Unveiling the Craftsmanship Behind Agur Winery's Unique Judean Hills Blends

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 episode of the Coucher Terroir is an exceptional conversation and wine tasting with the highly creative team at Agour Winery in the Judean Hills wine region of Israel.

S Simon Jacob: 0:44

Elad Katz, the CEO Eyal Drori and , the winemaker, along with the winery founder and winemaker emeritus, Shoki Yishov, have formed an incredible partnership, embracing the spirit of Agour's past while focusing on its truly creative potential. Elad and Ayyal shared with us some of their older offerings as well as some of their new creations. There was so much to taste and absorb that I've broken this episode into two parts, this being the first where we were treated, in their visitor center, to a review of the history of the Agour winery and a tasting of their current production run. Next week, we will visit the actual winery and taste all the newest ideas and offerings being developed for the future. If you are commuting in your car, please focus on the road and enjoy. If you are home, please choose a delicious kosher wine. Sit back and listen in on this personal wine conversation among friends.

Elad Katz: 1:52

We're sitting at Agour winery, which is celebrating its 26th vintage, I think this year.

S Simon Jacob: 2:01

It's important that the 2 important Thats important 26 is the gematria of the name of G-D. You know that, that's it. That's a very important vintage. It is, it is For us, it is.

Elad Katz: 2:11

Because of what you said and because it's the first harvest of our new vineyard that we planted just a minute before we joined here as partners, eyal Dror and myself, at Al-Katz. The winery is 26. It was founded by Shuqi Ashouv. You met him. It started as a joint venture between two young winemakers, shuqi Ashouv and Zeev Dunya. After one year that they produced one wine called Elul, in 1999, they decided to split. Zeev Dunya went up to Bar-Giora and established his winery called Sea Horse Susaniam. And Shuqi stayed here with the name.

S Simon Jacob: 2:56

Agur, I didn't know you guys were that close. That's amazing.

Elad Katz: 2:59

We're only starting with the karma stories. So 20-something years after, I was the CEO of Castel. I worked there for about eight and a half years and I quit. And after a couple of months of thinking this was the early days of Corona, of COVID, I made a decision that I want to stay in our industry and do my own thing. My first phone call was to Eyal, which I didn't really knew. I heard two things about him First, that he is a manch, and the second thing that he's a highly talented professional winemaker. And we met took a couple of months, maybe almost a year, until I convinced him to join me in this venture. Eyal, he presented himself, but he was back then the winemaker in Sea Horse, and look how it goes, you know.

Eyal Drori: 4:03

Yeah, wow.

Elad Katz: 4:05

a the first venture was planting vG G Ginivat Gshayau shayau afuture the future winery that we will establish, and this vintage is the first one, as I said, it's harvest and the second thing was thinking about how will our winery look like, and we had a dilemma whether to establish a new one or joining something that was already here and for all kinds of reasons Agur was in our minds.

Elad Katz: 4:41

Now I live three kilometers from here, so Shuki was a good friend of mine. I would stop after work from Castel drinking a rose with him and giving some tips. And I asked Shuki. I told him, shuki, you have a place, but the energy is not what it was. I have the energy and I don't have the place. And he was willing to give space. And then I asked him whether he will accept another partner that will replace him as a winemaker and he said you know, I can try, but you have to tell me who is this guy that will replace me. He said he's a young professional. His name is Eyal Drori. Maybe you've heard the name. Shuki started laughing and apparently I didn't know that when I did the Shiduch. But Eyal was Shuki's student. What do you call it?

Yechiel Wogel : 5:48

Project, project, project, project yeah.

Elad Katz: 5:53

His first harvest vintage in life was when he was 18 and he lived here, actually. So Shuki kind of taught him the work and just after the army, eyal went on to study in Italy, so it was a kind of weird and cosmic meeting. Wow, no, so that was in 2020, october I joined and Eyal joined a year after me, and since then the winery is growing. Maybe we'll talk about it a bit later. You want to present yourself then?

S Simon Jacob: 6:28

Yeah, so this is the winemaker.

Eyal Drori: 6:31

Your side, yeah, my side was sorry Now as so, as Eyal said, I'm Eyal Drori. I'm the head winemaker here in Agur and it's funny because, yeah, my journey started here in 2005. I was 18 years old before I had some time before the army and I wanted to. I always had this dream to work in a winery. And so I looked and a friend of my father is a brother of Shuki, so he did the match and I called him and he said come over and from there it's for me. It was the history Like I fell in love in this space. I fell in love in this, in the work in the winemaking, and then, after the army, I used to come here every hour or so to help a little bit Shuki. It wasn't that serious there.

Eyal Drori: 7:35

And then, after the army, I decided that that's what I want to do with my life and I went to Italy. I did a bachelor and master degree there. So I lived there for six years in Piedmont in north Italy. I worked a little bit in some wineries there. It was important to me also to work in the same climate of Israel, but abroad, not in Israel itself and I went to Crete, the island of Crete in Greece, to do an harvest there and finally, after six years I decided that I'm ready to go back to Israel.

Eyal Drori: 8:09

And then I worked in Recanati winery as a young winemaker for two years. I did a couple of harvest with the Italian as a consultant in the Golan Heights two wineries there Then I worked as a winemaker in a sea horse winery for three years and in the last year of sea horse winery. Then when I met Elad, then we decided eventually we decided to do that and, as Elad said, the first thing that we did is to plant our I call it the Coroviniad, because it's really what for idols. Oh, so it's in Vivatis Ayaou, which in our opinion it's one of the most interesting and best terroir, that microclimate that we have in Jordan Hills.

S Simon Jacob: 9:05

It seems to be that a number of wineries are buying plots up in that area. Absolutely.

Eyal Drori: 9:11

And it's becoming a coup. It's really like that. And so for the question we planted. So first we did some wine tasting. We had some friends, some wine professionalists, and we start to ask questions like what we want to do, what are the right varieties for this region and for this specific plot? So we did a lot of tasting Israeli wines against wines from all over the world blends, varieties and eventually we decided to go with Syrah. So we had eight dunes, so 0.8 hectares of Syrah.

Eyal Drori: 9:57

We have Rosan, we have Sheninblan, we planted goblets, bush vines of Corvinian and Gronash, and this year we had for this plot another five dunes of Asyrtiko. Asyrtiko is one of those varieties that I've really waited for. More than 10 years I waited to bring it to Israel.

S Simon Jacob: 10:22

I don't know anything about it, so tell me a little bit about it.

Eyal Drori: 10:26

It's a white variety that originally was coming from the island of Santowini, which is a very extreme climate. It's hot, even hotter than here in Israel.

Yechiel Wogel : 10:38

Windy the winds are really windy, oh, in Santowini, where they have the circle ones.

Eyal Drori: 10:41

It's like a nest.

Elad Katz: 10:43

They grow the vine up here in a nest. No, it's a circle, it's a nest, it's actually very specific for Santowini. Like what we say geffen surucha, geffen on the ground, but it's nestled.

Eyal Drori: 10:55

It looks like a bird's nest. It looks like a bird's nest.

