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. In the following conversation, I took advantage of Elizabeth Kratz's trip to Israel to interview this very special wine ambassador in the midst of her vineyard volunteering with her teenage kids and her exploration of new local wineries.

S. Simon Jacob: 0:47

Elizabeth is a journalist, associate publisher and editor at the Jewish Link Media Group. Along with her featured articles focused on the New York Metro Jewish communities, she is the promoter and editor of the annual Jewish Link Wine Guide, which celebrated its fourth anniversary edition this past March. The Wine Guide comes out just before Passover and contains extremely valuable wine consumer information, breaking down the many wine offerings by region, by varietal and by price. It also rounds up a knowledgeable team of tasters which grade wines in terms that all levels of consumers can appreciate. Also included in the guide are pertinent stories about winemakers and vineyards, so that people can get to know the faces and stories behind the bottles they enjoy. Though this annual wine guide is printed in New Jersey, I have found dog-eared copies scattered across the United States, europe and Israel. They also have an internet-based version for global consumption, so will, as always, include contact information to Elizabeth and the Jewish link below in our podcast notes.

S. Simon Jacob: 2:10

If you're driving in your car, please focus on the road ahead. If you're home, please select a bottle of kosher wine, sit back, relax and enjoy listening in on this very special kosher wine emissary. So, Elizabeth Kratz, welcome to the Kosher Terroir. Thank you for agreeing to participate. It's great, Elizabeth Kratz.

S. Simon Jacob: 2:31

It's great to

Elizabeth Kratz: 2:31

great

S. Simon Jacob: 2:31

to have you here, Elizabeth. Kratz. Great to be here.

S. Simon Jacob: 2:34

It's especially great to have you in Jerusalem, so I've been following you for a while. How long have you been working at the Jewish Link?

Elizabeth Kratz: 2:50

I've been at the Jewish Link almost since it started. I was the second editor and I was there within about six months of its founding and the Jewish Link just celebrated its 10th anniversary a little bit over six or seven months ago. So really about 10 years, wow. And then the most important part of the Jewish Link, of course, is the Jewish Link Wine Guide which just printed in Pesach time the fourth annual edition, and this was a it was sort of a continuation effort of the Jewish Week's Wine Guide which ran for about nine years in New York, and the Jewish Week stopped printing during COVID.

S. Simon Jacob: 3:32

Right.

Elizabeth Kratz: 3:32

So the Wine Guide, sort of, was going to fall into oblivion unless we took it over. Basically. So Jesse Horowitz, as you know, and Josh London, as you know, and Gamla Kronemer, all sort of, got together and said Elizabeth, you have a newspaper, you have resources, let's do this, let's do this.

S. Simon Jacob: 3:52

Very cool and I, especially, like you know, jesse, I almost feel, is a professional, even though he is, he is not in the wine business as such. Uh, he is very much a major part of the wine business. Um, I always tell, I always say to people at Herzog you, you, you know, you owe Yossi millions because, uh, without his RCCs, the wine would never, the high-end wines would never have blossomed, they wouldn't move and they didn't until the RCC started. So it's really pretty amazing. And the Kosher Wine Guide, the Jewish Links Kosher Wine Guide, which is your baby, it's really your responsibility.

Elizabeth Kratz: 4:48

Fourth child.

S. Simon Jacob: 4:49

Right Is awesome Because I love the people you bring in to comment about it. You don't bring in. You have some professionals who comment in the guide itself, but overall they're all very caring consumers and they have incredible backgrounds.

Elizabeth Kratz: 5:12

Right.

S. Simon Jacob: 5:14

And they're just Yossie.

Elizabeth Kratz: 5:15

Right.

S. Simon Jacob: 5:16

Awesome consumers yeah.

Elizabeth Kratz: 5:17

So I as sets it apart was Yessi set the tone of the judging panel.

Elizabeth Kratz: 5:24

Right apart was Yessi, set the tone of the judging panel and he he basically explained how we should conduct our tastings and we do everything blind. As you probably know, we had about 600 bottles over the last uh, last year and the year before we started to get bigger. But it's very difficult to manage such a tasting and I had a lot of questions and, yes, he really was sort of our North Star in kind of the guidance of how to develop and create a panel that was consistent over time and you know how to get through 600 bottles in really about two weeks of maybe four to six tastings over a two-week period and it's intense, but we have a panel that is. Five of them have been there since the beginning and then we added one more this year Gary Wartels, from formerly of Skyview Wines, now of Columbus Wines and Spirits in Manhattan.

S. Simon Jacob: 6:21

They are professionals. I don't want to belittle them, but they're. They give a consumer perspective more than uh like insiders.

Elizabeth Kratz: 6:34

They are insiders, right, so.

S. Simon Jacob: 6:36

Josh London is is, you know, is a writer.

Elizabeth Kratz: 6:40

Right.

S. Simon Jacob: 6:41

Um. So yes, they are.

