S Simon Jacob: 0:09

Welcome to The Kosher Terroir. I'm Simon Jacob, your host for this episode from Jerusalem. Before we get started, I ask that, wherever you are, please take a moment and pray for the safety of our soldiers and the safe return of all of our hostages. The following is a conversation with my good friend, Gabriel Geller. Gabriel works as the Director of Public Relations and Wine Education Manager for Royal Wines, or also commonly known as Herzog. He is a remarkable wine representative for the entire collective global kosher wine industry and is administrator over the 8,000 plus kosher wine sharing and experience Facebook community, where he is always available to provide comments or help to members posting there. Available to provide comments or help to members posting there. With his encyclopedic wine memory and his absolutely incredible palate, he has become the go-to person when researching kosher wines, their wineries and assessing vintages from around the world.

S Simon Jacob: 1:20

Gabriel, who is also fondly referred to by his friends as GG, lives with his wife, Yael and their children in northern New Jersey. If you're driving, please focus your attention on the road ahead. If you're home relaxing, please open a delicious bottle of kosher wine. Sit back, relax and enjoy this informative conversation. Please excuse the static that intermittently plagued our conversation and I hope it doesn't distract from how incredibly open, honest and informational this podcast was for me to record. Simon, how are you doing? I'm great, it's great to see you. The only thing that would be better is if you were here with me in person.

S Simon Jacob: 2:09

I don't know how many people know this, but I've observed that you, Gabriel, actually have a superpower you have an ability to recall in detail, over years, things that you've tasted and compare them to things that you're tasting currently. Is that something you were born with or is it practice that you developed over time?

Gabriel Geller: 2:34

It's an interesting question. I think that it's something that I was probably born with, but it's not necessarily just for wine Meaning.

S Simon Jacob: 2:51

I was going to ask you that too, but go ahead.

Gabriel Geller: 2:55

I'll give you an example. So years ago, 20 years ago, maybe less than 20 years, 15 years ago I used to be, before I even had a driver's license I used to be a fan of cars and I knew, basically because I read about them and I had like reading materials and stuff like that. I knew nearly every single type and model of car in the world and I could tell you, oh, this car, it costs that much, that's the MSRP, that's the type of engine that it has, how much horsepower does it have, and so on and so forth. Any car, you see, any car. It might be a pickup truck, it might be a sports car car, it might be a pickup truck, it might be a sports car, it might be it didn't matter, uh, where, where it came from, uh, and I could, and I remember all of those details just about the cars, uh, and now I mean, I, I still like, but I'm absolutely not up to date on that at all. So I cannot do that anymore, but I kind of do it with wine.

S Simon Jacob: 4:15

You know something, I'm also a car enthusiast and I used to remember all of that and what have you, and I even remembered sounds. But the ability to remember so precisely taste is really awesome. It's an actually it's an awesome, awesome situation and it makes you such an incredible resource. Because, no, it does. Because you, you know, when we're tasting wines together, you can immediately, you know you can, you can bring back a, you know, a taste that you had from, uh, from an earlier vintage, and because of that, it really is like incredibly special. So I not many people have that and it's like and I thought it comes with you know, it comes with practice and maybe it does, but there's still, there's still an issue with being able to really taste some incredible differences. So, all right, tell me a little bit about how did you get into wine, where did it start? What's your origin story in wine?

Gabriel Geller: 5:36

Okay, so first of all, you know, I was born and grew up in Switzerland, and to I mean it, to a Swiss father of her generation and a French mother. My mother was born and grew up in Paris and her father was a very wild Jewish. He was very French, very traditionally French, and most of his life he drank a glass of wine. Every single day, lunch and dinner, there was always wine on the table, every single day. And when my grandmother passed away, I was seven years old. My grandfather basically moved into the same apartment building. We lived in next door, on the same floor and, other than for the night, he would be with us the whole time, at every single meal. So it was not just on Shabbat, it was every single meal. So it was not just on Shabbat, it was every single day. There was a bottle of wine on the table. It was not necessarily fancy wine, it was dry, good, dry white or red wine, and you know the typical, you know French wine culture. It didn't make a big deal out of it. He was not passionate about wine, he just liked wine and wine was really a part of his meals. There was no meal without wine and without bread. There was bread at every single meal as well meal as well, so, so, so that was like sort of a foundation, uh to that, that that culture, um, that you don't really see. You know, in many other countries I mean they have that, uh, to an extent, of course, in italy, or perhaps in spain as well, uh, but uh, I mean, obviously, obviously the Jewish community and the cultures of those Jewish communities in those countries are not the same as French Jewry, especially French Ashkenazi Jewry. So there is that first aspect.

Gabriel Geller: 8:01

Secondly, as a teenager, when I was 16 years old, I got a summer job with a wine importer in the suburb of Switzerland who was Jewish. However, 99% of his business was not kosher wine and selling fine wine from Bordeaux Burgundy was like most of it, but he also had California wines, italian wines, spanish wines and a few Israeli wines that he sold because he was Jewish and because he wanted to make some kosher and Israeli wine available to the Jewish community. And I went and worked for him the first time when I was 16 years old, during the summer. It was good money Switzerland has good wages there and during my lunch breaks I used to sit in the library the library, you know, the library in the outside beautiful office from from the outside was like a warehouse. There was nothing glamorous about it at all, but the the offices were decorated like a like like an old-fashioned French chateau, with beautiful pictures of rugs and ancient beautiful furniture and art, and it looked like a palace really inside. And there was a beautiful library full of wine books. And during my lunch breaks and lunch break was pretty long, was one hour between noon and 1 pm I would sit there and eat my lunch for a few minutes and then I would grab books and read about the wines and trying to understand why this bottle costs $10 and that bottle costs $300 and so on and so forth. And I was getting really into it and interested.

Gabriel Geller: 10:07

And after my summer vacation was over and I returned to Israel where I was living most of the time and studying in high school, I would every Shabbat, when I was at home and not in Yeshiva, I would buy one or two different vials of wine to try something else, discover something else. And that's how I really started understanding different wines, where they come from, the varieties, the taste and flavors and all that stuff and really how I got into it. And I went to work summer jobs and even the winter, sometimes just for two weeks, sometimes for two months, with that same employer in Switzerland. For several years after that and when I was years later, when I was in college, I had a lot of free time. And the same importer. His name is Elie Gaza. He was born in Alexandria, egypt. He sounded like a Sephardi.