Eyal Drori: 10:59

It's protected from the winds, Protect the grapes, so it's an upcoming star of the Santowini region in the last 10 years. But this is not the reason why I wanted to plant the Seotiko, because it's coming from an island with basaltic soil, so it's not necessarily the same conditions. But the thing that convinced me to do that is that I tasted the Seotiko one of the best Seotiko that I've ever tasted. That's coming from Pelipones, which is the mainland in Greece, which is really similar to Judea Nehal's limestone Tehrosa.

Eyal Drori: 11:46

So this is for me, what's the, what sort of characteristics of it? Well, in Santowini it's different. It's more mineral and lemon-yzzets and this kind of aromas. But when I tasted the one that comes from the mainland, it's something that is it's always mineral, it's always with a lemon, citrusy aromas, but also have very round and balanced body with a good cd, high acidity, which gives him the longevity to be aged as well, and I think that is. I look at it as a blender for me. Right now I want to add to our wines the minerality, the sharpness and the limestone notes that we have here.

Elad Katz: 12:41

I'm looking forward, I think that in the vineyards, the work we've done, we've planted more plots since then, in the up on the Elav Valley, on the hills that surrounds it, and we did a long, long research of tastings, very open-minded about the question, and the question was what is suitable to hear, not just what is fashionable. Now, because you know fashions and trends change.

Elad Katz: 13:10

And we are already feeling comfortable enough, confident enough as people and as a region, to really do what's best for the plant, what's best for the wine. So we really asked the question very openly, very open-minded, and in that sense, we're just following Shuki, which was a pioneer in more or less everything he done. He was always a crazy redhead. So in 2013, he bought the grapes from a plot of Ozeleta there's also a very unique variety coming from the northern parts of Italy and then, in 2010, before that, he started producing a wine he called Laian to the sea because he was a bit, maybe bored from the Bordeaux blends that were very, very popular Back then, he thought we should look to the Mediterranean this is where we are from and started playing with Syrah and Morved.

Elad Katz: 14:15

And we just took some inspiration from that, because Al blends we'll talk about the wines in a minute are super complex. So we usually try to simplify to the customer and say a Syrah-based blend, but behind that in the kitchen is being blending like seven varieties more or less in every blend, because we're trying to say something about the region, not about the variety. Varieties are instruments for us, the varietals.

S Simon Jacob: 14:47

It's interesting. It's a good philosophy.

Eyal Drori: 14:49

Well, there's a lot of inspirations from a lot of different places in the Mediterranean countries. Let's say like that, and what I had most like, what I'm feeling the most correct for our situation, is that, as Al had said, the variety, the varieties are tools for us to extract out from this land the characteristics of this region and our wines. And this philosophy I met in Portugal, first in Portugal, and also in the oldest region in the world, chateau Nef de Pap is exactly like that. So, chateau Nef, we have 13, now 15 different varieties. It's true that it's normally based on one variety, which is Garnache, but it's always a blend.

Elad Katz: 15:51

And also in Portugal and also in Spain, we start to see some things, and in France in general, this philosophy works and it suits for us and just want to add that our vision or motivation is that our wines will be recognized as Judean Hills blends and not Abordeaux blend, iran blend, even other Mediterranean blend. So really, this is another reason why blending open-minded, because we are in the process, like the Israeli cuisine is going through, we are in the process of creating a unique identity for Israeli wines.

S Simon Jacob: 16:33

Shifty drawing also specifically, people always call Rome blends Mediterranean blends and he basically fights that. He said they're still European blends. They're not what you call it, they're not Mediterranean. There's a lot more to Mediterranean than what's happening in the Rome, so I agree with you 100%. I love that this is the direction that Israel is going in order to really make wines that are exceptional, specifically for this area.

Elad Katz: 17:12

Okay, Al is a wine maker that gets bored very easily.

Yechiel Wogel : 17:16

He also produces very much he likes his beer.

Elad Katz: 17:18

He likes, his whiskey, he likes a lot of.

Yechiel Wogel : 17:21

I think he likes her mousse.

Elad Katz: 17:22

More or less. Whatever, just be careful, he might ferment you. So he has the meat spetil and grapefruit patina, all kinds of weird stuff. So in his wines he has to maintain this interest and that we call attention. Hi, newly bottled, that right is brand new it's brand new.

S Simon Jacob: 17:48

This is what tell me before we so this is our Young wine.

Eyal Drori: 17:52

We do two kinds of wine, of white wines, we have the young cereal, that is, is it's based on Sauvignon Blanc. Now, it's called a good blank. It's called a good one. Yeah, 2023, it's the new vintage, it's just.

Elad Katz: 18:09

We know, yeah, great Sauvignon Blanc based blend. That's the short line, right.

Eyal Drori: 18:15

Yes, this is short, no, but like, if we can Beg a little bit for the philosophy when we choose to do White here in Judin Hills. I wanted to understand fully the what, how. Which variety has the biggest potential for, for what kind of wines that? This is the young wine and is process, the unification process is. It's not a classic of white wine, young white wine, it's not just and still, it's half of the wine, always fermenting old bears, old brick, and I keep it on the lease for four months and and and and do some better nage, especially for the Sauvignon Blanc.

Eyal Drori: 19:03

I'm trying to get from the Sauvignon Blanc not the fruity characteristics, are the tropical fruits, not the new world style. I try to extract out the mineral reality, the herbal notes, these kinds of Sauvignon Blanc that I truly believe that has the Big potential in Judin Hills. So this is the case, for this is why I choose Sauvignon Blanc for this wine. And, as we said, it's a blend. And what about the others? Yeah, so it's 60% Sauvignon Blanc, then the others we have. We have Chardonnay or Saint Vignette and a little bit of Garnache Blanc, engineering Blanc.

Elad Katz: 19:46

Think that the young, we call it the young wines series. There's a trick. We it's about the how do you say, like the Channem Choutaf. The common denominator, yeah, is that we try to look for fruit, flowers and some minerals. You know, that's the, the three things in the series, and it it's about being accessible. We try to price it quite reasonably. But then the trick is that because of Ayal's ambition, it's, it's not a simple wine, so you can enjoy this like fun in the sun, no problem, people are bringing it here on the grass and enjoying it. But then if you are wine connoisseur, you might and dive deep and find all kinds of things that are not usually in a young wine, and in the rosé it's even more dominant.

S Simon Jacob: 20:44

This is this is almost got like a full made one. I'm kind of a smokiness in the top of it.

Eyal Drori: 20:51

This is one of the inspirations coming from, not necessarily from, the region of form. The style battle just to understand the right techniques in order to have these characteristics from Sauvignon Blanc.

S Simon Jacob: 21:06

Wow, I especially I love the it's. It's also beautifully balanced right across the whole palette. It's just lovely great. No, it's yeah it's like really cool.

Eyal Drori: 21:28

I want you to stay with it for For a while. We have two kind of glasses now. This is for the lay-am seria, this one.

Elad Katz: 21:40

I just want to say something about lay-am. So in 2010 Shuki he back then had two partners, cousins from America. They thought they can Manage him from there. They were wrong. But in 2010 they found out that Shuki decided alone to produce a new wine and winery called lay-am. It was a red blend, kind of a field blend of Sierra and Norvel 5050, and they said we're producing a Sierra blend. Who buys Zira? It's not how long ago was this?

Elad Katz: 22:17

it was 2000, 2010, 2010 and this was the thing that made them break apart the partnership. So he was Forced to pay for the grapes and barrels of lay-am and they split, and that when we came to the winery and tasted with Shuki what he was doing in 2019 to 2020, we thought lay-am was the best thing he ever done.

