A conversation with Assaf Paz, Chief Winemaker at Vitkin Winery

S. Simon Jacob: 0:09

Welcome to the Kosher Terroir. I'm Simon Jacob, your host for this episode from Jerusalem. Today's episode of the Kosher Terroir is a conversation with Assaf Paz, the chief winemaker at Vidkin Winery. Asaf's journey started in Israel as a pastry chef and at the Food Science School of Hebrew University, but quickly transitioned to wine, graduating with a master's degree of enology from one of the most prestigious schools in Bordeaux.

S. Simon Jacob: 0:44

Entering later at one of my favorite chateaus, chateau Pentechonais, and then on Twistant in Northern California and Australia, before returning to Israel. Always an innovator, he pioneered the move back to Mediterranean varietals, many native to Israel, and has successfully developed a wonderful portfolio of delicious but, more importantly, memorable wines. Please join us in our conversation, initially about how his winery is weathering the war and then his history, as well as tasting a couple of his latest creations. If you're in the midst of a commute, enjoy. If you're home, grab a glass of your favorite kosher wine and, with the war, please try to make it Israeli. The Israeli wine industry could use it right now. Sit back and relax. So, first of all, welcome to the Kosher Terroir. It's a really pleasure to have you on the podcast. I've wanted to do this for a while, so thank you for agreeing to be here. Thank you for inviting me. To start with, because everything is going crazy with the war, let's start with an update. How has the war impacted Vidkin?

Assaf Paz: 2:08

In a very harsh way. We are a corona survivor. So we passed the pandemic. We say in Hebrew Avarnu et Varro. We've been through Peru, we survived Peru, but this one is much more devastating. First of all, it's not a global thing, it's only us. So there is a little bit, or maybe a lot, to do with us against the world, or maybe the world against us. We expected that most of the people would be sympathized with what happened and the reaction are horrific and the fake news and the hatred and the anti-Semism raising its ugly head. So this is one thing on the moral side and the other, and more basic moral side Maybe I should set it first. It's the loss of lives and the suffering and all what happened on October 7th that we were shocked to discover. And then, of course, our main source of selling wine and income is the hospitality restaurants, hotels, the visitor center, which is our direct connection to our clients, and all of this was shut down for at least three weeks.

S. Simon Jacob: 3:38

So far.

Assaf Paz: 3:39

Yeah, so far. Yeah, it's still on. The restaurants and hotels are still. You know, the hotels are full, but not with tourists.

S. Simon Jacob: 3:47

They're full with all the displaced people? Yeah.

Assaf Paz: 3:51

And we donated a lot of bottles of wines because I was released from a reserve more than 10 years ago, so my unit doesn't exist anymore, even if I want to volunteer.

Assaf Paz: 4:04

So we're volunteering our own ways of giving away wines to whoever we can, not to the soldiers, not to the fighting soldiers, to the families of the soldiers and the displaced families and the people who are fugitive in their own country.

Assaf Paz: 4:20

But the visitor center is really what's really hurting us, because it was shut down until a couple of days ago, until last Thursday, and first of all the finance problem issue and also the moral issue. We were used to have it full with people, with wine lovers, with people that come to the winery and then they discover the wine through the visitor center, which I think it's beautiful. That's what happened after the corona, it was the post-corona effect and now it's all gone and we try to open it in a way that, from one side, will respect the situation and the people that were hurt mostly from it. So no celebration and no festive way of opening, very modest and very quiet. But from the other side, let the people that do want to get out a little bit have a drink, have something to eat and enjoy the atmosphere, so they can come and enjoy our wines in our place.

S. Simon Jacob: 5:30

Are you feeling any impact from Hezbollah from the Lebanon side of the war?

Assaf Paz: 5:38

We have relatives from Kiryat Shmona, so they moved to Herzliya. This is one thing. The other thing that I want to check my vineyards, and not the access is not available to all of them. There are a lot of vineyards that a few meters across the border the Syrian border, the Lebanese border and over there it will be very unintelligent to walk now without any suspicions, without any caution. So I'm with close contact with all our farmers over there to check on them, to see how they co-op, to send them as much as wine as I can, and now it's a time that we don't visit a lot of vineyards, but it is important in few aspects because we do want to be present over there. So this is how it affects us.

S. Simon Jacob: 6:39

Where are you in the cycle of the winery? Where did this catch you? In the cycle of the winery, Everything was already brought in, or were you still bringing grapes in? Or where were you on the cycle?

Assaf Paz: 6:52

So Vitkin is the pioneer of the Mediterranean approach, of the local wine. Enough with the only Cabernet Merlot, chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc, and I emphasize only because I think that all those varieties are amazing and they do have a place in the wine field of Israel. But we brought the Carinian, the Petitsira, the Riesling, the Vionnier, the Grenache, all of those that really adapted to the climate, and what I want to say is that most of them are warm climate varieties that mature quite early, so you don't need to wait with them too long, like Cabernet Merlot. If you pick up Cabernet Merlot and Cabernet Frank too early, you get all those green and harsh notes, and the Mediterranean variety is one of the advantages of them is that you can harvest them a little bit earlier and you won't have off flavors or things that really bother you. Sometimes you have a little bit lower maturity, more freshness, more acidity, but you don't have this green pepper in your face like the border varieties. So it all brings me to the point that we harvest, especially at this harvest because of a lot of heat waves.

Assaf Paz: 8:17

We finished the harvest before Rosh Hashanah. We had only one parcel that we an old wine Argaman amazing Argaman that we harvest after Rosh Hashanah and it was still on the skins on October 7th. So it was the only tank small portion that we needed to press after all this catastrophe happened. So for us most of the winery was quiet and after harvest, post-harvest, situation, we still have a lot of work. I always say that harvest ends with the last press of grapes, but the red grapes. But then you have a lot of work of starting to making the blends, put all the reds, fill them in the barrels Sometimes not all the barrels available, so you need to get out the wines from the last year and then put them in barrels. So we still have a lot of work.

Assaf Paz: 9:16

So in the first couple of days we were at the state of shock. We didn't knew what to do. So we brought workers just for one hour of a couple of hours I should check that everything is okay. And then in the third day we brought them to make the press. And then we decided that the first week we will work like half days so they can be secure, they feel more secure and they can go back to their family as early as possible.

Assaf Paz: 9:45

And then when we saw that it's kind of a war routine, we came back to work full days because there is a lot to be done. We're after harvest, so okay, but still there is a lot of work to be done. And, anyway, I think that it's good that we have a lot of work, because I'm connected it to the fact that I lost my father last summer, and it was during the press of the Rose, which is like the peak of the intensive work of the harvest, and I was at the winery for one week, which for me is never happened before, but then I needed to jump straight back to the deep water and start swimming, because it's harvest. You cannot leave the grapes with unintentional Unattended Right, unattended yeah.