Elizabeth Kratz: 6:42

And I also consider myself a writer before a judge or a critic. I'm certainly not a critic. Um. So, yes, they are, and I also consider myself a writer before a judge or a critic. I'm certainly not a critic. But Greg Raker is now studying for the WSET level four Exactly and his wife, daphna Roth, just passed the level two, and so she's on her way. And I've completed level three, but I didn't do the exam. I did the tasting exam, which I passed, but I didn't pass the written yet.

Elizabeth Kratz: 7:13

And the other two are really consumers. They're pure consumers. They're people who love kosher wine. They've been tasting kosher wine for 20 years, tasting kosher wine for 20 years, and that helps us, or at least Yessi's argument is that helps us, because it brings us to a roundness of our experience where not all of us are, you know, thinking about the value of the future, tasting while we're tasting, thinking about celery, etc. These are just people who say I like it, I don't like it about celery, et cetera. These are just people who say I like it, I don't like it. And that helps us in the broadness of tasting and to keep our scores consistent over time and to make good recommendations.

S. Simon Jacob: 7:51

Yep, no, it's fantastic. I think it is the go-to guide. Thank you, I was going to say the go-to guide in the New York metropolitan area, but I don't think there's. I necessarily even Is there a magazine about kosher wines?

Elizabeth Kratz: 8:08

in Israel. There might be a magazine for Israeli wines, or agriculture or vineyards. There's plenty of agricultural things, but there's no.

S. Simon Jacob: 8:34

I don't believe that there's a tasting guide or Besides the guide you saw downstairs which is now out of print. Right, the Rogov guide? Yeah, the Rogov guide, but besides that, Adam Montefiore comes out with every so often with something, but it hasn't been an overall guide, Right? So we'll see, Right.

Elizabeth Kratz: 8:59

He's written some beautiful biographies and sort of. I think he did the one of Castel.

S. Simon Jacob: 9:05

Yes, and the one of Yarden. Yes so these are beautiful. They're both there, right.

Elizabeth Kratz: 9:09

Beautiful stories of histories of our important wineries.

S. Simon Jacob: 9:14

He's been a documenter of Israeli wine and kosher wines, for you know, since the beginning he is like the number one kind of chronicler. I don't know if that's a word, but he chronicles the what you call it the kosher wine world here and he's amazing at it. So they did a good, he did an excellent job on the Castel one and also on the Ardennes one. It was really beautiful. And I've had him on the podcast. He's a good friend. He actually listens to the podcast on a very regular basis and I would say every podcast and he I would say every podcast. And he and I get comments right after the podcast. Either, you know, thumbs up or thumbs down. I don't like that. Don't do that again, or what have you?

Elizabeth Kratz: 10:16

And he's really excellent, excellent advice. Well, you're a very good interviewer, if I can say that, and also I would add that it's sort of like you're kind of like the Oprah Winfrey of kosher wine at this point Because, like there are so many stories, like the woman who is a winemaker at Herzog in California, she didn't just tell you about her winemaking career, her odyssey and her life and her decisions and how it sort of played into the world of kosher wine and created a place for her. It was very beautiful, I thought, particularly maybe because she's a woman and there aren't so many of us in the wine business, but I thought it was a very unique podcast and it told a very compelling story.

S. Simon Jacob: 11:03

Every single podcast I've learned about something new, so it's been awesome.

Elizabeth Kratz: 11:08

That's why I like being a journalist, because I usually get to ask the questions. But I guess you can ask me some.

S. Simon Jacob: 11:16

I'll ask you just a few more. Tell me a little bit about your background. Where did it start, where did you get in, how did you become a journalist first and how did you get into wine?

Elizabeth Kratz: 11:26

Okay, that's two questions. Okay, so both of them lead back to Washington DC where I was after college and I spent three years working as a legislative assistant to a member of Congress and I was sort of interested in the press job, dealing with the press, but I really burned out of the job in terms of politics before I advanced too much. So I worked there for three years and then I'm like, okay, amen dayenu and I moved over to a magazine. At that point that was my first job in journalism. It was an easy transition somewhat and it was a magazine that was actually covering the military and the Pentagon. You know a lot of jobs in Washington that just sort of have a specialty in this way. So I did that for another three years. So I did that for another three years and during that time I was living in Georgetown in Washington DC in the Kesher Israel Congregation community and I lived on Q Street. Q Street is one of the streets all of letters.

Elizabeth Kratz: 12:41

In D and on Q Street, on both sides of me, lived two people. One of them was named Josh London, the other was named Gamuel Cronomer, and they had a group. Josh in particular was really interested in trying new wines, trying kosher wines. He's interested since he was a teenager and he had been to Israel and had brought home things, was interested in Yarden, interested in Siegel and you know all the things that were going on in the sort of early 2000s I guess. And he had a. He had a wine tasting that Gamliel and I were both at and the famous joke was it sort of solidified our friendship joke? Was it sort of solidified our friendship?

