, at the end of the day, it's a beverage, um, you know, like Coke. And, and, uh, particularly wine professionals lose sight of this all the time. Um, and it's, it's, I get it. I'm not, and I'm not blaming anyone. Uh, you know, a wine geek shouldn't feel bad about being a wine geek either. But, uh, but the pretentiousness factor keeps a lot of people away. Um, again, it's, it's across the wine world in, in, uh, in the firm world, uh, perhaps even more so, right. There's plenty of people when, uh, when they're done either with their professional jobs or yeshiva or, you know, whatever, like they don't now need, they don't, they don't want another graduate level course just to be able to, you know, have wine with their meal. Um, so, uh, and whiskey, uh, in fact, all the spirits are so much more approachable in that sense, because you don't, you know, it's like, I, it's, I've tried to explain this to people in a slightly different context, mostly my wine geek friends, but when they say, you know, uh, in wine speak, when you say, Oh, it's very approachable. So to a non wine person, they'll look at you funny, like, like what does that mean? It's a liquid, you drink it. What do you mean? It's got to melt. Like, like, like, what are we talking about? It doesn't mean approachable. You pour it, you drink it. And, and, and, um, and sometimes wine geeks, when you ask them about it, like they, you know, they kind of go into this reverie of, you know, and all the kind of the nomenclature pops pops up and, and it comes out as gobbledygook to, to, to the uninitiated. And I, and I always try to explain that, look, the uninitiated, that's the market, right? You want to sell not to wine geeks. You want to sell to people, normal human beings, right? Wine. It's just like food. Cause it's food. It's, it's supposed to be part of everyday life. I, to me, a successful wine, when I say it's approachable, it means you don't have to have ever tasted anything like it before to enjoy it. You don't have to, it doesn't have to age for 20 years in a cellar before it's just coming into it's a good wine, uh, that, that fits all the different categories. It's refreshing. The alcohol is just enough to make you happy, but not enough to where it's burning or, or, or, you know, where it feels hot, remarkable. Ultimately you want a wine that isn't with no one element is remarkable. You just want it where you go. Ooh, that's nice. Well, yummy or whatever. That's really what you want in a wine. The wine geeks will like me. I mean, I'm a self-convinced wine geek of the highest order. I'll sit there and ooh and ah for 20 minutes over this element of that, but I'm not going to bore anyone else with it unless they're into it. But anyone else I'll just say, Oh, it's really nice. Um, and so approachable wine means it's good drinking right now, pop and pour. If it's not popping poor, then it's not yet approachable. It's as simple as that. Uh, and I, you know, and so like the worst, the one thing about the KFWE style tastings, and again, this is as true in the, in the trade market. Yeah. I was going to ask you if there's a difference, is there a notable difference between the kosher market and the trade market with return to how, how they're approached, but also consumer behavior. So the price points, trends, the whole variety of differences. Uh, so just to finish the thread of the KFWE style tastings. So the two, the two things that I find for the three things I find that the, that, um, uh, sort of annoying about tasting in that context is, uh, many wines, particularly as you go higher up the quality spectrum, they're released to market early because they need to return on the investment, but the wines in many respects do need time and bottle before they're really ready to drink. So, uh, uh, that style tasting traditionally is a trade tasting, not a public tasting because the trade understands that, Oh, right. We laid down stocks of this. And in four years time, you know, we'll sell that or, you know, whatever, uh, two years time, depends on exactly what you're tasting, but there'll be some wines that you bring the market and instantly move off the shelf and others that are for the people who are building their sellers out and need a little bit more of this or that region. And it's the understanding that, Oh, lay it down for three years, two years, five years, 10 years. Um, cause right now it's not, it's not pleasurable. Um, when punters, you know, when, when consumers come in, they're expecting, I think quite rightly from their vantage point, right. They just spent X amount, a hundred dollars, a hundred pounds, whatever. Like I want to taste the best of what you got right now. And usually they're very disappointed because the most expensive wines aren't ready to drink right now, even though it's being offered right now on the table, uh, a B, um, at home people will be drinking it with food and friends as part of a meal, right. All good wine fits into a meal. It's part of cuisine at table. It's part of everything. And to just taste, you know, walk around and