Assaf Paz: 10:35

The baby is coming. You don't. The baby is coming, you don't have a choice.

S. Simon Jacob: 10:39

You don't have a choice.

Assaf Paz: 10:41

So, because I didn't have a choice then I needed to go back to life and not continue the morning and be soaked in that. And it's the same here. We need to go back to life and I think it's a big lesson to all of us. We will fight. We will need to do what we have to do. The Israeli army knows the job. He will do whatever it takes we do.

Assaf Paz: 11:07

We don't need to listen to all the other nations that comfortably sit in their cozy living room telling us what we should do and what we shouldn't do and by which law we should act. We are living here. We are facing the problems. We will solve it, but we should never forget two very important things To go back to life, to stand tall, to say to all those anti-Semit guys hey, this the never again is the never again that you don't hurt, hurt us, never again, but never again. We go, we take our heads down, we're standing tall and we look you in the eye and we say to you never again. This will never happen again.

Assaf Paz: 11:50

And we need to go back to life, to production, to live, to celebrate life and to show them that I'm Israel High in the most basic way and the other thing that we need to keep this amazing unity, this unity that comes to us, unfortunately, more in the moments of grief than in the moments of joy, but we'll need to remember what happened if we were not united. We need to remember that and to know what are the big problems and what are the small problems that we can discuss and negotiate about.

S. Simon Jacob: 12:26

I agree with you, 100%, I totally agree with you. Okay, let's talk a little bit about something more mundane. A little back, tell me a little bit of the history. Okay, a little bit of the history of yourself. It's interesting, I didn't know. You started as a pastry chef and so you started as a pastry chef, and what amazes me is many of the winemakers started in bread or in pastry or in so I'm looking at that, the culinary side.

Assaf Paz: 13:03

What, the culinary side?

S. Simon Jacob: 13:05

Yeah, the culinary side. But it's always interesting to me because it's like you got introduced to yeast in bread and in pastries and then I continued, and then you continue to use the yeast in wine.

Assaf Paz: 13:20

I love what the results in their action, the results that they bring to the world. So, yes, I found lately in my parents' house a book that I got when I was 16 years old about pastries, from a Aaroni chef, israel Aaroni Amazing book. And since then I started to cook. But pastries, pastries, bakeries. I was more into pastries and the precision and the finesse of the pastries than to cooking. And when I released, I released from a military service. I was a tank commander, so it was very aggressive military service, because when you're a tank commander, first of all you're shooting, I think maybe seven types of ammunition and your best friend it's a five kilo hammer. This is your best friend. And then I went to study a pastry course in the school of Tadmou, which was the highest level of hotel and management and culinary studies in Israel. Gastronomic studies I never know if it's gastronomic or culinary, yeah both.

S. Simon Jacob: 14:47

I think both were.

Assaf Paz: 14:50

And so in like a few days, I went from this aggression of a tank, of a Merkava tank. I was one of the first soldiers to be on the Merkava type III, which back then was like the Rolls Royce of tanks, the Lamborghini. And then I moved to study pastry and cooking and it was like a big change but I like big changes in my life. It's really given me a lot of inspiration and I knew exactly what I want to do. I want to make pastries, bake cakes, make sourdough breads, and that's what I did for like at least three years, which most of them I did in Mitspey, ayame, which is a very luxurious hotel in the north, very close to where I grew up in, in Zfat, in the Galilee.

Assaf Paz: 15:44

And then, after three years, something told me that I need to go and fulfill myself in a more academic way and it was my mother, actually, who told me okay, my son, you know it's very nice to have a professional side and make good money, but you need to think on the future. And, like a good Jewish mother, she encouraged me to go and study in the university. So I went to study food science because it was connected. I thought I would go back to pastry as a food technologist or food engineer and I went to study it in the Hebrew University, in the agricultural faculty and over there. Since I love the land of Israel and since I love agriculture, I love to touch soils, to plant trees. I'm a big tree hugger. Everywhere I've been in the world I planted trees from giant redwoods in Northern California to gum trees, which is eucalyptus in.

Assaf Paz: 16:45

Australia and so on, and I went to study biochemistry and food science. I thought I would go back to pastry, but on the way, a thing happened that showed me that wine is my great love, great passion. And great love Because it was something that connected all my loves the love for the earth, israel. The love for biochemistry, because you deal a lot with science. The love of cooking, because when you're making wine not Nevushel, by the way when you're making wine, you're creating new flavors and this is amazing. Through grapes you're very limited compared to real cooking, but this is what makes you really sharp. And, I think, also the love for people, because through wine I met the most amazing people. Wine is a human glue. It's connecting people together. So true, I met you. So true so true, it's really.

Assaf Paz: 17:51

We met in New Jersey in wine tasting in Tiena and it took us 30 seconds to be best friends.

Assaf Paz: 18:00

And this is, by the way when I studied in France and a lot of people wanted to poke me or know why don't you have a piece with the Palestinian? It's been too long, you have to have a piece. You know, when I didn't really have the time or a patient to explain them the whole story and I didn't want to give them history books to know by themselves, I just told them something very simple. I told them it's a problem. One of the reasons is because the other side don't drink wine and they completely understand it in like three seconds. And when you say that you know, it shows you a lot of the mentality. You know, on the Arab side you have a lot of good people. We work with a lot of them together. But when you see what wine does to people and how it connects them, then you see the magic. And I think this is one of the pleasures I drew from this profession. It's when my product connects people and make them such good friends or, you know, couples and so on.

S. Simon Jacob: 19:14

So you learned. As far as wine was concerned, you learned in where, In the Hebrew University.

Assaf Paz: 19:23

It's a faculty of agriculture in Rehovot. I took a lot of courses that had nothing to do with biochemistry because I loved agriculture, like forestry, and orchard and vines, of course, viticulture courses and herbs you know, medicine herbs, things that had nothing to do with my major, but I was so into growing things so I went to study it and it helped me a lot today, even when I'm managing the vineyards of Vidkin and before big wineries. And from there I continued to the faculty of analogy in Bordeaux for a master's degree.

S. Simon Jacob: 20:06

For a master's degree in France.

Assaf Paz: 20:10

Yeah, it's one of five faculties in France that give the Diplom National de Analog, which is like the national Diplom of Analogy. It's a diploma that two ministers in France have to sign it. It took like six years to bring the original diploma back to me. Up until then I went with the permission that I owned that I obtained the diploma, but the real diploma it took them six years to bring me. Wow, Wow. They take their time signing diplomas in France.