Elizabeth Kratz: 13:28

Gamliel secretly replaced the contents of a regular 750 milliliter bottle of wine with Manischewitz and then did a blind tasting and at the end, like you know, whatever it was, bottle number seven or something everyone tried it and the room exploded. Everybody knew this is Manischewitz. This is like Concord or cream Concord or something, and it was just like a funny foundational memory and I think for me personally. I was looking around the room and I'm like man, you know, I want to know more about how everybody in this room knew exactly what that was. I want to know, like I really didn't at that time know everything there was to know about taste and tannins and dryness and I was just like, okay, I'm tasting them, tasting it blind white. So, but that was my first experience with tasting and it was a great. They were great teachers, they're great people yeah, a lot of fun.

Elizabeth Kratz: 14:21

So josh j, josh and Anna they got married and they're now in England and Gamlio and Jessica are sort of still close by in Silver Spring, but we're all still like in contact and working together and talking about wine and spirits different things all the time. So that was my first experience with wine. And then, after my foray into journalism et cetera, I was, I worked as a journalist, a serious journalist in sort of a non-Jewish secular community area, whatever, and I won a fellowship during the time of my my first journalist job. I was also doing my master's degree at Johns Hopkins, which is has a program in the city in Washington DC, which has a program in the city in Washington DC.

Elizabeth Kratz: 15:05

And after I got my master's I got a fellowship and that fellowship took me to Germany where I lived for one year. So I learned a lot of German, I became versed and I actually wrote my first wine article while I was in Germany for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung English edition from Frankfurt, and it was about a prince who had bought back his vineyard in like Nordrhein-Westphalia maybe Not a specific famous wine region, but he bought back the vineyard and was growing grapes there and making German wine. So that was my first article that I ever wrote about wine, first of many.

S. Simon Jacob: 15:51

Wow, yeah, how did you get involved with the link?

Elizabeth Kratz: 15:54

So so that fast forwards me another 15 years or so. I was living in New Jersey, had just had my third child. My husband is from Austria and I met him sort of through people, knowing that I spoke a little German basically, and I was like what, there's a Jew here from Vienna and we got married. So we had our third child and I was sort of looking for a job that was flexible and the Jewish link had just started. It was really, and I was very interested in it as an idea, because Northern New Jersey really needed a paper, like the five towns has a lot of papers. New York had a lot of papers at the time. The Jewish press was very active, but not covering New Jersey really. So I was, I was like this is a good idea. And then he went in and he met Moshe. I don't know if you've met my publisher I have, and Moshe is brilliant.

Elizabeth Kratz: 16:52

Yeah, he's got his finger on the pulse.

S. Simon Jacob: 16:55

He is brilliant. You know, there's a lot of people who have tried to bring out papers based on advertisement and not on subscription prices and what have you, and I've never seen any of them really last, let alone blossom. And he came up with a concept I don't even know if they talk about it, but I noticed it that he wrote about kids' sports every single week and he had pictures of the kids' sports teams every single week in the back of the link.

Elizabeth Kratz: 17:42

Yeah.

S. Simon Jacob: 17:42

And there isn't anything that will draw people to picking up a newspaper than wanting to see their kids in the back of a newspaper. You know, is my kid in it this week? Is my kid in it this week? It was unbelievable. And I don't think he could print them fast enough where normally you'd get distribution that would be very little. His distribution went through the roof and advertisers saw that and they participated and he really built a machine Right.

Elizabeth Kratz: 18:16

So I agree. So the kids section and the sports section is part of our foundation. A lot of people might poo poo that like say what, who cares? Are you kidding? But the thing is, today's kids who are in that paper are tomorrow's readers, tomorrow's contributors and, you know, in 10 years, tomorrow's advertisers. And we have we have people who have grown up now with our paper, who don't remember a Shabbos without it, right, and they get multiple copies per family and they relax with our paper.

Elizabeth Kratz: 19:00

And I would say that leads to another on your podcast. But I say it and that we're basically not an objective journalism paper community. We're more like. We're unapologetically Zionist and we are Jews and we're doing all of the work and all of the writing, all of the editing, all of the, even the memes we publish in the back and the puzzles, the Torah, all of those things are geared toward the message that we are proud to be Jewish and we don't want to discount that or minimize it in any way. And so I feel like people do feel comfortable with the messaging that they're not going to read something that upsets them.

Elizabeth Kratz: 19:47

Believe me, though, we do get letters. I'm sure Every single week we have something in there that upsets somebody, but on the whole, it's not because of who we are somebody, but on the whole it's not because of who we are. It's community journalism, really at its best. We're not apologizing for being present in New York, new Jersey, scarsdale, riverdale. We live in these places, we do our chesed, we do our work, we are going to school, we're going to our jobs, but we also have Israel on our minds and in our hearts all the time and in a lot of ways that's our center point.

S. Simon Jacob: 20:30

It's amazing. It's absolutely awesome Because it also attracts, you know, people know that that's the focus of the paper, and it attracts advertisers who want that as well, who are trying to get to the Jewish community. They're not necessarily all Jews who are advertising.