go, Oh, we get a taste of that. It's ink or it's, or it's not, you know, it needs more time. It's not yet totally together. And, um, so even if a consumer can instantly recognize, Oh, it's a, it's a quality wine. It's really all the different elements, even though it's just enough to recognize that. But at the end of the day, it's not ready to drink now. So it's still an unsatisfying experience for a lot of people. Um, in the kosher market, it's a little bit worse only because, uh, depending on the level of from kite, a lot of people are coming in and they're thinking kiddish, you know, can I, can I, uh, glug back, you know, four ounces in one sitting of this, right. Is this, will this be, give me pleasure when I, when I, uh, consume other places and I'm just downing it out of a silver better, even if they, if they're upscale, use a glass better. Well, a lot of wines don't work at that level. Um, you know, try chugging a Coke and in a whole can of Coke in 30 seconds. It's not so pleasurable either. Um, there are wines that do that and that do it very well, but it's, it's, it's just, it's a slightly different context. And, and it's one of the things about the kosher market that, that, um, people outside the kosher market don't get, uh, professionally. Uh, and I think people within the market sometimes lose sight of, um, and consumers often feel kosher. Consumers often feel like they're being like it cheated as is a little bit strong, but feel like they're, it's at their expense. They sort of recognize that it's their captive audience, right? They need kosher. They can't drink, not kosher. So there's always a sense it's same in restaurants and other where people are like, well, there's no competition. That's why we're stuck with this. That's why the pricing is this. There's a lot of silly notions that people have in their heads about what things ought to cost. Um, at the end of the day, everything is market forces. Um, does it mean that there isn't things that are priced too high, but, uh, or too low in some instances, but, um, but usually the, the people who are coming up with the pricing, you know, they're, it's, uh, they're trying to figure out a, how to make a profit, but B how to not lose their shirt. Uh, so, you know, there's a little bit of guesswork, but it's still at the end of the day, it's all still market forces is at that part's no different. Um, more competition would help improve the dynamics of the price structure, but the basic, uh, dynamic is the same. Um, but so a lot of people come in and think, Oh, I'm stuck, you know, having to pay four times the price of the non kosher version of this wine. And it's just because I'm trapped because I keep kosher. And I'm like, no, um, that's in most instances, the markup is a reasonable. maybe 40% because it costs more to do. It costs more for the winery to do. A lot more in some instances. Just as a quick aside, we mentioned earlier Drapier Champagne. I recently had a nice conversation again with Michel for an article I was doing on Champagne. I asked him, what are some of the technical differences? They've been doing it now for however long, a decade plus, 20 years, something like that. They've been doing it a long time already. It's a regular thing. I said, how much kosher do you produce relative to your non-kosher? He says, it's different every year depending on quality, depending on the market demand, whatever. He says, at any given vintage, they could be doing zero kosher bottles to up to 30,000. I said, okay. Let's say- How is 30,000 compared to the rest of what they make though? That's what I asked him. He said, on average in any year, they're non-kosher, they do 1.5 million. Wow. So 30,000 with a tremendous, he said like all the economy of scale is lost, all the efficiency is lost. A winery that normally produces 1.5 million, the exact same infrastructure has to separately, the cost is fully separate, independent, is now doing a tiny run of 30,000. You can imagine what the costs are. Wow. And for a quality producer, they demand that the mashkichim have to be on hand ideally as readily available as- All the time, yeah, yeah. And so you can't always, there's only so many people doing it. So there's always, not always, but there's usually, you have to kind of balance that out. Plus, there's Shabbos and Yom Narayim. So there's a variety of other factors that delay the seamlessness or distance the potential seamlessness of the kosher run from the non-kosher run. But if you're, say, in Champaign, and the guy's coming up from, I don't know, Strasbourg or Lyon or wherever, you got to wait for him to show up before you can pull the sample, before you can adjust this, before you can adjust that. And if you've ever driven around France, you get stuck in traffic, and there's another delay. So people have to, it's one of those areas where an all-kosher winery has it all over a non-kosher winery in terms of the process and the efficiency. And the scale. The scale. The downside is, it's often the best terroir is, you know, multi-generational, you know, established, which