Gabriel Geller: 11:25

Yeah, absolutely, but he's very. He's Sephardi for sure, but he's very adjusted to Switzerland. Very proper gentleman, businessman, and he told me you know those few Israeli wines that I sell. He had the Barkin Classic. He had Golan, hex Winery, gamla, yarden, cabernet Sauvignon. You had like four or five different wines. You know, over 70% of the sales of those Israeli wines it's not Jews, it's people who just see those wines in the catalog and they order them and they like them and they keep you know buying them. Most of the sales are now to the kosher Jewish consumers.

Gabriel Geller: 12:15

And I would like to extend that portfolio, find interesting, good value Israeli wines. And he knew that I had gotten into it and he asked me you know you're in Israel. If you have time maybe you can go and meet with wineries, taste wines and find wines that I could import in Switzerland and add to my portfolio. And that's how I got into the Israeli wine industry and the wine industry as a whole. On a more professional basis, I started going to all the wineries in Israel, to all the wine shows there was already the Sommelier Expo in Tel Aviv, there was another one that doesn't exist anymore which was called Israeli Wine Expo and taste as many wines as I could. Meet all the Israeli wineries and try and find suitable wines for Elie Gazar's portfolio.

S Simon Jacob: 13:23

At that time, about how many wineries do you think you were dealing with?

Gabriel Geller: 13:31

Like how many wineries did I, like you know, visit?

S Simon Jacob: 13:33

Yes, but how many were actively around at that time?

Gabriel Geller: 13:41

There are already a bunch. It was like in 2007, 2008.

S Simon Jacob: 13:45

Okay, okay, so it's already well into the 2000s not super long ago.

Gabriel Geller: 13:49

Yeah, I visited uh, uh, for instance, shiloh and sagat in, I think, 2007, so they're barely two years, three years in business. Segop was started in 2003, and Shiloh was starting in 2005. And I recall visiting Shiloh Winery the first time. Actually, unfortunately, amichai was not in the winery on that day, but my assistant was there and is still there, and that's how I got to meet all of these people, many of whom are uh either with the same wineries or in the same uh industry. Wow, awesome.

S Simon Jacob: 14:35

I was going to ask you how you ended up in israel. So that's you. You answered perfect, beautiful. How did you speak english? How did you get to speak English?

Gabriel Geller: 14:46

So, with regards to English, well, first of all, back in those days, I mean, I was in Israel, I was one of the Israelis, I spoke Hebrew because I had been living there for eight, nine years and I had been in high school there, college, so I was already quite fluent in Hebrew.

Gabriel Geller: 15:08

And to the importer in Switzerland, I spoke French, but my English wasn't bad already from studying in high school, but after high school and during college I also went on my first trip to the USA and went to an advanced English course in New York City because I really wanted to improve my English, which really helped, obviously, and of course that has evolved as well over the years.

S Simon Jacob: 15:43

What prompted you to go to Israel? Did your family integrate or did you? Yeah?

Gabriel Geller: 15:50

I did Well. I grew up in a very Zionist family. My parents in Switzerland were among the founders of a Jewish school in Luzern, the town, the city I came from founders of a Jewish school in Luzerne, the town, the city I came from. And when they started that school, they really wanted to be a very Zionistic school, which it is to this day. We had a super Zionistic education and all I wanted, since I was a little kid, was to live in Israel, and so did my siblings, and my brother went to Israel for high school when he was 15 years old and he encouraged me and encouraged my parents to send me in when I was 14 years old, because that's when actually high school starts, there, ninth grade, and that's what I did. So I did that at 14, ninth grade. Uh and uh, and that's what I did. So I, so I did that at 14 years old. Um and um. Yeah, I, I wanted, I had always wanted to live there, and uh, that's, uh. That's what I did for 16 years.

S Simon Jacob: 16:56

Wow. Okay, so currently you're now working at Royal Wine. Currently you're now working at Royal Wine at Herzog. You're the Director of Public Relations, wine Education Manager, and tell me a little bit about your job. What's your typical day like? Who do you interact with Customers, clients, who?

Gabriel Geller: 17:22

Or everybody. There's a lot of people from the onset, when I first started working for Royal, who were wondering actually what I was doing for Royal and it's not that crazy. I'm in charge of, like I said, it's director of public relations, advertising and wine education manager. So public relations, advertising and wine education manager. So public relations, I think, is pretty straightforward.

Gabriel Geller: 17:50

It's really keeping with the media, mostly talking about new wines that Royal Wine releases and carries, really keeping the media up to date, because Royal is the foremost kosher wine important distributor but also has a big place in the mainstream American wine industry. So there is that part which gets the busiest around holidays like Rosh Hashanah and Passover, which are like the main wine holidays, and when mainstream media and mainstream, so to speak, jewelry is most interested in wine. There is the marketing aspect and advertising. So advertising, straightforward, it's handling all the advertising campaigns, whether it's in newspapers and magazines, whether it's on the radio and podcasts or influencers, social media, for all of the brands and wines that are carried by Royal Wine. So, for instance, manage a campaign together, budget and breaking down that budget between different media to promote, for instance, sheila Winery, caramel Winery, rough Judd Wines, herzog, and so on and so forth, rough Judd Wines, herzog and so on and so forth. And in that aspect my marketing responsibilities really pertain to the brands and the products that are carried by Royal. I have one of my colleagues whose official title is Director of Marketing, david Levy. Official title is Director of Marketing, david Levy. He handles mostly the trade marketing, meaning marketing royal wine, taking care of all the needs that distributors, retailers, sales reps have to promote the different products, whether it's packaging, whether it's signage in stores, whether it's events such as KFW, for instance, and all that kind of stuff.

Gabriel Geller: 20:11

And then there's the wine education part, finally. So the wine education part is coordinating, initiating and managing any aspects of educating Salesforce. So, for instance, coordinating the WSET course for the sales reps, sending information to the reps about the different wines and wineries, all sorts of seminars like that, and, of course, the consumer as well. So it can be wine tastings that I run on a very regular basis, whether it's for private individuals, charities, all sorts of events where I conduct wine tastings that usually have an educational part about them. It's not just pouring wine for the sake of pouring wine. It's really talking about wines and educating and writing articles that are published in the Jewish media, online and print about new wines and educating people. What is Merlot, what is Sauvignon Blanc? Where does it come from, what does it taste like, our different styles, the different winemaking methods and so on and so forth.

