Unveiling the Mastery Behind Castel's Celebrated Wines

S. Simon Jacob: 0:09

Welcome to The Kosher Terroir. 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. The following is a conversation with one of the most respected personalities in the Israeli wine industry, the owner of Castel Winery, Eli Ben-Zaken. Eli was initially very reluctant to participate in this podcast, as I'd invited him just as the war broke out.

S. Simon Jacob: 0:48

The extreme violence directed towards our women and children mentally impacted everyone here in Israel, and it was hard to focus on anything else for weeks. Eventually, he conclued that life in Israel must go on and that delaying was only playing to the terrorists' ultimate desires. Born in Egypt, Eli's journey and experiences finally led him to Israel. His adventures here could easily be serialized into a blockbuster movie. Of note to me was that, even though he has an exceptionally driven personality, his path through life has been surrounded by misadventures and negative outside forces, but at the same time, it has been a step-by-step, successful progression of being in just the right place at just the right time.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:48

We toured the old Castel Winery, which they have now upgraded into the home winery of their sister brand, Razíel. We continued stopping to taste many wines in development. We were also treated to a look into the progress of their sparkling wine adventure. Eli, the consummate showman, wowed us for over three hours the morning after having guard duty the night before. I'm incredibly thankful to him for his patience and openness in our discussions, especially for dedicating so much time to us. If you're commuting, please focus on the road and enjoy. If you're home, please choose a delicious Kosher Israeli wine. Sit back and join in on a fascinating conversation with this exceptional leader.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 2:44

Well, here we are in the old Castel.

S. Simon Jacob: 2:49

First of all, thank you very much for agreeing to be on The Kosher Terroir podcast. Thank you.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 2:56

Well, you know, I hesitated very much because your invitation came as the war started and I thought it too insensitive, to focus away from what had happened and think of other things.

S. Simon Jacob: 3:23

kn ow you were very reluctant because of the timing and because of the war.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 3:30

Now that changed my mind a little bit.

S. Simon Jacob: 3:35

Thank you.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 3:37

I think we have to prove that it will not disturb our everyday life that we have to carry on. So here the premises. Here is probably I don't know if you've ever been before- I've never been.

S. Simon Jacob: 3:54

I've never been to. This is the first Castel Winery.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 3:55

This is the first Castel. If you look at the low roof, this is the original structure of the chicken shed.

S. Simon Jacob: 4:04

Wow.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 4:05

Which was like this until the end, there and also here. Here you can still see the pipes. We build this in spring 1973 as a stable, a stable.

S. Simon Jacob: 4:28

Stables.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 4:32

We wanted to have a riding club here and you see, you saw fear. His father and I built this and in the end the war came and we were away for six months, both of us, and there was no more money to feed the horses. They had to be given away and that was the end of the horse adventure.

S. Simon Jacob: 5:15

Later this became a chicken shed. This was after the restaurant in Jerusalem no no, no, we're talking 73.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 5:28

We're talking 73. We're talking 74. After I came back from the front and no money Certainly not to buy any meat and three children, the youngest one year old and the oldest four, and my wife selling tupperware and I giving English lessons and British lessons, and until 75, when I got a job in Kibbutz in a new hatchery, with our future as uncertain. Wow, I came from Israel. I was born in Egypt.

S. Simon Jacob: 6:30

Your family was, from where the Halabim.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 6:34

No, from my father's side in Morocco. His son was Moroccan from Tangier, not from Tangier, from Taituan, it's a Spanish enclave in Morocco and his wife, my grandmother, was from Damascus, not Halab, but from Damascus.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 7:01

And the Mawas family and we were planning. My father was. I am an only child and the war for us stopped us, like after we were planning more. In fact we made three in 34 months, but the war and the financial situation were enough to. The war prevented us from thinking of any more children.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 7:36

I came to Israel. I am the only one in the family who came to Israel. My father was an armchair of a dionist and I heard a lot of stories about how proud he was of Israel. But then we, when it was time to go anywhere, it was Australia, and at the last minute he got a job in Italy In a firm he was representing in Egypt. So we went to Italy. My mother was Italian and that's it. So I came to Israel in 1970. September 70,. Actually it's very interesting. I don't know. You know some things are there to make you ask questions, but you don't know what to look for the answer. I left Egypt on the 20th of September 58. On the 20th of September 70, the Sukhlut put me on a boat from Arsai to Israel.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 9:00

That is, I did exactly the trip in the direction. Eitan was born in Jerusalem May 14th of May, 14th of May 71. And the 14th of May 71, in the Jewish calendar was Yomir Ushalay.

S. Simon Jacob: 9:32

Wow.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 9:32

Wow, I have other dates like that there are no coincidence. I was born on the 18th of September in Rosh H'Shoshana. My son, ariel, was born on the 18th of September Yom Kippur.

S. Simon Jacob: 9:50

We covered all the holidays.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 9:55

So, anyway, I came to Ramat Raziel in 71. I realized that I wanted to live next to the land, to have real roots, to have a house that we loved generations. I became a restaurateur, which saved us financially. Suddenly we had money and we did it with the house. It was a mistake. We should have taken it down completely and built a new house, but they called them Sukhnuthouses. They were built standard building chip In 88, I planted this vineyard.

S. Simon Jacob: 10:51

So this was the first vineyard.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 10:52

This was the first vineyard. Wow, it is on a plot that is very, very rocky, very hard rock, and I couldn't plant any other trees there. So because it was so not rocky in the sense of stones, really flat rock, so I got about 20, 30 centimeters of soil, I got a bagger to break the rock in the rows so that the roots could get through, and this is from this I came, the first Castel Grand Vain in Harvest 92. If you go back and visit in Yadashmona, there is a film, a video, showing in the first harvest.

S. Simon Jacob: 12:01

Wow, I think I saw it last year.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 12:05

It's going for one year already, so who?

S. Simon Jacob: 12:09

already. These are so beautifully trained, they're unbelievable. I mean who you already learned how to do the vines?

Eli Ben-Zaken: 12:18

the trained vines and what have you? They are planted, okay, but these are just amazing anyway. Yeah, these are being planted and these are very unusual. These are 1000 vines per hectare, per dunum.

S. Simon Jacob: 12:36

Wow.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 12:37

That is very, very high density Right In Suba. We are the only ones in Israel, probably, who have high density vineyards. In Suba we planted in 2002 high density it's 160.