means not kosher. It means not Jewish. It means, you know, so often the non-kosher wineries have better fruit at their disposal, but it's offset by the fact that the economics of it are upside down. Whereas an all-kosher place, the economics of the production are in line with the industry. But, you know, if they're an estate winery, it's just what they own. And if they're not estate, or if they also buy, it's what the market, you know, what they can afford to get and what they're able to get. Even in Israel, you know, it's not unusual, if you're not an estate winery, for your long-term contracts to be underwhelming. You know, where the grower goes, even though we assigned for this, you know, like, I cut, they won't tell you, I cut a deal with somebody else for cash, they'll tell you, oh, yields were low this year. You know, it is what it is. And we should actually, because yields were low, you should actually pay me more, because it's more concentrated product. Yeah, that's right, right. But yeah, it's really. Everything's, everyone's trying to make a living. But anyway, so in the kosher market, so there's all those aspects to it. And consumer behavior is different. Now, the other thing that, about the kosher market, at the end of the day, you didn't need wine, halakhically wine, meaning grape juice too, but something that is yayan. They need yayan. They need it every single week. At a minimum, they need it for kiddush, abdallah. So for some, grape juice is fine, either because they like the taste, they don't, you know, they don't want the alcohol, for health reasons, for lifestyle reasons, you know, young kids, whatever it is, although I give my young kids wine, but whatever. But so, but they, Jews need the product. And I've often said, at the end of the day, you know, in the mainstream world, wine is a luxury item. In the Jewish world, wine is a necessity. Good wine is a luxury item. And it makes a big difference. So it means that, you know, if somebody is budget constrained, and most Jews are, you know, lots of, God willing, many, many children, and that costs money to raise and educate, and so all the different competing elements of a family budget, you know, unless both, all the elements that control the budget, the husband, wife, and anything else, unless they're on the same page, and or the disposable income allows whoever's making the purchases to quietly bump it up anyway. But otherwise, you know, that's, it has to be sort of a family decision that we're going to drink at this level, not that level. You know, so there's plenty of people who, as much as they would love to drink, you know, $300 bottles of wine on a Shabbos, that's just not an option. It's just not realistic. And so everyone is always looking for the cheapest possible wine that will, that they will enjoy. So depending on their palates, you know, that's, that means that they have to, they have to spend over, you know, say, I don't know, 20 bucks, 25 bucks, just to get something that they can drink. You know, the, in the trade world, you know, there used to be two buck Chuck. And, but it was not all wines that were competitive at that price level were any good. Two buck Chuck was considered just drinkable enough, right? Kosher, there's no such thing as a two buck Chuck, the closest thing would be five bucks. There's not a lot of that at that price point either. But, you know, but Trader Joe's in America, you can, you can start to get for under $10, you can find things. Most kosher wines under $10 are at the quality level of the competitors of two buck Chuck. So not very good. There are some exceptions, but so when you're at that price point, you know, to drink a Cabernet that retails in the kosher market for $9.99, may or may not give you the same pleasure as Barton or Moscato, you know, which, depending on your exact market, you're either getting discounted at 10 bucks, or you're spending maybe 14 bucks, again, depends on the exact market. But you know, so you're comparing something that you can absolutely drink, not remarkable necessarily, depending on your taste preferences, but everyone will, you know, they won't, it's not like Manischewitz wine, they'll get something out of it, versus a dry red that at that quality level, maybe isn't really what you want. So the price sensitivity is high. And it leads to big gaps between people who aren't willing to spend more than their usual budget, because it's unfamiliar territory. And they're not, you know, if they're buying wines at that price point, it's usually for a reason. So in the in the mainstream market, even in the British market, right? Why convincing the average drinker to spend more than $20 or 20 quid in Britain is a huge jump, right? Most of the wine that gets sold is at the is at the cheaper end. 20 is considered sort of premium, right? In certainly in the UK, but even in America, mainstream 2025 is kind of the first jump to premium. In the kosher market, that's like, nobody thinks of it as premium, because you think, oh, that's where it gets drinkable. Again, partly, it's