S. Simon Jacob: 20:45

So when was that? I know you spent some time interning in Pentecenae.

Assaf Paz: 20:51

Yes, and apparently I have a small part of Pentecenae making kosher wines.

S. Simon Jacob: 20:57

Really.

Assaf Paz: 20:58

Yes, because when I worked over there it was my first vintage in Bordeaux was 1999, which was catastrophic. In France they call it Bonne, which is good. This is the power of French PR when you have like a horrible vintage, you never say it was horrible, you say it was good. When it's very good, you call it exceptional. This is the scale, it moves up. So I worked in both 1999, which was very challenging, and then vintage 2000, which was great vintage, especially when it came just after 1999. And that was in Chateau Pentecanin.

Assaf Paz: 21:40

So I did a research for the diploma over there together with the manager, the le directeur technique of the Chateau, jean Michel Combe, which is today is one of the biggest experts of biodynamics, wine growing and winemaking in the world. He's a consultant, the winemaker that works from California to Far East, I think, and a great man and we had a lot of discussion because he likes to I think he's like he has the Jewish gene because he likes to lead palpels and he likes to check things and to recheck them and to talk about them and to make a research again and again and we had a lot of quality time together and in one of those times we talked about Judaism and, of course, his wife got my special recipe for Chala, which she's making until today, because they fell in love with his bread. And he told me you know, a lot of Jewish people you know approached me because they wanted me to make a kosher version of Pentecanin and I told him okay, and how does this go? He said no, it scares me, I'm intimidated by it.

S. Simon Jacob: 22:56

And I told him why is it?

Assaf Paz: 22:57

You know because so many rules. And I told him. You know what, jean Michel, it's very simple. It's like you decide to make one of your parcels in the vineyard and one of your vats in the winery organic. You know, designated organic, so you need to follow all the rules of making organic wine. Later on I learned that he went for the biodynamic and then you do what they tell you and you follow, and I meant like you won't lie, you know, you do exactly what you should do by the rules and then you have the organic certificate. It's exactly the same here. You have so few more rules that people that touch the wine it's only Jewish. And I explained him, I walked him through this process and I saw that how, one by one, is. How do you say is cons?

S. Simon Jacob: 23:57

pros and cons.

Assaf Paz: 23:58

Yes, so it's an objection went down one by one and in the end, you know, I will ask the owner, I will ask Monsieur Tesseron what he thinks about it, and I told him you know it's open your wine to a whole new crowd of wine lovers that never before tasted it, and I think it's significant. They are good in the business world and you know it's. I think it will do you good as well as a business decision. And what really broke the ice? And that he told me that, like years later, when the rabbi came and they started to talk about wine production, he told me you know what really broke the ice. I told him what you remember? You taught me how to say in Hebrew the days of the week. So yeah, of course. So I told him okay, so today is a shishi, let's finish it off because you have Shabbat. And they were like amazed and that's what really broke the ice and gave them the opportunity to go ahead with the plan. Wow. So I think I had the, I had the part in it, and also I've been in his house.

Assaf Paz: 25:10

He hosts me for a night, me and my wife and my daughter in 2018 for a dinner. And I ask him you know a lot of people tell me, ask me why you don't continue making kosher ponte canay. It's like years you haven't done and yeah, I don't know it really too expensive. I told him you know, name your price, tell it to them. But you should do another kosher wine. Later on I learned that they made another kosher vintage 2019, 2019,.

Assaf Paz: 25:41

They did it and it was like it was six months later.

S. Simon Jacob: 25:45

Okay, so he did. He did 2002, 2003, 2004, and the first one again was 2019, and this is 2020, so that's so this is my job.

Assaf Paz: 25:57

I didn't get the dime for it, but I'm so happy that so many people have this wine in the kosher wine list because I think it's better for all of us.

S. Simon Jacob: 26:10

Actually, to be quite honest, the 2003 ponte canay. Any time people ask me what's your favorite wine, I think that that is my favorite wine that I've drunk in my life. I've tasted many, many exceptional wines, some of them yours, and in fact I was going to. I was interrupting you a little bit before when you listed all the varietals because you left off my favorite one, makabeo. The Makabeo is absolutely my favorite one, so it's just awesome.

Assaf Paz: 26:45

And I'm happy to introduce, like I introduced the top ponte canay in a way, to the kosher wine world, introduced the Makabeo to the Israeli wine lovers from our secret vineyard.

Assaf Paz: 26:57

But you know, 2003 was a very hot vintage and ponte canay is sitting on a very special terroir and my research in ponte canay 2000 was how to make wines from grapes that shriveled a little bit. So we took grapes, we harvest them at the right time and then we left them in the casettes, in the cases for 24 hours and 36 hours. And then I checked it compared to the regular wine we made from the grapes that we harvested and immediately crushed and we had a lot of conclusion about what's happening to the grapes when they are a little bit shriveled and a little bit more concentrated. And Jean-Michel Comte told me that he had a lot of. He was ready for this 2003 harvest, which all of the rest of the chateaus of Bordeaux was quite shocked because it was so hot. It was the first vintage they needed to acidify, to add tartric acid to their wines because it was too hot and jammy and ponte canay did amazing wine in 2003.

S. Simon Jacob: 28:07

That's my favorite vintage. Some people like the four better, but I actually like the three. I like the three very much.

Assaf Paz: 28:13

It's a pity that we cannot drink together the 1994, which I still have in my cellar.

S. Simon Jacob: 28:20

I still have a 2000, I still have a 2003,.

Assaf Paz: 28:23

So maybe we can share that together.

S. Simon Jacob: 28:26

And I also have a 2019 in my cellar in Jerusalem, so maybe we can compare the two. So it's yeah, they're very, very cool. So once you came back to Israel, you came out of it. You came out of France, I'm sorry, and you came back to Israel. No, not straight away.

Assaf Paz: 28:46

When I graduated, after I finished my research in Chateau Ponte Canet. I graduated and yeah, but I wasn't ready to go back and take be in charge of wine production in winery, like I wanted to do eventually, and I felt that I need more experience and I need more skills to do that. So I went to make a stash, to be an apprentice, first of all in Northern California and then down in Australia.

Assaf Paz: 29:21

So Northern California, it's a place called Anderson Valley. I went to California first and foremost because it's the negative or positive of Bordeaux. It's like the complete opposite.

S. Simon Jacob: 29:32

Bordeaux is very square.