S Simon Jacob: 22:44

He was like again, pioneering before his time in those days, if you're focused on the United States as a market, nobody was buying Sierra. It was like If you put the name Sierra on it, nobody would buy it. And and I know People were strongly recommending Israeli wineries to stop with the Sierra because they couldn't sell it and and they needed cabs and and that's what they needed. Yeah, and it's, it's so. It's amazing that that you've broken through and now, all of a sudden, people are very interested in siras and it's beautiful. It's a beautiful thing. I I wish there was a way to change the names on some of the bottles to just say like we tasted and were low.

S Simon Jacob: 23:42

Yesterday they called it a cab. People would buy it.

Elad Katz: 23:48

Just because of the name so notice that we don't have the variety names in the front label. Just the wines have names. This is layam blank, layam which aile Only started producing a year, two years ago. So this is the second vintage. This is layam black. Layam blank 2022 21 was the first. It was actually the the only wine we've added to a ghoul's portfolio when we joined. So aile aile we look at the portfolio and I said I want layam is such a great Idea, I want to elaborate it into white.

Eyal Drori: 24:27

Yeah, and then in this case, the variety that I choose for To be the most dominant is the rossan, which is one of my favorite. Rossan is a variety. It's sure that it's coming from the wrong valley, but I when we tested a lot we test also from Israel, but I also tested from Australia and the States a lot of rossan and it's a versatile variety. It have this Cateristic that can be very like stone foot is always towards Apple, something fresh like green apple and smith, and the minerality is always there and From the other hand, it's it's a rich, it gives you a rich wine. So we need to be careful if you don't, in a warm country like us, need to be careful to not have Decided. I'm not one from the rossan. For example, the Chateau Neuf white, which is made your son, she's very heavy. It's not kind of white wines that I want to do. I want to have this.

Eyal Drori: 25:36

Freshness and lightness, but but complexity. So it's also based. Then we have a Chardonnay vionnier and a Little bit of Chenin Blanc, and so we know one as well. Each variety has Is part in this blend, so we know one, for example. Gives us some Crucifal fruits, but many freshness, good acidity, something harsh even. How much are the days in this? This is 22. It's about 10%. Yeah, the Chardonnay here is Giving their sons some Help with the structure. Gives us a lot of also the minority notes, but also the, the betonage method that I'm doing it with 10 month in barrels. The Chardonnay gives this richness and Eastie.

S Simon Jacob: 26:36

Like it's not quite buttery but it's, but it's, but it's. It's lovely, it's kind of it's got a real wraps around your mouth. It's. It's also wonderful great.

Elad Katz: 26:51

So it's like a mirror Mirror of the agour blanc, leia Blanc variety wise. But then line making was a totally different style and we thought that agour should Try and produce a high-end white which will again show the greatness of our terroir. And it's only the second vintage, so we're humble about it. It's only a start and and laya was for us is the series. The two wines are the most important wines of the winery. They're not the flagship. There's a wine upper class than them, than them. But they kind of Define the, the style and direction. There's a comp, the compass, and they're about complexity and silkiness. Maybe this is what you're feeling.

S Simon Jacob: 27:43

It's, it's. It's also it Fills your mouth. It's not like so, it's not so Light and springy that you know you sit outside and you drink it and it's just you just drink it, almost like water.

Eyal Drori: 28:03

This has got some Body to it, it's it should give you this thing that we talking about a serious wine. It is not just, but in. For the other hand, it doesn't need to be heavy. Like you know, it's not rich Nothing buttery.

S Simon Jacob: 28:22

Yeah, but this is an oak for helmet 10 months.

Eyal Drori: 28:25

10 months, okay. Naturally, part of it new oak, I also the oak. The, the blends of different bears is so critical for these kinds of wines. Using using a French oak, but I'm using also a catcher, yeah that was another thing that when I told me, I mean he told me, to the first one I meant that you really the top and the bottom.

Yechiel Wogel : 28:52

you do okay and I was like, no, no, I was doing it like this, it's a hybrid barrel.

Elad Katz: 28:57

Yeah, the top and the bottom are from a catcher and the staves are. Then you get this crazy minty you call it.

S Simon Jacob: 29:06

Yeah, I was gonna say that's almost the color that catcher is so Going well with your son.

Eyal Drori: 29:14

It's just amazing. This, this, this combination gives the or son. It's a life lifting yeah.

S Simon Jacob: 29:21

Yeah, this is, I think, the best for son of every case. No, what's this? Just so you know.

Elad Katz: 29:29

By the way, it's a, it's a nice phrase, so I'll Shook. Shookie is a veteran of the onky-poo, okay, and On the bottle of the first lay on, he decided to write Something from jub from you, very interesting, pasuk talking about how God Comes out of the sea very dramatically, and then he's wrapped in fog. Hatul bar fell, so it's a sentence about the sea, about a young layman, and, but it's something about his PTSD that he's wrapped in fog. That's part of his feelings some mornings. And we've decided to take this idea of, instead of writing On the back labels you know, fermented that, all that technical stuff we wrote just varieties and Some phrase as inspiration. But on the layman blank we chose something about, about this wine actually be coho la ga hayam and the two nato machatz rahab, which for us means that I hope we meet book Restraint strength yeah, strength is power and not, you know, and With if you are really in strong, you are a strength.

S Simon Jacob: 30:50

There's a lot of people who should know that verse, especially at these days, yeah, especially these days, special Roto said what we really really want to do you and say we, not just me.

Eyal Drori: 31:03

As a wine, is it a Go? Wine goes, wine maker In general, growth of new wine makers or young wine makers or ambitious ones we start to understand the potential that we have in Judean hills and we want to.

Eyal Drori: 31:20

Give that expression out with the wines In the highest level that we truly believe that we can in terms of International wines. So we said with the Sauvignon Blanc, and really, really, I really believe in this, there, in some very specific plots, in microclimates, you can have your Perfect conditions for this variety, even though that we are not in the lower valley. Let's say, when we sit in the winery, I'm using and I'm doing a lot of Different fermentation, different ease, different techniques In order to get that and it's, it's hard work, but eventually we were learning and my the idea is to study the right techniques to each wine and eventually, I don't know, in five years or ten years, because next time it's wine business, even generations, no, we will be on the right track and then everything is more clear and I believe that I would say, damn, I didn't do that before. This is the process.

S Simon Jacob: 32:44

It is a process and it requires an exceptional amount of documentation. It's just every single one of them.

Eyal Drori: 32:51

It's nothing, but you know, you know.

S Simon Jacob: 32:54

But you can't. This is not making wine suit of the pan, so you can tell this when you taste it. It's got a fullness about each of the wines that they're not just light wines that you've put together. This is really something that is like a puzzle that you've put the pieces together in a way that it's beautiful. It's really beautiful.

Elad Katz: 33:31

This is the rose. You can call him a wine maker or a pixel manager. I say there's a lot of pixels here, a lot of pixels.

Eyal Drori: 33:42

This is the rose, the new vintage 23. So the rose also had its own unique methods To be fair. Shuki started it in 2006.

Elad Katz: 34:00

Again, before anyone was producing Any boutique wine, we were producing rose.