Elizabeth Kratz: 20:54

But if you want to get to the Jewish, a week that we print are really a low. It's a low average number of the amount of readers we have every week, Because we also have online and maybe an entire family reads one paper, one copy, so it's beautiful, Thank God, I hope it continues and Bezrat Hashem. It's been a very interesting job and it's been a job where I've been able to be very creative and able to pursue my interests, especially in the wine community, food community, and you know I've had so many opportunities through it to be creative.

S. Simon Jacob: 21:34

So we've talked about the wine community. I want you to taste something. Okay, this is called Ella. It's from Agour. It's not a wine. I believe it's a vermouth. We're drinking it on ice and it's just a sipping. It's something that you sip and it's actually an infusion of it's an alcohol and it's actually an infusion of it's an alcohol. It started out as a rosé that was distilled and then it became. It was infused with herbs and plants, flowers from the Judean hills, so it's almost like tasting the Judean hills terroir.

Elizabeth Kratz: 22:18

Amazing. Okay, is it a hagafin or?

S. Simon Jacob: 22:20

aroir amazing. Okay, is it a? Is it or?

Elizabeth Kratz: 22:31

sweeter than I would have imagined. It's not really sweet.

S. Simon Jacob: 22:36

It's got a little bit of sweetness in it.

Elizabeth Kratz: 22:38

I do get some blossom and some green fruit elements Interesting.

S. Simon Jacob: 22:48

It's interesting, it's from Agur, which you said you're going to visit. Yes, and Ayal, who is the winemaker there, is really really creative, unbelievably creative. Yes.

Elizabeth Kratz: 23:05

So I tasted their Blanc and their Kesem this summer. And Yechiel Wolgel, who's actually going to be changing his name to Chovev soon. I don't know if you knew that, but we'll just call him Yechiel. He's some kind of assistant winemaker there now to be changing his name to Hovev soon. I don't know if you knew that, but we'll just call him Yechiel. Yeah, is some kind of assistant winemaker there now. I think he moved there since you last had Yechiel on the podcast.

S. Simon Jacob: 23:28

He moved there in the process of me having him Amazing. We went and visited Agor together and that's when they offered him a position.

Elizabeth Kratz: 23:38

So it worked out really well. He's so enthusiastic and really jumping in with both feet.

S. Simon Jacob: 23:44

He's like a sponge. Yeah, he just soaks up every piece of information he can. He's really bright. He's a very bright kid.

Elizabeth Kratz: 23:52

Yeah, so he was actually. So how I met Yechiel and we have this. We have a whole hebra people um who were in the in america. They did the wset level twos and threes during covet, basically. So a lot of us, including jules polonetsky who is now a you know, a newly minted w set level three and headed to bordeaux with with um on that trip with all those guys this summer um kenny fried as well is another one, yeah.

Elizabeth Kratz: 24:18

Kenny was with me and Kenny writes for the link also. He couldn't do without him. So, kenny, myself, jules Yachiel, we're all on this chatter, whatsapp, which just it's all education-based, and more than once one of the people in the group said this is my favorite whatsapp group because it's there's no like, there's no criticism, it's all learning and we're all just really interested in what yachil is doing and what other people are tasting. Shmuel, sofer also, who?

Elizabeth Kratz: 24:51

I believe, he's also with us, uh, it's, it's a great group of people and I've I've just been really, um, been really, uh, I've benefited from being with a group of people and I've just been really been really I've benefited from being with a group of people who are so positive. They're just really interested in knowing more, interested in supporting kosher wine, but also interested in increasing the quality and the variability of the wine.

S. Simon Jacob: 25:15

They're really amazing people. So what have you done while you're here in Israel? So, as we were talking, as we were coming upstairs they're really amazing people. So what have you done while?

Elizabeth Kratz: 25:19

you're here in Israel, right? So as we were talking, as we were coming upstairs, tubav is today, so planting essentially ends. That's the end of the traditional planting season, and then it moves over to harvesting right.

S. Simon Jacob: 25:34

Do you know why?

Elizabeth Kratz: 25:36

A little bit, maybe you should tell me no.

S. Simon Jacob: 25:38

So the reason why tuba of is so pivotal in this is you for orla, you need to wait three years right after you plant the vines. The counting of the of the three years counts from tuba right. So if I can plant my vineyard even a few days before Tubav Right, tubav comes and says you're a year old One year. You're one year old, Right? So it cuts a whole period of time out of the weight in order to get to grapes in order to get to wine.

Elizabeth Kratz: 26:17

Right, so that makes a lot of sense. So basically, on Wednesday last week we were with Amichai in Shiloh planting a very long awaited vineyard. Especially, shmuel Sofer said he was really excited about a Pinot Noir coming from this area of Shiloh because Gavaot makes such a beautiful Pinot Noir. Yeah, so this is a first planting of Pinot Noir for Shiloh Winery. Yeah, and it was a pleasure to be there and they were up with the sun. My kids were really into it. There were a lot of kids there planting, putting, making sure that the vine went in right under the spigot of water so that it would get a lot of initial irrigation and then putting sun covers over that new vine.