Assaf Paz: 29:33

They have their rules. They don't move a centimeter or millimeter from what they're supposed to do. And in California it's like you know you do whatever you need to do, so the finished wine will be amazing. And I went to a place in Anderson Valley which is a very cool climate region in California. It's close to the Oregon border and I went to work with Jim Klein.

Assaf Paz: 29:59

Jim Klein was the last wine maker of Golan Heights winery and through the Golan Heights I got this connection before Victor Schoenfeld took the position of the head wine maker and Jim Klein was the one that made the first katzrin and I think also the spark I think those are the first sparkling, if I'm right about it and he was like after Jean-Michel Combe, which was like my French mentor, the very precise and you know straight French that doesn't walk to the sides. Jim Klein was my mentor for the next level because he's an amazing winemaker, he's an amazing person and he's an amazing teacher and this combination doesn't exist a lot. It's very rare combination. People that are very skilled, then normally they don't know how to teach, and people that know how to teach they don't know how to produce, and he have all those properties. He's making amazing wines, focusing on white wines, aromatic wine wines, one of the most amazing dessert wines I have ever tasted, you know that stands shoulder to shoulder with the best German dessert wines Austrian, alsatian and, of course, souterne and Versailles from Bordeaux. And he also made I study how to make lighter style white wines, because in Bordeaux it's all about full body red, black, heavy armory wine wines.

Assaf Paz: 31:43

And over there I study how to make an amazing Pinot Noir, for example, which I produced today in Wittkin for more than 20 years, and a variety called Val d'Gia. It's an ancient French variety. It's called Napa Gami it's a kind of very similar to Gami and all those varieties that give lighter body red wine. Today we appreciate them, especially in a hot climate country like Israel. But when I started to make Pinot Noir, people laughed at us. First of all, why do you make this thin, reddish wine? Give me the big guns. And secondly, why do you make Pinot Noir? I always need to apologize about it that I'm making it, but today it's like selling out very fast every year.

S. Simon Jacob: 32:32

They're lighter, but they're also. They're elegant and they also have a level of complexity to them which you get to taste, instead of them being overburdened by all of the heavy, heavy maturity and the heaviness.

Assaf Paz: 32:52

So you're touching exactly the important point. You can have a lighter wine, but you don't want it diluted.

S. Simon Jacob: 33:02

You can have a light diluted red wine which tastes like nothing.

Assaf Paz: 33:08

It's a little bit of color, it doesn't have complexity. You take the first sip, you don't want to take the second one, and for me it's always about the second sip that you want to take. So when I'm making blends and I have all the options and I know what I like, but then I give random people to taste it, people that are representing the crowd, the clients of the winery I always look at where do they take from the second sip? So they have like four options, five options, three options. They taste them all and then normally they go back to a certain wine to take a second sip. So the one that they take the second sip from this for me is the winner, because they want to drink more of it. It's interesting, it's delicious. So our Pinot Noir have this dissonance of being very light in color and body, but very rich, very complex and very elegant, exactly as you said. And also our Grenache Noir, lighter, but it doesn't take nothing from its complexity or its richness.

S. Simon Jacob: 34:15

Yeah, it's elegant, it's very elegant. So you went to California, northern California, yeah, so I went to Nervon California, an amazing place, great experience.

Assaf Paz: 34:28

And then I went down to Australia to the Viera Valley.

Assaf Paz: 34:30

So the varietals you were making in Northern California were which, like a Pinot, so they had the Cabernet Merlot and they have the Pinot Noir and they had the Chardonnay and they had the Sauvignon Blanc, but they have Chenin Blanc and they have an amazing Riesling and they had amazing Virtrumening and they have an outstanding Pinot Gris and, of course, old Vines Zinfandel from Unique Parsels, and so I had to. I was experienced of making different vinification with different varieties. For me it's from coming from Bordeaux.

Assaf Paz: 35:12

It's like working with two colors and then starting a rainbow yeah it was amazing and also people in Northern California are very cool people. Today, I think there are some places they go a little bit to the extreme side of being too cool and to simplifying things and not checking their facts and we saw that in the last few weeks how it can drive people mad and go to very, very bad direction. But when I was there in 2001, I was in I was present in the US when the 9-11 happened and I saw what it made to the Americans and the American amazing people basically, but sometimes they are lost Few of them, extremities are lost and I hope they will gather themselves together to go to the to be on the right side of history.

S. Simon Jacob: 36:23

So from there you went to Australia. Yeah, where in Australia? Where were you in Australia?

Assaf Paz: 36:27

So in Australia I went to Yar Valley and I worked in a very unusual place which is a contract winery. A contract winery is a winery that doesn't have its own labels. You know that we have this a little bit in Israel. It's a place when people bring their grapes or demand them to make them a custom made wine.

S. Simon Jacob: 36:50

Custom crush. Yeah, custom crush.

Assaf Paz: 36:52

And so I cannot say that this is the label I was working for, because there are so many labels. But from the other side we, this winery, made in one vintage almost 200 different wines. Wow, 200 different wines. And it's like a from sharp sparkling wines, champagne method, a traditional method, to heavy Shiraz, full body and full body, Chardonnay and oak and all in between. So again, I learned a lot of varieties experienced with a lot of technique, technical side.

Assaf Paz: 37:32

Australian are very good in the technical side, they're very technical and also they have delicious wines. You know, we know from Australia the heavy things, the alcoholic, the jammy, but if you go and look through the real stuff, you go to the amazing things in Barossa, in Edin Valley and in Tasmania and Hunter Valley, and you see amazing wines, fresh, sharp, focused, that most of them aren't exported, the Australian drink and, of course, an amazing beer. Oh, yes too. And then I learned the phrase that I cited in every occasion today that it takes a lot of you to make a good wine. That's what Australian say. You know, I never.

S. Simon Jacob: 38:26

I could never drink beer as a growing up teenager what have you? And then I realized that it was because I never really did manual labor, hard labor. Once you do manual labor, which I then did when I was a late teenager in early, early 20s, when you do real manual labor, when you sweat a lot, beer is awesome.

Assaf Paz: 38:51

You understand why beer is so successful.

S. Simon Jacob: 38:55

Yeah, before that I never.

Assaf Paz: 38:57

I never understood we have an amazing brewery in Israel called Alexander. Yeah they have. Every beer that they're making is excellent in its genre. They're making many types. One of them, it's called a season. It's like a Belgian Ale which they make in the season of harvesting the wheat and all their vegetables, when people are working under the sun and they need something to drink and to be satisfied. So this is the beer that they drink. It's 7% alcohol.

Assaf Paz: 39:30

But when you drink it you know that it's how great it is for people that works under the sun.