just because kosher costs a little bit more to produce. In kosher, Israeli, you know, Israeli wines have to be exported out of Israel, brought into America, there's costs involved in that. So all Israeli wines are that much more expensive in America or in the UK. Often just removing whatever competitive advantage, in terms of price structure, domestically in Israel, that evaporates the moment you know, because import, export, it's just there's more costs involved. Not fully evaporates, but you know, that cuts into the margins of how people think of these wines. The Mavushal aspect also changed, particularly for Israeli production, is often the stuff that they make Mavushal for export. a little bit different because they're a little bit further removed from the chain of customers being able to, you know, relate back this didn't taste right or this wasn't, you know. So sometimes the Mavushel quality coming out of some of the larger wineries in Israel isn't quite as good as the same version that you can get locally. You mentioned, though, that some of the French ones have a Mavushel and an Amavushel, and you've tasted those. What do they taste like? What's the difference? Is there a difference? So it varies a little bit. Some of them, some of the wineries have, so I've come to understand this is like a technical issue, but many of these wineries, it's small production, so that even within their own, you know, like thermal processing of wine is a long-standing thing. Almost all commercial wineries of any proper size have had experience with it. Not Mavushel temperatures, right, that that's a whole another kettle of fish, but just the idea of using heat in judicious technical ways to deal with a difficult vintage. Not all of them are familiar, but many, many, many are familiar. They all kind of hate the idea, just because it's, you know, heat, so it's not what they're, it's not, it certainly doesn't keep with the narrative they tell customers, but they're familiar. But to do it at a scale and with the rigorous protocol involved in kashras is a kind of a different order. Some wineries, you can't get the equipment easily. Sometimes you can't even get it to the facility easily. In some cases, you have to truck the liquid just a little bit, you know, it just depends on where things are set up. When Mashkiach is being Mavushel the wines, you know, a heavier touch versus a lighter touch, you know, so that even though there's a particular temperature you need to get at for, you know, the halacha, it doesn't mean that you're not getting well over that at times, because, you know, oops, you know, I'm not regulating it for the way I should. Obviously, no one's going to share that with anybody, you know, the, I mean, the people producing it know what's going on, but they're not going to share that with customers and say, oh, well, the first 20,000 liters got, you know, it went about 10 degrees hotter than we wanted. So, like, there's some things, it just, it is what it is, and they have to make the best of it. And so, they'll try to blend it out, you know, things. So, some wineries, their Mavushel versions really aren't the same quality level. In some cases, they will be, right? It means, like, the first time that Capsanis in Spain did some Mavushel wines, I think virtually everyone agreed they weren't as good. There was a real qualitative difference. You can taste them back to back, and it was like something in the wine had changed, and not for the good. And that's a learning curve. You know, a couple of vintages in, they get it, usually. So, there's that aspect to it. And again, from a, it's all very technical, from a consumer perspective, at the end of the day, all you know is you drink it, and it tastes good, or it doesn't taste good. It tastes like you expect, or it doesn't taste like you expect. I have a question. You know, you're kind of in a focal point of the global markets between having France, and having the U.S., and having Israel, and some of the other outlying producers. Is there currently a leader in the kosher wine industry? You know, is it Israel? Is it the U.S.? Is it Europe? Is it another region? Oh, it's a good question. So, it depends a little bit on what the focal point is. So, in terms of sheer numbers, the largest number of kosher, of all kosher wineries, is Eretz Yisrael. Which, frankly, I find appropriate. I think that's the way it should be. As a quick aside, when the late Daniel Rogov, in one of the iterations of his book on, his first one of, that was just kosher wines, not Israeli wines, you know, kosher wines. I wrote a review for the LA Jewish Journal, in which I was a bit critical. I mean, you know, he's a good guy, he has a good book. But I said, like, you know, the percentage of Israeli wines isn't as high as it ought to be for the market in a book that's about global kosher wine. And, you know, there's many more kosher wines from Israel than was reflected in the book. And he said, well, I already have a book on Israel. And I said, but you're missing the point. To a kosher consumer, right, they