A spirited conversation among Friends while savoring Israeli Wine...

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 among friends. Both Kenny Friedman and Etan G arrived back in Israel last week. Etan G is a globally known Jewish rapper of Shlock Rock fame with a taste for wine and an unlimited curiosity for nuances in wine tastes and wine-making details.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:06

We spent Shabbat together enjoying some exceptional Israeli wines and then sat down Motsi Shabbat Shabbat evening for an intimate conversation about Israeli wines, some personal Jerusalem observations and fielding some questions from Aitan, all while sipping some splendid Vitkin 2015 Riesling. If you're commuting in your car, please focus on the road and enjoy. If you're home, please choose a delicious co-share Israeli wine, sit back and listen in on this spirited and informative discussion among friends. So the first thing I want to say is welcome to the co-share terroir. Thank you, I've got a. It's a pleasure having you both here. Yes, it is, yeah, it is. It's really kind of crazy. I'd say more for us, I believe. So I don't know. I don't know about that. It's definitely for me. Who's here? We have Aitan Ji, always have Aitan Ji in the house, okay.

S. Simon Jacob: 2:11

So Etan G is here, and we also have Kenny Friedman, which is like the sommelier sommelier.

Kenneth Friedman: 2:18

Wow, wow. I'm going to get hats printed up tonight. You should. It's great to be here and I love both of you, and I think this is above my pay grade to be on this personally. I doubt this makes the cut. Honestly, it's going to end up on the cutting room floor, but I love being with Aitan, who I've grown up with my whole life, and Simon, the legend himself. Oh God, all right, here we go.

S. Simon Jacob: 2:46

What are we going to talk about tonight? I think we should talk about wine.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 2:50

We should, because I see in front of me three glasses of wine. Yes, of white wine. Yes, why white? Why it got to?

Kenneth Friedman: 2:58

be white. Who's conducting this interview?

S. Simon Jacob: 3:01

No, no, no, it's fine, it's a free flow, it's a free for all.

Kenneth Friedman: 3:03

Yeah, why? Why I love white wine and I've heard that all salmon. And I both love white wine. Simon loves all wine.

S. Simon Jacob: 3:10

Kenny was interested in having a little bit of wine. This is an interesting wine and I said to him hey, let's go find a wine downstairs, and he picked a Vidkin Riesling from 2015. Wow, happens to be a special and absolutely beautiful bottle, and it's delicious. It's really delicious, kenny.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 3:30

over Shabbos you were talking about white wines and how you love white wines.

Kenneth Friedman: 3:35

Most people.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 3:35

I would say the market. I don't know. People buy red wines. Why is that? How can white wines be used for holy sacrifices in the base on Makedash, those kinds of things?

Kenneth Friedman: 3:47

Well, I can't answer as to that, but I can answer the first part of that Go ahead. Simon can handle the more ritual questions. I'll try Go ahead. I think that people are. I think the main thing with the preponderance of red wine is that people are comfortable with what they know. People don't like feeling stupid when they walk into a liquor store or wine store.

S. Simon Jacob: 4:09

I don't mind.

Kenneth Friedman: 4:10

I'm always stupid. People like asking for cab. They know cab, they know they like cab and they feel comfortable asking for that. People are, I think, maybe afraid of white wine. It's something new for them. Do you agree with that? Something I think about sometimes Is that do you think there's a truth to that, simon?

S. Simon Jacob: 4:27

I think there's definitely a truth to it. People are comfortable with what they seem to know and I think they feel that they can't do too wrong. You know, picking a cab.

Kenneth Friedman: 4:37

It's. Also it answers the question as to why people generally drink cab. I think in a lot of people. You know, I had this conversation recently with some people about oh you know, the Jews love cab so much. I'm like, I think, everyone when they don't know so much. You go into any wine store around the world. People veer to cab because they know that they're afraid of pronouncing things they can't pronounce, and cab is something they know and are comfortable with. I think that's the case and I think that's partly for white wine also. I just what we were also speaking about today is that I think Israel really produces some beautiful white wines and I think they're unheralded.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 5:13

So to be clear, the white wines are made by the green grapes. Yeah white grapes. Yeah, and like a cabernet is made by the purple grapes.

S. Simon Jacob: 5:22

Yeah, but it's more than that. If you take a purple grape and you squeeze the juice out of it which is how you make white wine and then ferment the juice without the skins or the seeds or what have you, you'll end up with a white wine.

Kenneth Friedman: 5:40

Even with the purple grapes, in most cases there are red fleshed grapes, but most of them are, you know. Think about it. Even the red grapes we eat table grapes have white flesh for the most part, maybe.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 5:52

Well, I'll take your word for it.

Kenneth Friedman: 5:54

But it's the skin that gives it the color. It's the skin that gives it the color.

S. Simon Jacob: 5:59

So if you take a grape, the way they make red wine is they actually crush the grapes and the skins and together and then they ferment that and that exposure is what makes the wines red.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 6:16

And then the white wines. They take off the skins.

S. Simon Jacob: 6:18

They basically squeeze the grapes, separate the skins off totally and they just ferment the juice, gotcha.

Kenneth Friedman: 6:27

So you see the color of that.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 6:29

Yeah, but the audience can't.

Kenneth Friedman: 6:30

And I'm asking you and we're going to explain to the audience what's going- on there.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 6:33

What color is that and what?

Kenneth Friedman: 6:35

is it? It's a well, you shouldn't describe wine.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 6:39

It's that color, it's a golden, it's golden, it's golden.

Kenneth Friedman: 6:43

We're drinking. We're drinking a nine year old Riesling and this is a golden color.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 6:47

What is a?

Kenneth Friedman: 6:47

Riesling. Riesling is a grape, it's a type of grape.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 6:50

Very good.

Kenneth Friedman: 6:51

And it's a grape that ages really well too. That's not true for all white wine, especially with some. With how some white wines are made, riesling has a unique ability to age well, especially the good ones, like this one. But you see how it's darker. That's an indication of age. What year is that it's?

Etan G The JewishRapper: 7:08

nine years old, it's 2015. Okay.

Kenneth Friedman: 7:11

And I just whoever's listening out there. This is really beautiful wine. Wish you were here with me. I know it's delicious.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 7:17

So now my questions are thus the white wines for people I would say as a idiot savant. My question is in general, I've heard white wines go pair better with fish and light foods. It's a lighter wine than a red wine, which often is heavier.

S. Simon Jacob: 7:39

Yes, that's. That's normally so if I'm not having fish.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 7:43

I'm having steak. Yeah, I having chicken. Why would I go with a white wine?

Kenneth Friedman: 7:48

You asked me the question. I would answer because you drink what you like. I drink a wine that I love with any food. I don't. I don't generally cater to that idea so much, but there is something to it in the.

S. Simon Jacob: 8:02

This definitely is, except, let me tell you, though, there's of white wines. There's certain white wines that are very light and refreshing and crisp Like a spritzer.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 8:17

Yeah, no, it's not a spritzer?

S. Simon Jacob: 8:18

No, it's not. It's not like a spritzer, but it's it's. There's certain wines, like the Chenin Blanc, that are just extremely light, okay, and those are ones that you'd eat, you know you'd have with fish. Actually, some of the fancier ones, some of the crazier ones, like some of the Acavorias orange wines are, have a certain amount of acid to them. So the acid actually works with spicy foods really well, but in this instance, in this instance, almost lost a glass of wine there in this instance, we have this was my glass.

S. Simon Jacob: 9:01

This is. This is a fuller bodied white wine, so it's not. It's. This would really go well with a lot of different foods. It's not made for just fish or chicken light and what have been used.

Kenneth Friedman: 9:15

The general idea also is that if a very powerful wine will overpower the food and very powerful food can overpower a wine, so that's like kind of the basis of that idea of pairing. Some wines aren't going to work as well because they just don't, they'll be overpowered, or vice versa. What is pairing? What does that mean? It just means picking a wine that's going to best reflect what you're eating, and vice versa.

S. Simon Jacob: 9:41

Or interact with it in a way that will be pleasant to eat.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 9:45

So does that mean that when you're drinking a wine, it tastes? It could taste better with a certain type of food than another?

S. Simon Jacob: 9:52

There's certain wines that really are not meant to be drunk without food. Okay, they're really meant to interact with the food and they're you know that's. That's the way you really need to drink those wines.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 10:07

I like it.

S. Simon Jacob: 10:08

Yeah, it's interesting Okay.