S. Simon Jacob: 27:10

There's nothing like being down on all fours and carving a hole in the ground with your bare hands. All fours and carving a hole in the ground with your bare hands and sticking in this little plant, little seedling. It's not a seed, but it's a they call them stieling.

Elizabeth Kratz: 27:29

It's very young. It looks so powerless.

S. Simon Jacob: 27:34

Yeah, and vulnerable, yes, vulnerable.

Elizabeth Kratz: 27:35

Exactly, yeah, and vulnerable.

S. Simon Jacob: 27:38

Yes, vulnerable, exactly. And you put it in and you check to make sure it's underneath the—they use drip irrigation so you make sure that it's near the drip. Yeah, and then you put in a stick next to it and then you put a little cover over the top, Right?

Elizabeth Kratz: 27:54

So it's very interesting. The soil was different, so then— Did you?

S. Simon Jacob: 27:58

get thorns in your hands from the soil. Were there?

Elizabeth Kratz: 28:01

um, not at that, not at that place. But the next day we went to sucia, yeah, to la, for at blanche was doing a petite verdot vineyard. Um, and there they gave us actually an axe because it's very rocky soil and white, so it's more with more limestone, I think, and that was a very different in color. The dirt on our clothes was a very different color in Sosia versus Shiloh. Shiloh was definitely more. It seemed more like a farmed brown, reddish brown soil with some movement in it.

S. Simon Jacob: 28:36

It's a terra rosa.

Elizabeth Kratz: 28:37

Yeah, and then the one in the limestone, based in in Socia. That was a crazy place. It really did feel like we were helping to plant a vineyard in a place where you know now there will be a vineyard as opposed to, you know, before it's like desolate and rocky, and the fact that they're able to plant there and grow beautiful things is really a testament to the viticulture and the skill of the staff and, just you know, trying to make sure they have strong grapes that grow good roots. You know, in this tough terroir.

S. Simon Jacob: 29:16

When you, when you, when you're given a pickaxe. So it was stone from the top or it was stone very close to the surface.

Elizabeth Kratz: 29:26

Yeah, stone's very close to the surface the ladder.

S. Simon Jacob: 29:29

So you're cracking the stone and then planting.

Elizabeth Kratz: 29:32

Yeah, they didn't give us pickaxes in Shiloh.

S. Simon Jacob: 29:34

No, you don't need to.

Elizabeth Kratz: 29:36

Yeah, it was definitely like more of an effort. You had to put in a little more elbow grease in sosia. But listen, baruch hashem, I there were just there were kids there, also mainly kids. That that's one thing that we've noticed. Um, they're the the year that we're in the level of the amount of people, the staff of the wineries, who are running to and fro in Miluim. It's really, the vineyards seem to be planted by the kids.

S. Simon Jacob: 30:06

Kids are kids? Of what age?

Elizabeth Kratz: 30:09

Like the age of my kids, like 11 to 15. Right.

S. Simon Jacob: 30:13

And sometimes littler kids, sometimes younger, five or six.

Elizabeth Kratz: 30:15

Yeah, Well, they're like with their moms or older siblings helping, but it was really an intense effort. I saw I think it took them two days to plant, right, I panned my phone camera all the way around me and it was just from the east to the west as far as the eye could see almost all the white cardboard cupboards over this area, and it had taken them two or three days. They planted from 6 am until about two in the afternoon. It gets too hot, right. So really by 10 am we had to leave because it was like my kids are, like, you know, americans. We're done. Hey, like 9.30, they're done.

S. Simon Jacob: 30:57

That you had them doing that.

Elizabeth Kratz: 30:58

Yeah.

S. Simon Jacob: 30:59

When you start early in the morning, by 9.30, everybody's done. Right, we were like done.

Elizabeth Kratz: 31:06

So basically, after that we went to visit Yaakov Briss, who works at La Fora Blanche. He's the export manager I don't know what his actual title is, but for me he's the export manager but I think he's very much involved with the running of the winery and it was great to see him. And we also saw Viognier being processed. As we were arriving, they were bringing it in and we tasted some of the delicious Viognier grape juice and then he sent me home with a bottle of the Viognier from last year so I could compare and contrast. So that was really fun. Compare and contrast. So that was really fun.

Elizabeth Kratz: 31:41

Um and uh. Yeah, I I've been uh, uh. Laforette has been sort of on my radar for like four years since it's since it started out and rebranded Uh, it was formerly the Livni winery and I I'm just I've just been interested in it, Met Yakov a long time ago and been writing about them since the first vintage Big fan of their Talpiot blend. I think the 2017 was the first one I tried. It was great. So it's a $20, $25 bottle.

S. Simon Jacob: 32:10

There's a bunch of incredible values here as far as wines are concerned, and they've only they have been getting better and better and better. Yeah, They've only they have been getting better and better and better.