want to know about kosher wines as a whole. And so, it should be better represented. So, that, just as a quick side note. One of the things that I feel very strongly, I think a lot of people don't grasp about kosher wine. A lot of Jews don't grasp. Kosher, you know, we speak of kosher wine with the word, in terms of kosher, because the, within the trade, it's, you know, kosher supervisors who are doing it, right, who are involved in it. Logically, you know, it's makhal yasur, so we think in terms of kosher. And it is conceptually, at that level, at the technical level. But really, it's not kosher in the way that, you know, ingredients into this or that processed food are kosher. It's not quite the same, right? It's not, it's not manufactured in quite the same way. It's much more of a natural product. You know, additives and, you know, make sure the yeast, if you're using commercial yeast, there's a handful of things. But ultimately, it's an agricultural product. Really what kosher, the difference between kosher wine and stamyenim, right, general wine, non-kosher wine, isn't really kosher. It's really Yiddish. It's Jewish identity. What is kosher wine? It's Jewish wine, right? Historically, what was the reason for, you know, the gezer of stamyenim? That's distinct. Hashem doesn't want us to have wine that's been used for a vodazora. That's its own isser. It's an isser der isser. The reason why stamyenim, right, wine about which we don't know if it was used for nesach, why it's forbidden, is because chassidus. They don't want, the sages didn't want Jews in that social situation with non-Jews. It's about separation. It's us and them. So kosher wine is really Jewish wine, right? That's the distinction. So, you know, in terms of the rules of, you know, the technical rules of koshers, you know, we live in an age in which most Jews aren't Shomer Shabbos, they're not Shomer Mitzvahs, in the way that, you know, used to be, you know, in the, certainly in the biblical period, but certainly in the Talmudic period, you either Jewish, which meant you were of the community, regardless of your exact level of religiosity, you were Jewish. There was only one definition. Whereas before there was the different, you know, reform and centuries or millennia before all that, millennia plus. So it was identity, Jewish, not Jewish. And to be not, to be a Jew who's outside Jewish is a, was a whole different thing. So wine was Jewish wine. So it's different from shekhita, it's different from, you know, modern food processing. So, you know, in an era now where many Jews can't make Jewish wine in a halachic sense, right? They need to hire workers who are Shomer Shabbos. But before the kosher industry had certifications that, you know, for which you rightly need to pay, because it's a job, someone has to do it. How do you know something was kosher? Because, you know, Yosele, the butcher, he lives there. He's part of the community. He's kosher, the meat's kosher, because he's a trustworthy kid. How do you know, you know, this wine was kosher? Because he's in the community. It's Jewish wine. He's making Jewish wine. So like, before, before the, before kosher became an industry, and again, this is all a proper natural evolution. It's a progression. And it is right and proper. I know people complain all the time about it. It's a job and it's a difficult job. Dealing with yidn is always a difficult job. But ultimately, right, so kosher wine is really much more about the identity of Jewish wine. And it's just as a technical matter, la halacha, that means Shema Shabbos, that means, you know, folks of the of the community. And then there's a politics, Haimish versus Liz versus that. said. So Israel, by rights, should all be Jewish wine. I mean, all the Israeli wine, right? I mean, again, Palestinian wine, if you're there, whatever. But commercially, it's all Jewish wine. It's not all kosher because of the technicalities of what constitutes kosher certification. But so to me, like, and I understand many Israelis, this isn't what they want to hear. And it's not their approach conceptually. That's fine. No one has to agree with me. I'm just saying historically, that's what that's what kosher wine is. So it therefore becomes a bit weird at times when, you know, kosher, when the best kosher wines are coming from non Jewish wineries. It's, it's the nature of the market that somebody swooped in and got them convinced them to do Jewish wine. But, you know, a ninth generation French winemaker, who, you know, historically, if they had any interaction with Jews before the modern era was not positive. Even if, you know, certainly post either during the war or post war, maybe it's very positive. But, you know, historically, probably wasn't great. So on the one hand, it's a kiddush Hashem that now you can go and get the highest levels of koshers from, you know, people who wouldn't know, you know, don't know from Jews otherwise. And in many respects, that's a kiddush Hashem. And it's a wonderful thing, you're being makadesh something, you're bringing it