Kenneth Friedman: 10:10

I do think it's overplayed somewhat, because if you love a wine, drink it, you know.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 10:16

What wines would not go well with? Well, I don't even know what it means to go well with, so I'm drinking it all.

Kenneth Friedman: 10:22

Well, you're not going to like. Simon was mentioning Shen and Blanc, you're not going to have a Shen and Blanc with a steak. It just doesn't make there.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 10:27

That's a light wine with a heavy piece of it. So what doesn't taste good with that?

Kenneth Friedman: 10:30

Is that tasting good? Is it the steak that won't taste good?

Etan G The JewishRapper: 10:33

Is it the wine that won't taste good?

Kenneth Friedman: 10:35

It will, absolutely the steak. The wine can't stand up to the steak. Basically, you want a heavier, like, fuller-bodied type of wine. That's why the traditional heavy red wine cab is great for a piece of fatty meat, because the acid and the body and the tannins all can hold up to the heavy food. That's that idea also, as you know, in addition to what Simon was saying, about working well and in tandem and complimenting each other, which goes to what I was asking earlier about white wines and a light.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 11:10

White wines are lighter and therefore it would pair better with lighter foods such as cheese or fish.

Kenneth Friedman: 11:17

Well, I mean, cheese is not necessarily light, but yeah.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 11:20

Cheese is. Yeah, Cheese is what would go well with a grilled cheese sandwich.

Kenneth Friedman: 11:27

This is not really my topic by the way, I'm not like. This is Relax.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 11:31

This. Yeah, I'm just saying like You're getting really upset here.

Kenneth Friedman: 11:36

You know, Aitanji and I have we've done a bunch of videos together, Our own little thing which goes nowhere.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 11:41

On what channel was it?

Kenneth Friedman: 11:43

My own channel. Which is what?

Etan G The JewishRapper: 11:44

My Instagram Kosher Wine Tasting. Yeah, thank you for the plug.

Kenneth Friedman: 11:49

And we have a good, and it goes on and on and you have to. You can tune in and out. They're good parts or bad parts. A roller coaster, right. Yeah, I feel like we're on the down part right now.

S. Simon Jacob: 11:58

I think you're doing fine, we got Simon here. It's great. Actually, with a grilled cheese sandwich, this would go awesome. Yeah, that's a great idea. This would go awesome with a grilled cheese sandwich.

Kenneth Friedman: 12:10

Absolutely crazy. Awesome with a grilled cheese sandwich. There's a real viscosity in the body to this.

S. Simon Jacob: 12:14

Actually, you know what? Here, aitan, I'm not giving you to drink, I'm giving you to just taste.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 12:18

Yeah, okay, I'm in. So where's that? Do you see it? And here you can here you go Okay.

Kenneth Friedman: 12:27

Don't mind if I do.

S. Simon Jacob: 12:28

Yes.

Kenneth Friedman: 12:29

Yeah, I'm gonna do the swirly thing, you can do this.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 12:31

We'll smell it, here I go.

Kenneth Friedman: 12:33

I'm gonna smell. Tell me what you smell there. I mean, what do you smell? That was very graphic.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 12:41

It was quite graphic. Oh, oh Well.

Kenneth Friedman: 12:42

Oh, bye. There's a very interesting.

S. Simon Jacob: 12:52

There's an interesting dry wine. It is.

Kenneth Friedman: 12:54

It's not I want you to try to smell for this. You're not ready. Yeah, you ready for this? Yeah petrol. Yeah, like Vaseline smell it and taste it.

S. Simon Jacob: 13:04

Oh yeah, smell that tastes like petrol. It's got a very. It's got a very. That's a unique nose.

Kenneth Friedman: 13:10

Yeah, it's specific to older.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 13:12

Reasons it's a big Jewish nose. Oh yeah, you're doing just fine, it's very good.

Kenneth Friedman: 13:19

You're right, think of that.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 13:19

Smells like yeah, you know, when you spill gasoline on your hand, yeah, there's that, and then you're in the car and you can't get it away for two hours while you're driving down the turnpike. That's it tastes great, though.

S. Simon Jacob: 13:31

Yes, I love this, so think about this with a grilled cheese sandwich. Yeah, yeah, this would go great with a grilled cheese sandwich. Okay, that's what I was saying, okay.

Kenneth Friedman: 13:42

I love a good girl, I I love. I was just talking about the.

S. Simon Jacob: 13:45

Especially a little mustard.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 13:47

Oh yes, little grilled cheese mustered on the inside and Garlic powder on the outside. Right, you make the grilled cheese. You know, there's a kitchen, downstairs. We're not far away from this.

S. Simon Jacob: 14:00

We could do this in a heartbeat, but, okay, maybe we'll do this after. I'm great, yes, but that's as far as gorgeous. But you know, I'm curious about something though You're both here in Israel, in Jerusalem, so welcome, welcome home, guys.

Kenneth Friedman: 14:15

Great to be home.

S. Simon Jacob: 14:16

Yeah, and I just wanted to ask a question. I guess everybody's gonna ask Is asking is what are you doing here? What are you?

Etan G The JewishRapper: 14:23

doing in Israel? I'll let you take the first. We're not here together, you understand? Yeah, no, he's here and I'm here.

Kenneth Friedman: 14:30

We're always explaining that we're not together, right, and yet somehow we're always together. I, I wish I was here always. Honestly, I think this is where this is where well I'm working to that. All right, I'll get right to it. Yeah, why am I here here? I am here here because I love you.

S. Simon Jacob: 14:49

Thank you.

Kenneth Friedman: 14:50

I am in Yerushalayim. Where is the? I woke up this morning in Yerushalayim and Considered myself so lucky. My daughter is in seminary here. My second daughter, thank God, is in seminary and and having a wonderful year, and my wife and I came to visit. That's why we're here. But there is a long-term plan, a short-term and long-term plan, and we'll see. But it's a Anyone hiring a guy with useless talents. I'm looking Is there anything useless in this country? No, I'm saying, but I have the talents of talking about wine.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 15:27

It's great I can make food, I can cook.

Kenneth Friedman: 15:30

You go around to wineries and interview.

S. Simon Jacob: 15:32

We'll see. I always thought I think you're pretty good, fine, thank you.

Kenneth Friedman: 15:36

Your wife is happy. Thank you, yeah, we, we love it and it's so, it's so great to be here and it's obviously a difficult time, a very special, in a way time to be here, because I the the country. There's a real feeling of brotherhood here and I think that's special to see, especially for someone living in the hoods, to see that and we are one people and it's, it's a powerful time and let's Continue to Pray for, for all our soldiers and all our people and all the hostages and all the hostages, please, god, okay, hey, tom.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 16:18

Yeah, I'm here. Why you? If you remember, simon, the last time I was here was the very beginning of the war, mm-hmm and the the country had a different energy then. Then it does. Now there's a lot more. Back then there was unknowns, people, you know, fear of the unknown. We don't know what's gonna be. The war hadn't gotten into full effect yet, there was a different energy, but miracles were still happening. It's visible, easy to see.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 16:46

This trip, someone said. My wife said to me dude, you got to go to Israel and she had just gotten back from a trip. And I said we're saving up to go for Pesach. And she said don't worry about that, I'll pay for this trip, it's out of her own. You know what do you call the? Her slush fund? She? She said go, and I did.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 17:09

I picked a date where a friend of mine had a wedding and right around there I said for two weeks. And the minute the ticket was booked, someone texted me that there's another wedding and that there's a bris and that there's another. There's a bar mitzvah, one thing after another. So the two weeks that I had, what am I gonna do when I get there? And it got filled up before I even got on the plane. That's how these things happen. So I'm here For those things, for the good things. Yesterday, thursday, I was in Nati vote. I went to a Barry Kibbutz Barry. I got to witness firsthand the atrocities of our enemies and it was. It's not the kind of thing that moves me. It angers me. It angers me, I'm angry. I Don't like it. Yeah, you know, you have. You see the mortar shells and you ask questions how could this happen? How?

Kenneth Friedman: 18:06

could it?

