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 conversation is with Noa Maoz, a highly respected agronomist and viticulturist residing in the Golan Heights in northern Israel. I was initially looking for an agronomist to continue the discussion of what to specifically look for in creating a new vineyard.

S. Simon Jacob: 0:48

While researching this podcast, I suddenly became aware of how pivotal and important a figure she is within the Israeli wine industry. Her expertise in vine management and experience in combating vineyard diseases and viruses has put her on the front lines defending and protecting Israel's constantly threatened wine ecosystem. The industry found a few years ago the presence of leaf roll virus, prevalent in many of the country's vineyards. In fighting the infestation, industry leaders were blindsided when they found that the new replacement vines that they were planting after removing the old, dead ones were themselves already infected with the virus. The Israel Wine and Grape Board quickly decided they needed to take control over the stores of vine stocks and plant materials and named Noa their viticulturist, putting her in charge of designing and implementing an audible system of processes. She stepped up to the challenge, creating inspection requirements, procedures and new relationships with trusted suppliers of plant materials.

S. Simon Jacob: 2:01

Please listen in as Noa details the selection criteria for locating and creating a new vineyard, as well as her continued steps in fighting to protect Israel's vineyards. If you're driving in your car, please focus your attention on the road ahead. If you're home listening, please select a delicious bottle of kosher wine and sit back and enjoy this detailed conversation with Noa Maoz. So, Noa, welcome to The Kosher Terroir. Thank you very, very much for agreeing to be interviewed.

Noa Maoz: 2:36

Thank you for inviting me.

S. Simon Jacob: 2:38

Really a pleasure.

Noa Maoz: 2:39

For me too.

S. Simon Jacob: 2:40

The main reason I wanted to speak to you, but then, as I started researching you, it came up to wow, just so many things that I wanted to ask you about. But the main thing I wanted to start with was I was looking for a person to explain to me, or to spend some time with me and tell me about the steps necessary to select a vineyard. As far as location and location first and all the different elements that go into location with the region in Israel. You know, here we're in the Golan Heights, but the Negev Jerusalem Hills Tell me a little bit about when a person's looking to create a vineyard, what should they look at as far as locations are concerned, Well, there's a few basic things that are not different from Israel to France or the United.

Noa Maoz: 3:42

States or anywhere else it's just basic site selection.

Noa Maoz: 3:47

So you have to start with thinking what do you want to make, what kind of wine you want to make, what's the characteristic of that wine, what varieties you want to grow, and then go back. So I always, when someone comes to me and want to plant a vineyard, I always start with the final product, because we really need to understand what is he looking for. Does he want to make fresh rosé wines, or does he want to make a very heavy, fruity Cabernet, or you know, all the options are there. So you have to first understand what they want and then go back, like I said.

Noa Maoz: 4:28

So, uh, if, uh, if you want to grow varieties that have natural high acidity and maybe bloom late or ripens late, I can go to warmer uh climates again it's true to Israel or anywhere else with warmer when you have deviations of the climates. And if I want to again do grow super high quality Cabernet that will be relatively high in alcohol and very heavy flavors, I will pick an area that maybe is a little bit cooler, that I need to have a longer ripening time, that I can maintain the acid and still have developed flavors. So that's the basic thing, and then, of course, we're starting to look at the soils. We will always prefer to have soils that would allow us to grow a balanced vine. Basically, we prefer and it's a general statement again, we prefer a site where you can plant a vineyard or vines and they will not be 100% dependent on us, on humans.

S. Simon Jacob: 5:53

So they'll be able to draw water from below.

Noa Maoz: 5:57

Yeah, to draw water from below, or even if we do irrigate them, that we won't have to irrigate every day or twice a day, or if there's a problem in our irrigation, the vine won't collapse. And there are sites like that. There's very sandy soils, or if we have very, very shallow, rocky soils there are places that have that kind of soils it's possible to grow on it but, it's much more difficult.

S. Simon Jacob: 6:31

I know in the Judean hills I've seen places where there's limestone almost to the surface and they coat it with a layer of soil and then they even sometimes break the stone and then coat it with a layer of soil so the roots can penetrate in.

Noa Maoz: 6:47

Yeah, so it's possible to do that, but that will require a lot of money, a lot of money that you have to invest before you plant, to prepare the soils, to prepare the site, and you're going to struggle. Even if you do all the preparations the best way you can, when you go to sites like that, you will struggle throughout the life of the vineyard. And it's okay, it's a possibility. We know places around the world that have these kind of conditions, and there's also in Israel, but it won't be our first choice.