Eyal Drori: 34:05

One of the first in Israel to produce high quality rose, because everywhere we had some rose and no bulk wine style rose for the big wineries, but a high quality. It was in 2006,. It was crazy to think about it Nowadays it seems so obvious. But so he did it in his own way. He did it. The inspiration comes from Bandol area, but he did the rose in bears, in old bears, the fermentation, and stayed on the lease for a couple of months Until he had this reductive characteristics notes that comes from the lease and it was crazy rose For us, too rustic, and I really wanted to dedicate things there and to elevate it to something serious as well, but more elegant and more gastronomic. And I also grew on rose in my house and especially my father was born in France, so he introduced me.

Eyal Drori: 35:24

There was the provision of rose, there was a rose in general as a good wine, not just a bad wine that we back then used to have here in Israel. So I had this purpose in my mind and eventually I decided to keep this technique of fermenting bears and stay on the lease. So it's 80% of the wine for varieties, it's a blend Fermented by each variety by itself in bears In old bears and then stayed on the lease for four months Until. It depends on the variety, but until I have this reductive notes, and then I do the rack, I'm racking it and do the blend, and then we have eventually the 80% of the lease section and then we have the 20% of the stand still, just to give it a little bit more sharpness.

Elad Katz: 36:20

So it's more of a brand.

S Simon Jacob: 36:22

It's more of a brand Brand.

Elad Katz: 36:24

Cabernet Frank and mahr selan Bears are 225 liters and up to 500 liters, and yeah, it's a homage to shuki in some way. But then a yahl style, and it's also the same, because usually I think the world of rosé has gone flat. Everyone's producing more or less the same fruity juice with acid and no substance. So you already see, a yahl likes his wines. How am I Like?

Yechiel Wogel : 37:03

a present.

Elad Katz: 37:05

But then it's a rosé, I have to be able to drink it, it's not so he kept the style of shuki, but gave it a polish. Yeah, quite a nice uplift.

S Simon Jacob: 37:18

Was there an impact from the war?

Elad Katz: 37:21

Oh yeah, oh Well, I know. First of all, I was recruited on the 7th. For about 50 days I was in Gaza, our masjigiech Hanan, which is originally from Long Island, I think right.

Yechiel Wogel : 37:39

Awef.

Elad Katz: 37:39

Golani. He's still up in the north, so we had to recruit more workers.

Yechiel Wogel : 37:44

New workers. This one is there. He's also a system winemaker or something. He's the system.

Elad Katz: 37:49

Ayal recruited him from another winery that he was working as a consultant. He's a very talented guy, very knowledgeable, and he's still up north in Milouin Liel. Our office manager was recruited, so half of the staff wasn't here. Ayal was here for almost two months alone, with the worker Alone. I always joke about him. I left my espresso cup on the bar on the 6th and when I came back somewhere at the end of November it was still there.

Eyal Drori: 38:20

He's a winemaker, he's into winemaking.

Elad Katz: 38:23

And the grass was like this high and we didn't sell anything in Israel. So October and November were quite hard and then we came back and we worked hard. I think we're OK now. So from our balcony it's a safe area but we hear everything. It's like a balcony to the sea, to the Mediterranean.

Elad Katz: 38:52

So we really were with a finger on the pulse as we say we hear everything. But we were actually finished all of our plots harvesting before we were supposed to receive another one from the north because the yield was very low on 2023. And that plot was never harvested, so we planted our Korean. Our vine grower is a high-rank official in the military reserve, so he's still there. I just met him a couple of days ago in the vineyard, so we are helping him now to grow the vineyard, to prune and all kind of stuff.

S Simon Jacob: 39:38

But we're OK.

Elad Katz: 39:40

Luckily the war was just you know the minute the harvest was done and when the vines go into dormant. So we're waking up now, like the vines.

Eyal Drori: 39:53

Everybody said that and I agree it's probably the best whole set that we did. It wasn't an easy year. We had a lot of heat waves. Actually, for me it was like one big long heat wave that started in late July. So it was a complicated year but eventually we have a very surprisingly very good quality, very high quality. This is where you see the quality of, also for your growers or the plants, and in this case you can feel it. And the 23 vintage is amazing.

S Simon Jacob: 40:45

This is like really fantastic. It's a real rosé. No, it's not excessive, it's clean and the tastes are exactly what you want them to be and it's just beautiful, really really beautiful rosé, amazing, wow. I love that you're expressing this from here and this is what you're getting and I just it's just amazing, it's just great, it's really great, and I'm most happy that you make this kosher. It's just amazing, please, thank you very much for all of the efforts.

Elad Katz: 41:35

When Eyal was here as an 18-year-old student, the winery wasn't kosher, that was 2005. It became kosher 2006. So it was the last year before, yeah, but he came back home. I live here, so it's my home as well, and this is an expression for us. For me, I know that Eyal of wet limestone after the rain up in the hills here that's exactly the smell.

Elad Katz: 42:07

I feel it's wet limestone and it's a rosé, so you would express, you would expect maybe strawberries, all kind of that stuff, and we like it, like this mineral a bit, fatness, sub-scar.

S Simon Jacob: 42:22

It's not strawberries, it's not cotton candy type of stuff, and it's just no.

Elad Katz: 42:29

And we talked about the portfolio when we joined. So I said to Eyal, my job is to keep up the sales and I said look this rosé. It's not for everyone, it's not on everyone, rosé, but actually we liked it, so we said OK, we're not a big producer. We don't have to be loved by everyone, we just have to produce our own thing.

Eyal Drori: 42:55

And if it's good, people will come.

Elad Katz: 42:58

And it's kind of an educative approach, not with arrogance of course, and we find people surprised that a rosé that looks very, it's kind of a pale, it has a nice color, it looks like an easy drinking rosé. That's the trick I was talking about earlier.

Eyal Drori: 43:15

And then you get something which is it's a serious rosé, we start with the reds, so we start with the young red wine, quesem. So quesem. I think quesem is the wine that we change. It's the biggest change that we did for wine when we joined. It always was a wine of the portfolio of Shuki, but the model was like a Bordeaux, like you had a young Bordeaux which was one and a half years in barrels and it's more soft and it's more fruity, and then you have the special reserve, like the gun vans, etc. So I want to change the problem.

Eyal Drori: 44:15

With hot climates, when you work with Bordeaux varieties, if you want to lower a little bit the percentage of the alcohol and to pick earlier, you get this green notes. So it doesn't make sense and I wanted to put inside more those varieties that doesn't have these green characteristics that are suitable perfectly for our climate and this region. And the first one that we had is Carignan, but we had also Marcelin and Petit Zira to the blend. So it's a cross between Bordeaux varieties and Mediterranean varieties, let's say like that.

Elad Katz: 45:00

It's a unique blend. Actually, we haven't seen anything like that before.

Eyal Drori: 45:04

It's Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon. La Cassem was originally for Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot.

Yechiel Wogel : 45:10

CSM oh, that's the acronym.

Eyal Drori: 45:12

Yeah, that's the acronym of Cassem. That's why Shuki called it like that. But so we keep the name and we kept also these two varieties. So it's a blend based on Merlot and Cabernet, then Carignan and Petit Zira, marcelin, and also a little bit of Carignan and Frank and Granace.

S Simon Jacob: 45:36

Tintoera.