Etan G The JewishRapper: 18:06

happen. How could it happen? And there are no good answers. There's no one answer. And In the end, you know, here we are, we're fighting against evil, evil Animals that that want the destruction of the Jewish people. It's not a foreign, it's not a foreign concept to me that people want to destroy the Jewish people. It's, it's been throughout history. We've been told it, I've been told it my whole life.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 18:34

My parents, my grandparents, from the Holocaust, it getting beaten up in schools, you know growing up anti-semitism, you're used to it, kkk, you know all these things. And then you come see it first hand is a different, is a different thing. You have a lot of kids these days that go with their schools to Poland and things like that too, and I I say to them why I should live in March of the living, but, but many, many different time. And they go to where all the atrocities of the Holocaust happen and I I'm always bothered by it, like, why are you giving money to Poland? Why are you even have to go there? You watch a video and use the money to go to Israel where we celebrate life and Elevate life and you're with the, the, the aftermath of all that destruction. You're here in Israel and After I went to Barry on Thursday I thought a little bit differently.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 19:31

I'm still of that perspective, but I said I thought to myself that these kids didn't grow up the way I grew up, hearing from the grandparents that had come out of that. They grew up in a nice kush environment. Maybe their parents are more affluent, were the most affluent, the Jewish people, more affluent than we've ever been in the history of the world.

S. Simon Jacob: 19:53

Well, people as a whole.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 19:54

I think I'm as in general, sure, but the Jewish people in particular, we, we can. You know, school, just everything. We have food, I, a meal at my house in 1976 was, yeah, a little meal. Now it's a whole schmooor gonna spread and it's a whole thing. And For kids to go, I think kids do need to see where these things happen. There needs to be an emotional injection of History so you can see where these things happen. That's what Barry was.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 20:27

For me, it was not that, oh, I'd never seen mortar shells Going to houses before, or the ashes of burnt houses and you know that sort of thing, but rather it was a reminder. It was just to put, make it real, put it in perspective. You, the stories I heard. The guy that took us around was a guy that lives there, lived lives, and he told us the story oh, in this house, you know they, they tied up the people and they burnt them alive and they were only able to be identified by their teeth. Okay, it's not the first time I've heard such a thing. But the anger, the, the. And then you drive away and you're just, you're in a haze, in a headspace and you see the, the fence between Gaza and Barry, that they were right next to each other and they were friends and you know people wanted to have peace, they wanted to work together. They want to do that, but in the end you know a sub son S, yako, face of always. Hate, yako. We've been in wars. The Torah I'm not the stories of a mullet. You're gonna come up soon.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 21:37

The Jews leaving Egypt. We read this parasha Kenny left his home, a shopping, when he got in the Leah and in that aliyah Hashem says to Moshe to tell Paro, listen, paro, let the people go, or I'm gonna do Unbelievable wonders and I'm gonna keep you alive so you could see those miracles and wonders, so you can witness it firsthand that I am the Lord. God Right there, he tells you straight out what's gonna be and I Would say that right now and I was lying in bed last night and I just think that that now, today, is the time for God to step up his game. Yes, I'm sure there are all these little individual Miracles, but I want Red Sea miracle level. I want something that just destroys every evil individual.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 22:29

That was a part of that speaks about that continues the the hatred and evil against the Jews. The Individuals may be in governments around the world that are crapping on the Jewish people for defending themselves. God should exact his revenge on all of them and we should make a toast to the destruction of all the evil in the world. Lachai, wow, that took a turn.

S. Simon Jacob: 23:00

Well, I wanted to get your opinion. I the other thing I wanted to ask you, and? And on the streets, here you've been you've only been here for a couple days, but on the streets, do you notice the difference from the last time you were here?

Kenneth Friedman: 23:13

I think very much so, like I was touching on before, I think that I, you know, listen, I'm, I don't live here, I'm living in America and I, I've always, I think, been careful about Lending my opinion to as to what Israel should do or what should happen here. I'm not Israeli, I'm an American. I have my own opinions, but we all know that what was happening here before and there was a lot of animosity within our own people and you, you see there's, you know, everywhere you go, you see the bring them home and you see the pictures of hostages, and the first thing you see when you come into Bengorian is they have, as you're walking down the famous, you know, where everyone takes the picture, or welcome to Israel, and you see the hostages, which is what you should see because they should always be on our minds, and there's, there's that, that feeling of, I think, togetherness is what I see, I think, among different Types of people here, which is something I've noticed already in just a couple days, and I don't know if it's something. And, listen, I'm also, you know, you're, I'm picking things up in in clips and and videos and what we see in America and when you see, when you see Ethiopian Jews that are soldiers, and you see Hasidim that are, that are soldiers, or even just dancing around soldiers and whatever.

Kenneth Friedman: 24:40

And you see that that's what God wants. That's what God wants. You know, I'm not gonna judge why God does whatever he does, I'm not gonna say that, that's why that happened, but we know them. When we're not together, bad things happen and it's it's, I think, very powerful to see us Coming together in a time of tragedy, unfortunately in difficult times, but it's noticeable on the streets, cool.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 25:07

I Would call God out on all that, because it's just ridiculous when you and God have a different relationship. We definitely do. I'm sick and tired of all this. I should not have to wake up every day and see the names of dead soldiers. There should not be one dead soldier. That's just me. That's just me.

S. Simon Jacob: 25:25

Yeah, we're hostage. I mean, one of the things that are that's being pushed now is we're just at about a hundred days and and it's like it's a hundred days that these people have been hostage and and Our, our mindset is Really an interesting mindset. We forget so quickly things. We really we, our brains, are made so that we forget terrible things, and that's actually a blessing that we have from God, where, you know, when you experience a terrible thing, after a a fairly short period of time, it, it, it fades, and it's not actually terrible things, it's all things, so that even if you've had a good experience, that that experience fades in your mind. It's something I picked up when I was much younger. It and it bothered me a lot. I remember when my father died 15 years ago. I forgot his voice and I and, and All of a sudden I heard his voice and something about nine months later, and I started to cry because it was only you know, I'd been with me my whole life and All of a sudden I heard this voice and I go, you know, like I just forgot the sound of that voice. So we forget things Again. It's supposed to help us, but it's it's so. What I do now is whenever I experience something that's really special, I point it out to myself and I say Suck it in, remember everything that's going on, remember the air you're breathing, remember the smell in the air, the sights that you're seeing. Remember all of those things because there's gonna be a time when you can't remember this experience again and Think of every little clue that's gonna pull this experience back into your head. So with the, with the hostages, I think we all hear it, but it's really hard to keep that on your head. Keep that in your mind. I know we keep the soldiers because we see them coming home and going back.

S. Simon Jacob: 27:44

It's kind of a strange war. I don't think people outside of Israel grasp it. This is almost like a commuter war. The there people who go to the army, go into service, who are commuting less than most people commuting from New Jersey to Manhattan. Okay, you know it's like crazy, it's it's. You can get down to Gaza from here in less than your normal commute into Manhattan on a Monday morning, or you can get up to all the way up to the, you know, to the Lebanese border. It's it's really close by and and this is home for us. You know we're fighting for home. This is not like. This is not like sending people off to Southeast Asia or Iran or or Afghanistan or what have you. So it's. It's a different type of war and it's a different type of mentality and People here.

S. Simon Jacob: 28:40

You know, when you see kids home With their guns because when a soldier comes home for 48 hour leave, they have their gun with them. They're not allowed to put that gun down. They can't leave it at home and walk around. They have to have that gun with them all the time and when you see, you know, a kid walking with his parents, it's a pretty moving, it's a pretty moving experience and you see that a lot. You see that a lot here.

S. Simon Jacob: 29:13

Kids are getting home now from from the army, and I'm calling them kids. They're, they're young adults, men and women, carrying their weapons and coming home to see their families. And Especially on Fridays and Shabbat, and actually even during the middle of the week, all of a sudden the soldier will get Leave and you see him walking with his gun and holding his kids hand as he walks him to God. It's a special experience to watch. So, where we have in mind the soldiers, we certainly have to pray for them, for their safety. We really have to pray for the safety of these hostages and we need to get them home, especially the young ones. I don't know how we're ever gonna get them home, but I hope they come home and I hope they're they come home in some sort of form that's Reasonable and not totally damaged. So, with God's help, that's something we're really Pushing for.

Kenneth Friedman: 30:17

I mean, I mean yeah, it's.

S. Simon Jacob: 30:20

So one of the things, while you're here, I'd like you to try to do, because, again, the war is impacting everybody. We brought it up the last time you were on the on the broadcast with me a ton about buying kosher wine, buying Israeli wine at the moment, and and it's it's an important thing the, the, the wineries here are really suffering. They, they don't have the staffs that they had and, and you know, the staffs are all working. A lot of people are starting to filter back into the, into the Into the world here, back into the economy here. Evyatar no one actually. I heard he came back the middle of last week, so he's actually gonna be in the store which is, you know, I'll look him up this week. He people have been placing, you know, people have been. I've been calling him for suggestions and he's been answering me from Gaza.