S. Simon Jacob: 39:37

So I'm also a Belgian ale person. I like triples, I like the higher alcohol ones, but the really beefy Belgian ales are just my absolute favorite. Yeah, it's like a wine, it's like a Bordeaux.

Assaf Paz: 39:55

It's like a milk. I know it is.

S. Simon Jacob: 39:56

It's true, you're right 100%. So then, when you came back to Israel, where did you come back to?

Assaf Paz: 40:06

So when I came back to Israel the situation was a little bit different, because today there are a lot of winemakers that study abroad. I was the first winemaker to graduate from the School of Wine and Vine of Bordeaux, the analogy faculty of Bordeaux, and I was surprised by that. I was sure that there were Israelis for me, but the dean called me at the end of the first year and told me you're the first one to be graduating, the first Israeli to be graduating. I told him wait a minute, they didn't finish the second year. He told me the first year is the real triage, the real filter. If you graduated the first year, you have to die, not to pass the second year. So please keep yourself alive. And I came back and I had three job offers and I choose to start to work for Tishby Winery which is a family winery near Zichunyakov, very nice people, and they gave me a lot of.

Assaf Paz: 41:07

They gave me basically the key to their winery. I was very appreciating this and two years later I went through I don't know if you can say that, but the head hunting they really, they really trapped me in their net. Kalmel winery wanted to create a special project of a boutique winery and they zoomed on me and they wanted me to go and start in 2003 harvest. But I already promised to teach me that I will stay for the harvest. And I told him you know I keep my promises, so if it's still available, talk with me. After November 2003 and they did, they called me and I went to Kalmel and started working for them and I did few very unusual wines for Kalmel.

Assaf Paz: 42:00

I almost had like a fight over there because everybody wants me to make Golan and Negalil Cabarnes, rubinio, Merlot, charvanes, rubinio, golan Basically what everybody else did, but in a higher level. And I told them you know, you're Kalmel, you're 100 back then 120 years old, today they're 140 years old. And I told them you're Kalmel, you're the one that brought the Karinian and the Granash. Let's do those varieties, let's do the heritage of what you brought to this world and not be like everybody else. This is boring and it wasn't easy. I needed to go. You know I was the CEO complained to me that people told him that I'm wasting the expensive vats on Karinian and I told him have you tasted the wine? He told me no. So first let's taste the wine and then tell me if it's not good. What I did, so it was I don't know how you say like he's dumb.

Assaf Paz: 42:58

It was like yeah, yeah it was very hard to continue.

S. Simon Jacob: 43:01

It was an uphill battle.

Assaf Paz: 43:03

Uphill battle, with one hand tied behind my back. I did a very unusual wine called Sha, late harvest, sha Giverge, rominer, and they didn't want his wine. Eventually, when they registered this wine to a wine competition, it won like the highest rank of all and it was like it was announced as the best kosher wine in the world. So eventually they understood what I tried to tell them. So I I I left them with a heritage of the old wine Karinian, the old wine Petitsura. I told them don't uproot those vineyards, let's do something amazing from them. You're caramel, you have so many thousands of acres to keep, three, four acres here and three, four acres there. Even if it will be expensive, you can do it, but it will worth something.

Assaf Paz: 43:54

And the reasoning of Kayumi, that was my creation. People want to graft it into Cabernet and I told them no, you don't have a lot of real reasoning, especially in this amazing terroir. So I really fight for those wines that the late harvest, sha and I left the heritage in caramel. It was only two years, but very significant two years. Eventually it was too political for me those days. Caramel and I left and the Binyamina was an amazing house for me. They what I called it the seven good years, like for for Jacob Harrow.

S. Simon Jacob: 44:31

Yeah.

Assaf Paz: 44:33

And the yeah for Joseph, joseph, yes, yeah. So the seven good years were in Binyamina. I worked alongside with the Sasun Ben Aon as a chief wine maker and I told him you know what you decide, what you want to do with the high politics. Let me be in the vineyards. I will take care of the vineyards, I will take care of the small technical things that really important in the winery. Let's make some small batches to to, to study what we have. And we did also a very, very unusual things in Binyamina. And then it was time to go to the next place. I became the chief wine maker of Siegel for for a single year. Then I decided that I'm too old for this big wineries and I went and I I asked myself I have a question for you, yeah.

S. Simon Jacob: 45:23

Because you brought it up what's the difference between working in a big winery and working in a in a small winery?

Assaf Paz: 45:34

So a small winery you're doing sometimes you're doing harder work than a big winery, because in a big winery you have for every job. Sometimes you have few people to do it. In a small winery, everyone makes several jobs, making several functions, and sometimes it's a lot of things to do. So, first of all, in a way it's dependent on the winery. It's dependent on the, the budget and how it builds. But normally in a, in a small winery, the responsibility and and pressure could be sometimes even higher than a big winery. When you're producing millions of bottles, it really depends on you how you manage it and who is working under you. Secondly, when you work in a big winery, it's very hard to be in contact with. It's impossible to be in contact with every wine and it's it's still hard to be in contact with with few wines that you you want to to follow. So a chief winemaker in a big winery is like a technocrat, you know is a business person.

S. Simon Jacob: 46:39

He's a business person. He's not a creative.

Assaf Paz: 46:42

He needs to be a little bit more politician. They need to to know how to work with people, like like in all jobs, but over there it's how to move the people and how to direct them. And I'm a more a guy that want to be in the terrain, out there in the field. I want to touch the grapes, I want to taste them, I want to to to be near the tank when they sample it for me and to to check it myself and to smell the, the, the, the smell that come out of the vets when it's fermenting. So I think this is the difference Sometimes you can make tremendous change when you're working for a big winery.

Assaf Paz: 47:21

When I worked in Carmel, I think I made huge change when I moved this big, huge winery to be interested more in Mediterranean varieties. And you know Adam Montefiore, a friend of both of us. He told me you know Asaf after you when you worked in Carmel. I know that it was a struggle for you to to make those Mediterranean varieties shine in the eyes of the of the directors and to explain them that this is the right thing to do. Today, you know, but after you left, every visitor, every, every somebody, that was somebody, a wine journalist, a wine enthusiast, a wine merchant, importer and so on. After he visited, and, and they showed him the winery, they took him to taste the wine that you made the, the, the Old Van Carinian and the Petit Cilain, the Riesling, and so eventually those, the wines that people remember and that's why I made them.