Gabriel Geller: 21:34

Cool, since you're talking about tastings, do you remember a particularly awesome tasting that you ran or participated in Any I have one that comes to mind right now, right away, and that was in 2017, if I'm not mistaken, I believe in the spring of 2017, together with you, david Riven.

S Simon Jacob: 22:00

You're talking about in Connecticut, not in Connecticut. It was in New York In.

Gabriel Geller: 22:04

New Rochelle.

S Simon Jacob: 22:05

Yeah, New Rochelle New.

Gabriel Geller: 22:06

Rochelle yeah.

S Simon Jacob: 22:08

That was pretty awesome.

Gabriel Geller: 22:09

Arilox, pfizer Indigecto. Yes, that was an amazing tasting of most of the top premium coffee wines released between the late 1990s and late 2000s from all over the world and that were stored in perfect professional conditions. And it was truly amazing, truly special to taste such wines that were perfectly stored in company of people who truly appreciate and understand the wines. That was really for me, unprecedented and I cannot compare it to any other subsection tasting that I've participated in.

S Simon Jacob: 23:02

I thought I was the only one blown away by that tasting that participated. I thought I was the only one blown away by that. It was crazy. That was a crazy tasting. That was absolutely awesome. All right, I know you've built an incredibly huge online community dedicated to kosher wine discussions. It's global. Kosher wine discussions. Um, it's, it's global and it's uh and it's awesome. It's an incredible community. Can you tell me a little bit about it? I mean, and who, who's actually? Managing it and running it and what have you?

Gabriel Geller: 23:34

because you've got a couple of people, three people, four people so so it's actually 10 years old right now, like probably like it was a few days ago. The real initiative was something that I had been thinking about. It was actually started, from a technical standpoint, by two gentlemen who are absolutely not involved anymore in it, and they basically gave me the keys like almost right away Benjamin Citric and Jonathan Asayag. So at that point in 2014, they were business partners. They had an online kosher wine retailer based in the UK and they started that forum on Facebook Cochon Wine Sharing Experiences and right away when we started it literally right away they came to me and to a friend of mine who you know as well, nathan Bonjean, and offered us to join and run the show. And so we did and we created a French group that's basically the same idea, it's pretty much the same name, but in French which has a few thousand members, slash followers as well and within just a few months, we went from a couple hundred people that we added between the two of us that we knew already on Facebook who were into wine, to an extent to 1,500 six months later, to about 8,000 now, to an extent to 1500 six months later, to about 8000 now and about 3000 on the French group and became a really bubbling and buzzing community of potion wine enthusiasts throughout the world many of them, of course, in the USA, but also in Israel and in Europe and really became something that we did not expect, and it's a need that I had identified with the passing of Daniel Rogoff.

Gabriel Geller: 26:13

So Daniel Rogoff so Daniel Rogoff, for those who are listening and not familiar with the name, there you go was Israel's first and foremost wine writer. I think he wrote for decades in Haaretz and the Jerusalem Post about wine. He was really the first, he is the one, he's probably the figure that put Israeli wine on the map, and I have a lot of great things to say about him and I have things that I with with him or with his methods and it's not really relevant, it doesn't matter. Uh, I think he did, uh, he did a really, really great service to the israeli wine industry and to the cultural wine industry as well, and, uh, he had that forum online which was very old-fashioned, uh, forum that I was a forum, that I was a participant, first as a lurker, when I did not feel that confident conversing in English with all those folks when I first joined, and over the years, I've become much more comfortable about my English and my one knowledge that I became a more active participant, and my participation in that forum became much more active, actually after his passing, because I and others saw that there was not much activity going on in that forum after his passing and we wanted to keep the conversation going.

Gabriel Geller: 27:49

So I started posting reviews, I started scoring lines, but I saw that it was just a few, a few dozens of us perhaps, uh, on there and I was like, well, it feels like you know, really like a little club of a few guys and maybe a couple, uh, a couple of gals as well, uh and uh, whereas there is, there's a big word, and I think that if we were more people involved, there would be a lot more sharing of information. We would know more about new wines, about wines that we don't hear or see, if there are more people, and this forum is no longer relevant really. And social media? If there are more people, this forum is no longer relevant really, and social media is the new thing.

Gabriel Geller: 28:42

So, again, this was 2014. Let's do something on social media, and that really took off very quickly. People like to see pictures, people like the quick interaction, and that has evolved as well. Now there's a lot of the conversation perhaps the majority of the conversation that goes on WhatsApp chats. Whatsapp chats that I'm a member of, that I do not run and it's a lot of fun, it's exciting, it's entertaining, for sure.

S Simon Jacob: 29:21

It's definitely entertaining.

Gabriel Geller: 29:28

Yeah, and it really created the community of people who really shared not just their opinions but their wines together, who really shared not just their opinions but their minds together, and that, for me, was really something that I was proud of, because you know social media, there's a lot of good and bad about it, but I think that as long as you turn what's virtual into something concrete and real whenever possible, then that's when things really get interesting and meaningful. And proof of that, I mean I did not meet you, simon, through that group. It's the other way around. I remember when I met you at Nahum Seagal's studio in the Lower East Side in New York City, together with Jay Buxbaum, we were promoting the event at Noble Wine and Grill for the Foundation for Jewish Broadcasting, nahum Seagal's foundation, and we clicked basically immediately.

Gabriel Geller: 30:37

I told you about that facebook group, uh, which you you immediately uh joined and you became uh, you become bigger than uh, than anyone there and uh and met with so many people from all around the world who are members of that group and stayed in so many RCCs and sometimes I'm always smiling when I see you. You went to that RCC and that event in London with people like Richard Davidoff and David Saleh and Paul Demby and so on and so forth, and Paul Dendy and so on and so forth, and the interactions, the friendships that it created throughout the world, some of which I'm very active in, but unfortunately not as much in real life, as virtually, as I would like, and it's really amazing. There's so many people that got together and became very close friends and more than that, and I think that's it's just incredible.