S. Simon Jacob: 31:23

You know like or wherever he is right kind of crazy to Call a guy and ask him, for I need to stop one question, yeah.

Kenneth Friedman: 31:30

There's it, you know something. First of all, what you said was very powerful and I felt that this morning, when I was sitting in shul and I saw a couple they are kids, let's be honest, and I see them sitting there with their guns and I know their home just for Shabbat and I saw a young man sitting next to his father and that was a very powerful moment for me and I, because I was, I'm probably about the father's age, and I was thinking, like what is what's going through his father's head? And you know his fears, but his pride of his son, and it's very powerful, very, very powerful, and that's an emotional thing and it's a, it's a special thing and I again, just yes, continue to look over our boys and and also, and girls and and and, and I, and I also, like it's, it's to get back to what you were saying before and it's, you know, it's always at the top of our heads, but it's you want to. When you talk to Israelis, they, they want you to and you see, israelis are getting back to Doing things that are joyful in life too, that we're not all sitting and Morning, and you know that, that there is that.

Kenneth Friedman: 32:46

Yes, open a bottle of Israeli wine. Yes, enjoy a bottle of Israeli wine. That's that we're not all here to just like, doesn't shut down. You know, we, we continue on, we do our best to to, but, but, but, yes, enjoy, and that's that's the feeling I get from when I speak to, because I have, I've reached out to many of the Israeli winemakers that I know and they're like, you know, that's that's the way. And how can I help? And how do Americans help? By Israeli, by everything Israeli. I, my specific interest, in my specific connection, is through wine, so I promote that as much as I can, and it's not a hard thing to promote because there's great wine from it.

S. Simon Jacob: 33:25

It really is spectacular. We've had this Shabbat some Remarkable wines, I mean absolutely really interesting, remarkable wouldn't expect less being here. Well, no, but it's, but it's.

Kenneth Friedman: 33:36

it's interesting We've had, we've really focused on Israeli wines and they were kind of all over the place too in terms of you know what types of wines and vintages, and really, yeah, I Mean I would. Honestly you can get me here anytime, you don't even need to serve wine. It's a but I Expected and love it and I love you.

S. Simon Jacob: 33:57

Okay, so the feeling is very mutual. We had we actually had a remarkable white wine, unchibat, that was from Yacovoria. It was a 2009 Summion, yes, and it was just so fresh and crisp and it was so beautiful in the glass. I mean, how old did that wine?

Kenneth Friedman: 34:23

look, I never would have guessed that that was a 15 year old wine.

S. Simon Jacob: 34:27

It's never 15 year old white white wine, which is like nuts that blew my mind.

Kenneth Friedman: 34:32

Yeah, it was very fresh and really outstanding.

S. Simon Jacob: 34:35

And what a, what a treat and then then we, we also had Two of the Natofa the new new Tofa's right, the GSM.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 34:46

I like that.

Kenneth Friedman: 34:46

GSM and the Torsier, the Torsier, the Tourist, or the Tourist or.

S. Simon Jacob: 34:52

Yes, from the Tofa. That's Pierre's creation, all right, and we all right, and that's. That was off the deep end. I thought so we had a whatchill. We had a person who was with us tasting right Michael, who lives in. Paris, who lives in Paris and he's a big Wine lover. And when we poured that and he drank, he went whoa right, his eyes lit up. He goes this is wine, I can drink this. I, this is good wine, I really like this a lot. And then we went crazy. Pierre would have been proud.

Kenneth Friedman: 35:31

Yeah, I and should be, he should be it was those are great wines there's. They're unique in there. It's he really has a special touch here.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 35:42

I think yeah when wines are made like that, or if you make a 2000, a wine that you're talking about, let's say, is every bottle Consistent? Do they all taste the same?

Kenneth Friedman: 35:53

It's a good question. So Something I was gonna bring up a little earlier is that I think also that every wine I drink in Simon's house is more special, because wine is Experiential and a lot of times people like I had this great wine and they think it was a great night, but the wine is made better by the experience and the people around you.

S. Simon Jacob: 36:14

So I know every wine. I. It's definitely a people thing, right? If you sit home alone drinking Even this wine, it would be the same as drinking it so I know everything I'm tasting here.

Kenneth Friedman: 36:23

wine, wow, this is amazing. It's better because I'm with great people, yeah especially the, jacobs. I would include yourself and I need and and but. But wine changes and wine changes from year to year.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 36:39

Wine and two people could take the same wine changes from year to year, before it's made or after it's made in both ways.

Kenneth Friedman: 36:46

I'm saying a you know a crop, maybe different weather, environment changes wine. Wine in a bottle changes from year to year, meaning once its bottle it'll change. Now something people most people don't realize with wine is that the vast majority of wines are not meant to age. They're meant to drink now and they will not get better and they may get worse very soon. Special wines are meant to age and will improve and will change from year to year.

Kenneth Friedman: 37:11

But my point is that as something, that why I kind of got interested in wine Thank you, simon, just pouring me another spectacular glass of this vitkin reasoning why I got into wine is I think there's something really unique in the stories behind wine. In the, you know you, a bottle of Jack Daniels is the same and that's what they go for. They go for a very specific you know there's it's more corporate right. It should taste the same as the bottle you bought two years ago, correct? And it should taste the same two years later. Even, I think, right Now, wine is very different. In that regard, wine is very organic.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 37:49

Wait, but would you say the same put Jack Daniels aside, because that's just a simple bourbon or whatever. It is Right Brown drink. But how about those fancier ones, the Glens or the McAllen?

Kenneth Friedman: 38:04

Yeah, I mean, I think they go for a certain style and they replicate that year after year after year. That's not the case with wine. It's almost impossible with wine, because each vintage has its own right, simon, actually to be honest, I know something about whiskies as well. One of the things that's coming up soon the whiskey terroir with Simon.

S. Simon Jacob: 38:24

Jack. Yeah, don't start, don't start. But in whiskies there's styles over periods of time. Initially not initially, but say, 30 years ago whiskies, the best whiskies, were the blended ones, and the reason for the blending was to try to get consistency so that the whiskey you're drinking is the same whiskey that you bought last week, last year, last month, whatever.

Kenneth Friedman: 38:56

As kind of happens with champagne with most champagne houses, where they blend and they blend different vintages.

S. Simon Jacob: 39:03

And they try to make everything consistent. After a while people didn't really like the consistency. They wanted something special. They wanted to get something special. So all of a sudden there was this outgrowth of single malts, and single malts are actually blends, to be quite honest, of a single malting. They're not just a single bottle. That comes straight. But there people were looking for something more exciting, not the same. They really wanted to buy a bottle of something that had a special taste to it. So people went to these single malts whiskies. But actually the truth is that the ones that taste more consistent are the ones that are very difficult to make. And when you get wines, the wines also their blends. We're going back into a situation where there are a lot of different blends now of wines, reds and whites, but mainly reds. Let's talk about, and one of the reasons for the reds.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 40:18

Hold on, Remind me. A blend is the combination of different types of grapes.

S. Simon Jacob: 40:25

It can be, or even different barrels of wine of the same grape. Ok, there's the amount of effort and the skill of the blenders because of tastings, being able to taste something and have in mind what you want to achieve and then blend in different components. I mean, as an example, if you go to Castel, they've got every barrel when they do their blending. Every barrel is represented by a small bottle that goes down this long table and they taste every single one and they mark them as to what they feel the quality is and what they would add to a blend of wine. And then they decide how they're going to blend those barrels together and whether the wine is going to be in there what you call it in there, grand crew or in their petite Castel, and they decide what the grapes are going to be used for. In that, the effort and the skills there's no words for that.

S. Simon Jacob: 41:39

These people are unbelievable. So when you get wines that are coming out of a winemaker that are consistently amazing wines, this guy doesn't just have the skills to create this wine from the grapes, he has the skills to blend it together and get this flavor. That is just awesome. And every so often they run into incredible flavors. As an example, louis Pascoe was talking about a wine that they made at Reca Nadi and it had this incredible mint flavor in it, smell and flavor and it was just unbelievable and it was just an incredible bottle and if he could get back to that he would do that in a heartbeat. But you get those one-off situations where you've got something exceptional. Number one is you've got to recognize it and number two is you've got to have an opportunity to actually produce something from it that other people can try.

Kenneth Friedman: 42:45

But there may be. But that's the point, is that there may be something fleeting in a certain vintage.