Ovadiah N. Jacob: 13:02

Wow.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 13:03

Plas bedunam. We have come to the conclusion that it's not. It's not really Improving very much. It is true that about 440 is the best, the ideal, the idea is right, but this is how many?

S. Simon Jacob: 13:24

this is a thousand. Wow, no, that's. I'm looking and it's like so and very low.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 13:30

Yeah, okay, what now? Very small plot, you can do it. We have a renewed all the white making here, moving to To wooden tanks, which are more appropriate to Mediterranean.

S. Simon Jacob: 13:52

Varietals varietals.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 13:56

We do see rock I don't move and burn ash and of course we have some big tanks for blending and we can take something here very cool so I'd, yeah, both a big to be the local thought they learn only Tom poem.

S. Simon Jacob: 14:22

These come from where?

Eli Ben-Zaken: 14:24

from France these come from France. You are very expensive, you know, and they only, they only last about ten years.

S. Simon Jacob: 14:32

You know I'll tell you something the. I have always been unbelievably impressed by your, by the, the new winery and the barrel room. You could almost eat off of the floor of the barrel room.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 14:50

It's so clean and so well kept once Adam Montefiore wrote that I build the two most beautiful wineries?

S. Simon Jacob: 15:01

No, yeah, there are rooms in Israel.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 15:04

We are one here. Yeah and the one there. This is a rose, this the rose, and this is a rose.

S. Simon Jacob: 15:16

Me from red or this is my favorite to taste, rose, but I haven't ever tasted it from a wooden Barrel, I've only tasted it from steel.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 15:29

This is, you know, this is the rasiel rose. Okay, this is only for more red. This is only for more red. It's not blended. It be blended. You know, these are Our. This is a wine that is fermented in barrel, not here, fermented. You'll see the in 600 liters barrels, big barrels, and Now it is here and also in the in the barrels down and it will be bottled Around May June. This is the Rosel will be the Rosel Rosé 23.

S. Simon Jacob: 16:14

Yeah, I can't spit it yet, it's too good.

Ovadiah N. Jacob: 16:20

It already it already really has the characters of a rose. It's.

S. Simon Jacob: 16:26

This is my well favorite way to taste Rose.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 16:29

So here we make the wines, and it used to be all stainless steel tanks here. Yeah, in fact, the easiest the easy things was to to say with the same tanks and and do more.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 16:49

In fact, the easiest thing was to make more of Castel here, right, but we decided to do new things, so and and you know, it is not like I Don't like to talk about other wineries, but what is done usually is that a winery would have different varieties and make different wines of different backgrounds yeah and we win Castel were Bordeaux totally Focused, because when I started in 92 and I 88, when I planted the vineyard next to the house, I For me, the only wine I I really knew and I really loved what's Bordeaux and the white is Chardonnay between those two but in between those two, chardonnay for me is the Reddest of the white white white yeah, because it's full, it's full.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 18:05

It ages well in barrels. It's yeah it. I love Chardonnay I have. The story I love to tell is my first Chardonnay. I was in a Gastronomical trip with my wife in France and we got to Burgundy, to the town of Milligny and.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 18:34

There is a restaurant there with two stars. It's November, still empty. We ordered the food and when we get to the wine, I said what? What is the local wine? We're talking about it? 85. I'm still far away from wine. And she says that Pili-li-moorache. And I said, and what color wine is that? Wow, okay. And she says white. And I said well, well, huh, so Boora, it's you know like. And I'm still so ashamed I said okay, I Don't like white, but I'll order a bottle.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 19:25

One of the best whites in France you know bottle, for then it was about a hundred dollars, right, but the dollar was very strong and the Frank was very low then and when I tasted the high tears in my eyes, I told my wife, you know, if, if I didn't know the color it, I would be sure it was a red wine, so that this is how I fell in love with. But we only made you know, we started really very slowly. We started with two barrels from the plot here in 92, bottled in 95, and in the meantime growing slowly, like from 600 bottles to 2000 to 3000, and for six years we only made ground van. We didn't make other wines. Only in 78, 98, we added the, the petit Castel, in full force, that means differently, and a trial of three barrels of Chardonnay. So really we, and then we stayed for with three wines. We are talking of 98.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 20:49

2009 is the first. Through, say you know, there's a lot of talk about new wines, yeah and Okay, it's fun. But it's fun and for people looking for for their place in the wine industry and and so on, all this is really the sadder. But you cannot build an estate like we have.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 21:20

Was playing around. People like to ask and what's new? And I said there is a new vintage.

S. Simon Jacob: 21:28

You know. I'll tell you something I have. I only started drinking Castel in 2002 and a half. In 2002, half of the half of the one was Cache. So that's the only time I drank it and from then on I have some 2003 Petit Castel's. The people said no Granville, that's, that's good, but Petit Castel little never last. Unbelievable. They're just fantastic. Look.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 22:00

I let a letter in a secret. Yep, we grow on, grow on grapes, except for the vines we have in Kibbutzuba. All the all the rest we grow. Maybe we buy five to 10% from other origins, mostly to check the water. The sparkling wine we make in Brazil is totally not from the region, it's from the granites from the wrong go line. A thousand meter altitude, how high is?

S. Simon Jacob: 22:42

it here. Here is 700, okay, because it seems very high.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 22:47

Yeah, okay but we'll talk about that. There were here.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 22:51

Maybe afterwards right we're now. We are talking Petit Castel, okay, and the aging capacity, because we grow our own grapes, we can produce really a lot of very good grapes. So but the standard and Is always gets also higher and higher with with time that you want and and so. But in the end, when we taste the vintage before blending and decide what will go in, what we, we, we mark them with ABC and the number of a wines because they all, they all put in barrel separately. You know, it's not Every plot, it's put in barrel as a plot, as a tank as a plot, and and we keep them like this until May the year after. So when we have, you have too many a's Wines and you cannot flood the market with Grand Vans.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 24:06

Yeah and also creep the Grand Vans for two years for a second year in in the barrel room. So there's a limit of how many barrels of second full you can keep from one year to the other. So really there's not much difference. It is more more low than Cabernet. Usually it's more fruity but with a potential. I can open a bottle of First vintage 98 if you want. I.

S. Simon Jacob: 24:45

Won't drink it.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 24:46

You won't drink it. I'm sorry but it was not.