Eyal Drori: 45:37

And the last one is Granace Tintoera. Granace Tintoera, it's Alican Boucher in France. It's a variety that I felt in love. Joker, it's a Joker.

S Simon Jacob: 45:49

I felt in love with this variety. It's a crazy variety. Unbelievable color yeah, because the color is even in the meat of the grapes.

Eyal Drori: 45:56

Yes, but it's also when you taste some wines that come in from the old vineyards. It's a very unique variety. It has something very that reminds me Sumac, one of the local spices, but also like cherry, black cherries. It's a unique variety and it's a perfect blender for the Cassem. It gives us this juiciness for a young wine, the Wollendoll. It's six months in barrels, that's it. And barrels and claym for us and claypants, yeah, and also it's carbonic.

Elad Katz: 46:34

It's a carbonic man solution.

Eyal Drori: 46:45

Well, it's seven varieties blend. Each variety has its own unique method to eventually, you say puzzle, to create this puzzle in the right way that I want, and the final picture it should be juicy, summer red wine, juicy and fresh. And one of the techniques that I have, the tools that I have as a wine maker. One of them is to do carbonic maceration, which it's not fit for every variety. It's specifically I love to do it with Marcelin and Petitzira, so you get the red fruits, you don't have the tiny structure that can be very, very harsh from Petitzira and Marcelin, but you also have a round structure and very soft tannins in the end and eventually that's what brings this wine the freshness, also for the stems.

Yechiel Wogel : 47:52

I try to explain to people the difference between a wine which we'll talk about when we get to the last one which I love, the name of the last one that we'll have. We're trying to explain. Not everything is for aging.

Yechiel Wogel : 48:00

A lot of things are just being now, and I think it's not easy in Israel, because in Hebrew we don't say wine ages, in Israel we say which is wine improves Obviously. It's always true. So when I've seen people at festivals and you've been there, or if I've heard of people in my house, I was like, okay, you don't even hear the theory, just try this. You know, I'm trying to tell you.

Eyal Drori: 48:21

This is good now.

Yechiel Wogel : 48:22

You don't need to age, you don't have to wait with this.

Eyal Drori: 48:27

This wine, for me, is the full picture of Judean. It's Judea, the region. The full picture because you can get the board of varieties from our best plots by the way, it's also the same fruit going also for the special reserve it's still a part of it and bringing it here to the Kessam. Because we are a boutique winery, we can. For us to do the entry level wine as a cheap wine. It's a mistake. You need to be as serious as your best wine, and this is what we're doing here. So the board of varieties coming from our best plots in Matah village is 700 meters above sea level, high altitude and then the Mediterranean varieties coming from the Rafat, the valleys, and from Givat-i-Shay'a as well. So this combination for me represents what I called the three sub-areas of Judea region. You have the Judean hills, the mountains, you have the valleys, the foothills, and you have what I call the Givat-i-Shay'a many, but what I call the valleys, the Arab valleys. It's a stream, old streams. It is a very unique, specific microclimate there.

Elad Katz: 49:49

So Givat-i-Shay'a has its own creeks. It's just like 500 meters from El-Avali, but it's a different world. El-avali is wider, hotter, soils are more chalky.

Eyal Drori: 50:04

Yeah, more limestone and chalk.

Elad Katz: 50:07

Yeah, limestone and chalk and Givat-i-Shay'a rivers creeks are very different.

S Simon Jacob: 50:16

Is it a rose soil? What's the soil?

Eyal Drori: 50:20

The Tel-Alo-Sameli is in the mountains because of the evolution there, but Givat-i-Shay'a because it's a creek, it was a stream, so you have more deep, more clay Got it, but you have also it's kind of gravelly. You have all the small rocks that are coming from the stream, so you have, all in all, you have a good structure for the soil, but then it's quite area because you have the rocks inside and it's really completely different soil from the one that we have in the mountains.

Elad Katz: 50:57

So when we've planted the vineyard, you can see it on the radio. But we dug that deep down to see how. So it's terrible of a setup on the surface, but when you go like a meter down you see this. It's like a it's it's it's, it's like a.

S Simon Jacob: 51:21

It's like a. It's like a. It's like a river, a a river, what you call it, yeah.

Elad Katz: 51:25

It's very high. So, this is about like 60 centimeters deep, so it means that there's awesome drainage of the soil. You see Terra Rosa as something that can be a bit muddy, but down there there's a, there's a river, so the water just drains down.

S Simon Jacob: 51:46

So like ideally, what you want when you plant plants in a pot, the bottom of it. You want to be exactly like that. Wow, how am I gonna say it? Seed, seed, seed.

Elad Katz: 51:57

This is what it is, so we were waiting for the vineyards to arrive to that level of, of, of, of, of, of, of of of the wine. Well, did they know Four, Three and a half? Okay, they will yield now. Not that certificate, though that was from July. Yeah, Certificate is not there yet. That will be. Yeah, so Cassemia, young wine, but we again. Young doesn't mean simple. Young can be complex.

S Simon Jacob: 52:24

It has to be accessible. You know, none of these wines have been simple and every one of them has been balanced.

Yechiel Wogel : 52:29

So I have a technical-ish question, because he said that I'm sorry to walk you over there. He said that he thinks in Judea you're part of the Appalachian right. So in the Appalachian they have the two sub-Appalachians the hills and the foothills. Well, I'm not surprised that this is where we're here, something like this. But you're saying it's the third level In terms of the Appalachian, how would you make a step?

Eyal Drori: 52:55

This is going to be the next step, probably.

Yechiel Wogel : 52:57

It seems to be a sub, or you think you'll just have to put it in the next step.

Eyal Drori: 53:00

I don't know. I would fight for it though.

Elad Katz: 53:04

I think it can take 50 years.

Yechiel Wogel : 53:05

I mean Appalachian itself took forever to take it.

Elad Katz: 53:08

So you get Borgon, and then you get Cote d'Or and Cote de Nuit, and then you get the village. We'll be there at some point in time. We'll be there.

Eyal Drori: 53:18

I'm sure that the Appalachian would be a different example.

Elad Katz: 53:22

We're in an extremely mature question.

S Simon Jacob: 53:25

I'm sure that it will be as well, because so many people are counting on those menus.

Elad Katz: 53:31

Yep that's true. We're still dealing with the question of whether we should introduce a Juden foothills blend a. Juden hills. Blend or use the advantage of both, and I guess this also will be solved in time with time. This is what year this is, Le'am 22. Also bottled a couple of months ago. Before the harvest so Le'am was here before us again. It was back then 50-50, sira Mouved and Yal took the blend and it's still all up.

Yechiel Wogel : 54:12

I also love it on the bottle.

S Simon Jacob: 54:15

All the other ones. You write the varietals here, it just says Sira Blanc.

Yechiel Wogel : 54:17

It was too long, too long.

Elad Katz: 54:21

Only in the States we write down the percentages and varietals. In Hebrew we just write Sira based blend, 14 months of barrel aging.

Eyal Drori: 54:36

Yeah, mostly old barrels I'm talking about maybe 4% of New York, that's it.

Yechiel Wogel : 54:46

Many Sira.