S. Simon Jacob: 42:50

That they'll never, replicate You're never going to get.

Kenneth Friedman: 42:53

And that's something unique about wine, I think.

S. Simon Jacob: 42:57

Yeah, even all the Grand Cruises that are coming out kosher now, coming out of France. They're vintages that are unbelievably great and some vintages that are just passable. Even though the wine is an incredible wine, it's nothing like a year ago or two years ago or what happened.

Kenneth Friedman: 43:19

They say, the skill of a great wine maker is making a great wine and a bad vintage when everyone else struggles.

S. Simon Jacob: 43:27

That's true, it's true, but when you have something where everything clicks, it's an incredible bottle of wine, just an incredible bottle of wine. So we have some. We went through some pretty good bottles of wine over Shabbat and they were all Israeli and they were fun. They were fun and they were delicious.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 43:55

The question I had over Shabbos you had mentioned, I think towards the end of lunch, you were talking about the term spicy as it pertains to wine. So when I hear spicy I think Tabasco and cayenne pepper, those sorts of things, but that's not the case with wine. How would you describe what spicy is as it pertains to wine? I think of Christmas time and you have apple cider, spicy cider, something like that, and it's got a burn, almost a full bodied burn. But can you make a wine that's spicy? How I'm describing, or is there another way that when you guys say spicy it means?

S. Simon Jacob: 44:40

OK, so one of the terms they use, especially with regard to searah, is spicy. Spice doesn't have to be hot. It can also be something that has a certain. You might be better, kenny, at describing.

Kenneth Friedman: 44:59

I think a classic spice that you'll note, and especially with something like searah, is maybe like a pepper, and it's a lot of times those are type of things. It's not a heat, more the profile of a spice is what you're thinking about with wine, not the Tabasco, not the heat, not spicy in that way. English maybe doesn't have the proper words for these things.

S. Simon Jacob: 45:20

Spicy means multiple things. Spices can be cinnamon, spices can be anything. It's really all over the place, all Right.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 45:27

But I've not had a wine.

Kenneth Friedman: 45:28

That's why, when you first said about the cider thing, I was like some of the profile cider you find in wine, for sure not as it pertains to heat, I don't remember what you said heat. But yeah, some of the other. But spice is a big word.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 45:42

Generally when we talk about well, when I think of wines, I don't necessarily think of them as sweet, because grapes buy oh, it's a great grape, it's sweet. But we have wines that are not necessarily a dry wine, a semi-dry, but it still has kind of a grapey, fruity, sweetier flavor. So the term spicy threw me off when we were like, oh, spicy, ok, you should have asked me this.

S. Simon Jacob: 46:10

I didn't want to. No, I'll tell you what I didn't want to look stupid. You weren't stupid at all. There's no stupid questions. There's no stupid questions. There are some stupid answers. I've heard him ask those stupid questions.

Kenneth Friedman: 46:21

I haven't. I've been on it for a long time.

S. Simon Jacob: 46:25

But with that, the best way to taste that is to have two glasses, one with a sear on with a cab, and taste them together and then you'll see what people are talking about with regards to spice, because it's very apparent.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 46:40

Because around Halloween time we get pumpkin, spice and eggnog.

S. Simon Jacob: 46:44

That have all that spice, yeah, but that's not hot. No, no, it's not peppery.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 46:49

But it's not a deeper.

S. Simon Jacob: 46:51

Yeah, but that's the sort of spice you're getting in a sear. That's the sort of taste that you'll get Sometimes. You'll get bell peppers, the taste of peppers, capsicum, but not hot. It's not a. If you're getting heat coming out of it, that's not a good thing.

Kenneth Friedman: 47:13

Well, that's the alcohol.

S. Simon Jacob: 47:14

I don't know what that would be. Alcohol is what we call it.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 47:16

If that's what you mean by heat, I don't know. I think I would like a wine with some mold Like a pumpkin spice wine.

Kenneth Friedman: 47:22

Oh, pumpkin spice wine, that's how you know Thanksgiving is coming.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 47:25

That's what I'm saying. It's something in the air. It's great, it's.

Kenneth Friedman: 47:27

Starbucks.

S. Simon Jacob: 47:29

Well, actually, if you have one of Yacovoria's orange wines with a really hot, spicy dish like a Chinese or Indian dish, it's crazy, because they play off of each other. The tastes play off of each other really, really well.

Kenneth Friedman: 47:51

I love orange wine. I love Yacovia's orange wines. I love orange wines. You probably don't know what orange wine is, so orange wine looks orange.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 47:59

Like orange juice and it has nothing to do with the fruit orange.

S. Simon Jacob: 48:03

Kind of this, only a little more orange.

Kenneth Friedman: 48:05

It will be orange color.

S. Simon Jacob: 48:06

And it's what we were talking about earlier.

Kenneth Friedman: 48:08

It's from the skin sitting in the wine itself that turn it that color. But what it also does and it's a specific style, it's a white wine.

S. Simon Jacob: 48:18

It's a white wine that's exposed to skins and because it's exposed to skins, it gets. Usually we expose red wines to skins in order to build up character and to give them the color Body. The color also brings tannins and things that you view. What's? A tannin Tannins are the best way to describe it to you is it's the kind of prickly feeling you feel around your teeth and your gums when you're drinking a red wine.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 48:49

And that's why we use an aerator. Is that correct?

Kenneth Friedman: 48:51

No, not exactly, but it's also what I. The way I describe it is the that drying sensation on the top of your palate is caused by the tannins in a wine, and the tannins come from the skin and the seeds. Did you ever bite into grape skin like the actual skin? And it's that real dry on your palate. Maybe you didn't or you did, I don't know.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 49:15

No, I shove a grape in my mouth and eat it.

S. Simon Jacob: 49:18

So grapes are not really good example, because I'll tell you why You're right. Grapes are all sweet, all right, unless they're really bad. But grapes are typically all pretty sweet and the reason why drier wines, like this Riesling we're drinking, is not sweet is we mix yeast with that wine, with that juice, and the yeast actually takes the sugars, consumes the sugars and produces alcohol. And that's the reason why you'll end up with a dry wine rather than a sweet wine, because that sweetness is converted into alcohol. Is there yeast in this wine? There's yeast, it's probably dead. It's not probably, it's more than likely dead. After the alcohol reaches a certain level, it kills off the yeast.

Kenneth Friedman: 50:14

There's yeast on every natural product. That's why you can take a cucumber and pickle it. It's not actually a pickle. What I'm saying is fermentation. You're using the natural yeast on the vegetable itself and wine making they add yeast also.

S. Simon Jacob: 50:30

They're very often naturally used Because they want to control. They want to control it.

Kenneth Friedman: 50:34

But you can make wine without yeast.

S. Simon Jacob: 50:37

You can just take the grapes, because the grapes have their own yeast on them. Yeah.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 50:40

But what does that wine taste?

S. Simon Jacob: 50:42

like it can taste good, but it's not, it's chancey, it's risky. Instead, what they do is they typically overpower the yeast. That's natural with the yeast that they want, because they want to in wine. They're trying to control the factors that create reasonable wine. They're trying to get something special at the end, so they're trying to control any of the variables they can control.

Kenneth Friedman: 51:11

I think winemakers are conducting a symphony. That's the way I look at it. There's a lot of different parts to wine making and it takes that expertise and a very specific level of skill to bring out the best of the grapes that they're using. Does yeast change the flavor? I mean, yeast changes everything. I'm not going to speak on the winemaking because I don't know enough, as Simon probably could, but they choose the yeast. They choose for very specific reasons.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 51:39

To get certain attributes Is there something, some ingredient that exists in the world that winemakers have not even thought of to put in wine.

S. Simon Jacob: 51:53

Well, nothing that you might, yes, yes.

Kenneth Friedman: 51:56

I'm sure.

S. Simon Jacob: 51:57

I'm sure.

Kenneth Friedman: 51:58

You mean to add to wine certain.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 52:00

To make something new. So the wines we've described are all based on a certain premise, a certain process and you get whatever wine. It is like that, but it's all based off each other. It's like 80s music. It was very keyboard-y and synth-y during the 80s and everybody kind of built off one another. And then came, let's say, grunge, which you could say was built off of earlier rock and roll but had a different.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 52:31

But all using the same instruments for the most part OK, Is there a song, a music that's that a winemaker can create that is different or divergent from the normal?

Kenneth Friedman: 52:43

You like my symphony reference don't you?

Etan G The JewishRapper: 52:44

It's good, you got me all amped up, yeah.