S Simon Jacob: 31:49

I absolutely am so thankful. The two things that have been incredible is that the Facebook chat, the WhatsApps, definitely have been adding on to it as well. That and the RCCs, through Yossi Horowitz's Rosh Chodesh Clubs, that has just built this group of global friends. That are just incredible and they're unbelievable people all of them. I haven't, I haven't met a bad guy in all of them. Uh, a bad person I should say person, because there are men and women on the groups but, um, it's, it's awesome. I really love it. Um, tell me a little bit about some of your favorites. Favorite wine region. Favorite style champagne, dry Rieslings, bordeaux, burgundy what's your favorite?

Gabriel Geller: 32:43

So you know that has evolved. Of course, over the years I've become much more of an old-world French wines, italian wines, spanish wines fan that I used to be. Most of my upbringing in wine was through Israeli wine. Even the wines that we used to drink at home in Switzerland were mostly Gamla Yarden. There are a few French wines here and there, sometimes like especially Champagne, like Norbury, for instance, or König from Alsace, but for the most part it was those Israeli wines.

Gabriel Geller: 33:24

And back in Israel, of course, the vast majority of the wines that I used to buy and drink and really educated myself on were Israeli wines, both because of availability and also pricing as well. And I remember that I had that appreciation that I initially had was really geared towards the style of Israeli wines, towards the style of Israeli wines. And I recall having a conversation, like 15 years ago through the forums, through the Rogo forum, about comparing wines like Yarden, katrin, for instance, to Chateau Giscourt, when I had very little to no experience with the premium Bordeaux wines, and I remember having a debate with David Raka and Yossi Horitz whether those wines could be compared, and my opinion back then was very different than my opinion today, mostly because of my relative lack of experience in education back in those days and of course, a lot of that has changed. Both I have changed, but some of the wines also have changed in the way that they're made or climate and other factors that came into play. And yes, my taste has changed a lot. I still drink a lot of Israeli wine.

Gabriel Geller: 35:07

I have actually made a point since October 7. Since October 7. There has not been a single Shabbat and a single Chag Yom Tov without having at least one Israeli wine as part of my lineup. I've made a point of that. Thank you, israel. Thanks you because it's a huge deal for us. Thank you, I did. Thank you, israel.

S Simon Jacob: 35:34

Thanks you because it's a huge deal for us. It's a really, really huge deal. It's one of the ways people in the United States and Europe and everywhere outside of Israel can help and contribute to Israel. It's a huge industry. It's been impacted incredibly by it. It's been impacted incredibly by it. Workers are all getting pulled back into Malouine, back into the war zones, and it's really crazy. But thank you.

Gabriel Geller: 36:04

It is, it is, and for me it's just a natural thing to do, do and I've been pushing that both on a personal level and on a professional level through Royal Wine, really emphasizing Israeli wine, the Israeli wine industry, what they're going through and all that is good and great about Israeli wine.

S Simon Jacob: 36:32

I have a question Can you suggest to our listening audience three wines that are new, different, that people should, or even old, that people should reach out and try?

Gabriel Geller: 36:52

Sure, okay. Well, first of all, you know, there are some wines that might be new to some market.

S Simon Jacob: 36:58

Right.

Gabriel Geller: 36:59

And not so new to another market. So, for instance, I'll go with Felstein Winery Felstein Winery by Avi Felstein. So Avi Felstein, for those who don't know, was for many years the head winemaker and the creator of the famous Segal Unfiltered, one of Israel's most iconic wines, and about 10 years ago, he started his own winery named after himself, and he makes really interesting wines using a lot of native and Israeli hybrid varieties. So, for instance, dabuki Parkeman and he made the Dabuki, which is a white wine. So Dabuki is one of those indigenous varieties that, among others, dr Shivit Rory of Guelph Winery researched, trying to find if there are still grapes out there that were used to produce wine all the way back in the days of the Betta Migdash, and that's one of them. And Abifelstein created the Buki wine. He's not the first one who has done so. However, what is special about it is that it's the first wine from the Joseph variety that has actually impressed me.

Gabriel Geller: 38:31

I've had quite a few from several wineries throughout Israel. Many, if not most, of them were good, tasty, pleasant, but I was, for the most part, I was like okay, it's nice but it's not so interesting. And this Felstein Nabuki I think it's a 2023 vintage that I tasted I was like oh wow, that's interesting. There's complexity to this. There is interesting aromas and flavors, something special about it that I did not expect. Based on my previous experiences, Cool.

Gabriel Geller: 39:15

So that's one wine. Okay, that's one wine. I will go with a second Israeli wine for the next one. So again, I like when wineries go beyond what's trendy or what's mainstream. So if you take, for instance, the Mountain Winery in the Galantites they are, by the way, one of the Israeli wineries that have suffered the most, are really on the border, their staff has been drafted for the most part in the war efforts, so they've been having a really hard time and being constantly under rockets from Hezbollah, and they produce wines from one of the top vineyards in Israel, el Rom, really on the Syrian border, and they have that Nebbiolo.

Gabriel Geller: 40:16

So Nebbiolo is an Italian grape, it's the grape that produces Barolo and Barbaresco in Piemonte, italy, and Golan Heights Winery produced that in the past and other mountains took that variety, grown in the Golan Heights as well, to the next level and you have a wine that does not taste like Barolo but it's distinctively the Nebbiolo variety, which is very interesting because it's kind of light and also heavy at the same time. You have a pretty strong tan structure and at the same time the body and the concentration are not that as obvious. As you know, the big full-bodied Cabernet, sauvignon or Bordeaux style blend and you have really, you know, those mediterranean herbs notes and a medley of aromas, flavors that, uh, that is different than uh, than most of what's out there, and uh, and that's really an israeli wine that's flying a little bit under the radar so far and, uh, I think people should, uh, should discover, because it's really uh, it's different and it's good. That's the most important thing about it.

Gabriel Geller: 41:39

Very cool and then if I, if I were to, to talk about, uh, a third wine, uh, I couldn't. I can mention uh, you know, I would love to go and talk about the third Israeli wine, but no, I have that affinity with old wines and Spanish or Italian. So Spanish wine one of my favorite whites from LV Winery by the way, it's called the Arenza White or Blanco used to be called Vita back in the days which is a really interesting blend Pensa Blanca and Sauvignon Blanc. It's a lovely wine. It's got complexity, it's got aging potential, it's so refreshing. And it's a lovely wine. It's got complexity, it's got aging potential, it's so refreshing and it's really, really inexpensive.