Eyal Drori: 54:49

Many Sira. When I say many Sira, it's 60%, 55%, but it's eight varieties blend. You can look at that as the wines that you can do in Chateauneuf or in Portugal. The idea is to have red wine that is complex, deep but light. So it's not like the Kessam. The Kessam is juicy and fresh and light and fruity and etc. This one is something more deep, more elegant, more serious wine.

S Simon Jacob: 55:40

Is this the age over time?

Eyal Drori: 55:46

Yeah, because it's kind of a new blend for us. We don't know yet, but it's going to be lovely after five or six or seven years.

Elad Katz: 55:59

I think we should. Okay. So we had a worker here on Friday the shift manager on the visitor center and he asked what is the aging ability of Leham? So we said, frankly, we don't know. At the New Leham, we don't know, but let's open a 2010 Leham of Shoukis. And it's gorgeous. It's not the same wine, it's a different approach or style, but it can age for sure. The vineyards can age and I think we should open a bottle.

S Simon Jacob: 56:35

I know I'm not being fair to ask. The reason I'm asking is because all the wines that we've had so far have been not only approachable but, I think, exceptional. This is the only one that I kind of feel like it needs time, and that's okay. This is supposed to be the one that does that.

Yechiel Wogel : 57:02

So I mean.

S Simon Jacob: 57:03

That's why I'm asking you what the expectation is for a wine.

Eyal Drori: 57:08

So if we're looking like from a mathematical point of view imagine the graph I see that it's going to evolve in the next three years but still remains his fruity characteristics and notes, and then after five, six, seven years, you would start to see the tertiary aroma. That's coming mainly from the wrong varieties here, which we didn't say. But it's a sira, granash, mouvet, carinyan petit sira, a little bit of carbonis of inion, granache, tintura and marcelan.

Eyal Drori: 57:54

This is the blend, yeah, when it's when it will age. Eventually after seven years, I, I guess I think maybe even less you will start to have the, the tertiary aromas for the wrong variety. The Senoka national move, especially that, has start to be something that is more spicy and a little bit of tobacco and and something more earthy, some leather leather yeah, and that's that's, and it's not good.

Eyal Drori: 58:29

It's not in the bad way. It's going to be a very balanced, because you will still have some fruit notes, especially from petit sirat when it aged, still remains his own, like it's berries, blackberries, fruits and the sirat as well. So it would be a Nice combination between those two. And then you know, after ten years or even more, you will open we're going to open now that One of the aged You'll see that when he's old is very, very silky, especially in the mouthfeel, and he had this leathery, healthy kind of Aromas.

Elad Katz: 59:15

I have another idea actually, but you choose. So we're now selling 2021 in the States and I just came back from New York and Baltimore and For me it was a nice surprise to taste again that 21, because we forgot about it a year ago or less. So we can taste that or something from the old period of a ghoul.

S Simon Jacob: 59:41

I would love to taste the 21.

Eyal Drori: 59:43

Okay, anyone.

Elad Katz: 59:46

She's bringing it. Just the question is, maybe we'll move on to special to smear on me a credit and then okay.

S Simon Jacob: 59:54

I.

Yechiel Wogel : 59:57

Just want to point out real quick that I love the name of this, because in English it's special reserve, which is a standard, but he was smear on me, you had it, which means it's more than it's like special protection, because this is like I feel like a wine, that like put it in a special place, put it away, take care of it properly and then you'll be, it'll be rewarding. Care, yeah, special care, this is special. There you go, yeah.

Elad Katz: 1:00:19

Yeah, it's kind of funny when you say to native Hebrew speakers smear on me. Oh hey, they're confused, what do you mean? But sometimes, because you lose the, the literal meaning of stuff, you know that you. You say special reserve. I'm sure that English native speakers don't really, you know. Yeah they don't stop to think of it.

S Simon Jacob: 1:00:42

What is special reserve?

Elad Katz: 1:00:43

me, what does it mean? So when you say she may have a head, say what you mean. So said you're an Hebrew speaker. You had it. Show me a little bit. We keep it.

Yechiel Wogel : 1:00:52

We give it a special care.

Elad Katz: 1:00:56

And and then they say ah, now I understand, it's something that you take special care of, you know? See the the label yes, and this is our view, the place, the sense of place is very important. In our experience. This is before wine, because the wine can change a health. Change has been changed, changing the blend each year now, like in evolution, small steps, but the place stays the same yeah.

Eyal Drori: 1:01:31

Yeah, so, so this is.

Elad Katz: 1:01:37

So this is.

Eyal Drori: 1:01:39

We're having a special reserve 21 vintage. It's the first vintage that we did as a the new team I I still work in in sea of swinery but but I do like Remote wine maker it and said like something that I work there and then after I finished the day I went here to taste the wines and to give them some you know I was like Batman appearing only on On night.

Eyal Drori: 1:02:14

Yeah, it was a very yeah it was. It was difficult but it was. It was exciting because it's the first, first, our first vintage. It's coming mainly from village Plot that we have. So 21 is mainly Bordeaux varieties. I add a little bit of a petit sir and sir it's about almost two years in bears 20, 25 percent new New York. And it's 21 was Quite, a balanced, hot but balanced vintage. So it's you have. We have full, full your body, deep, good, tiny structure, good acidity. That's why I said it, because it's a hot.

Elad Katz: 1:03:11

But balanced here.

Eyal Drori: 1:03:13

And this is this is very important, especially for the Bordeaux varieties. It's coming from a top, the altitude really Help to keep this acidity. You can, you can feed it. It's more cub, more carbonated and merlot this vintage and I think it's it's just now it's start to open up. No, just open the barrel, but it's it's what I love in the in the Judean Hills region with the Bordeaux varieties. You have something that is it's fresh, you have the food that you have this some it's not green notes, that's like the piercing, like the pepper notes. It's it's like Mint and a Local herbs exactly so it's.

Eyal Drori: 1:04:10

It's. It's a very unique and classic artistic of the Danhids, which I really love. Combined that with a with a good oak, best bears come for this one you have. You have a complete picture, in my opinion, and it's 21. It's so young, I know I.

Yechiel Wogel : 1:04:30

Want to point out the cool you put on this one a line from you down the high when it says yes, I have a lot. She is shall have your time with a comacher. Lucy translates to there are loves you can't move to anywhere else, so that's also in. We spoke earlier. I was like technically a border blend, but it's.

Eyal Drori: 1:04:51

It's a good idea. No, that's what I said it when we've partnered up.

Elad Katz: 1:04:56

We asked each partner to write down how we seize this partnership, because, you know, we're different people, different ages, different state in life, and we were, we all failed. Shuki brought up a picture and I brought this poem, which I really like, and we, we all agreed that it's a good description of our thoughts and emotions and it actually speaks about how, about a valley we, we live in a valley and how. And this valley is a chance to restart without dying Okay, not in a more video quay, but really restarting without burying the past. I think that's the, that's the most important phrase. And then the second important phrase is what we wrote on the bottle, which is a distillation of what wine making is Making love in a very specific place that you can move. Only when it's bottled you can. You know you can't make this wine anywhere else. You can make great, excellent wines in the Golan or I Don't know where, ever in France, but this love is a very specific to a place.

S Simon Jacob: 1:06:11

I Love your honesty. I love your honesty. It's important. It's not. You try to express things. You can't always express them the way you want to express them, but it's it's. It's amazing because you've got a person who created the winery to begin with, who is a winemaker, who put his love and his efforts into it, and it's difficult to move on. It's especially difficult to take the next step and a lot of wineries say, oh yes, we've got our children and what have you, but it's not. It's not the same thing at all. It depends how passionate you are about it.