S. Simon Jacob: 24:48

We never worked on Shabbat, no, you know what I'll tell you something you could convince me.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 24:55

This is a traditional burgundy barrels. We use only traditional style barrels. They cost a little more, but for the aesthetics. So we are now in the In the sparkling wine Sparking Lounge operation. Okay, it used to be the. It used to be the Shard on a cellar of Castel and we have. We have Transformed it with, as you can see, little little tanks, little tanks, and Because we have many wines, for example, this wine is has is a blend with wines from wines from 2016. This is also 17, 18 and so on. This one is a Shard on a from 21. Here we have also Also Pinot Noir this is a show, don't know from 20. This is this year Pinot noir and and Shard on a Blend. This is this year's wine and what you have in the barrel is all Shard on a from For sparkling not sure the name for for the sparkler for the sea.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 26:42

Yeah, not for the sea, but there See all barrels.

S. Simon Jacob: 26:51

That's why they have the dates on them from then. Okay, that's on figuring it, okay. The first started working in 1970.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 26:57

Right right, so they're six years old. So we start with the blend, the oldest blend we have.

S. Simon Jacob: 27:07

So I just want to tell you one other thing that I noticed. In the bot in the in the barrel room, most other people have barrels put them on metal racks. Yeah, not only are every bot is every barrel absolutely perfectly aligned, but they you do it with these wooden blocks, yeah, which must be an unbelievable amount of effort to get them exactly a line, and it's just, it makes.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 27:37

Amazing you.

Ovadiah N. Jacob: 27:46

That color. Can I just say I can go on record because I'm not the official podcaster. Your long is absolutely my favorite white wine in the world.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 27:56

Absolutely my favorite you know, you know, in France, the pullback after testing the other place the point back in the barrel. So this is our oldest blend. When we make the non-vintage sparkling we take from different ventures, this is 21. 21 was a particularly good vintage.

S. Simon Jacob: 28:39

20 yeah, the Maron dollar the 20 petite castell is Absolutely my favorite.

Ovadiah N. Jacob: 28:50

Have you had? Have you had the 21 yet? Because I had it on the plane and it was spectacular also.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 28:55

The 20 was just like the ticket fell can age as much as as much as castell, and you know, as I say Hebrew, yes, I know come a lot. We have receipts for that. So this is a this year's vintage Shad on a from Maron. Go long, most of it will go into the this year, this year's bottling of sparkling wine.

Ovadiah N. Jacob: 29:36

This is super approachable.

S. Simon Jacob: 29:38

This is amazing.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 29:45

It really is nice so this is Previous bottlings of of sparkling wine. They're on the lease. Yeah, every six months we move them from a From one place to the other so that, so that the list can mix again and we still have. You know, we, we make every year Three QV. One is no, no vintage. We make no vintage, rosé, non vintage and a vintage wine, a vintage sparkling. The first one was 2018 and it is still here. We haven't released it. They're only about a thousand one hundred bottle of it and, and our fear says, by the time we want to release it to won't be a lesson, because we taste so you can see.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 31:04

Yes, wow you see the, if you go like this.

S. Simon Jacob: 31:11

You say welcome back.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 31:13

These are the six hundred liters of barrels.

S. Simon Jacob: 31:19

Twice the size, yeah three times nearly.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 31:23

And it is, we ferment in it. And we have pipes, flexible pipes. We put in, yeah, during fermentation With cool cold water. That means we can. We can control the temperature of the fermentation. In fact, all the wine, all the rosé and all the sparkling wines under go fermentation in these barrels. Then they're taken away.

S. Simon Jacob: 32:07

I was never here before Wow.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 32:12

You know, after the gate on your right there are olive trees.

S. Simon Jacob: 32:20

Yes. They're on top of that.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 32:28

So these are? We use them to ferment. For example, all the chardonnay for the sparkling wine was fermented here, but it is aged there. After fermentation. It went there and you would be the first not from the family or the team to taste our first whites from Brazil. Wow, first of all from Brazil. It's 85% russan. After that, you taste it brunache and sira. And a little more red.

S. Simon Jacob: 33:21

This is more red.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 33:23

This is another more red. It's beautiful. We did, we were not able. We didn't have enough tanks to do it separately, so 75% of the wine it's russan, by the way.

S. Simon Jacob: 33:51

Yeah.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 33:53

Russan with a little vionier. Wow, and so what we did is You're really playing. You're having a good time 75% is without malolactic fermentation and 25% did malolactic fermentation.

Ovadiah N. Jacob: 34:17

You could be a traditionalist, but this is an incredible scope of experimentation and beautiful wine.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 34:28

By the way, in this room you can see the stack of wood on your left. These are what the French call pipitres. In these you turn the bottles of sparkling wine in the traditional method by hand to get the leaves down. So soon in February, march, these will go away.

S. Simon Jacob: 35:06

The tables will be here.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 35:11

So this is the first russan.

S. Simon Jacob: 35:14

This is lovely.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 35:16

This is on the level of Chardonnay traditional. It's in wood, not in small barrels but in 600 liter barrels, but on the leaves but on the edge once a week. So here, as you can see, we have Bordeaux barrels which we get from Castel because we don't want to have a new wood here. These are 18, 19 barrels, the pins they are four or five years old but slowly, slowly, we are getting the big barrels, the pins. The first year the vintage is put in small barrels. The second year it goes into large barrels. In March all this will go up, the big barrels of 22. 21 is already bottled, but not this will go up and 23 will go into it. So this will be bottled March. April kept for six months in the bottle.

S. Simon Jacob: 36:53

So again, this is the 21?, 22. 22.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 36:57

21 is already bottled, but not.

S. Simon Jacob: 36:59

Okay, the 22,. Right, he said the 22. I love this experiment.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 37:07

Well, you see, our experiments are large-scale experiments. No, but it's also. But yeah, we, we have to. In my opinion, people have to decide what they want to be. Of course it is not fine. For example, my consultant winemaker tells me you have to decide whether you are in this wine, northern rhone or cody rhone. I have no answer, but definitely there's a style that we want to make and we put all our efforts from the beginning. Castel has never cut corners and even when we didn't have money and we were on the verge of bankruptcy, we bought new barrels. So in the long run it's approved itself.

S. Simon Jacob: 38:28

You have to believe in yourself before other people believe in you, even though sometimes you can have nightmares.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 38:42

Thank you. This is the equipment for the sparkling wine. It's crazy. In Europe, where people are producing sparkling wine, small producers can have people who the job is to give you a service. They come with a truck and they do the discouragement for you, and so on, and it's really pennies. The equipment you see here is 100,000 euros Wow.