Kenneth Friedman: 52:48

Yes, it has to be, maybe it has to be this creative people.

S. Simon Jacob: 52:54

Look, orange Wine's been around for a very long time, but it's something that Yagavuria was experimenting with and ended up with it, and it wasn't until he gave some to a person who was a very big wine person who said oh wow, you have an orange wine. And he said what? And he said you've got a white wine that's skin macerated. That's called an orange wine. And he goes I didn't know it was called an orange wine. He created it because he came up with this idea to do that. There's always people Experimenting.

S. Simon Jacob: 53:30

There's always people who mix, especially what's happening now. So the torsine, what did you call?

Kenneth Friedman: 53:40

it.

S. Simon Jacob: 53:40

Torsier, that you call the torsir.

Kenneth Friedman: 53:41

Torsier, torsier, yeah, torsier, that's a unique blend. That's a unique blend, torriga national and syrup and syrup.

S. Simon Jacob: 53:48

That's syrup. I mean, I can't say that nobody's ever done that before, but I don't know if anybody's ever done it before, but when I drank it it tasted like wine.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 53:57

Yeah, yeah, there's something that is still wine, but oh my god, this is so different. This is orange wines. You're like, orange wines are very.

Kenneth Friedman: 54:07

I I really connect orange wines a lot of the orange wines I've had to to beer. There's something about the body and the, the flavor profile of it that reminds me of certain beers. Have you ever?

S. Simon Jacob: 54:22

I see I only drink Certain beers. Yeah, I'm not a I'm not a light beer drinker. I like I like Belgium Heavy-duty Belgium and they're almost like caps some of those beers. So yeah, there's something.

Kenneth Friedman: 54:42

I have some kind of.

Kenneth Friedman: 54:44

Hoppy bitterness maybe right, and that is definitely there so, but I, but I think what you're asking is what can be added that's different and nothing. They're working with the same instruments. You know you can always they did like like you said, like you do something different with the instrument, but they're. You know what's. What's amazing about wine is that it's the same Simple ingredients. You know that there's lots of different ways to connect them and the chemistry can be different, but that's the same. But yeah, you see, orange wine is a good example, because it's a very different profile from From a, from a white wine or a red wine, and that's something a lot of people haven't even tasted until somewhat recently. It's Trending now, I think, orange wine, but and it's it's very different, but it's made with the same ingredients.

S. Simon Jacob: 55:35

It's just handled differently, and that's where winemaker expertise and experimentation comes in so one of the things that you asked me last time Was you know, like what do you put into this wine in order to get these flavors? Nobody's putting anything into the wines. The yeast that goes in is not a flavor that's added. It's, and you don't need to add yeast. But they add it because they're trying to get a certain impact. They want it to ferment. It may be a different temperature, they want it to be either cold or hot or what have you. So they're trying to accomplish something different with the yeast, but it's not like that's a flavor that they've added and now, all of a sudden, you're gonna get out something that tastes Like the yeast are different. There's no extra flavors added.

Kenneth Friedman: 56:22

I once drank wine with the guy tasting and he couldn't get over the fact that there was no like strawberry flavor added to the wine. Yeah, he's like absolute. There's strawberry in there. I'm like there's, there's not. That's just the profile of the wine.

S. Simon Jacob: 56:34

We had. I had a. I had a rosé very recently that With the guys from mosaic mosaic sellers, they made this strawberry Rosé and it wasn't just strawberry, it was like strawberries with With cotton candy and it was like Whoa, it's just like you smell this and you get this flavor profile and you go crazy.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 57:03

Yeah, there are grapes that you can get a Trader Joe's Yep during a certain season that are cotton. Those aren't winemaking grapes, though anything you buy in a place like that.

Kenneth Friedman: 57:11

Those, those grapes are not used, but right, they do, and that's not how that comes about. That's not how they got. That is not how that comes about this was, these were, these were regular.

S. Simon Jacob: 57:21

Actually they were. Yeah, what grapes were those? I'll tell you, it was a, I'll remember.

Kenneth Friedman: 57:27

San Jovice, san Giovice, san Giovice. By the way, I'm three glasses of wine in, so it didn't come right to me Well.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 57:34

So, I have a question, the. There is a trend, at least in America, I don't know if it exists here in Israel.

Kenneth Friedman: 57:41

Yes, we are.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 57:43

Is the following I see a lot of wines in cans now like red bull cans that type of shape right? How do we feel about those?

Kenneth Friedman: 57:52

Do you like Red Bull? No, well then you won't like those wines, because that's the same type of thing. No, I'm kidding. I think there is a future for that type of thing for sure. Yeah, why like? Why not? I don't like it's. It's a snobby thing to look down at that like a can of wine. But why not? It's a. It's a good way to hold something. It's portable.

S. Simon Jacob: 58:08

You take it to the beach and especially a wine that you want to chill.

Kenneth Friedman: 58:12

Yeah, like Rose and a can like poolside. Fantastic, why not?

S. Simon Jacob: 58:16

or the blue, you know.

Kenneth Friedman: 58:17

Yeah, the blue bottles Scotto cans, why not it's?

S. Simon Jacob: 58:23

it's great and absolutely it holds them. They're sealed, yeah, so that they don't go bad. It's the same thing with them, just to be honest in a more conventional form, having screw tops on some of the wines. It actually I'd like it on.

Kenneth Friedman: 58:40

Some of the lines be preferable for some wines.

S. Simon Jacob: 58:42

You can close it and you can put it back in the fridge and open it again later and not have to worry about Shoving a corker these are.

Kenneth Friedman: 58:50

Those are wines that are going to be more like a drink this year type of wine, wines that are meant to age For a long time, yeah, you're gonna be a top Ups get and and or nor can and does the wine change taste or something?

Etan G The JewishRapper: 59:03

the profile change in a can or a screw top bottle versus the traditional?

S. Simon Jacob: 59:09

Glass with a corker, things that they put into cans and screw, cut, screw top bottles. They pray to God that it's not gonna change. That's the bottom line. They're trying to seal it into something. Yeah, that is not going to allow the wine to change very much. It's certainly not going to age and get better in a can or screw up.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 59:28

So you don't take a can of wine and put it in your wine cellar and wait a few years. No, you drink it. It's good to go, it's it.

S. Simon Jacob: 59:35

Yeah, the only reason I buy a number of cans is if I've got an event, we're all outside for barbecue or something like that. I do that, okay. So usually, though, the wines that are in cans, you're just drinking them because they're they're Like the water. They taste reasonable to you.

Kenneth Friedman: 59:54

Yeah, it's not to it's refreshing, I got it.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 59:57

Something to get you through the day.

Kenneth Friedman: 59:58

It's not meant to spend time with your joy and swish it around. You're not taking a can and pouring it into a glass.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:00:05

You could do that, I mean that's probably the preference to do that. To take even Moscato, pour it into a glass glass and then drink it. You know you don't have to swirl it around in a can, got it, drink it, it's like it's in a can.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 1:00:18

And do you? Because you can't see. In a wine bottles glass and you can see sometimes there's residue. What do you call the residue on the bottom sediment? Yeah, excellent. In a can Does it also have that sentiment? What is it?

S. Simon Jacob: 1:00:31

They don't. Usually they don't can Wines that have sediment, so you're not gonna find that in a Moscato, as an example, you're not gonna find sediment in the bottom of it. That's usually filtered away. One of the reasons they leave sediment in certain bottles is because, well, in certain bottles of reds, as an example, you'll get some sediment in the bottom because they don't want to filter them fully and the right, the, the sediment actually Impacts or interacts with the liquid and continues to do that in the in On an ongoing basis.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 1:01:09

I like sediment. It's like orange juice with the pulp. I agree, I like that. I love sediment too. I like it's like a fun.

Kenneth Friedman: 1:01:15

It's a fun thing at the end of a glass and you get to chew on the sediment Fantastic actually with this, with with some of the Reasling or acidic reasonings, you'll get crystals and that's to taric acid, that's right ends up Crystallizing inside the inside the bottle, and that will happen, not always, because a lot of winemakers will cold stabilize their wine, which Then will avoid that, taking that chance, and some winemakers want to avoid that, some don't. That's also a winemaker decision, as many are, and the first time that ever happened to me I couldn't figure out what was floating in my wine, and so I did that deep dive on that and found out about the tartare Acid that it crystallizes with coldness. I had a case of wine shipped to me. The winemaker didn't cold stabilize it, meaning didn't prepare it for that. It was shipped in cold weather and all the tartare acid crystallized, which is which is a form of acid. So maybe what it does is that it takes some of the acid out of the wine. But it's interesting that you have that crystalline thing.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:02:22

It's just pretty. They're like little pretty crystals like salt salt. It looks like it but doesn't taste like salted. All it doesn't actually probably taste more like salt than sugar. What have you? I always thought it was something else crystallizing out of it, but it isn't.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 1:02:34

It's safe to drink?