S. Simon Jacob: 7:19

Choice right, yeah, what about you know? Initially it seemed like you always wanted to be on the highest place possible in order to get some of the cold. Also, there's an issue about solar radiation. How much sun do you get in those places? So which side should you be getting the radiation from, Meaning? If I'm very high and it's cold, I want to be on a southern-facing side. If I'm in a place where it's much warmer, I actually want to be on a northern or different face, you know, sun face, so that I don't have the solar radiation that's really cooking the vineyard.

Noa Maoz: 8:05

Yeah, that is very true. So, again, most winemakers and most growers would prefer to grow vineyards in higher elevations, especially in these days when the climate is changing and it's getting warmer. Yeah, so it's definitely a big advantage when you have, like where we're sitting now, which is a thousand meter elevation and you can see it's very cloudy and mild weather today, and most of the fruit in the Golan Heights, in this area of the Golan Heights, haven't been harvested yet, haven't been Haven't been harvested yet. Wow, the whites have, the whites were finished, but the reds are still hanging, and that's again, if you're looking for a long hang time, that's a big plus because again we have cold nights, the days are mild, relatively mild, and it's true that there is a higher radiation here solar radiation but it just makes the skin thicker.

Noa Maoz: 9:06

Yeah, sorry, yeah, the skin thicker and that's also an advantage in a way, because you get more phenolics and tannins and anthocyanins that are in the skin.

S. Simon Jacob: 9:16

I didn't even know that it makes the skins actually thicker. Yeah, okay, very cool, I didn't know that. Yeah, and again.

Noa Maoz: 9:22

There are years that we have extreme weather like heat waves, and then the solar radiation can make damage, but that we can try to manage in our like as a viticulturist and the growers. We have some techniques to manage how much light goes into the canopy and how much the food is exposed.

S. Simon Jacob: 9:45

Right, the exposure, exposure. Exposure, that's the term you're looking for.

Noa Maoz: 9:50

Yeah, so, and these are methods that are getting more and more popular all over the world, just to use the canopy that you have, like growing with an open canopy, or like bush vines that they do in southern France to protect the grapes from direct radiation.

S. Simon Jacob: 10:07

Now, all of a sudden, there's also people are finding that these stream beds that are coming off of higher mountains. The air comes down the stream bed and it cools. Some of the wineries are actually looking to be at the bottom of the Judean hills. Not only at the top, but at the bottom. You get some incredible vineyards that get hot, but they also have this cooling night cooling breeze coming down the hillsides.

Noa Maoz: 10:45

That's true. Another thing that is getting more attention in the last years is the topic of humidity, because humidity was always considered as the enemy of grapes. We don't like humidity because we get fungus on the leaves or fungus on the grapes, all kinds of diseases like humidity because we get fungus on the leaves or fungus on the grapes, all kind of disease diseases. But um, what we see again when it's get warmer, getting warmer, uh, and very dry when you have heat waves. The humidity is very important because it allows the vine to to stay, to not get too extreme, uh, stressed and then protects the fruit again. So the humidity is also important and these areas that you described of the lower areas and next to the rivers or streams get that humidity during the day which really helps the vine manage.

S. Simon Jacob: 11:39

Very cool. What about soil testing? Cool, what about soil testing? You know, I was talking to a friend of mine who just is building a vineyard and Carmel was looking at the grapes and they made him dig test holes and then pull the soil back to see whether you know the soil looked good. What are you looking for in that? I mean, they looked at one of the sites and they said, no, no, there's too much….

Noa Maoz: 12:13

Maybe lime active lime yeah they didn't want that.

Noa Maoz: 12:16

So, basically, every time we go and plan to plant a vineyard, as part of what we talked about before, of site selection, we will also look at the soil, like you mentioned, and we do these pits, and we're looking at a few things. First, the structure of that, of the, of that pit. Uh, because in many cases, like we said earlier, maybe there will be a limestone or whatever. Uh, here in the Golan it's basalt that won't allow the roots to penetrate. Or sometimes there is good soil but it's very compacted and again it won't allow the roots to penetrate.

Noa Maoz: 12:58

We're doing some chemical testing, so to see what we have in the soil. If it's nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, all the basic elements that the vine needs and, for example, if there is active clay, we will have to adjust the rootstock to that situation because basically it prevents the vines from uptaking nutrients. So if you have high active clay, it won't uptake the iron or the potassium. So we have two options or if we have the option not to plant there, it will be one option, but if we still decide to plant there, we will have to choose the right rootstock for that situation and we look at organic matter.

S. Simon Jacob: 13:47

I was going to ask you whether there's a way to get around the soil by choosing rootstock.

Noa Maoz: 13:52

Yes, definitely.