S Simon Jacob: 42:38

Really inexpensive. It's amazing. It's one of my go-to wines here in Israel too. It's awesome. Yeah, there you go.

Gabriel Geller: 42:45

Yeah, there you go. So I think that there is still too many people that don't know about it. Still too many people that don't know about it. There are people who have, especially in the circles of people who are really into wine. There's a lot of people who think that if it's cheap, so to speak, it's not so interesting. It might be good, but it might not be amazing or complex. I can afford more expensive wine, so why should I not go? Well, good for you.

S Simon Jacob: 43:25

Yeah, this isn't about price. I mean, it's about price. The price is awesome, but it's not great because of the price. It's great because it's great wine. It's wonderful.

Gabriel Geller: 43:34

Exactly, yeah, exactly it really is Really fantastic white wine that happens to be inexpensive because it comes from that region. It's made from those varieties. It's also produced with that, using methods and aging that are costly, and get amazing results. There are wines out there that are really really good, really excellent, and they don't have to be super expensive, and that's where we call the super QPR wines.

S Simon Jacob: 44:13

Right Yep they are. You know I can't think of a better person to ask this of I've noticed that in the high-end kosher wines, and even in some of the lower-end kosher wines, they're becoming much, much more approachable, especially the French wines that used to be 10 years or what have you. Now, all of a sudden, they've become more approachable. Do you find that? That's number one? And number two do you think that they're sacrificing the futures by making these wines more approachable?

Gabriel Geller: 44:54

Okay. So I don't completely agree in some parts, so I get to that. So, for instance, in some parts, so I get to that. So, for instance, if we talk about Bordeaux wines, well, we have a vintage like the 2021 Harvest, which is like what's on the shelves right now, for the most part, which was not a great vintage. It was a difficult vintage, pretty cold and rainy.

Gabriel Geller: 45:21

What it does quite often is make wines are lighter, both lighter in body concentration, in ripeness and in tannins, so that makes them softer, so it makes them more approachable upon release, when they're young, and, at the same time, it makes them less ageable than other vintages. So it's kind of an opportunity because, I mean, some of them are really not so great this vintage and some of them are actually quite nice and they are, for the most part, more approachable than they usually are and perhaps we also not age for as long as they usually do. And it is an opportunity for people to try them and appreciate them more than either having to source an age valve that's very expensive or a weight which you have to have a lot of patience. Uh, as we know, there are some wines that are 20 years old. They're still quite, uh, quite young.

S Simon Jacob: 46:30

Yeah, I'm still waiting on some of them myself all right, exactly, yeah.

Gabriel Geller: 46:35

So yeah, it's before. Like no, it's fun, like sometimes I think like, wow, like in 10 years I'm gonna have so much of those great wines, but at the same time, in 10 years, I will be 10 years older myself, yep, yep yep so.

Gabriel Geller: 46:51

so, yeah, that's the that's, that's one of the fun uh, of the fun aspects of it. Now, if you take, for instance, a discussion that's that's been, you know, uh, discussed for three years, is sauter. Yeah, the wines from the wines from sothern are nowadays produced in a way on purpose uh, so that they would be much more approachable uh upon release, uh, whereas still, you know, retaining uh potential. The question is what is that ageability? Because if I tell you that the Sauternes wine can age 20 to 30 years, well, that sounds like a lot of time, but there are Sauternes wines from like 100 years ago that are still good.

Gabriel Geller: 47:38

So do the Sauternes wines produced nowadays have that 100-year-old or 50-year-old age ability? It's hard to tell, it's very hard to tell. I think that we'll just have to find out. I think it's possible, but usually, when wine is much more soft, it means that they had to kind of manipulate the structure, dealing with the ripeness, dealing with the way the wine is aged, the fermentation, the aging, etc. As to make the wine less aggressive on release, and I would assume that it's going to have an impact long term. And yet again, who cares? Not a lot of people.

S Simon Jacob: 48:37

No, no, certainly not me anymore. So I'm looking at these wines and I'm going uh, I should live so long.

Gabriel Geller: 48:46

um, so, please, god, we'll see yeah do you have a favorite kosher vintage yeah, I mean you could say, I think you probably know what it is. And, uh, a lot of people do too, and because of me I'm not the only one, but I do take, I think, part of the responsibility in that for hyping up, so to speak, the wine, the Chateau Pont-Ecadet 2003. Just awesome.

Gabriel Geller: 49:18

Which was for me. It was when I first tasted it. It was when I was still at the beginning of my french wine journey. Uh was in 2013, when I was 10 years old, and, uh, I opened it with my former business partner, with whom I had a wine store in your shrine, um, and I think we opened it. I don't think we opened it for Yom Ha'atzot, maybe we did.

Gabriel Geller: 49:49

I think we didn't really care about, you know, opening necessarily an Israeli wine for Yom Ha'atzot. We also had Israeli wines, but not exclusively, and we were expecting, you know, a great aged Bordeaux, and we opened that bottle and we served, and the effect that the wine had on me was something that I had never experienced before. It was so young, so beyond, not ready. I thought again, it's a 10-year-old wine, it should be quite approachable by now, but no, it had that strong core of tannins, that concentration. It was incredibly well-structured and already quite complex.

Gabriel Geller: 50:38

The potential in it was absolutely, you know, both obvious and mind blowing and I was like, wow, I have never tasted like this before, to, to to this point, this perfection of this near perfection, balance and structure and concentration, complexity. It's something else. It's it's something else and you would think I've tasted many, many, many wines since then, the last 11 plus years. You'd think that I would have tasted a better wine than that, and I'm not sure if I have. I have certainly tasted quite a few wines that might become contenders, and I think it's too early to tell. However, I've kind of crowned that wine in my mind as the best culture wine ever, and I have not found one wine that I would be confident saying that it's better than the Montecano 2003.

S Simon Jacob: 51:43

Me too. I can't believe it. I can't believe you agree on the same bottle. It's just crazy. And I have one bottle left.

Gabriel Geller: 51:53

I have one bottle. I think I have two or three.

S Simon Jacob: 51:56

I have one left and I'm waiting for somebody to signal hey, it's time.