into the fold. On the other hand, it's not Jewish wine, you're creating Jewish wine in a totally, you know, totally non Jewish environment. And there's a cost, right, there's a, there's a greater cost. So in terms of leadership in the wine world, so it depends on sort of what you what you're looking for. The, as I say, the most number of kosher wineries is in Israel, which I think is appropriate. And, and so there's a leadership sense of when Israel is exploring new, new varieties. That's, I think, exciting. And, you know, the indigenous right, not that all are equally good, but it's an exciting development. Certainly, at the wine geek level, even non Jews get very excited about indigenous varieties in Israel or Cyprus or Greece, because it's different from Cabernet and Merlot. And as much as they love all wine, when it's different, and it's a foreign sounding grape to them, that's just exciting. You know, full stop, whether it's any good is the next step is the next question. But so that's an exciting development. Wine geeks who are more academic are especially excited by, you know, some of the archaeological wine research about, you know, how Vitis vinifera came onto the scene. And, you know, it turns out the Levant is also not just Georgia. Okay. Yeah, it depends on one's level of geekery. This is brilliant stuff. So there's all that. So there's lots of this unbelievable talent in Israel. But what Israel lacks is, as you know, is better than I even, I'm sure, is the traditions, right? Because outside of a couple of families, before B'dinat Yisrael, there was no wine in any traditional sense. It's not like in France, where there's nine generations, you know, cultivating the exact same grape and the exact same plot. And so they, you know, it's not like that, right? It's a little different, though. Wait, I want to correct you. It's not like there wasn't. 2,000 years ago, there was a, there are Gots all over the place. You almost can't throw a stone in the Judean Hills without hitting a Got. But there haven't been Jews here for that, for, there's a big space where we were pulled out. Right. So Golis brought to an end a terrific amount of the continuity of Jewish life, right? That's the nature of it. And so that's what I mean by a tradition, not that the history is not there. It's the living tradition. Recent tradition, right, where you've got a grandfather and a great-grandfather and what have you. I mean, the Herzogs have this living tradition. It's like 12 generations. And it's amazing. I mean, but it's very rare, but they do. I mean, we've got some families here that are, you know, two and three generations into it in Israel. But it's not like we've been living on the same land with the same vines for the last, you know, 900 years. It's, yeah. Now, all of that said, there's also, this is where the sort of the stories wine people like to tell themselves, there's a disjuncture, right? A lot of the great wines of the world went through terrifically long periods of mediocrity. In some cases, unbelievable mediocrity. And even unbelievable vineyards, you know, Chateaubriand, right? Samuel Pepys mentions it in his diary in the 1600s. And so for sure that plot of earth has always been, you know, special. But the wines coming from that plot of earth have not always been correct. Because until the modern era in which wineries estate bottled, right, it was negotiants buying barrels and bottling it themselves. And often they were doctoring it because the regulation, they do what they want. So, you know, in France, famously, there's lots of these, you know, stories of, you know, fraud and legal and illegal, right? Because again, it was pre-regulation in some respects, certainly before the AOCs. That's why a lot of this stuff came about was to protect these things. So, also the science of wine, pre-Louis Pasteur and post-Louis Pasteur is, you know, like a Copernican revolution. And since Pasteur, the science and understanding is just leaps and bounds. So, in that, you can now make technically brilliant wine virtually anywhere in the world. So, yes, it may be a place that didn't know viticulture until, you know, yesterday, so to speak, in relative terms. You know, Japan, they had, you know, pre-1950s, I don't think there was a lot of wine, but, you know, they're exploring and doing interesting things. China, there's plenty of places that don't have any natural long history of wine, but can be doing excellent things. So, does it mean that therefore a wine that, you know, in historical terms was created yesterday versus the 12th generation or whatever, does it mean that they're qualitatively better or worse? That's a, it's a subjective judgment, but in many respects, no, it's the person who's been farming the same plot of land for generations, they make better wine now than they ever made before. Because the kids, you know, the people doing it are educated in the scientific terms. So, Israel has an edge that way, where on the one hand, yeah, a lot of the, there's a break in the continuity of tradition, and so a lot of indigenous