Elizabeth Kratz: 32:22

Yeah, so and one of my, I think one of my the reasons for my visit this year, and especially in August 2024, when there are tensions and, you know, israel is once again under the specter of global stress and really since October 7th, I've really made a very conscious effort to only recommend Israeli wines to friends when they ask. Like I don't ask if they say, can you recommend a wine? You know, often people ask you to recommend a wine. I'm sure this happens to you all the time. They say I want a red, and they say, or a white, and I want a price range. I don't ask them whether they want it to be Israeli or not. I want a price range. I don't ask them whether they want it to be Israeli or not. I ask them whether they want it to be Mavushal or not because that matters for like a restaurant or at a Simcha.

Elizabeth Kratz: 33:09

You know if they're having it. Most of the time I get requests for recommendations for a Simcha, so I ask them if they want it to be Mavushal, but I almost automatically go through my Rolodex in my head of Israeli wines because I don't. I feel like Israel needs us now and what better? Like why else am I coming here if not to spend my American money, you know, in coffee shops and like be do anything I can to support the Zionist idea and to support this country, which I feel needs to exist, and like I just want to put all of my recommendations behind Israeli wine, specifically this year, but maybe always. You know, obviously I love French wine, I love California wine. I'm from California originally.

S. Simon Jacob: 34:00

It's more especially now because of the people getting called back up to Milouim. Yeah, it's crazy. Yeah, like your podcast last week, which from the Ella Valley, ariel is his name. Yeah, ariel, so impressive.

Elizabeth Kratz: 34:13

Such an impressive podcast.

S. Simon Jacob: 34:15

He's balancing his family, he's balancing a harvest and he's balancing the war.

S. Simon Jacob: 34:19

Yeah, harvest then he's balancing the war and the war seems to be winning as far as his time is concerned, but not his mental thoughts. His thoughts are, you know, with his family and also with the grapes. It's really amazing what people are going through Now. He actually runs back and forth to Gaza. People like Amichai Luria just lose his staff All of a sudden. He thought everybody was finally back and things would be great for the harvest. And then a month ago or a month and a half ago, all of a sudden these Miloim calls came out for all of the people in his staff again. So it's hard. They don't know what to do or what to replace, or how to do it or how to deal with it. So they're trying, they're just working really hard.

Elizabeth Kratz: 35:10

And I have a nephew who is serving, and even the day we landed I texted him and I said hey, we're here. Finally, we made it. I hope you'll have time for us and he's like. I got called. I'm going back to Gaza tonight.

S. Simon Jacob: 35:25

Right.

Elizabeth Kratz: 35:26

And you know, three other family members who had planned to be in Israel in August in America ended up canceling their trips because, you know, all the people they're coming to visit aren't available, right. So it's a tough time. It's a really tough time for anyone who has people they love in Israel or working in Israel or trying to run a business. I mean, I can't even imagine so. If the only thing I can do is recommend Israeli wine when someone asks me, then that's what I'm going to do, but hopefully I could do more than that.

S. Simon Jacob: 36:01

It makes a huge difference here. Israeli wines support a lot of people, and coming to Israel supports a lot of people as well, between the hotels and the restaurants and what have you. But it's very hard to do that right now. The flights have gone through the roof. What few airlines are still flying? If you're coming, even on one of the European airlines that's flying, it means that you've got to. Instead of coming direct, you've got to transit through Europe and it's tough. It's a difficult situation. Also, one of the airlines that used to handle a lot of people coming to Israel was Turkish, and now you know people. They don't fly anymore and they've made it clear that they're not allies of ours, and that's a pity. That's really gone the other direction.

Elizabeth Kratz: 37:13

Yeah, no Of ours, and that's a pity. That's really gone the other direction a few days, you know, have some grandparent, grandmother, granddaughter time with my kids and then continue on home. And we even switched to El Al and you know, sort of to make the price not so insane. But I knew even in June when I booked the ticket, I'm like you know what I got. To book El Al, yeah, because if we really want to get there, yeah, no, 100%.

S. Simon Jacob: 37:44

I've got a whole host of family who are scheduled to arrive here for Sukkot for the end of Rosh Hashanah, yom Kippur and Sukkot and I know they're all booked through United Tickets and I don't know whether they're going to rebook or whether we're just going to pass this year.

Elizabeth Kratz: 38:03

So we'll see what happens everyone has to always just buy the most flexible ticket right, yeah, no, it's crazy so what?

S. Simon Jacob: 38:10

what are the? What are the things you're planning to do? You're planning to participate in the harvest, right at all yes, so.

Elizabeth Kratz: 38:16

So in um, in ag, tomorrow we are booked to sort grapes with Yechiel in the winery, um, and I don't know actually if we have a date where we're going to help with actual picking of grapes. But, um, my, but Yechiel put me in touch with a couple of people who, who you know, may need small estate, uh, assistance, things like that, to do some harvesting. But we've had a lot of sort of the kids have had a lot of interest in picking other things during harvest. You know there's cherry tomatoes and different things. So we're on all the lists now and there's no shortage of things people can do if they come here. Even whenever they come, there's always volunteering opportunities. So we've sort of been inundated with opportunities at this point, but I don't know whether we have a date booked for an actual harvest day.