Gabriel Geller: 52:03

So it is. It's not prime time in terms of like. You know you should drink it because otherwise it's going to be too late, far from it. But you know, I've tasted it almost every single time. You were there almost every year for the past decade, and the last time that I had that you were not there was, I think, this past December, and for the first time ever, the wine was open and developed and all that. But we've still a lot to go, not a big, but finally, really, I could confidently say wow, now it is, it has entered, finally, it's drinking window, and so that was like December 2023, at 20 years old, and, yeah, I think that, based on that tasting, I would say it has another 10 years and maybe more.

S Simon Jacob: 53:09

I know the 2001 vintage wasn't so great, but what about the new stuff that you're tasting now? That was from 2022 or even 2023? How are the vintages now looking to you?

Gabriel Geller: 53:26

So well, 2022 in Israel, as you know was Shemitah. A pretty good vintage. From the little that I've tasted and what I've heard from knowledgeable people, was a pretty good vintage and really there's some good stuff. Like you know, if I was in Israel anyone you know people who listen to us and have the opportunity to try those wines if they are okay with drinking Etemekhira. For the most part, some of them are Otzagbedin, but most of them are, so if you hold by by really there's a lot of nice wines to try, both white and reds and coming from Bordeaux, for instance.

Gabriel Geller: 54:20

So 2021, as we said, was a challenging year, uh, whereas 2022 is supposedly an excellent vintage. You know the some say it's the best ever and all that. Well, yeah, let's see. You know I've not yet really, uh, really tried, uh, maybe, to try a couple of wines, and so, from what I've tasted, actually from the Rhone Valley, it was good but not amazing, whereas 2021, which was not great in Bordeaux, was really good in the Rhone.

S Simon Jacob: 54:54

Valley.

Gabriel Geller: 54:54

So you know, it's something you know. First of all, we have there's always an issue, you know, within the wine world the wine world is no exception is that people do not care enough about vintage and vintage matters a lot. But also, some people sometimes they hear, oh well, 2021 is not a good vintage and they think, oh well, 2021, anywhere. It doesn't work like that. Every single region has its own very particular climatic conditions and even in one country like France it's not such a small country. Bordeaux and the Rhone Valley have very different climates and 2021 was really good vintage there and not so good in Bordeaux. And 2022, again 2022 apparently is very good in Bordeaux and not so great in the Rhone Valley. So what I tasted from the Rhone Valley was not amazing, but what I tasted from Bordeaux was pretty good and promising and I'm very much looking forward to taste all the new ones.

Gabriel Geller: 56:03

No, it's frustrating sometimes because, by the way, I have collected a respectable number of wines over the years and there's that patience that we talked about and wanting to be ready, and then there's always that excitation for new wines and new vintages. I already have so much of the other stuff from previous years. Where am I going to put all those wines that are just coming out now, those 2022 and 2023 vintage? Where am I going to put them? Where am I going to store them? How am I going to have to wait for them? You know, you need to really be able to manage your storage, manage your consumption, manage your purchasing in order that it makes sense on all accounts. You know, people have, you know, thought oh wow, I must get it. I must get it. So I like to taste everything always and I take every wines do I want to buy, and how many of them, this and that, so that it will make sense. It will make sense and that's, you know. I mean.

Gabriel Geller: 57:45

you know, may Hashem, you know, grant us a long enough life blessings that this should be our problem this should be our only problem.

S Simon Jacob: 57:56

You're 100% right. Yeah, exactly. Are there any wines that you're, that you're chomping at the bit, that are coming downstream, that you're really looking forward to tasting? Anything that's….

Gabriel Geller: 58:10

Yeah, yeah for sure. Well, something that has, by the way, changed in recent years is the availability of kosher wines from Burgundy. I'm a huge Burgundy fan'm a huge burgundy fan in particular, and we went from almost nothing to a lot more uh over the past few years. And, uh, there is uh wines from uh, the multi I interviewed nathan hill, who really initiated that, and very grateful to him for that and there are others. There's Marchand Wines JP Marchand, which are brought in here in America by Liquid Kosher, andrew Breskin, and Royal has the wines from Philippe Lardy and Royal has the wines from Philippe Rardy, and there is a bunch of new wines coming in very soon from the 2022 vintage, which, again, is good in Burgundy, just as it is in Bordeaux, according to the report. Very excited for those, and yeah that's.

Gabriel Geller: 59:20

I noticed over the years that my cellar was like too much focused on certain regions and different styles of wines and I needed to diversify more, and I've shifted to an extent, the balance between Bordeaux and Burgundy. Bordeaux is definitely still the majority, of course, in terms of availability, but I've been able to accumulate more Burgundy wines as well, and that's really, like you know, wow. There's all those great wines from Bordeaux coming in. There's also those great wines from Burgundy. Well, the Burgundy is like where I'm going to put more focus, because I need to keep that balance, to build it up.

S Simon Jacob: 1:00:11

Is there any wines that you again globally, any wines that you wish were becoming kosher, that aren't, Besides Petrus, I mean, you know, like there's a few?

Gabriel Geller: 1:00:27

It's not necessarily wineries like Petrus, for instance, or Screaming Eagle, because you know, even if they did become kosher, perhaps I would get the opportunity at some point to taste them. Buying them is a different story, Right, yeah, yeah, you know. Just for people to understand, you know both Petrus and Screaming Eagle. Usually they're very limited and usually gold is between $2,000 and $3,000 per bottle.

Gabriel Geller: 1:00:57

Yes, yes, yeah. So, and that's not kosher and that's not kosher. Now, when you are aware of the differences in prices between the kosher rum and the regular non-kosher wine, which is usually somewhere between two to three times and sometimes even more than that, it's very scary. There aren't that many people who can afford it. Even among those who can afford it, who would be willing to spend that kind of money on such wines. So is it ever going to happen? I don't know. I'm doubtful. I think that we have to wait for for Mashiach to come exactly one of the opinions is that, once Mashiach will come, exactly.

Gabriel Geller: 1:01:43

One of the opinions is that once Mashiach will be here, basically all wine will be kosher, so to speak.

S Simon Jacob: 1:01:51

Amen, amen, amen. I mean, I would love that.

Gabriel Geller: 1:01:56

But there are definitely varieties. I would love more German Rieslings. I would love even you know, even more I mean Italian varieties. Our good friend Ralph Medet has performed miracles within just a few years, Right Going from almost nothing to a lot Barolo, Barbaresco, coming, Brunello.