Kenneth Friedman: 1:02:35

No, yeah, it's not a price, not an issue. It's something that's always in what is that crystal made out of? Tartare, acid tartare, which is what that's a natural byproduct of the fermentation. Okay, yeah.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 1:02:48

I love nature.

Kenneth Friedman: 1:02:49

You do, and the Lord has created unbelievable things. Where's boxed wine nowadays? We saw a little bit of that for a while.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:02:56

I have not, except that I know it's certainly not as popular as it was for a very short period of time.

Kenneth Friedman: 1:03:06

I think the cans make sense. Actually, I think the cans make sense. The boxes don't as much.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 1:03:11

My question is how do we feel about the blue bottle, everything? Everybody will always say, oh, it's a. Yeah, the women drink it, the girl?

Kenneth Friedman: 1:03:19

It's a girly drink. Here's where I am on it. I so I In a lot of the people I hang out with that, really no wine. You'll hear a lot of snobbery about it. Mm-hmm I I think it's exactly what it should be. It's a well-made muskato and it's popular for a reason because it tastes good. You know it's it's. I don't drink it because I don't prefer that style, but I understand why people like it. It's delicious. What's not to like about it?

Etan G The JewishRapper: 1:03:45

But is the blue bottles muskato different than say I don't want to say Muskato, yeah no, muskato is it's not very different?

Kenneth Friedman: 1:03:56

No, but it is different.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:03:58

It is that they Look where they make muskato. Actually went and visited. I went to Oste and I saw the factory. And what have you? Number one is that is the number one Selling kosher wine in the world and okay, number.

Kenneth Friedman: 1:04:11

That specific bottle is number one selling muskato, kosher or non kosher in the world.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 1:04:16

Okay, I was in hip hop videos. Yeah, that was that was.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:04:19

That was the biggest, because it's so consistent and so Sweet and delicious. It's like Coca-Cola, yeah, I mean, that's why people drink it. So Can I say something against that? No, I think it's. I think it's brilliant. It also provides Support for all of the phenomenal wines that they make in Italy and doing, you know, other wines in France and Israel. It sells very well and it's great and I think more power, more power to them. I. It's not my preference, but when people like it, I I Buy muskato. I have some in the fridge now, not the, not the blue bottle, because it's easier for me to get a tepperberg, which is an Israeli muskato rather than an Italian muskato. And I keep it in the fridge because there's always somebody in the party in the in the family that Likes sweeter wine rather than having a dry wine. That's a preference.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 1:05:18

This is subjective Understood, but in the wine world I'm the. I'm not in the wine world but I look at that blue bottle, almost like you know when you have beers you look at Budweiser is the bottom of the. You know it's the cheapest, the easiest, it's good, it's fine.

Kenneth Friedman: 1:05:36

That's not the case of this.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:05:38

It's not. It the amount of effort that they put in to get that consistent flavor. That's real wine. I mean, this is not like grape juice that they put some water into and what have you they. They ferment that and make that and in order to control that in a way that creates this consistent product in In millions of bottles. You know volume every year is crazy. I mean it's, it's, it's an enormous amount of effort.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 1:06:08

So you're talking about the effort. I'm talking almost like the the wine snobbery and we're drinking a cabernet. We say that bottle you put, you know, alongside any of the other, not in taste and fanciness, but rather in I don't.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:06:24

When we have RCC wine tastings, you aren't going to find a bottle of Moscato there. But the same way that when you have a family sitting at a table drinking not everybody drinks Coke, some people drink Pepsi there's certain things that are very subjective as far as taste is concerned. So I always have a bottle in the fridge. We didn't open it at the Shabbat, but I always have a bottle. Actually, I opened a different sweet wine that was more of a dessert sweet wine from Yakovoria. It's called G.

Kenneth Friedman: 1:06:56

Delicious, it's really delicious wine called G. Of course, that should be your house wine.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:07:03

You should walk around with that, because it's unbelievable wine.

Kenneth Friedman: 1:07:09

But I think the idea of having that in any wine cellar, of course, because there are people that prefer that style and it's part of the wine world, and I think it's an important part of the wine world. You can't force things on people that they don't like. If that's what people like, then I'm more power to them and I think that that's an example of something that's well-made. Like Simon was explaining, it's consistent and well-made and I don't think that's a joke. So stop making jokes. Always with the jokes.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 1:07:41

That's what I do. I do jokes. So that wine then we're saying is like any other bottle of wine. It's real wine, it's real wine.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:07:50

But you're not going to find it sitting in a cellar or at a table with a bunch of serious wine drinkers. It's not like that's going to sit on the side and say, oh, now it's our time to try the mascara.

Kenneth Friedman: 1:08:04

It's simple and fruity and sweet and fun, and that's what it is.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:08:07

And it's made for people who aren't really big wine drinkers or what have you. It's fun, it's just when if I don't have that on my table no, if I don't have that on my table when I'm drinking wine. There are certain people who are going to be left out of the conversation and I just as soon allow them to have some wine.

Kenneth Friedman: 1:08:27

Let me throw this at you If someone makes kiddish on a very poor made wine, I'm not drinking that. If someone makes kiddish on a bartender or a blue bottle, I absolutely will drink that because it's delicious 100%. Why wouldn't I drink that?

Etan G The JewishRapper: 1:08:39

You're supposed to use red wine for kiddish? Yes, Chavez de you can.

Kenneth Friedman: 1:08:43

We didn't hit that question. Also, havezala, you can.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:08:47

You can actually use beer.

Kenneth Friedman: 1:08:49

I do it many times.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:08:50

Okay so, but so there's an issue with wine and red wine. It's with regard to the Kabbalah talks about wine being, and it talks about wine being all different colors Red, white, in fact. We're coming up soon.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 1:09:06

Now orange.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:09:07

On to be fat, on to be fat. You actually have a Seder where you drink Arba Cozote. Okay, people don't realize that this is probably the biggest wine drinking time and fruit and wine celebration. But what they start with? There's a difference In certain people's view of the Kabbalah. They start with a deep red wine and they move to a lighter red and then a pink and then a white. My interpretation of the Kabbalah basically says that you start with a white and you move to a pink and then you move to a lighter. You know.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 1:09:51

So you go from light to dark, I go light to dark.

Kenneth Friedman: 1:09:53

This is what you do for the Arba Cozos. Yeah, interesting.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:09:56

No, but not for Pesach. Oh, I'm talking about to be fat.

Kenneth Friedman: 1:09:59

Oh, to be fat. To be fat, you have To be fat, Seder.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 1:10:02

Yes, you have to follow you have to follow you have to have tuned out there for a second.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:10:05

Exactly, he's following, he's following, it's okay I was thinking about how delicious that reasoning was.

Kenneth Friedman: 1:10:10

For a second I tuned out Carry on Simon no so so, and there's a specific Kabbalah to do with that way for the Tubish Vatsel.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:10:17

Yes, yeah, absolutely. If Royal or some of the other wine people realized how important that was, I mean we wouldn't be having big Pesach sales, we'd be having Tubish.

Kenneth Friedman: 1:10:31

Vatsel.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:10:32

I don't know why they haven't gone there yet but they haven't.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 1:10:35

They could put a box together which has four bottles in it. Absolutely. And sell it as the Tubish Vatsel package. Let's do it.

Kenneth Friedman: 1:10:44

Yeah, I think it would be great.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:10:46

Okay, so I didn't know that. So that's one. But as far as Kabbalah is concerned, there's a discussion of which wines to use to make what's the ideal wine to make Kiddush over. So the ideal is for it to be a red wine, not a white wine, for it to be a red wine, and that's the ideal to make Kiddush over a red wine. And in the temple, if you're talking about in the temple itself, the wines that they were using, I believe, were red, did they?

Etan G The JewishRapper: 1:11:21

make white wines back in the day.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:11:23

They probably did. They probably did, but I think they did. But even with that, I think that the ones that are thought of as being the richest and fullest and the best are always going to be reds, and I think that that's why in the beta-migdash they used red. I think you know it wasn't there.