S. Simon Jacob: 39:25

Wow.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 39:28

So really, even when we play, it's an investment.

S. Simon Jacob: 39:35

It's a huge investment.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 39:35

We put all the best cards, all the jokers in our head and then, if we fail, we don't blame the equipment, but only ourselves.

S. Simon Jacob: 39:57

This is yours.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 39:59

This is a collection of Some Israelis are from abroad. Here is a bitkin, for example, 12. Here are all the Castel 98, first vintage. Wow, two tulips here. Ramata Golan 83. First vintage. I'm sure it's still good. No, it's crazy. That's the first vintage.

S. Simon Jacob: 40:43

Wow, ramata Golan.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 40:50

Clothe Guts 2002. Merlot 2005. It's time to open these bottles. This is what you call it 79.

S. Simon Jacob: 41:16

This was one of the best vintages. The 76 was.

S. Simon Jacob: 41:20

We finished the 76. I opened a bottle of the 76. I finished the 76 and the 79. But I opened the bottle of the 76 with J Bookspot and I said to him I found it in my cellar. I'm sure it's not good anymore. He said let's open that up. That's supposed to be very, very good and it was excellent. The other two bottles that I had were terrible, but that one bottle that we opened were super. This is a cellar A 2000. Wow, I have a 2000. Wow, and these are all your big bottles 97.

S. Simon Jacob: 41:59

96 is 97. Wow, amazing. So is this the width of a barrel.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 42:12

Sorry.

S. Simon Jacob: 42:13

Is this the width of a barrel?

Eli Ben-Zaken: 42:14

No, and in its length and its length, the width of the barrel, not the height of the barrel.

S. Simon Jacob: 42:21

Wow.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 42:22

And these are, you know, with a trolley, yeah, and every single barrel you've seen there has gone through there. The big ones don't come from here. They have a hole in the ceiling here, yeah, with a wedge, and they're taken down one by one. Wow, you know, I'm sorry to be not to be made at receiving you this morning why you came early. I came early, that's okay, and I had God's duty this night.

S. Simon Jacob: 42:59

What I had, god's duty, okay, do you want to go out to the house? Yes, I would love to, let's go.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 43:07

Hopefully this year we'll make olive oil. We have. These are trees that I planted here about 10 years ago. They were already 25 years old.

S. Simon Jacob: 43:23

Wow.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 43:24

They came from Amushav, not far away. They wanted to plant a vineyard and in Israel you cannot destroy an olive tree, you have to find somewhere to replant it. So I bought them over very little money, but there were manzolinos. It's an olive to eat, not to make olive oil.

Ovadiah N. Jacob: 43:58

Not to oil.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 44:01

So two years ago, we grafted them all with Suri olives. Yes, by the way, suri is not from Syrian. Okay, it's from Tso.

S. Simon Jacob: 44:14

Oh, interesting, you see this rock here. That's what's underneath all of this.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 44:21

All that, all like that, Wow. So I couldn't put any fruit trees. You know, I had no intention really of making wine, really I had no dream. Or, and when I couldn't plant anything else except for vines here, I said okay, vines, but I'm not going to eat all these grapes.

S. Simon Jacob: 44:51

Right.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 44:52

So it has to be for wine. So I planted Cabernet and Merlot. I planted Cabernet first, as they planted Israel, three meters by one and one and a half meter between vines. And then I said to myself anyway, you're not going to go into this small plot with a tractor, it would be all hand work. So in between the rows of Cabernet I put a row of Merlot, and I have them and I had no idea what is you know the right maturity. And we harvested them together, the Cabernet and the Merlot, and it came out of wine, surprisingly good, wow. And I bought the farm. Here was the chicken shed and it was all in wood and as best as a roof. And Shimon Zal, father of here, and I we dismantled it. We built the frames of what was supposed to be one day a stable and to adapt all the asbestos we had here. I cut them with this for days. And then to think now what we know about asbestos and what we didn't do then. Luckily it didn't throw any damage.

Ovadiah N. Jacob: 46:49

So sorry you weren't able to live the dream of the horses, but thank you.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 47:01

It's in my DNA. I like challenges. The same about the sparkling wine.

S. Simon Jacob: 47:11

You have to love challenges to take on sparkling wines.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 47:15

You know, this is incredible how they made this. You can't really see it. Yeah, maybe you can. They took, they came the Arabs, they came with pieces of wine, of bark, of Suri, we know, with the eye where potentially you could have a shoot here. They cut the same size of the bark, they put one the new piece of bark on it. They wrapped a film you know plastic film on it for a month Until it was sure that it was in the dark. And then with time it grows. You can see the cut here.

S. Simon Jacob: 48:19

Wow, right here, all the way down.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 48:20

Yeah, but we have to go through to, for example, this To prune those back. Yeah, this does not belong, All this.

S. Simon Jacob: 48:32

That's the old growth, that's the growth coming out of the original tree.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 48:37

We can sit outside or whatever you'd like, or maybe outside.

S. Simon Jacob: 48:41

Let's sit outside, it's good. Did you get the book, Not yet. I'm going to get, I'm going to buy one. To that to that.

Ovadiah N. Jacob: 48:50

I was going to go buy the winery, to buy it.

S. Simon Jacob: 48:52

So thank you, it's amazing.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 48:57

We can go through the kitchen and outside.

S. Simon Jacob: 49:00

I have the right person, right it.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 49:04

It was obvious what. For me, it was obvious. Who will write it. What would you like to drink? I'm okay. I'm okay. You know what?

S. Simon Jacob: 49:24

What do you have that's open?

Eli Ben-Zaken: 49:27

No, nothing is open, but I open it for you. I have in the fridge a sparkling wine. Yes, yes.

S. Simon Jacob: 49:38

I have sparkling wine. I have some of your sparkling wines as well, but I would love it. Let's have some sparkling wine.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 49:44

And I have also a bottle of sweet musket, have you?

S. Simon Jacob: 49:50

tasted a sweet musket I have. I bought it at the. The only place you could buy it is at the winery when I bought it. So I bought it from there because I have. I have children and a wife. I have children. My wife has got a good palate, but my children are all they like sweet wines.