S. Simon Jacob: 39:18

Harvesting is also an incredible experience because you really do it very early in the morning, like ideally you want to get there before the sun is even close to rising, and um and working on it because you're these grapes are full of juice. They're just incredible. The skin start to expand and pop before they even get handled you know, significantly handled- it depends on the grape variety, it depends on the varietal, but it's a really interesting experience and to go through that first crush, I hope we'll get a chance.

Elizabeth Kratz: 39:57

It's a little loosey-goosey at the point because my kids did also. They liked getting up at the 6 o'clock hour, but I don't know if they're going to get up at the 4 o'clock hour. Yeah.

S. Simon Jacob: 40:08

You know you can say well, we'll do that in the morning and then we'll do. You won't do anything in the afternoon. Right, you're done, you're done, Got to lie in some air conditioning. Right and relax, yeah, I figure.

Elizabeth Kratz: 40:19

You know we're here, it's harvest. We should, you know, do it. You know we're alive, we're here. We should join with the. You know, do what everyone else is doing. But it is a little intense and it might not be what my 11 and 13-year-olds have signed up for.

S. Simon Jacob: 40:37

Okay, no, it's cool, but we can try.

Elizabeth Kratz: 40:39

I do hope to get to it and if not, we'll help in the winery.

S. Simon Jacob: 40:43

Any wineries that you've encountered that are new and different, that you're going to hit the radar.

Elizabeth Kratz: 40:49

Yes, I'm hoping to visit this week Bazak Winery. This is another winery that Yechiel is very excited about. They don't export yet and they are apparently as close as Israel has gotten to a wine chateau Like the French style. You know, there's the house, there's the winery in the house and then the vineyards surrounding it. So it is a true estate winery surrounding it with so the.

Elizabeth Kratz: 41:27

So it is a true estate winery, um, and so apparently the bazak family had been selling their grapes for many years and people really liked the grapes. It's judy and hills, I believe. It's, uh, you know, right in the middle of everything green a lot of green there and they also have orchards, I believe, where they make fruit jams and things like that, olives, and so I was told that after many years of selling their grapes, the father kind of got the idea that maybe he should try to make wine from these grapes that everyone says are so great. So he built a winery under the house, as far as I understand. So I'm looking forward to going there. Don't know if any of what I said is true.

Elizabeth Kratz: 42:02

I hope it is, but I hope to see that for myself Very interested and I'm, you know, I'm interested in finding out how a winery like that gets to export status, like how they build up, like we've seen. We see a lot of wines on the other side of things, like some, you know, becoming very large, you know, and then turning into like a real commercial enterprise. But you know, to see it on the small side and see it grow, that's very nice. That reminds me of Sam Baum, yeah, who I don't think I'm going to be able to get up there and also doing the crazy milloum back and forth.

S. Simon Jacob: 42:38

He's still doing it, he's still doing the milloum, but they moved up north.

Elizabeth Kratz: 42:40

I think they back and forth. He's still doing it, he's still doing the milloum, but they moved up north. I think they did they did, so we're looking forward to hearing great things about that wine.

S. Simon Jacob: 42:46

He has always wanted to have a winery. He feels that the vineyard is the place where wine is grown and that's what he wants. And he felt that the best grapes he could grow would be up in the Golan. So he insisted on moving up to the Golan, which he picked an incredibly difficult time to do that. But he is very driven and his wife is an absolute angel.

Elizabeth Kratz: 43:19

She's amazing Powerhouse too. She's very good at social media. She is she's really like Instagram. She runs it their Instagram very good at social media.

S. Simon Jacob: 43:22

She is she's really like Instagram. Their.

Elizabeth Kratz: 43:24

Instagram is amazing. In the early days of the war actually, we even wrote about this in in a couple of articles about she was documenting, doing like punchdown during while he was away, and she's like I'm a nurse, what am I doing? And she, she literally was a nurse. He was away and she's like I'm a nurse, what am I doing? And she literally was a nurse in the hospital. And she but she had like winemaking, doesn't wait for Miloim to come home.

S. Simon Jacob: 43:54

That's the crazy thing. When you're in a Miloim situation and a winemaking situation and a kid's situation I mean, kids can't wait either. You know you can't say, well, you know what, I can't do this with you this week, I'll do it in another couple of weeks. Sometimes you can get away with that, but for the most part you really can't yeah you have to deal with kids when they need to be dealt with. Yeah, and grapes are very much that way, and millouim is also very much that way, right.