Gabriel Geller: 1:02:24

Brunello as well. It's not just back in the days we used to be happy when oh, wow, there is a German Riesling exciting in its own right. But when it comes not just from those regions, but produced by top notch wineries, it's incredible. And that's what the not just from those regions, but produced by top-notch wineries. It's incredible. And that's what the Gefe National Project has done in Germany with producers such as Nick Weiss and Ben Hovel, what Royal Ideas and others have done in Bordeaux and also in Burgundy, and what Raph has done in Italy with with Bernardo Barolo and many other varieties.

S Simon Jacob: 1:03:07

It's just, it's just incredible if you could make one change to the kosher consumer in the kosher wine market, what would it be?

Gabriel Geller: 1:03:24

You mean in their behavior or in their yeah. I would tell the consumer this you have to be open-minded, and being open-minded means you have to try something beyond cab. Get out of your comfort zone, first of all and secondly, because you had a disappointing experience with a certain wine. So, for instance, there's a lot of people who say I want a cab, I want Cabernet Sauvignon.

S Simon Jacob: 1:03:54

I don't like it. I don't like wine.

Gabriel Geller: 1:03:57

I don't like it really. Yeah, I had that Merlot, you know, whichever it was, and it was not good at all. I'm like okay, so you had one Merlot and you didn't like it. Does that mean that all the Merlot at all price points, from all regions in the world and all vintages are not good? And then you know, I can very easily. That's the fun part about it. One of my abilities is that I can give certain examples. See, do you like this one? I love it. Do you like that one?

Gabriel Geller: 1:04:34

Yeah, it's amazing, it's awesome. Well, this one is a Merlot, that one is 80% Merlot. Oh, wow, really, people think that they like this and that they don't like that, and people get fixated on certain things. And I think it's, you know, it's really missing out. You know it's like well, I go on vacation in uh, in, uh in California every year. Uh, I love it. I don't like going anywhere else. Well, have you tried? Like you know, there's, it's beautiful, and there are many other beautiful places. Uh, I love steak, but do I meal? Of course not, uh, and, and it goes on. Imagine if, if people did this type of behavior with everything, uh, in life. Oh well, I love that book, so I'm gonna read it over and over again, not read any other book, right?

S Simon Jacob: 1:05:35

no, I agree. I agree with you 100 we've gotten. We've gotten exposed to so many incredible wines. You just have to be a little bit open-minded to try. So I have one last request of you. I asked you if you have a new one of the new not new, but the 2019 Ponta Canae bottles. Do you have something nearby you? Okay, excellent, I happen to have one too. Do you have something nearby you? Okay, excellent, I happen to have one too. So what I really wanted to do with you was I'm going to print a picture of the two labels, and what I want you to do is can you take me through the label, the front and back, because a lot of people are scared off by the French. They're scared off by not knowing their way around the wine label. I've always wanted to do this with you, by the way.

Gabriel Geller: 1:06:32

By the way, speaking of this, we're talking about what I do at Royal and marketing and all that. So we have an upcoming uh advertising campaign right which ties advertising and wine education for, uh, the yiddish speaking market, you know, facilities, uh communities and all that uh which focuses on those aspects. You know, explaining border wines, explaining the label of a of a border belt, and really an incredible campaign which, to someone who is outside of that community but also outside of that world of advertising wine in general, it might seem really a little strange kind of, but it's actually. It's amazing and I'm excited about it, not because of the advertising aspect and promoting the products that that campaign is focusing on, but because of the long-term impact the educational part of that campaign has on the consumers in terms of the ability of those consumers to understand wine labels and French wines and Bordeaux wines for the long term, really explaining what is Bordeaux, what is French wine. There are different regions, there are different appellations, there are different appellations what the year on the label means, what means Grand Cru.

S Simon Jacob: 1:08:11

Classique, etc. I think you should do that in English. I'll be honest, I know there's a bunch of places that have it in English, a bunch of YouTube videos and stuff, but especially with kosher wine, I think it's important.

Gabriel Geller: 1:08:27

Maybe we will, Okay, or something you know derived from it. Okay, so let's go ahead.

S Simon Jacob: 1:08:38

Okay, so take me through it From top down. I guess no problem.

Gabriel Geller: 1:08:42

On the top Well you tell me where?

Gabriel Geller: 1:08:45

So you have the, the foil on the, on the ball, like that covers the top and the cork, where you have, obviously like the, the, the house, the Chateau, the castle, which is the, the main building of Chateau, which is the name of the winery. And then it says on top of the label right here, grand Cru Classé en 1855, which means great class growth in 1855. So in 1855, which was under the Napoleon regime in France, they put together a classification of the top wines of Bordeaux in terms of pricing and quality, because that always somehow went together.

Gabriel Geller: 1:09:39

I mean there is, of course, exceptions here and there, but for the most part, for all the wines from the left bank of Bordeaux, from the Médoc region of Bordeaux, there's about 64, 65 wines in that classification and it goes this way. So the top level is Premier Cru, classé, first, class Broke. Then it's Second Cru, classé, troisième Cru, classé, qu class broke. Then it's second cru, classé, troisième cru, classé quatrième, and there's five levels and then you have all the other wines from the region. So basically you have 65 classed wineries from that region, which includes Poyac, where Pontecané comes from, we'll get to it. It includes Omedoc, it includes Margaux, saint-estèphe, saint-julien and Sauterre. Okay, what it means to this day and that's one of the crazy things about that classification is that it has basically not changed, except maybe once or twice. Once was in 1973, when Chateau Mouton-Rothschild was upgraded from second to first growth, the result of decades of lobbying, and, uh, that's really like the only if, if there was one more time they might have been, I think.

Gabriel Geller: 1:11:15

I think at the very, very beginning in 1855, like a few months after they they originally uh, together the classification, I think that they added or changed that something, I can't remember exactly what right now, but besides that, just 1973 upgraded the Bouton Rothschild to first profane. That hasn't changed. It's important because you know that classification was about those wineries, those wines, back then in 1855. A lot of stuff has happened since then and wines that were amazing back then may not be as amazing today, and wines that were not so amazing back in those days and not so expensive back in those days are a lot better now and a lot more expensive than they used to be. So a lot of people say that the classification, at least partially, is not so relevant nowadays anymore. But it's a historical thing and it's like a very close group of prestigious wineries in Bordeaux Because, like I said, it's about 65 wineries and in Bordeaux there's about 10,000 wineries. So that's the pretty crazy part.