Assaf Paz: 48:18

And people told me we don't understand you. What's your business plan? You have a winery, a small winery that that make a philosophy about those special wines, and then you go to a million bottle, 15 million bottle winery like Carmel, and you will reveal them all your secrets and you make them, make wines that will compete you. I told them no, you got it all wrong. I think, in a larger scale. I think that Israel as a wine nation should do more fascinating wines, should do more memorable wines, wines that when a tourist come here and I always look through the eyes of the tourist that comes and don't know nothing about Israel and they want to drink an Israeli wines so they can drink an outstanding Cabernet Sauvignon and a delicious Chardonnay, but will they remember those wines? They will remember the Carinian and they will remember the Granache and they will remember the Argaman and they will remember the Maccabere.

S. Simon Jacob: 49:15

They'll remember the Maccabere.

Assaf Paz: 49:18

And when they, this is what they take with them. And this was my, my, my motivation. And I told them I don't want to be a, you know, solitaire, the only violin that plays Carinian in this orchestra. I want more people to make great Carinian because only then we can show the world what our strength and how delicious our wines and make memorable wines.

Assaf Paz: 49:48

So every time that somebody make a copy cut of Vitkin and made you know whether it was the wild Carinian, the Peret of Recanati, great job, great marketing job, great label, and the wines of Gisrael, the Argaman and the Carinian and other small wineries, and then in big wineries like Siegel and Barcaan and Carmel. And you know I was so happy when Ellie Benzaken called me, I think 10 years ago, and asked me if he can buy a small quantity of Carinian, I said, okay, if Ellie Benzaken is calling me after his huge success with the board of varieties and the Chardonnay and asked me to buy some, to buy some Carinian for me, okay, I think I made a difference and and and it's the example, amazing job. You know, when Victor Schoenfeld will make a Carinian, then I know, I, I did, I did a real change, okay.

S. Simon Jacob: 50:53

You know what else actually, you know what else has gone along that line, as well as flum with their new white label is also a Mediterranean blend. Yeah, which is extremely.

Assaf Paz: 51:05

And they say we don't. We don't market the wine through the popular varieties. We market it through being a special and unique and delicious wine and that's it 100% yeah.

S. Simon Jacob: 51:18

So after that, where did you go? When did you? When did you arrive?

Assaf Paz: 51:22

here. So when I, when I resigned from Segal and it was like I remember this year of Segal that pulled pulled back his chair and said I don't believe you, you're leaving this amazing job with this amazing salary I said yes, because I want to fulfill myself, I want to, I want to know that I make a difference and and I wake up with a smile. And and those big wineries you know I got tired from it in a way and the very, very nice people in in Burkan, but the system was very tight back then to get to there. I think they made a lot of changes.

S. Simon Jacob: 52:00

It's like meaning rigid, rigid yeah.

Assaf Paz: 52:03

Exactly, and I think that then I decided I need to make a change. I hadn't yet had the place to go, I didn't have the offer or a proposal. You know, I didn't know where I'm going, but I believe in Ashgah. I think that you know I was born in Sfat and in the same. They say in the Kabbalah that a call Kavvom Hirosh, the Rishut Netuna, which is like Contradictive. Everything is, everything is predestined, but you have the right to choose. So how, it's pretty, you will get there, but you need to choose how to get there, need to choose the path.

Assaf Paz: 52:47

So I got a lot of spiritual side from my Years in Sfat and I decided I'm I'm. Until I'm not a Making a place in my heart for something new, nothing can go in. You know, as long as I held this position, I'm not open to other positions. So I but I was right, because as soon as I I thought I will take myself one month of vacation and after two weeks the I don't know how you they say it in in English, but to Keitan, you remember it's okay done one of the Gaza Mini wars. Yeah, started my brother-in-law who managed the winery back then and why the wine production was recruited because he was a big high officer in the in the other in the arm of the one.

Assaf Paz: 53:37

Yeah, and and two of our workers were recruited and the winery was full of wine that needed to be bottle and to be prepared for harvest. It was the month of July, I think, or something.

Assaf Paz: 53:49

Wow and Sharona said you, he was recruited to the army or recruited to the wire. He come in and help us. And so I said, okay, I'm free now. I came back to the wiring and when the this session Ended and the one came back and he said you know, sharona Asaf, it's all perfect. Just if you don't have any ambitions to go to another big winery, please stay. This is how it should be. You should be here full-time job, I have my full-time job in the village and you work with your sister, and then we go from there and then I it was fixed for me.

S. Simon Jacob: 54:25

I didn't have a choice and then I stayed in the winery.

Assaf Paz: 54:28

It was vintage 2014, I do 2015. We moved to this new facility and I managed all the. You know how do you say when you move a flat or a house Logistics, logistics. Yeah, yeah, and then I just stayed, I said okay. And so to them 100% in the family winery and I'm free to develop new products, new wines and Make I make that the wines more precise and more.

S. Simon Jacob: 55:08

Perfect, very cool, very cool. So you've been here since 2014.

Assaf Paz: 55:15

Full-time job. We, of course. We established the winery together in 2001, so we're celebrating the 23rd vintage.

S. Simon Jacob: 55:23

Tell me about the last couple of years. What's what's going on with the winery? What are you super proud of what? What wines do you love?

Assaf Paz: 55:35

So you know, there they were. There are all my sons and daughters. Yes, because few of my wines are more feminine feminine than masculine. I think, I think I think most of my wines are feminine.

S. Simon Jacob: 55:53

Okay, you know.

Assaf Paz: 55:54

If you don't, if you talk about the gender, it's like a trap. So you need to be very cautious today. But I think you can. You can indent. I identify a wine as a masculine wine when it's very bold, very big, in a way aggressive, even though it can be deliciously aggressive, okay, and so it's more about boldness and Very clear in your face.

Assaf Paz: 56:25

Yeah, okay and I think Feminine wine is more delicate, more elegant, more nuanced wine. The Pinot Noir is definitely more feminine, feminine than the Cabernet Frank, for example. Yeah, the Carinian. But even though if you compare my Carinian and my come out of Cabernet Frank to other wineries or other regions, cabernet Frank and and Carinian, you will. You will identify the, the, the feminine color in them, the expressiveness the yeah, the more.

Assaf Paz: 56:58

Not as ripe as other Carinian, but more freshness, more, more complexity, but not in the expense of elegance. So so again, I you know. If you ask me which one is my favorite, I Think it's dependent day, the hour, the temperature. Company a big Very. I don't think I will ever refuse to drink my single vineyard Riesling from. Give a Tishai, how? Or my pink is ready journey. Of course the Carinian, the Pinot Noir, is right at the top.

S. Simon Jacob: 57:44

These are what years? This is the 2000, 2002, 2002 or 2003?.