S. Simon Jacob: 13:54

There's certain ones that are hardier to break through stones.

Noa Maoz: 13:57

Yes, absolutely so. Here in Israel we don't have a very big selection of rootstocks, but we have enough, and everyone has their own characteristics. So there are ones that will have not many roots, but roots that can go very deep, penetrate very deep through the rocks, through cracks, and get water from deeper soils. There are rootstocks that are very, very shallow, that if you go to a site that you have a lot of water in the soil or very heavy soils, you will choose a rootstock that is more invigorating, and you have then rootstocks that can handle high lime or high salinity.

S. Simon Jacob: 14:44

So let me ask you a question. These are rootstocks, that then they. Does that mean that I have to pick a certain varietal? No, no, but I can take one rootstock and then graft a different varietal to the top of it.

Noa Maoz: 15:01

Yes, wow, I did something totally you weren't aware of that.

S. Simon Jacob: 15:04

I was not aware at all. I thought you really needed to vary the varietal in order to get… no, no, you can basically….

Noa Maoz: 15:10

There are a few combinations that maybe won't work as well, but basically you can…. With the famous popular rootstock, you can graft any variety on it.

S. Simon Jacob: 15:20

Okay, because I've only planted Shtilim. Yeah, I've never.

Noa Maoz: 15:26

But they're already grafted. You just weren't aware.

S. Simon Jacob: 15:29

I wasn't aware.

Noa Maoz: 15:30

You weren't aware, okay. Because, you know that the grafting started from the phylloxera.

S. Simon Jacob: 15:35

Right.

Noa Maoz: 15:36

So everyone is In Israel. Everyone is grafting. Most of the world, I can think everyone is grafting. There's a few places that still don't graft and that's against, also nematodes, phylloxera, of course, and other things.

S. Simon Jacob: 15:52

Wow. So they're already pre-programmed to go into the soil, specifically for the soil that you're planting in.

Noa Maoz: 16:02

Yes.

S. Simon Jacob: 16:02

Very cool. All right, I thought that was only a varietal decision.

Noa Maoz: 16:06

It's not See.

S. Simon Jacob: 16:08

All right, that was one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you. What about varietals? Are there certain varietals that like up in the Golan? Are there varietals that you want to stay away from?

Noa Maoz: 16:26

So I'll say just a general statement. First, here in Israel it's a very young industry. So it's besides the fact that 11,000 years ago there were some wine varieties here, but basically then, the modern industry in Israel it's pretty young, yeah, and we're still learning, and we're just now starting to define our area, like our wine regions, and starting to kind of um, learn where what does best, where, um, so there's no, it's not like in the rest of the world that they have the history and they can say it's not 300 years of pain exactly, or even 500 or 800 that you can say, okay, in the Golan Heights you can grow only Cabernet, sauvignon and Sauvignon Blanc, and then in Judain Hills you'll do Chardonnay and I don't know Syrah.

Noa Maoz: 17:22

But I get the feeling that we are starting to have some ideas about what is right and not wrong. But less equipped to some areas. What I can say again in a general statement that as you go up again in elevations you have more possibilities. Okay, because almost everything will work here, maybe besides the very, very late varieties, because bad birds here can be about three weeks and maybe even a month later than the rest other areas in the country, than the rest other areas in the country. So only if it's a very, very late variety it might not get to ripening until October.

Noa Maoz: 18:13

Harvest here usually ends by the end of October. So if you get to a situation you get to the end of October and still not. But I don't know of any varieties at the moment in Israel that can't handle these conditions. So basically, if you go higher in elevation, in Northern Golan or Upper Galilee or in the lower elevations, some things are less fitted. So, for example, Gewurztraminer or Pinot Noir, it won't be the best idea to grow them in warmer climates. And now, as we go on again and research it, we see that there are varieties that work really well in warm climates, like Chenin Blanc or Syrah even in the Negev, Petite Syrah and varieties like that. And then there's things like Sauvignon Blanc that really performs well in higher elevations. Chardonnay has a bigger range. Chardonnay can even bring really good results at 500 or 600 meters. So yeah, we're starting to get the feeling of it. But as a thumbs rule, let's say, as you go down in elevation and get to warmer climates like the Negev, you have less possibilities.

Noa Maoz: 19:51

You have to choose varieties that have higher acids and slower ripening, because over there it ripens very, very fast, right right, right right.

S. Simon Jacob: 20:03

Can you talk a little bit about the vineyard layout? When you're creating a new vineyard, do you look at alignment?

Noa Maoz: 20:12

as far as solar is concerned, absolutely so.