Ovadiah N. Jacob: 50:06

Not all, but I like it as well. Some of us know what's good, you know.

S. Simon Jacob: 50:11

My son is. My son is my wine.

Ovadiah N. Jacob: 50:13

This view is just incredible.

S. Simon Jacob: 50:15

Yeah, well, he does have enough wood.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 50:24

You see how much he went in. It should be in about this length, Right. So the time.

S. Simon Jacob: 50:35

Time to finish Time to finish.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 50:40

Our thoughts with the our soldiers.

S. Simon Jacob: 50:42

How to film.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 50:45

And our kidnapped brethren. And may the government has the dvuna to find a way out Solve all the problems we are facing.

S. Simon Jacob: 51:06

You know it's hard. The haim tov in shalom. Has there been an impact on the winery from the war?

Eli Ben-Zaken: 51:15

No.

S. Simon Jacob: 51:15

Yes.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 51:16

Yeah, of course we didn't sell a bottle for a month.

S. Simon Jacob: 51:25

Most of the distribution goes through through restaurants and things like that. No, well, also man. Okay, don't worry, I'll let you eat a little bit.

Ovadiah N. Jacob: 51:37

For what it's worth For the good, the made in castel. We try. We buy bottles of wine. The problem is that the wine shops have to buy it from the winery also. So we had on Shabbat I had 20-21 petit castel. That was beautiful.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 51:54

Thank you. Look, we did a lot of charity work. We have a lot of staff in the army. You know soundbound Right, our vineyard manager. She's an officer in the army also, so she was taken away and our three die workers asked to leave, so we were left with nobody. And, by the way, how about the wine?

S. Simon Jacob: 52:49

It's delicious. I already tasted it's crisp and fresh and wonderful.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 53:06

What most amazes me is how small the bubbles are, and this is a sign of a good sparkling wine. You can feel them on your palate, on your tongue.

S. Simon Jacob: 53:24

What about you personally? How are you impacted by it?

Eli Ben-Zaken: 53:28

Look, I am a Zionist. I came to Israel out of Zionism, you know. I took my wife, who is not a Zionist, and I convinced her to follow me. We had already a daughter, 10 months old. I came to Israel Within a year. I was enlisted in the army for three months because I had two kids. Already I was 27 years old. I managed to do two miloim before one training and one miloim in the Golan Heights before the war. I was six months in Sinai and what we used to call Africa. That means the other side of the canal.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 54:27

Without any second thought like that. This had to be done. But what's happening now? It's worse than Yom Kippur. I volunteered to office as course I was in artillery. I discharged the major. There is a lot of land in danger in Israel of before 67, like all the old Galilee, all the Negev. All what's happening with the Arab population is majority in Galilee. The Negev is not ours because it belongs to the Bedouins and we are looking for new ventures which will not resolve the problem of us living with the Arabs. It will not resolve.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 55:33

They are here to stay. We are here to stay. So what do we do now? It's very sad for me because I am old school Zionist left wing Kim Buzi Moshebim working the land. Today, we get zero help from the government. We lost 10 million shakals on a fire in 2021. We got zero money.

S. Simon Jacob: 56:12

So I don't really honestly understand that myself, because it's ridiculous. This is a huge industry in Israel and they need to support that industry because every other country is supporting it. In the United States, you can buy a bottle of Spanish Kosher wine for $10. How in the world can you ship a bottle of Spanish Kosher wine, make it and it's not bad wine and ship it and deliver it and have the distributor make a profit on it at $10? It's like crazy. It was sold for $2-3 dollars.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 56:59

All the Europeans have a lot. They come to visit. At one point they see the wine ring, the Castel wine ring, the Yadash Muna, and they said how much help did you get to build this? Because if I would have built it in France, let's say, between 25 to 35 percent subsidies I would have got from the States or from Europe. Every tractor you buy, you get a subsidy on it and we don't get anything. This is the main reason why making Israel is expensive, because people say look, a shoot is expensive.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 57:53

Anyway, I needed staff, I wanted making staff. I am limited in my choice by religious Jews, but I am very happy with them. By the way, I have fantastic staff. I think our head what are we? 22, 23? So I think you shine.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 58:27

It's so long, I can't remember how long. It's over 12 years, a brilliant mind, intelligent, very good memory, developed to be a very good taster. He's become a wine maker. He's not a washgyak, he's a wine maker. We have David, who lives in Telstone, comes with a bicycle and he manages all the barrel rooms. You know 1300 barrels and all by hand.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 59:12

As you said. There are no racks, no forklifts to put them in. Every barrel is emptied with a pump in its place, put on a trolley, taken to the washroom, which we cannot see in the washroom. Next time you come I'll show it to you, because it's my invention of how to wash the barrels. Every barrel is taken by hand, emptied of the leaves, washed, steamed and brought back, and two times a year, when most of it happens, and it starts in May, and the second time is during the winemaking.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 1:00:06

And you know why I like to have barrels. It's because I like to grow my wines separately, every parcel in the vineyard, which is also a variety. So I have my Cabernet from Samerbech, thyme, bezzouba, and it will go into a tank. From the tank you never know exactly how much. You cannot put the juices or the free run into another tank because it will not be full, but when you have barrels, so you can have exactly and then you can have all your press wines separately and it works. So we do tasting, we do tasting. You know it's the name of the vineyard, the type of wines and how many barrels of it you have.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:01:18

I've seen the pictures of you when you do the blending. Wow, that's like people don't realize how much effort that is.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 1:01:27

And I know somebody said on your podcast wine makers live in fear, the fear of difficult weather during the growing season, and then the fear to have missed the right time to pick or to have picked too early or too late, and then fermentation can be stuck. Successful fermentation, and then the quality of the wine, and until the day you put it in bottle and it is not really, the fear ends. But then you know you can't do anything about it anymore. A wine critic who gave me a low mark on a wine, on a caigaranda, and then a few years later they asked to taste the wine and all the all the vintages so, and he gave me two or three more points on the second tasting. So what the shit? You know, my job is to make a wine and once I put the cork in I can't change my mind anymore why his business is so no, at the first tasting, what is the potential of the wine? And not have to taste five years later and say, you know, he doesn't say it.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:03:09

Never would say that I love your quote. Your quote is history will remember wines and wineries, not critics. Perfect, absolutely, it's very true.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 1:03:19

We don't do shows anymore except for the local Mateo. We support from the beginning, we support the region. You know we have the quartet the. Guinness Quartet and we support the region because the administration of the region since the 90s has supported wineries, all the wineries in Israel. The small wineries are breaking the law because the law in Israel does not allow them to make a winery out of their Out of which they'll apply the wine their sheds, which are empty anyway.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 1:04:08

They used to grow chicken, they don't anymore and the local government has, although it has the authority to close them down, does not close them down.