S Simon Jacob: 1:07:15

So you guys seem to be exceedingly passionate about what you're doing and and it's great that you're honoring Shuki's Contribution in the beginning and it's also really special that he's he's honoring your Coming in and Making changes and doing stuff that you want. I'll be honest with you. They're very few Older people and I and I wrecked myself as one of them they're very few older people who Can do that, oh yeah you can open their heads enough to be able to Experience new things without saying I did that, no, you don't want to do that.

S Simon Jacob: 1:08:11

It's a really exceptional quality. So you, you picked the, you picked a good partner. Yeah, they picked a good partner.

Yechiel Wogel : 1:08:24

So Say that someone like I said ready literally every article written about you. I Thought it's interesting when you started the partnership how it was covered and someone asked Shuki, how does it feel that you're giving up control a little bit? And he said I'm translating loosely from Hebrew, yeah, but he said I'm not giving up anything Getting so much.

Elad Katz: 1:08:47

Yeah.

Yechiel Wogel : 1:08:48

And when I read that I was like that's I Did. I like he's like Simon saying like it's um, I Mean you already answered this, I didn't have to ask this. So one of my questions I wanted to ask you when Simon asked me if this could happen, I was. I was curious to see what you had to say in terms of, like what Shuki's approach was, a verse with your approaches. But you've already answered that feel like I guess, loosely you're doing similar things, just in different periods. Like you already had, he did one sort of or a lot of the right word, but he was ahead of his time in a way.

Yechiel Wogel : 1:09:18

You're good, I have your time in a different way, so that you've already answered. I'm gonna ask that, but I, I was very moved when I Mean I met it to have got. I'm not gonna pretend to say that I'm like really best friends or anything it would be nice, but I Just thought he put it so beautifully where he was just like like almost like it was like a stupid question Like that.

Yechiel Wogel : 1:09:39

He's giving up almost like no, and then he also wrote, said that same interview and he said and when I died, I'll have the winery like. It's very cool to me that like your um like a continuing it. I also thought I was really cool when I read about how like you like started here, in a way, your journey. So I read it and you say you call him like your second father or like I wish he was like that. No pressure, that's what it said in the chat.

Yechiel Wogel : 1:10:08

I'm not trying to play you on the spot, but I think it's very cool that it's like so. Earlier I said, I think part of why I like it I wonder why it's so much is because it has very much of this really chutzpah. So you talk again. The first, not the first one, I had a virus, but like the first shuki one I had with those sedata.

Eyal Drori: 1:10:26

Those are like, so I was like no one else is.

Yechiel Wogel : 1:10:29

I know you guys didn't actually plant those. I know you bought it from someone else and then he tore them up, as they don't have it anymore. Yeah, so it's. So I planted them, but he didn't want to use them, so shuki made three ridges of it.

Eyal Drori: 1:10:38

So it's in the same chutzpah that he had to do that you got.

Yechiel Wogel : 1:10:42

it's so clear to me how much you guys are a continuation of what he what like, his style, I guess in a way even if it's your own style, obviously, but it's a continuation.

Elad Katz: 1:10:51

I think it's a continuation for him and we were hugging it. You know the opportunity and seeing and seeing what we can do within. I just want to say something about the cheese that you just tasted. So it was made by our friend Dror from Kibbutz Berry. He's still kidnapped.

Eyal Drori: 1:11:22

Wow.

Elad Katz: 1:11:22

So Kibbutz Berry, their day is. We've I've been working with them since ever I'm at least 10 years from Castel days to Agur, and also we have a small family winery in the Aroba of my wife's family, moa. So we all work with Berry, and Dror was the head cheese maker, with Dagan, his partner, and just two weeks before the 7th of October he came to take some wine leaves because he's been producing cheese with our wines.

S Simon Jacob: 1:11:53

Leaves with the leaves Carinyan leaves.

Elad Katz: 1:11:58

Yeah, using it for the watcher for the, for the, for the they color it and also they put like layers inside of the cheese. They was kidnapped on the 7th with two of his children. They were released and he's still there. And then, you know, in the first days when I was still serving, or November or some, or end of October, I actually went into Berry to take some cheese and brought it into the winery and the feeling was like it's, this is how we felt, like the last cheese that we will ever taste from Berry. Happily, dagan, the other partner, was partner up with, actually a young wine maker from Berry that studied in, I think, in Piedmont or Elano.

Elad Katz: 1:12:45

And now he's, he started producing again cheese, so, but we're still waiting for Dora, I think. I think we should definitely. I mean, with within time we're 26, but we're three years old, okay. So, and and El has how many vintages?

Eyal Drori: 1:13:06

behind you In 2005.

Elad Katz: 1:13:10

Like 17. So cool. I have 13, so we're a young winery with old history and some experience, and part of it is yes, and understanding that maybe Laian should be released a bit later on because the aging period within the winery for us is. I think it's good.

Yechiel Wogel : 1:13:34

We don't want to know. It changes crazy from 21 to 22.

Elad Katz: 1:13:40

Vintage variation, obviously.

Eyal Drori: 1:13:43

But also yeah.

Elad Katz: 1:13:46

A bit more luscious, like open.

Yechiel Wogel : 1:13:49

Open the After. You say luscious in Hebrew.

Elad Katz: 1:13:52

Well, it's a word in English. It's enjoyable, maybe in a very sensual taste, wise way.

Yechiel Wogel : 1:14:02

It's really delicious and I think it's more integrated for sure. I will say in general for you but this isn't a problem, simon, for your listeners, the Hebrew vocabulary of wine is not, I feel like it's not fully developed yet as rich as in.

Eyal Drori: 1:14:17

English.

Yechiel Wogel : 1:14:17

Even if you just go like there's a sweetness and dryness. So in sweetness and dryness in English, you got after I summon dry, semi sweet, off right, and he brought yourself my talk. Sweet, your best, try and cut the other, which is the whole, the whole middle category.

Elad Katz: 1:14:31

I have to defend the Hebrew now because we're not just a big Hebrew Lowers, obviously growing wine making wine growing, wine making wise Hebrew is much richer than English.

Eyal Drori: 1:14:44

You know why? Because we're.

Elad Katz: 1:14:46

we only miss, like the consumers part 2000 years ago, we had a lot of wine growers here and they they called each part of the vine in a different name according to the season. Okay, so a shoot, changes his name in Hebrew according to the seasons. Okay, we say you know shoot is a salig when it's green and then it becomes a small when it gets brown in the winter, because you prune the small, not the salig.

Elad Katz: 1:15:20

You didn't know that you dilute the shoot. It's dilute salig when it's green, but you prune the small. You prune the shoot when it becomes brown and so on so yeah, we were lacking some terms in wine consumption. That's true.

Yechiel Wogel : 1:15:36

My churism maybe. Yeah, exactly, it's beautiful We'll get there.

Eyal Drori: 1:15:41

So this is what we. This is a one percent Syrah from 2014.

Elad Katz: 1:15:46

Wow, the plot that goes into layam later on versions. But this is a wine especially produced for a German client, an Israeli loving German client, in by Shuki, without the Morved, only Syrah. So we've tasted only blends. So far this is only the Syrah. Okay, I think it exemplifies the vineyard more, although it's kind of a hotter version.