Noa Maoz: 20:18

Again, at the beginning, when in Israel we started planting, almost everything was south to north oriented Again, because that's what they thought was the best thing, that was the knowledge that we brought from the world, let's say.

Noa Maoz: 20:37

And then there was a really big shift and change and a lot of vineyards started planting east to west, because most of the winds here in Israel come from the west and it helps us manage pests and disease.

Noa Maoz: 20:54

But what we saw again, mostly in the last five to seven years, that the east-west orientation has a problem with the southern part of it. The southern part of it, the southern part of the world, it gets a lot of heat and a lot of solar radiation and we get a lot of sunburns. So actually in the last few years we figured out that everywhere between 45 to 60 degrees to the east, that's a very good rural orientation for us, because then we'll also get the wind and prevent the extreme heat. On the southern side we have a little bit of a northern exposure, so that works pretty well. Of course it's not always possible. It depends on the block that you get, where you have to plant, and people are considering trying to maximize the plot and not lose a lot of…because of row orientation. But if it's possible, this is the way we're going now.

S. Simon Jacob: 21:57

What about row spacing and lengths of rows?

Noa Maoz: 22:01

Length of rows is mostly technical things, the length that we need of the structure to hold the vines, the weight. But spacing is an interesting issue, that's the trellis.

S. Simon Jacob: 22:13

Yeah, the trellis work. You can only make it so big, because it can only support so many vines.

Noa Maoz: 22:18

Yeah, because the weight on the wires and on the poles in certain points gets too high and you just can't hold it and will collapse in the middle.

Noa Maoz: 22:28

So usually the average rows will be around 120 meters. You can do more, but this is a good. And about spacing, it's a whole world that you can talk about. Most of the vineyards in Israel are spaced somewhere between two and a half to three meters between rows, and it's mostly because of practical mechanical reasons, so the tractor that sprays can go through conveniently and do the work that it needs to do. If you go to narrow rows then you start talking about competition between the vines and these things, the high-density spacing. There's a lot of talking about these things around the world For that in some places it has advantages and you can make maybe a more intense or interesting wines.

S. Simon Jacob: 23:29

Because they're competing with each other. Yeah, you're stressing the vines more. Because of that, exactly.

Noa Maoz: 23:33

Every vine grows less grapes. The vines are basically smaller. They will grow less grapes and then it can give you higher quality. Of course, it doesn't work in every site. Like we talked about soils, if there's a very fertile soil, maybe it won't work as well if it's a medium soil. But for doing that you will need just a specialized equipment. Here in Israel we're not very strong in that. There are some vineyards that work like that and you have to bring a small tractor and equipment that are adjusted for that kind of a.

S. Simon Jacob: 24:13

Does automated harvesting change what you're doing?

Noa Maoz: 24:19

The harvester? No, the harvester is not really a problem because it rides above the rows, Above yeah. Yeah, so, of course, if you do very, very small spacing, like if you go to a meter and a half, I don't think the harvester these harvesters that we have here in Israel can do, but there are harvesters around the world that can do that. Yeah, yeah.

S. Simon Jacob: 24:42

Okay, what about? What about the surrounding terroir around the vineyard? Do you look at that? Is it something that's important? I mean number one is there a problem with having industry next to the vineyard? Is it better to have….

Noa Maoz: 25:08

Obviously it's nicer that you're in nature yeah no. In nature. You have trees around you. It can also be a problem because we have here in the Golan, for instance, galilei as well, judain Hills as well. We have a lot of wild animals.

Noa Maoz: 25:25

It can do a lot of damage to the vineyards, to the pipes, to the grapes, to everything I know. So it's really nice to be in a nature surroundings with trees and everything, but then you have the birds and you have the boars and you have so that's different challenges. It shouldn't be a problem to be next to a city or an industry. Usually the problem is the opposite, that we're scared that the sprays that we apply will go to people who live there or neighbors.

S. Simon Jacob: 26:05

But yeah, what about actually purchasing the grapes when you've got the vineyard laid out? Well, there is one other thing with that I wanted to ask you about. What about plots, the plot alignments within a vineyard, Within?

Noa Maoz: 26:24

a vineyard.

S. Simon Jacob: 26:25

Who decides that? I mean the viniculturist does that.

Noa Maoz: 26:36

It really depends. In an ideal world, the viticulturist. You have a viticulturist that is…. The grower will have a viticulturist that is working with him and they will plan the plots smart. And when I say smart, I mean that we want to design the plots, that the soil in the plots will be as uniform as possible, because when it's not uniform, first we're getting it's hard to maintain it, so you have to irrigate it differently, or have to trim the canopy in different times, or shoot thinning, and all the works that we're doing in the vineyard will be different within a block.