Assaf Paz: 57:51

I, you talking about Vintage is as well. Oh no, it's very hard. You know that the Macabre is something fascinating that if I can have, if I can drink wine with the you know they. They was asking once if I can drink wine with somebody from the history. So I it was very hard to pick a choice who I wanted to buy, why I want to drink wine with, but I want to drink With them the Macabre.

S. Simon Jacob: 58:30

It's a wine to talk about.

Assaf Paz: 58:31

It's delicious and yet it's so fascinating that they can talk about it Sometimes, wine that you can talk about. You know there are a lot of natural wines, orange wine, there are a lot of sub-genres, but you can talk about them a lot, but I'm not sure I can finish the glass or the bottle and I love those wines that you can talk about them. But still they are delicious and this is what's important to me Vintage, I think Karinian 2005, also 2004, was like this when I tasted in the end of the corona 2020, I think it was something like that.

S. Simon Jacob: 59:16

I tasted no, I think 2021.

Assaf Paz: 59:19

21,. Yeah, basically I tasted. I took a bunch of bottles to a friend of mine who was a private chef and he invited Talia and me for a dinner. He cooked for us, just for the two of us, in his place on the terrace in front of the Mediterranean, the first front. The sunset was there and everything was perfect and I brought much more wines that he can drink because I want to left a few bottles with him.

Assaf Paz: 59:47

And we opened the 2004 Old Vine, karinian. It was 17-year-old Karinian back then and that was a wow moment for me because when we made it I knew it was a delicious wine and a good vintage. And when I wrote the back label, I wrote that it could age from four to seven years, perhaps longer. So it was seven years old and it was still alive and delicious. Not just alive, but alive and delicious, and it was. I said to myself wow, I was probably right with this. You know, prophecy of Karinian that this is what we should grow here. And also with few of the late harvest wines that we made that age wonderfully, the 2005 late harvest vitkin, which is mostly rizzling. So those are wines that I will come back to every day.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:00:52

I love them as well. I love them as well. 2023,. How is the vintage looking like?

Assaf Paz: 1:00:59

So we were. Sometimes we were terrorized by the heat waves and from a lot of things that happened happening. We don't have catastrophe like in the last 20 years. I remember this is my 26th vintage. I think I only saw once or twice catastrophe in harvest in Israel it was grapes that were shriveled to a level of small stones not shriveled in the world like raisins. They shriveled and dried. So no more grapes over there.

Assaf Paz: 1:01:36

That was in 2002 and I think a little bit in 2010, in few areas when the grapes were too exposed to the sun. But other than that, it's not like Europe in humid and wet climates, when you can have hail and sudden rain and a lot of problems that can really affect your grapes to a level that prevents you from either make good wines out of them or make wines at all for you. So this is something that I think we don't have here. It's the promise land. This is the promise land for grapes. Not a lot of people say it this is the promise land for grapes. Of course we would love a little bit more cool areas or places with different soils and so on, but from vintage to vintage point of view, we can make delicious wines almost every vintage 2003,.

Assaf Paz: 1:02:41

Specific for your question was a little bit challenging because of a lot of heat wave, sometimes very long heat wave. But if you are out there in the vineyard, if you're checking the grapes, if your hands are on the ground, if you're checking the grapes, if you're out there in the vineyard, if you're checking the grapes, if your hands are on all of the operation, you can identify the challenges and then act accordingly. So in this case, there were a lot of vineyards that we picked earlier and we got all the quality that we wanted, but in the level of quantity we were affected. So in 2022 we had a huge increase in quantity, between 20 and 30% in average. The quality was amazing, especially when we saw the quantity goes up and we were afraid of diluted grapes. It didn't happen In 2003. We were very concentrated in solid wines that we made, but quantities are lower. That's why we harvest earlier, because when you have less grapes per vine it's ripening faster and we're feeling the harvest before the war, before the 7th.

Assaf Paz: 1:04:20

Thank God. So all in all, we are happy with it, but I always like to talk about the quality of the harvest few months after. Let's talk on December or January. Now I'm building the blends of the Pink Israeli Journey because this is the wine that everybody waits for it, and the dry Giverts from Inner as well, for the same reason, and it looks very promising. It looks like every year we are a little bit more precise, a little bit more focused on the quality and the wine style that we want to achieve.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:04:54

One last question, because you brought it up in this what's the balance between the vineyard and the winery for you? How much is vineyard, how much is winery? How much? There's some winemakers who feel that it's totally the vineyard and that, if you don't, the only thing you do in the winery is express what's coming out of the vineyard, but not correcting it or doing anything like that. And there's some winemakers who feel like the winery is the place where the magic happens.

Assaf Paz: 1:05:34

I think both are right.

Assaf Paz: 1:05:37

I think that 100% of the grapes is coming from the vineyard, but it's up to you in the winery not only in the winery, but also how you grow the grapes, how you grow the vines, how you direct the vineyard to give the production the quality and the style of wine that you're looking for for the fingerprint that you want to put on your wines. So it's a little bit like workers. You have a lot of workers that some of them are very qualified and talented and the other ones are a little bit less. One of them have the capability to do the very fine work and then to go through details, and the other one is more like mass production. He will take the hammer, he will have a lot of work done by the end of the day, but not with a lot of precision. So it's up to you to see in each and one of them the quality that they have and how you can maximize it and bring it to expression. So this is the work in the vineyard what you have and what you want to achieve, and if you can get it from these vineyards.

Assaf Paz: 1:06:51

Sometimes it's not there. You need to look for another path or another wine style to make. Sometimes there are surprises, but 100% of the quality is fulfilled or kept in the winery, so you can have the best grapes. It's like cooking you can have the best steak, the best piece of meat or the best fish, but if you don't know how to deal with it, you will destroy the quality and at the end you will have very dry fish or a horrible steak because you didn't cook it properly. So both are right and I think there is no place that you can say this is less important, so I put less energy on this side or the other.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:07:39

So it's a real blend between the two.

Assaf Paz: 1:07:41

Yeah, and you know. It's like you're bringing up your children. You know that each and every one of them is physical qualities, but you have also the education that you give them, the guidance that you give them. You show them that they can achieve everything that they can do, and so on. So you can have a very talented boy, but if you don't let him know that there is absolutely nothing that he cannot do, he can go to everything that he wants to do and he can achieve everything. Maybe he will finish as a mediocre man. At the same time, he can be like this amazing person that contributes and so fulfilled, but he didn't get the tools or the knowledge that he can do it.