Ovadiah N. Jacob: 1:04:21

Has looked the other way Just making some of the best wine in the world. Maybe, yeah, bootleg.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 1:04:29

Yeah, exactly, so really I support them, I support the local authority and I and we take part in their wine festivals, but wine shows are very expensive and it doesn't really help for the business.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:04:52

It doesn't. You don't have enough bottles.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 1:04:54

No, I have enough bottles, but.

Ovadiah N. Jacob: 1:04:56

You don't need it for the reputation at this point, yeah we don't need it anymore.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:05:01

The only, the biggest mistake I made in my life was making Aliyah. 50 years after wanting to make Aliyah.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 1:05:10

For me it was. It was very, very clear and and simple. You know, as I told you, my father was a, I'm a child's dentist and in 67, I was at the University of Geneva. The Syrian students would say to us you know, this time we'll throw you all into the sea. There were three weeks of not knowing what will happen. You know, from the moment Nasser asked for the UN to withdraw and close the gulf, the Gulf of Alat.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:05:58

Yeah.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 1:05:58

So I was supposed to get married in July 67. The first plane that left Switzerland the day after the war. I came as a volunteer and two months later my future wife came. Eventually we got married in December but I decided this is where I want to live and I'll come back. Come back in 70. The Parnassah was difficult until the Mamamiya restaurant Very difficult. I went from one job to the other in agriculture and also in jobs around agriculture. The restaurant really gave us changed our situation financially. We didn't become millionaires but we became well off. From poor we became well off.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:07:15

Why did you change then? Why did you decide to close the?

Eli Ben-Zaken: 1:07:20

restaurant. The restaurant went bankrupt. We didn't go bankrupt in the sense that it was closed. It was not working anymore. And it was not working anymore because of the second Intifada. Tourists didn't come, People didn't go to restaurants because restaurants were blowing up everywhere in the town in Jerusalem. So we were losing money. Also, the bank didn't want to recognize the wine stock as a collateral.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:08:09

That's really difficult.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 1:08:13

So that was the end of the restaurant In a way. Luckily, we had started the winery professionally in 1996. Because until 1996, it was a hobby. So it's really very lucky that we had an alternative. Also, it was not still viable, but wine being a product that does not go to waste, and by 2004, we were out of it.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:08:54

With all the adversity, when did you realize that you were going to be successful? Was that the 2004? Or do you ever realize that you're going to be?

Eli Ben-Zaken: 1:09:06

successful. I'm a difficult person to convince. For example, the restaurant I was at was out of work in the middle of 1980. I had an American friend from the army. He was a guide. We were making fresh pasta at home. He used to come to eat with us. One day he said if you open a restaurant, I put $5,000. That's what we did. He was with us for one year. After one year he went away with $10,000. It was a big success. My wife was determined and convinced that this was the right thing to do. I went along. I didn't have any gut feeling about it. I went along with the winery.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 1:10:15

When Serena Thadcliffe wrote the facts in 1995 to Dalia Perlerner Zall, who brought her the bottle, saying that this was probably the best Israeli wine she ever tasted, she also said something which was very, very important. Apart from the compliment and classic and a real tour de force in French, she was very, very convincing for me. She wrote that terroir must be right, the height, the clone of the grapes. This was very important for me. I'm not a religious person, but I live here and not in Ramadan. I have a plot of land and I am agriculturally minded. Suddenly it's as if I am in the right place at the right moment. At that point I had a definitely gut feeling that this is what I should do. Also, my background like multilingual cosmopolitan, very European.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:12:11

What prompted Raziel Raziel?

Eli Ben-Zaken: 1:12:15

is because we had a winery, although, as you saw, we invested a lot to change the equipment, the tanks, the camoos and tanks. We had the winery and the choice was that there was to make something new. Usually wineries, small and large, have different types of wines of different regions of the world. They make cabernets, but they also make sira and also make argaman and so on. I brought Petit Vidal to Israel, although hardly anybody remembers I brought it from Davis against the decision of the Ministry of Agriculture who bought a lot of. It was in 1997. There was a list of new grapes to Israel. I said where is Petit Vidal? He said if you want to fight and bring it, it's your decision. I had to fight Agatha Tzomeach how to bring it. They said you can only bring it from Davis, california. You see, davis, I did.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 1:14:10

I don't believe in varietal wines and even our Chardonnay it's not called Chardonnay on the label. I believe in blends and the Chardonnay is an exception. I like blends. Once I was at the tasting, the wine maker of Motoro Chin was there and he was asked why Boudogme makes blends. He said why should I tie my hand behind my back? Sometimes this plot is better, sometimes the other plot. The Cabernet is very good this year, but under Merlot Less I'll put less Merlot.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 1:15:08

I have a philosophy that a winery should not do too much. As I told you before, for six years we did only Grand Valle. Then we did in 1998, we did the first Petit Castel and a trial of Chardonnay which blew me up completely. I couldn't believe what I tasted. The decision was to make also a white wine, a Chardonnay, in 2009,. We did our first trosé and then we didn't make it because it was very hot and we missed the time to pick the grapes. But it's a wine we can't make enough of. My kids were against it. They said you know, you taught us that three wines, it's enough. And now you come with a pushed wine, with a simple wine, and I said but it's so good, you know, and our clients will appreciate this drink in the summer. And when we moved to the new winery, we didn't want to make too much of what we already had, like Petit Castel and Grand Valle, and we thought we should have an entry-level wine.