and all that kind of stuff is gone. We don't really know what styles and whatever, but ancient wine tended to be, by contemporary standards, dreck, right? Too sweet, all the stuff they would use a doctorate. So, different kettle of fish. So, I think there's a, there's a degree to which it's an unnecessary story, but it's a trapping because the wine world, the mainstream wine world, likes to tell these multi-generational stories. So, again, in terms of leadership, so Israel, I think, is where some of the most exciting stuff is happening. But while the Herzog family, we mentioned it a few times, it's not appreciated by some because, you know, it's commercial. It's, you know, people are always complaining about pricing and whatever. The Herzog family has done more than any other commercial enterprise, commercial group, to push the quality of kosher wines in the right direction. They're doing it for commercial reasons, right, and proper, right? But it's, hands down, if but for them, the industry would be nowhere near as advanced as it is. They're not the only ones, but they're by far the market leaders in this. And so, it's leaps and bounds. Are they, we would be so far removed from quality wines, but for them. And even the people who, independent of them, are pioneers, the Ernie Weers and people who are really unbelievable, big neurons, you know, if the wine is excellent but nobody can get it, the impact will be minimal, right? So distribution is an important part of all this. And again, in storied parts of France, you know, again, nobody like, people don't think of the commerce side of it. Why did one region do better than another? Because the trade route, or the train, or, you know, things that allowed them to get to market. So if the greatest product in the world doesn't have an audience for distribution reasons, the actual impact on the market will be next to nothing. So that can be a tremendous drawback. Right now, in terms of like sheer quality, probably the absolute top of the market, me personally, I think is Domaine de Monte, Etienne de Monte, and his wines, exceptional. The terroir he's working with, unbelievable. The market, you know, the distribution of the wines is pretty minimal. So the market exposure is pretty minimal. But, you know, there's this terrific importer in Israel, there's just kind of reconfiguring their setup in America, Honest Grapes, you've had Nathan on. Nathan's amazing. Yeah, and Nathan, it was basically his, he and his partners, it was their pet project to get the thing going. I think de Monte came to him, but they're the ones who made, they already had a long-standing relationship with de Monte. I've had long conversations now with de Monte, where, you know, over the years, he was approached about kosher, and his Israeli importer of his non-kosher told them, don't do it, it'll ruin the brand. And, you know, 20 years later, it's a different story. And so he's finally dipped his toes in. And it's just, it's unbelievable quality and complexity, and just amazing wines. His approach to how he wants, how he insists on doing his kosher is the right approach, but it's expensive. But that's, you know, like, if you can't have the Moshkiach exactly when you need them, you know, only accepting only Shabbos and Yom Kippur, otherwise, you're not doing it, right? I'm not waiting a week for the guy to show, like, that's not going to happen. That's the right, that's the correct approach. You pay for that. So there's a whole variety. So, again, if the wines don't succeed commercially, you know, the Monti will stop doing them, and the impact on the market will be minimal. So there's success, there's many ways to chalk it up. But the market controls it. But the talent, yeah, we've never had such great talent in the modern era. You know, the guys in Israel, across the board, some amazing stuff. Ernie Weir, Jeff Morgan, Jonathan Haydu, David Gazzagnato, and the whole Herzog operation, California, and then what they're doing, Menachem Izrailovich in Royal Wines Europe, Pierre, you know, I think still does a couple of French wines. He does. He does a bunch, actually. He actually got back into it, bringing wines to Israel during the Shmita year. He made some interesting wines in France and brought them back to Israel so that they were non-Shmita. Are there any Israeli wines that really, you know, stand out in your mind? So I find, across the board, the Recanati wines, I think, I've always liked Recanati from Louis Pascoe's days forward. But I feel like they get better all the time. And they were great to begin with, and they get better all the time. By the way, there's a new Odum. It's called, you know, Odum Merlot from Recanati. It's from their Odum Vineyard. And it's awesome. And it's a Merlot. And it's just an awesome Merlot coming out of Israel. So I'm just telling you, it's an interesting product. There's some people who are doing amazing things. So Dalton, I've always been a fan of Dalton. I think they do. I mean, A, Kol HaKavod, the pioneers, they helped dramatically transform the region into