Assaf Paz: 1:08:33

So it's a little bit like that in the vineyard you have the vineyard, the potential, and then you need to know how to fulfill this potential and to keep the quality in the winery. So in the winery, it's the know-how, it's the precision, it's the quality of the work, of the labor and, of course, the technology. You can have tanks from gold, but if you don't know how to work with them, your wines won't last and won't be good. So every detail is important. I call it the weakest link theory. In order for the chain of wine production to be intact and to be Amazing right until the glass of wine poured in a restaurant or in your home and the wine will be amazing, you need to Understand and to make sure that there are no weak links. That's it.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:09:29

You know, as we've been talking I'm sorry, I keep looking over your shoulder because behind you, mm-hmm, are the their, their guys, who are in there.

Assaf Paz: 1:09:41

You know topping the topping the barrels, topping the barrels, they could be quality in their friends, the quality we age, we are making we age to the barrels. And once I asked my professor, who is very knowledgeable about, about French, he is deceased already it was like the god of white wine in the world. Then he did professor Danny the border. I asked him why they call it to yash, why what I mean? He said First time I don't know the answer and he looked and he checked it. He checked it, he said because On the fair, a laoy, a laoy, it's with the eye which we feel the barrel.

Assaf Paz: 1:10:19

until it's filled, we see a laoy it's a Wow it's not oil, very like in Yiddish, but it's high in French. So they do it by the eye. They feel the barrel until the eye shows that it's filled. So I love it. You see what we did for the for this war, we had a lot of different Plates and a lot of the different tapas that we serve in the winery, and then we decided so one of the changes we made we made it just only one plate.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:10:50

Yeah but with everything I love it. I Love it as we say, so, and he?

Assaf Paz: 1:10:56

hides the one of the talented so I love it, the beautiful. Yesterday. You know we need what's it.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:11:05

Yesterday we bake together you know we need, yeah, wine.

Assaf Paz: 1:11:15

This is. This is a new one.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:11:17

People and people will be interesting long You're changing your style of labels? Yeah, because this is like a special label.

Assaf Paz: 1:11:28

Metode l'ancienne. So the from one side, the reasoning is like a Is very feminine because it's a white wine and it's all about delicate wine and but it's so straight and it's so focused and it's so Intensive that it's it's also masculine. This is my intake about the reason. It's a German inspired reasoning. I don't want to say German style, because this is Judea. Style is like this is yeah, reflecting that you're talking about kosher terroir and the no, no, no, no, I meant it, I stole your glass. No, no, no.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:12:13

No, no, no, I meant it. I stole your glass. No, no, no, no, no.

Assaf Paz: 1:12:19

Don't worry, so it's. We want to emphasize the Judea Food hills there, well, which we harvest the food from, but the inspiration and the style is more to the German side and all that is Asian styles to more focused, more sharp, more intense, the quality in France, a. Nerveuse not nervous. But you know, yeah, an edgy wine in a way, because it's sharp and I think as a wine for food, that's amazing. And now we get a schmita that. So we cannot mix Vintage as to make the topping of the barrels.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:13:10

Everything thought about that. What I never even thought about, that about the top in that topping barrels because of the 22.

Assaf Paz: 1:13:17

Yeah, you can top a schmita with nonchmita, you cannot top nonchmita with Okay. So this one, the chenille bland, no, this one. I love this variety but it always went to the why these are a journey. It was always very fresh and this vintage was a little bit more or body. So I took I had an excess of juice and I didn't know where to put it. So I put it in two barrels and it reminded in the barrels Like, quite naturally, it was a little bit more on the skins. The fermentation was hotter than normally I use. So I always very restrained and I always very precise with the temperature of fermentation and here, because you cannot control the temperature of fermentation and you don't, you cannot really control it in the barrel it went loose and it went up and but the result was very fascinating. I said, okay, I need to separate. I don't mix them in the way. White is very journey. I don't know what I do with it, but I see I I filled it into a tank and I need to fill the tank and I added like 15% of mixture of Macabelle and and green ash, blonde and in the end I Said, wow, this is, this is fine, I bottle it. I don't know what I'm going to do with it, but first of all that I bother it because I want to save this result, to freeze it in this situation and to see what happens. And then I tasted it. After bottling I said, hmm, it's good, but it's not ready. I wait. Tasted Six months later, it still needs time. Still no one. One year later it's not there yet. Like 18 months later, I said, okay, now it's time to to, to figure out what it wants to be. And Only two years after the bowling we released it. So it's a white wine. Normally we do it only with the insight.

Assaf Paz: 1:15:11

With the Macabelle I Did a special label. I called it method, method a la nsien, not me, though. The shenna method. Additional, it's for the sparkling champagne. Yeah, yeah, I'll. I'm seeing that means that you did things like in the old times. The skins were in a contact a little bit more than usual, like few extra hours more Defermentation was a little bit warmer. It's probably indeed the indigenous yeast, because I Separate the juice in the barrels. I didn't add nothing to those barrels, I forgot about it. So you know those little mistakes that makes perfection.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:15:45

And in the end, so you didn't add yeast to this.

Assaf Paz: 1:15:49

You know, there is. I know so I don't want to say it's a Indigenous yeast, but it's spontaneous fermentation from which is. I don't, I don't know, I'm, I don't have a lab for yeast and in then you get this elegance and this Decadence in this wine, but yet you have a lot of power. So again, I cannot say if it's masculine or feminine, but I don't care. It's a delicious wine, it's, it's exceptional. Anyway, this is our new wine and we sell it only here. We have a. I like it a lot.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:16:26

Few hundred balls. I like it a lot. Thank you For giving me the time to be on the kosher terroir.

Assaf Paz: 1:16:31

You asked all your questions. Yeah, I did the important ones. You want to like make a finish line that thank yourself for joining me.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:16:41

That's what I was just doing. Okay, so that's a Daraba, a soft. Thank you very much for joining me on the kosher terroir.

Assaf Paz: 1:16:48

My pleasure every conversation and wine test take with you. For me it's a big insight about many things.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:16:53

So it's wonderful for me so.

Assaf Paz: 1:16:56

And discovering the it's fat connection was also.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:17:00

also, I can discuss both of these wines, of course.

Assaf Paz: 1:17:03

Yeah, okay.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:17:13

This is Simon Jacob, your host today on the kosher terroir. I have a personal request no matter where you are or where you live, please take a moment to pray for our soldier safety and the safe and rapid return of our hostages. And Whatever, please buy and share Israeli wine. Thank you, I Hope you have enjoyed this episode of the kosher terroir. It was exciting and informational for me as well. Please subscribe via your podcast provider to be informed of our new episodes as they are released. If you're new to the kosher terroir, please check out our many past episodes again. Thank you for listening to the kosher terroir. You.