Ovadiah N. Jacob: 1:16:53

The La Vie. La Vie Red and La.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 1:16:56

Vie White, which is simple but very, very good value for money. You can drink it every day. It's fulfilling, it's very fruity and the Sauvignon Blanc of the La Vie White, in my opinion, is really for the money. It's one of the best. And so what do we do now? We do Sierra in Castel, like everybody does, and it is not in our school. So, with the winery in Ramatrasil being available, it was ideal to make new things, new varieties and a new style wine. So we have the Raziel Red. The Rosé Raziel is also barrel fermented. You taste it.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:18:14

The new vintage.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 1:18:20

It is a wine that it's not a light rosé. It's a really mid-body rosé which goes very, very well with food. We make sparkling wine, which is quite an adventure.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:18:42

I don't know how in the world people get into that. No, not, I love it, but I don't know. It's such a. It takes wine and makes it three times as difficult, doesn't it? Because you've got to ferment it, you've got to go through all the process and then you've got to go through the discouragement.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 1:19:04

You have to ferment it twice. If ever I do something, I want to do it completely, and I'm lucky that the family is accepting to make the investments. For example, we have nearly 800 dunams of vineyards, all in more or less in between 650 and 800 meters altitude, and they're all on both sides of the highway. Two thirds of them we're attending ourselves. One third is in Kibbutzuba, with Zoom. I've been working since 97. And so from very early I told my son, the most important is to get our hands on land. Very little available land up here, very little, because it's so stony. So look at the hill across the valley. You can't plant anything there.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:20:35

Yeah, it's all stones.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 1:20:39

But we succeeded with Malikha Misha'an Neve Ilan, by the way, between, here is the only vineyard I can see from my house, my vineyard. You see the antenna.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:20:57

You go down the white buildings.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 1:21:00

Under the white buildings you can see now for the city. It's gray.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:21:05

Yes, but I can see it, this is.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 1:21:07

Murveder you have tasted.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:21:10

That's it. Wow, what do you like the most about the business? What's always been the thing that's driven you in the business?

Eli Ben-Zaken: 1:21:19

When I decided in 75 after Serena Satkiv wrote about all the compliments about the wine, I imagined something different of what I got in the end.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 1:21:37

So, as I told you, there was no dream and there was no goal. We were making a small amount of wine 2000, 3000 bottles buying grapes because the small plot was not enough. We were buying grapes, making only one wine, which is most difficult to make one, only one wine, because all what you make will go into that wine. You cannot say, like we do today, this is not good enough for Grava, it will become Petit Castel, and this is not enough for Petit Castel, it will become Lavir Rouge. Then, whatever you got you made. Then we planted first vineyard in 1996 and then I second the vineyards in Tsuba in 1997. But my dream was what I imagined would be at the time when I got that gut feeling that that's what I want to do. I will work about six months a year and six months I'll be able to travel around the world.

Ovadiah N. Jacob: 1:23:15

It's a good dream.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 1:23:19

The business is two minutes walk from the house. Once the wine is in the barrel there's not much to do. But it's not that you still have to sell it. It has become a full-time job, but it's a fantastic occupation because you have everything in it. You have agriculture. It's not a stump, it's not just saying that wine is made in the vineyard, Wine is really made in the vineyard. You cannot improve good grapes or bad grapes, so really you have agriculture. Maybe we buy only 10% of the grapes we use. Definitely we buy the grapes for the sparkling wine and then the rest we have. For example, we have Gronach planted and Carrignon planted, but they're not in production yet, so we buy some. But the idea in the end is to use only our. And we learned a lot about irrigation completely different from irrigation than in Israel or what we were taught to do by the Ministry of Agriculture instructors at the beginning.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:25:18

What was different about the? If you don't mind saying what's different about the irrigation that they're telling you, that's.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 1:25:27

We were taught not to irrigate until the growth of the shoots will slow down. And you can see it when it slows down. The links between where the leaves are on the shoots are larger at the beginning and it becomes smaller and smaller, and that would be usually around June, sometimes even the end of June. And then to start irrigating, and then we saw in the vineyards places where the canopy would not grow at its full capacity. So we started asking questions and then we found a research in the University of Montpellier in France, about irrigation. We were saying exactly, completely the opposite. The vine should grow without stress until the result when the grapes change color, and so you have to keep them unstressed during the period, which will last until about July, depending on the variety, and then stress them To give them first of all a message stop growing leaves and take care of the babies.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 1:27:35

But to do that correctly you have to do another operation. First of all, this is expensive because it's a little more water than what we used to give one. Second, you have to crop all the time the vine on top because of the growth, Because you're giving water at the time of growth so that the growth is even more vigorous. So you have to crop, so it's more expensive to do that. But at the same time you have to check the water potential in the vine, which is an operation we do every single parcel in the vineyard once a week. It's the job of two people. Today, and today is because we do it in all the vineyards and this gives you a method of trying to take out a drop of water, the first drop of water, out of the stem of a leaf. How much vacuum you have to have to get that drop.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:29:00

I was going to ask you how you do that. That's brilliant to use a vacuum to figure out how much water is in there.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 1:29:10

So at the beginning of the season you will have values of minus 4, minus 5. By the time of the raison, you should not be more than minus 9, minus 10. And then when you start irrigating again, you keep on checking, but by the end of the raison you try to keep the vineyard at about minus, between minus 12 and minus 15. And this is so practically until the harvest. We have our hands on the growth, how much water and how much we give, and it's always, and also the weather, like this year, which was a very hot year. We were really getting much more, so that the stress would be as small as possible. Now, we didn't have damage in the vineyard this year. No, no, no, no bunches have crippled themselves, dried up or anything. What we don't know about the 13, the 23 vintage, is what did the heat do to the grapes? That means, okay, we lost the acidity. It tastes fine now, but in the long run we don't really know what really happened. What really has changed? Maybe potentially.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:31:14

But you can't just taste that in the grapes and the juice that's coming out now.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 1:31:20

We don't taste any difference now. But I don't know in the long run and we are very satisfied for the time being with the vintage there's. Also, we're investing really a lot of energy and money in our vineyards. We are in the process. We are in the sixth year of conversion into organic grow. Handling of the vintage of the vineyard.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 1:32:05

It has been a preoccupation of mine for a long time, but we had to solve other problems before making wine making wood wine, selling the wine, paying back the bank, because many people think we have partners in the winery. We don't. The only partner we have is the bank. And also, when we had to shut down, mamma Mia, all our debts were in the bank. We didn't owe a single penny to anybody, except we paid everybody at the bank and what we owed was we owed it to the bank. So, first of all, you have agriculture in this business, which is very, very, very important. You know, the Romans used to say that in every new territory they invaded, they planted vines. You know why they planted vines? To show the local population that they had to stay.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:33:27

It's a good symbol. That's a really good symbol.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 1:33:32