Elizabeth Kratz: 44:25

So so, just so you know I know you didn't see my see the most recent issue of the Jewish wine guide from this past, pesach, yeah, but just in that magazine we made a very concerted effort to to use our feature articles to explain why this year was different for Israeli wineries. And there are a few articles in there. I think Kenny Friedman wrote it. It was called Winemakers at War and it's just story after story after story of people coming in and going out Yaakov Berg from Psaagot, the gentleman from Drimia I can't remember his name, he was in a really intense unit, maybe a paratrooper or a brigade, I forgot but very intense stories and you know a year of real stress on the Israeli vineyards and the wineries. So we really wanted to bring that to light and we hope to do more in the coming year.

Elizabeth Kratz: 45:24

One thing we also on purpose didn't do in the last magazine was we didn't award special awards like Winery of the Year, which we have done in the past, because we didn't want the wineries in Israel to be negatively impacted by the fact that they might not have sent wines that year or the wines weren't didn't arrive on time. A lot, of, a lot of that happened this past year, um, and they just weren't able to stick to a schedule. So we, we didn't. We decided not to choose wineries of the year this year and nothing bad happened. It was okay. But we just felt strongly that we didn't want our colleagues in Israel to be negatively impacted by anything we did. Right, they didn't want to add on to their stress.

S. Simon Jacob: 46:18

I didn't interview anybody outside of Israel for a long time their stress. I didn't interview anybody outside of Israel for a long time. And then I and I had some pushback from some of the some of the people outside who said, hey look, you know, there are wineries that are making wine in France and Spain and and Italy who are supporting Jewish communities and they're in a very bad situation with anti-Semitism, don't you know, cut us out. And I said you're right, you're 100% right, I get it. I've been promoting winemakers who are outside of Israel as well now, but I definitely my number one push is towards Israeli wineries because I just see what they're going through and I see the challenges.

Elizabeth Kratz: 47:18

Yeah, yeah, but I mean the title of your podcast. That's why it's so genius, because if you're saying the kosher terroir, yeah, that's, that's global. That is global. That that's Herzog, that's LV. Yeah, that's Terra de Seta, yeah, that's all of those places. So so okay.

S. Simon Jacob: 47:37

I like it. Yeah, One of the other ones that's here that was really special, that is really special is Hasella.

Elizabeth Kratz: 47:46

Oh yes.

S. Simon Jacob: 47:47

And they have two partners and their wives, and they both have businesses on the side, and the wives do too, besides taking care of their kids. And all of a sudden, the wives were making wine for, you know, 2023.

Elizabeth Kratz: 48:01

In October yeah.

S. Simon Jacob: 48:05

And I went into the winery and I said, yeah, well, you're making the wine. Yeah, we are. We moved this barrel. You know, we moved the barrel upstairs. We had to move the barrel and I said wait a second. You moved the barrel yourself and he said, yeah, it was empty. It wasn't. Those barrels are heavy and they were pushing the thing around and doing what they needed to do to get it done.

Elizabeth Kratz: 48:37

Don't they have a unique cave-tasting, like a cave storage room yes, Looks really cool. That's actually where they make the wine too, they have to be some venting, some ventilation of some kind.

S. Simon Jacob: 48:50

They did. They had a hole that the birds were flying in and out of and they screened it, and they put fans in and what have you? So that actually works now to ventilate it, so that they can actually make their wine in that cave. So that's what they do.

Elizabeth Kratz: 49:05

Wow, that sounds cool. I'll look into it. I'd like to visit I'd like to spend some time.

S. Simon Jacob: 49:12

Yeah, you can only do so many things, right.

Elizabeth Kratz: 49:15

But hopefully not my last visit.

S. Simon Jacob: 49:16

No.

Elizabeth Kratz: 49:17

Hopefully I'll be back, sure.

S. Simon Jacob: 49:18

Yeah, I'm sure we'll be. Yeah, be back. Sure, yeah, I'm sure we'll be. Yeah so thank you very much for taking the time and and participating in the podcast. It's really a pleasure. You're an important part of the of the kosher wine world, especially in Northeastern United States, but I know that some of these guides made their way to California and all over the place.

Elizabeth Kratz: 49:42

Yeah, and we can send the magazines anywhere by request. I guess it's just visit us on the web. The Jewish Link Wine Guide.

S. Simon Jacob: 49:54

Very cool.

Elizabeth Kratz: 49:54

We're happy to mail out copies, et cetera, and look forward to everyone's participation.

S. Simon Jacob: 49:59

Yeah, I will include your email and information on the podcast so that people can get to you's participation. Yeah, I will include. I'll include your email and information on the podcast, so that people can get to you as well.

Elizabeth Kratz: 50:06

Yeah, and thank you for all you're doing.

S. Simon Jacob: 50:08

No, it's a pleasure yeah, really a pleasure. Shalom u'bracha, thank you. This is Simon Jacob, again your host of today's episode of the Kosher Terwa. I have a personal request no matter where you are or where you live, please take a moment to pray for our soldiers' safety and the safe and rapid return of our hostages. Please subscribe via your podcast provider to be informed of our new episodes as they are released. If you're new to the Kosher Terwa, please check out our many past episodes and thank you for listening to the Kosher Terwa.