Eyal Drori: 1:16:17

But yeah, it's full.

Elad Katz: 1:16:20

This is by the way the old label of layam this is the same label as layam yeah. A little thirty zero, a hundred percent Syrah.

Eyal Drori: 1:16:31

The EOP. Eop is what let's talk about an idea okay and then the one EOP, eop.

Elad Katz: 1:16:39

Okay, so now you'll discover that the love of language is not just for Hebrew. Yes, and it's just. It's, it's, this is Shuki.

Yechiel Wogel : 1:16:50

okay, so EOP, the best quotes on the back.

Elad Katz: 1:16:54

Is Greek, it's a metaphor.

Eyal Drori: 1:16:57

It's on the other, it's a I homeless.

Elad Katz: 1:16:59

Epy oinopa ponton Oinopa Esi.

Eyal Drori: 1:17:02

Always forget.

Elad Katz: 1:17:03

Esi, as dark as wine. It's a Greek metaphor Mm-hmm, what's Shuki really like? Shuki had His education in Vienna. Okay, he lived abroad Vienna, mexico and he had to memorize the Iliadah when he was there, and this is one of the Opening episodes. So he wanted to produce a wine which will be as dark as sea, or sea as dark as wine, whatever. He made it out of 100% Cabernet Sauvignon, and now we we haven't produced any.

Eyal Drori: 1:17:48

EOPs since.

Elad Katz: 1:17:50

But Elial has, like in his pocket, an idea, an idea.

Yechiel Wogel : 1:17:55

Yes, yes, it doesn't have to be Cabernet Sauvignon. Yeah.

Elad Katz: 1:17:58

It's not going to be I think yeah.

Eyal Drori: 1:18:00

Yeah, I just want to say that Shuki did it twice, just twice Two times at EOP. The first vintage was 2006. And really I'm. I have in my memory the exact, tell it.

Eyal Drori: 1:18:17

Yeah, the exact taste of this barrel. Again, don't worry, it was one barrel of Merlot, 100% Merlot 2006. Oh, really, yeah, it was in still memory, one of the best wine I ever tasted in my life. Obviously, it was almost 20 years ago, but he did it this twice. It is just because it was really a unique barrel In this case it was three barrels, but a very unique material but he decided to put aside, put aside, and so I have an idea. Also, obviously, I really wanted to do that for the 25th anniversary of our winery, but it wasn't. It didn't justify it, but I guess that is going to be one in the first vintage of our Our wine, our wine yeah.

Eyal Drori: 1:19:27

Because I have something in mind and normally the first vintage of a young wine is one of the best Useful, like a vibrant. It's something about the balance inside the plant that's in the first.

S Simon Jacob: 1:19:45

After the Urla and the first vintage is the last thing that we're going to taste.

Elad Katz: 1:19:50

Yeah, it's actually the Hela, hela is the Israeli land and in the Tamastik you see the fruits. Yes, hela is always. It's not planted, it's always resides near Oaks. Alon and Hela usually live together, some symbiotic, in the Mediterranean slopes, so they're part of our forest, like a forest, yummy.

Yechiel Wogel : 1:20:19

I don't know Forest, but the forest is more than forest.

Elad Katz: 1:20:22

Forest is like an indigenous, it's a terroir, it's an indigenous local? It's not a high forest, it's a low forest, it's a hovish, hovish.

Eyal Drori: 1:20:32

Hovish is a low forest. Yes, it's not a ecliptesy, you know, it's the trees that are up to four meters.

Elad Katz: 1:20:37

Five meters, very Mediterranean forest. So it's also started as part of our counting the stocks. Yes, when we came in, we found three barrels of rosé morvette which Eyal, as a consultant to Shuki six years ago, told him it's okay, but it's not enough.

Eyal Drori: 1:21:02

It wasn't good enough to enter the bilge to the fine blend of the rosé.

Elad Katz: 1:21:05

Let's keep it aside and we'll see what we'll do with it. Six years after we come in as partners and we find these three barrels Hovish. So we find these three barrels and our two barrels and I say to Eyal let's distill it like moonshine. We have a barrel here with some brandy that has been lying there for a couple of years and he says, no, I have an idea.

Elad Katz: 1:21:31

So he goes out to forge on two bishwat and actually in two rosé shana and two bishwat, and he comes back with this basket of all kinds of local herbs growing all around the Eyal Valley, which is like two kilometers from here. He fortifies the wine with some alcohol. This is 15.5. It's steel wine fortified in spots.

S Simon Jacob: 1:21:56

What was the fortified you put in was how high?

Eyal Drori: 1:21:59

The percentage it's higher. Two tanks, the one for the the resins from the Eyal tree and the leaves are under 70% 70% and the other tank for the flowers, especially for the Shkedia, by the way two bishwat. It was 25% lower.

S Simon Jacob: 1:22:25

So it wasn't like you were fortifying it with like 95% alcohol or what have you.

Eyal Drori: 1:22:30

No, we use, we send our. It's also the geffet, but also there's some like it's not leftovers, but like the Mishkaim. I would say like the sediments. It's kind of like the sediments of the mast. We send it for distillation in a Orlando distillery, if you know.

Yechiel Wogel : 1:22:57

They make the course in Orlando. That's the alcohol, the alcohol.

Elad Katz: 1:23:00

We're asking about the percentage.

Eyal Drori: 1:23:01

Yeah, the original alcohol, it's not fortifying by adding alcohol straight.

Elad Katz: 1:23:07

but the alcohol fortification actually the alcohol is being used to be to macerate the flowers and the plants.

Eyal Drori: 1:23:16

It's a tool for extract, yeah, for macerating, and then he adds the macerations into the wine, into the wine. You will see that, and he has all kinds of like plastic barrels or other kind of barrels that every barrel has its own batch of flowers or herbs.

Elad Katz: 1:23:33

From flowers to orange peels, everything is forged around here, and the cool thing about is that we took this is how it started. Now it's a different product. We took a rosé, which was nice but not fresh enough, and Eyal actually expressed our region through a different product, which is not wine, it's more like a vermouth, but you get the flowers and the herbs of the area in a specific season here.

Eyal Drori: 1:23:59

Yeah. So the idea for this for the LA, for me, is to take the local picket, local herbs, the local, it's the smell and the taste of this place, the terroir, and to put it in a glass.

Elad Katz: 1:24:17

I've been a carp I've been from, from Americans sometimes, like throughout the years, which always hits me, and they say whenever I get down on the plane or when I get here, you guys don't realize, but there's a different smell here Rather than back home wherever they live in. Right, they come down and they said the smell here it's the smell of the terroir, wow.

Eyal Drori: 1:24:41

It's a Simon.

Elad Katz: 1:24:41

Tomec.

Yechiel Wogel : 1:24:42

And I think this is the smell.

Elad Katz: 1:24:43

Yeah.

S Simon Jacob: 1:24:53

This is Simon Jacob, again your host of today's episode of the Kosher Terroir. I have a personal request. No matter where you are or where you live, please take a moment to pray for our soldier's safety and the safe and rapid return of our hostages. I hope you have enjoyed this episode of the Kosher Terroir. 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 Terroir, please check out our many past episodes.