So this is the first positive aspect of wine making wine making as a wine maker and owner of a winery. The second is you dealing. I'm not a chemist but I understand a bit. You know what's happening. Fermentation is something extraordinary. There's a lot of talk about spontaneous fermentation or whatever. You know, whatever yeast ferments, your grapes do not come from the vineyard, the vineyard, the yeast that comes on the skin of the grapes is minimal. Really, it's in your equipment, in your building, in your tanks. This is what you have as a natural, local yeast. And the way we ferment it's dangerous, but this is what we do. We cold soak the grapes for a long time, between a week and 10 days, and even with very, very low temperature of about 6 degrees, it begins to ferment. It begins to ferment with indigenous inverted commas yeast, but then we put commercial yeast or industrial yeast, whatever.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:35:32

You're selected yeast because it's not like just industrial yeast. You pick the yeast that you want, yeah, and the yeast I pick has been selected.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 1:35:43

This is the right word to use. And then what happens? In fact, we get the first taste of the indigenous, but you get the finish of the selected and I think this is part of the taste. This is not a secret. I have no secrets in winemaking. In my experience, winemakers have been very good to me all over the world and Tels tells whatever he does and has no secrets.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 1:36:30

But because it's not like cooking, you cannot copy really because you have another terroir, another climate, you can do the same thing and get different results. And in the end I had to decide what made more sense to me to make wine and this is what we decided. Very long it's rich people winemaking In the tank for a week to 10 days of cold soaking, another 10 days at least or more, of fermentation, then alcoholic fermentation. So already we're in 30 days and usually we go up to 40. Now it means that those tanks cannot be used twice in the season. That means it limits your capacity of winemaking, that we have found that the exchange between the skins and the wine in long macerations it's at the beginning.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 1:37:54

There is extraction from the wine, extracting from the skins a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot. And if you would separate them then you will have more in the wine than in the skins. But if you give them more time the wine will give back to the skins because they will try to go back into a balanced medium that not one has more than the other. And this is Castel. This is the time in the tank. So all this part of the winemaking and the pumping and not pumping and what kind of pump, and so on appeals to me very much.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 1:38:46

So two aspects are already. And then we have the tasting with people and the exchange, as Afpaz told you about his answer why we won't make peace with the Arabs is because they don't drink wine. It's exactly. It's so important to sit around the table with a bottle of wine. And lately, a new friend on Facebook who is a Lebanese Christian wine maker living in France, and at one point he said he wrote no, nothing like a good wine to solve problems. And he said this is exactly our problem, I agree.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:39:41

I agree. I don't want to go against the religion, but I agree.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 1:39:48

And then there is the art part, the choice of the bottle, the labeling.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:39:55

But you picked a label.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 1:39:57

I made a label.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:39:58

I know, but the label you picked for Grandvine was from the very beginning. It hasn't changed. I'd like your meticulous attention and caring about all of the details. It makes a huge difference.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 1:40:17

You can taste it, but maybe the biggest challenge for me today, of course, apart from every year you know you finish a vintage and you say next year we will learn from this vintage to do this and that next year we'll do different from what we did this year. And there's full of expectation. And you finish a vintage and you're already thinking of the next vintage and what changes you will do. So really the most important thing is challenge is the vignette, and we are really. The vignettes are our responsibility. They are ours except for Tuba, and with Tuba our relationship is such that really they do exactly what we want.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:41:23

This mirror is exactly what I heard at FLUM. I know they're your partners in the quartet, but they're also. They're trying very hard. I think they're behind you as far as timing is concerned, but they're trying very hard to get into control of their own vineyards and their own destiny and their own future.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 1:41:46

They came a bit late on that, understanding that it's difficult to find land. It's really difficult to find land.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:41:58

I have one last question. You are sure, okay, you've been in this business for a long time. You've been in Israel for a long time. Are there any lessons that you've learned from it, that you I mean, you've been describing lessons all through this session, but is there any overall lessons that you've learned in dealing in the wine business and dealing in Israel?

Eli Ben-Zaken: 1:42:23

No, but I have another one because this podcast will be heard all over the world.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 1:42:29

Yes, when I was a student at the University of Jerusalem, I was given a job by the Jewish agency. The offices in Geneva were the central offices for Europe. I don't know if it exists today, but there was a new atelier that I was organizing. They gave me to organize New Atelier and the World Union of Jewish Student Woodrush. Also, the guy who gave me the, my boss, was not in the office in Geneva, he was in Jerusalem, a religious Jew, naftali Bargiora. I have tears when I think of it, naftali Bargiora. Afterwards, his cousin's children worked for me at Mamma Mia. Naftali Bargiora was Bambergere.

Ovadiah N. Jacob: 1:43:50

Bambergere Bargiora.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 1:43:55

And he said to me you know, if you want to succeed in Aliyah, there is only one way you burn all your bridges. There's no way back. You come and you have to make a success out of it, Because and he gave me examples of lawyers, American lawyers, taking a year off from their partners and giving a year to give them a different answer and then finding themselves in the impossible situation of what do I do now? And that's it. You know, we came here. It was not easy. I'm sure that, thanks to my wife and who was the hero of the Yom Kippur war, she was left here for six months three kids, one to four, and 12 horses, 2000 chickens and no driving license. She used to take the bus with the little one in her arms to town to have driving lessons and she would put on the instructor's lap the baby.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:45:42

Wow.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 1:45:45

And we made it. I was lucky that we made it. We could have also not made it.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:45:55

I don't know if you could have not made it. I'm telling you from what I've observed, your drive and your, you don't just let things go. You pick up everything that you see and it's important.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 1:46:15

Yeah, but it is important.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:46:17

Yeah, no, but it is important but it is.

Eli Ben-Zaken: 1:46:21

It's an obsession. Yes, I know.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:46:25

But you know, without that obsession, it's very hard to get things done. Yeah, it's very hard to get things done, thank you. Thank you very much for being on the Kosher Terwa. This is Simon Jacob, again your host of today's episode of the Kosher Terwa. I have a personal request no matter where you are or where you live, please take a moment to pray for our soldier's safety and the safe and rapid return of our hostages and, whenever possible, buy and share Israeli wine. I hope you have enjoyed this episode of the Kosher Terwa. It was exciting and informative 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 Terwa, please check out our many past episodes. Again, thank you for listening to the Kosher Terwa. The Kosher Terwa is also available on the Nachom Siegel Network at 6.30 pm New York time Thursday evening and on the world famous NSN app.