Kenneth Friedman: 1:11:46

So let me bring this topic up. This is always hotly debated.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:11:49

Now it's going to come. I know what you're going to bring it up, but go ahead, go for it, go for it.

Kenneth Friedman: 1:11:55

I mentioned it, I think yesterday, but maybe I didn't but the hotly debated topic as it applies to Pesach and the idea that on a Pesach Seder you're drinking red wine, and the reasons you can discuss, which you just touched on. Now I look at Pesach and I'm sitting there on a holiday and I say Shechianu, and I want to bring out special bottles for that. Is this what you thought I was going to bring up? No, okay, now I'm interested. What do you thought I was going to?

S. Simon Jacob: 1:12:22

bring up.

Kenneth Friedman: 1:12:24

And it's hotly debated among real wine people whether you bring out great bottles and maybe there's an idea that you have to somewhat guzzle the wine in a certain amount of time at the Seder. So why are you using great wine, use a basic wine for that, because you're not really enjoying it by drinking that fast. Where do you stand on that, simon? Do you understand the question? I understand the question perfectly yeah, where do?

S. Simon Jacob: 1:12:48

you stand on that. I'll tell you where I stand on it. I'm not going to. I probably don't drink it as fast as Rabbi say you should or what have you, but I don't ever drink anything that way. I don't eat in matzahs. I don't stuff my mouth with matzah because they say to do that. I drink wine the way I drink wine and I'm happy to drink really really good wine because I normally drink a lot of really really good wine. It's not like it's going to be something that's less.

Kenneth Friedman: 1:13:18

Correct. I thought that it's almost like disrespectful is not the right word. But I'm drinking great wine regular night. Why wouldn't I drink it when?

S. Simon Jacob: 1:13:27

I'm sitting when it's a commandment to drink.

Kenneth Friedman: 1:13:29

Exactly, then I should drink the best wine.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:13:32

I'll tell you what my question is where.

Kenneth Friedman: 1:13:33

I thought you were going to go Well. I'm glad you answered that, by the way, because that's how I feel. That's for me.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:13:38

I feel the same way. Great minds think alike, fools so differ, but it's okay. The thing I was going to bring up was there's a whole issue with and it's interesting it came off of last week's podcast with Nunzio, who is in Italy with Ralph Medeb, and what have you? He said I can't understand why anybody would boil their wine. It doesn't make any sense to me to have this Mavusha. What I asked him point blank. So have you tasted it? Yes, I said yes, there's a difference, and I don't want to drink it. I don't even want to talk about it anymore. It's terrible, it's absolutely awful. What he doesn't understand is that's exactly what it's supposed to be.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:14:29

You're supposed to boil wine so that it's not wine, so that it's not wine and it isn't. But he's telling me, as a person who really knows wine, that no matter how we boil it or what we do, we end up with something that is not wine in his mind. Okay, great, that's exactly what.

Kenneth Friedman: 1:14:50

I'm thinking it's why we do it.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:14:52

That's why we do it, Because it doesn't bother me when we boil it. It's a delicious wine as far as I'm concerned, and now I can use it as if it isn't wine. But where I have a question is that how do I use a Mavushal wine and make a bracha on it If it's not wine?

Kenneth Friedman: 1:15:11

Why don't I just say shakol?

S. Simon Jacob: 1:15:13

Why do I make a bracha on a Mavushal wine, or how do I use that for pesech?

Kenneth Friedman: 1:15:20

There are a lot of people that will not use it.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 1:15:23

Wine that's cooked Mavushal yes, that's the one that a Nanju is allowed to touch Good, so it's a non-Mavushal wine that a.

Kenneth Friedman: 1:15:32

Nanju is not allowed to touch 100% right, I don't want to jump to a different idea on the same topic, but Mavushal, that process has. I read a lot about wine. I'm sure you do also, as the climate is changing for whatever reason, in Europe and in France there are winemakers that are starting to pasteurize their wine to be able to control it better. It's an interesting thing. Are you either using some of the techniques that have been perfected by places like Haggafen and Covenant and places that really make Okay.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:16:07

So I know that Ralph makes Mavushal wines M&M out of Italy. They use the absolute. They're not sitting there boiling these things on roasters or what have you. They're doing it in the most, the least impactful way in order to keep them as being kosher but Mavushal. So I know he's using the latest tech, I think, to make it. And that Nunzio's response was why in the world would you ever use this? It's terrible. I don't have such an impact from it. I mean, david Raqqa always said you know, like, why are we doing this? It's terrible, I get it. Well, we know why we're doing it. No, we're doing it so that we can drink it in restaurants.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:17:00

And the Hezgaz won't let you do that, so I get it. But you know, and that's not true, here in Israel we can drink non-Mavushal wines.

Kenneth Friedman: 1:17:08

here it's America. That's primarily the place that doesn't allow it anywhere.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:17:12

But, that said, I'm happy that there is a difference, because if it was a fake out and it really wasn't different and you could go ahead and drink Mavushal wine just like non-Mavushal wine and not have a difference, that would be a real fake out and maybe that is really not acceptable. Well, I think that's so.

Kenneth Friedman: 1:17:35

I was kind of it's funny because I think that is where we are with a lot of Mavushal wine is that a lot of it is as good. The jury's out whether it ages the same, but a lot of it is, as I mean, we know that from you can drink a 25-year-old Alexander Valley from Herzog and it's fantastic and I proved to me that that's not great wine in the best wine. I'll tell you why.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:18:00

I'll tell you what's interesting. I went through this experiment. People said, oh, mavushal wines don't age, they're terrible. I don't know whether they age or they don't. I can tell you that, hands down, old Mavushal wines taste better than anything else and I think it freezes them in a point that they are, when they taste, very good. And I think that and it's an experience I've had with Jay Bookspam that we've opened Mavushal wines that are delicious.

Kenneth Friedman: 1:18:33

I would posit the idea that you're drinking old Herzogs, which are special in that regard. Oh, it's different, different ones.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:18:41

I'm just telling you different wines that are Mavushal that have come out, though the majority of probably Herzogs, because most of them weren't Mavushal before. But like you can't get a Yorden, that's Mavushal. So that's.

Kenneth Friedman: 1:18:55

That's such an interesting thing, though, that you said about the nonzio that he said I was sitting there thinking that people are going to sit there and go oh God, that's awful.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:19:04

And I'm sitting there thinking, yay, all right, hurray. I'm thinking that makes me feel really good because, guess what, it isn't the same. So I have non-Mavushal wines that I drink in certain places, and I have Mavushal wines that I drink in other places. My question, though, then, is am I really allowed to make a braja over these Mavushal wines, because they're not really wines anymore?

Kenneth Friedman: 1:19:27

So Well, I mean, obviously the consensus is yes, we do. But it's a good question, is it not the consensus?

S. Simon Jacob: 1:19:34

I don't know whether anybody's really thought about it that way. Maybe they have, because certainly there is a consensus. There's a very strong thought that for the four cups on Pesach you should absolutely not use Mavushal wines. I don't know where that came out of the left field, because the issue with that is, all of these people go on Pesach programs in America and all over the place and then the question is you're going to use non-Mavushal wines in a time when you've got all of this activity going on.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:20:09

So I don't know how they play that.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 1:20:10

I don't go away for.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:20:11

Pesach I stay home. I love my wife's cooking, I love my mother's cooking. For good reason, yeah no, so I don't go away for Pesach and I'm sorry if I'm not trying to kill the market here for people, but that's it Well we're marketing that Tubeshvat four pack. Yeah, I like that. We should do that.

Kenneth Friedman: 1:20:30

That's the thing I'm taking from the Tubeshvat four pack. Yeah, the kosher terwire special.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:20:35

I'm going to talk to you. I'm going to talk to Aviatar tomorrow.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 1:20:38

They should get that out really fast. Love it, it's a great idea. Okay, good, thank you, guys, we've covered a lot of ground here we did. I was all over the place Beautiful, which is what I expected.

Kenneth Friedman: 1:20:48

I asked Simon when we were coming up here. I'm like, what are we talking about? I was like you'll see, yeah, I got, we'll see. We'll see what happens it was okay.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:20:54

I mean, we discussed this one. I think we could do this for hours, honestly. Okay, Thank you for being on the kosher terwire guys.

Etan G The JewishRapper: 1:21:00

Really thank you, thank you guys, thank you.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:21:08

Thank you. This is Simon Jacob, again your host of today's episode of the kosher terwire. 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 terwire. 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 terwire, please check out our many past episodes.