S Simon Jacob: 1:12:27

Grand Cru Classe. How does that rank?

Gabriel Geller: 1:12:33

So the Pont-et-Canin that's a great example of the Pont-et-Canin, because Pont-et-Canin is the fifth growth, like the lowest level, so to speak, is the fifth growth. Poyac level, so to speak, is a fifth growth Poyac. And there's a lot of people who say that Ponte Canes becomes such an amazing winery that they improved so much that they would deserve if the classification was redone. They would get at least second, if not first, growth and, based on my experience tasting the first growth, the first growth wineries, at least most of them I think that I would agree with that assessment. Okay, so poltec is the name of the winery. Uh, okay, it's a pretty big winery. So you see that there's this building, there's that whole thing, it's like. So you see that there's this building, there's that whole thing. It's like a really huge complex. And then, right underneath the name of the winery is 2019. That's the vintage harvest. So this means that the wine here 2019, is produced from grapes harvested in the fall of 2019. And so that's what it means. So we would usually say that this one is five years old, based on the harvest, which does not take into account how long the wine has been aged and all that kind of stuff.

Gabriel Geller: 1:14:00

And then, underneath the vintage of 2019, pauillac. So Pauillac is the sub-region of Bordeaux and of the Nidoc, the Appalachian. Pauillac, in this particular case, is quite significant because three out of the five first growths come from Pauillac Château Lafite-Rochille, château Mouton-Rochille and Château Latour All three are Pauillac. And then there is Aubrion from Pessac-Méronian, château Margaux from Margaux, and then, separately, château Huyquem from Sauternes, which is a premier Grand Cru Classé superior, the only one. There's a bunch of Romicru in Sauternes, but the only Romicru superior is Chateau Iken.

S Simon Jacob: 1:14:53

What does Chateau mean in this? What does Chateau mean in this? Does?

Gabriel Geller: 1:14:56

it have a special meaning.

Gabriel Geller: 1:14:58

The simple translation of Chateau is castle, but it doesn't need to be a castle like with the towers and the whole thing from movies and Disney etc. It's usually a house, usually pretty big, but not necessarily Sometimes just like a regular house. Not so big is that the grapes. This winery produces wine from the grapes that it grows surrounding the chateau. The chateau is in the middle of the vineyard. All the wines that they produce are made from the grapes that they grow themselves on their property and doesn't come from the neighbors, doesn't come from tens or hundreds or thousands of miles away. It comes from right there. They go out there. The vineyard is here, they harvest, they bring inside, they crush it, etc.

Gabriel Geller: 1:15:55

So you won't get a Ponte Cane, where they grow grapes all over France and then bring them back and no, I don't think that they would do that, but it's fun because remember for the geek that I am the Ponté can be used to produce a second wine called Les Hauts de Ponté the Heights of Ponté, it was called and in 2012, the 2012 harvest the cancel of the Pauill, the cancel of the Pauillac appellation tasted the wine and they decided that, because the wine, in their opinion, did not taste like the signature style of the wines from the Pauillac region, they would not allow the winery to put the Pauillac appellation on the label. They would have to call it Zonne de France, which is French wine with that particular origin and appellation and that made, back in those days, a lot of noise. I don't know if that's why they stopped making it, but perhaps it had something to do with it.

S Simon Jacob: 1:17:11

Anything on the back label that we should look for, besides all the Hachikahot?

Gabriel Geller: 1:17:16

In this particular case? No, not really. There's very little information here, which is very typical, by the way, with French wine, although not so much anymore. It used to be that quite often there was no back label on French wines. When you bought a wine in France, you had the front label. There was nothing in the back. Nowadays, there are, of course, different rules in different countries and UPC code and all sorts of government warning and all sorts of things like that.

Gabriel Geller: 1:17:50

The head share, of course, so you usually see a back table but, as opposed to many wines from other places, they don't always write what's this wine like, which varieties, how long it's aged in oak barrels. Is it aged in oak barrels? Which type of barrels? They don't put much information, the idea being this is a wine from the Poyak region. Therefore you should expect it to be Cabernet Sauvignon driven the style. You should expect a big, bold, concentrated wine driven by aromas and notes of black fruit, I think, black berries and black currants, which are the typical notes from Cabernet Sauvignon ground in that region and that has traditionally the you know something that it's a given like oh, why are you asking? You know which varieties are? You know? You should know that, being from Pauillac, you know it's made. Of course that's ridiculous to expect people, even French people, to know all of that.

Gabriel Geller: 1:19:12

And that has changed over the years. But there are still very traditional wineries like Montaigne and Ney who really they'll put as little information as possible. They don't need to explain more.

S Simon Jacob: 1:19:24

I'm curious on your bottle is the kosher one? You have a kosher one. Is the back label for America or for Israel?

Gabriel Geller: 1:19:33

It's for America.

S Simon Jacob: 1:19:34

It's for America, it's imported by Royal Wine. Yeah, yeah.

Gabriel Geller: 1:19:37

New York, and yeah, the OU, the Rav Zegba hat share, and that's it. And it says in French it was bald at the chate. It. It says in French it was balde à du château and the address of the château and the alcohol level, and that's it.

S Simon Jacob: 1:19:52

I didn't even know they made a bottle that was labeled for Israel, because this one is, you know it even has the bottle return of 30 agarot, and what have you on it?

Gabriel Geller: 1:20:03

That makes sense. I'm sure that it's below and I'm pretty sure that the label was designed here in Lyon.

S Simon Jacob: 1:20:15

I don't even know how I got. To be honest, I don't know how I got an Israeli-labeled Pentecone from 19 here, because I thought all of the Pentecones that I got were actually coming in from America. So what do I know? Obviously, one of them snuck in, so I'm happy to have it. Alright, I've taken up a huge amount of your time, gabriel, but I really thank you incredibly much and I thank you for being on the Kosher Terroir. It's been a super pleasure. Please send warm regards to Yael and the kids and everybody there. I miss you guys. So please, god, one of these days.

Gabriel Geller: 1:21:01

And hopefully we will get to see you either here or in Israel. I look forward.

S Simon Jacob: 1:21:09

All right, 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.