tourism and wine. They're true trailblazers. They've had, as it happens, a terrible war. No one has a good war, but they've had a terrible war. But I think they have some amazing wines. The Asufa series, which is, you know, the plaything of guys. It's so much fun. It's so much fun. I love it. I know. There's some of us in the, I don't, us, I'm including myself with some stellar people, but there are a number of people who have, like, put themselves in a box that almost don't like anything except this specific product. I've tried to keep my mind a little bit more open, and I try to taste things. I don't always love some of them, but I can see how the market would react positively towards it and how it could be an entry, you know, an entry drug to to the, what you call it, to the wine industry, where to expect somebody who's going to pick up a bottle of Smith Hot Lafitte that's a 2020, and you're selling it at, like, whatever price, and these people pick it up, and they taste it, and they go, oh, you know what? Wine's not for me. I'm going to go back to cocktails. Well, so that's, it goes back to the premiumization, the categories of price categories. You know, as Louis Pascoe once told me for an article I did, he said, at the end of the day, like, you know, very few people go into wine to be rich. That's not why they went into it, and he's 100% correct, and, you know, doesn't mean that there aren't rich people who get into wine, and it doesn't mean there aren't people who got rich through one, but that's not the norm. Right, it's not the wine that did it. That's right. So, again, for Smith Hot Lafitte or, you know, some of these, these are, in relative terms, they're the playthings of the rich. Bordeaux has always had, you know, this. Burgundy, that's more recent, but it certainly has it now. It's important to ensure that you, that you have correct, or correct is a long phrase, that you have adjusted expectations for human nature, right? In theory, it'd be great for every wine lover to be enamored with Smith Hot Lafitte. I'm sure Smith Hot Lafitte would love it, right, if every wine sold out in seconds, but that's not practical, right? Four gates, everything sells out more or less in an hour, but there's not much of it, right? And it's not always. So, you know, some of the larger wineries, you know, particularly some of the middling price points get a bad rap, because, you know, if you're a Smith Hot Lafitte drinker, and that's your budget, those are the types of ones you drink, a Boccon Classic is not going to make it for you, right? It's just not going to work for you. That doesn't mean that it's not a good wine. It's not being made for you in that sense, right? And so there has to be, but there has to be an adjustment to how people speak about this. The wine world is co-opted, the wine literature, shall we say, the wine buzz is co-opted by the people who have the time and interest. People like me, although hopefully I'm a force for good to the degree that I have any impact at all, just tiny, tiny, tiny, but, you know, I'm bored senseless when people only want to discuss sort of the super expensive snob appeal things, even though, you know, if I have the budget, those are my wines, right? But the reality is… You're an honest man. You're an honest man. It's good. It's good. But, you know, if I'm trying to convince people to incorporate wine into their lives, what kind of a schmuck would I be if I say, here's a wine you'll never afford, you'll never want to have us, but taste it, you'll love it. Great. Now everything doesn't taste good. Like, why would I do that? Why would I take away someone's pleasure? I think it's a silly thing to do. And, you know, there's a good chance that the trophy wine, the playthings of the middle class and upper class aren't going to rock the world of the people, you know, who… just because it's too different. If you're a fast food burger kind of guy, you know… Beer. The very delicate entrecote steak probably isn't as satisfying. If you had it, you know, every once a week, you'll develop a taste for it and suddenly you'll, like everyone else, go, oh… they don't cook it as well as these guys. But if you're a fast food kind of eater, which, you know, just by the economics, a lot of people are, you have to develop a taste for things that are outside of that. So thank you. Thank you for being on the Cocherterroir. And I look forward to talking to you again very soon. Thank you for having me. This was my great pleasure. And I hope this will be even remotely satisfying to other people. But I had a great time. I think it will be. It's fun. If you have fun, it communicates. This is Simon Jacob again, your host of today's episode of the Cocherterroir. I have a personal request. No matter where you are or where you live, please take a moment to pray for our soldiers' safety and the safe and rapid return of our hostages. Please subscribe via your podcast provider to be informed of our new episodes as they are released. If you're new to the Cocherterroir, please check out our many past episodes.