Noa Maoz: 27:14

and also when you get to to harvest time, the ripening is not the same right so you have half a block or a quarter of the block that ripens faster or slower than the rest of the block, and then the winemaker had a has a very big headache.

Noa Maoz: 27:29

So really, when, when we plant a vine, we want to try to design it, the blocks within the vineyard, to design it as uniform as possible. So we're using, like we talked about before, the pits that we're doing, but there are also all kinds of technologies now that help us design and see if the soils are uniform. We do electromagnetic mapping of the soil and we can do some satellite images of the vegetation that was there before. That helps us design the plots.

S. Simon Jacob: 28:06

You brought up technology. What sort of technology are they using? I mean, I saw at one time years ago I have never seen it since where they had even sensors that were sensing the flow of water going up stems and stuff like that.

Noa Maoz: 28:23

So we have. I think vineyards are one of the sections of agriculture that relatively uses a lot of technology. So we have probes in the soil that can help us understand what's happening in the soil, water-wise, when the soil is drying up, where our roots are active, where are they, where they're pulling the water from, and then, if we irrigate, where does our irrigation water get to? How long does it take to dry between irrigations? So there's a lot of soil probes. There are, like you mentioned, probes that are measuring the vine itself you were talking about sap flows but there are also other probes that have other methods to basically understand the vine water status. So we have these, and then we have, of course, climate probes that measure the surroundings. You can do radiation inside the vine or outside the vine, and we also use satellite images that I mentioned before, before planting but also when we grow the vineyard, to see the variants inside the vineyard. So, yeah, there's quite a lot of technologies that we can use.

S. Simon Jacob: 29:46

The technology is usually radio controlled, or does somebody have to go around the vineyard and collect samples? No, no, these days, fortunately, it all has a cellular sim and it just export the data to a website and then we can look at the website Amazing Plant health detection that also comes out of these probes.

Noa Maoz: 30:13

As far as that's an area that's still been developing. There are a few companies that are trying to develop cameras, infrared cameras and all kind of hyper spectral cameras that can detect, let's say, the eggs of certain infrared cameras and all kind of hyperspectral cameras that can detect, let's say, the eggs of certain bugs like a moth, the eggs of the moth, or maybe a proud remelio, a downy melio, that are fungus. That's on the, but as far as I know, there's still no company that the technology is being used on a commercial site.

S. Simon Jacob: 30:56

So how often do you have to go out to look at the vines to feel comfortable that you're catching anything that might be happening?

Noa Maoz: 31:06

So when we're talking pests and disease management, every grower has a person that this is what he does.

S. Simon Jacob: 31:14

You have to go once a week, okay.

Noa Maoz: 31:16

Once a week throughout the vineyard and look for these pests and diseases and get the decision of what to spray and when to spray. Yeah, and then there's the grower or the viticulturist that works with him that we grow again. We also go between once a week to one to ten days to just make decisions about the practical things that we want to do Again, if it's pruning or shot thinning or cluster thinning or leaf pulling or whatever.

S. Simon Jacob: 31:52

For the first few years. Once a vine is planted, is there something more that you do in the first three years? Is there more monitoring that has to go on? More irrigation, more.

Noa Maoz: 32:09

Usually there will be more irrigation because we're trying to establish the vine. Most of the attention in the first three years goes to fertilizing, irrigating in order to actually design the vine, to build it, build the structure.

S. Simon Jacob: 32:25

Yeah, build the structure.

Noa Maoz: 32:27

So we usually in these years we don't use probes. It's more like something that you see with experience.

S. Simon Jacob: 32:35

But yeah, that's most of the attention is there thought so when you're doing the vine training, obviously you've got to decide what type of what type of vine you want to do. I know now they're doing these goblets and some of them are even actually using kind of a ground cluster. That's like growing on the ground rather than putting it up on in very windy places.

Noa Maoz: 33:04

Yeah, Like Greece. In Greece they do that.

S. Simon Jacob: 33:10

And I know in Spain they put them on single, you know single poles. They just grow it up the pole itself, yeah.

Noa Maoz: 33:18

So definitely, it's a very big decision what kind of trellis system you want to use and how do you want to design your vine. You have to decide that before you plant.

S. Simon Jacob: 33:32

Who does that? Who thinks about that? It's usually the viticulturist, okay, and the winemaker. The grower is a very experienced grower.

Noa Maoz: 33:41

Again, in other countries there's tradition and there's knowledge that's going from father to son. We don't have that much in Israel, the sun, or we don't have that much in Israel. So, yeah, the viticulturist has the knowledge that most of us went to university or saw vineyards around the world. And then you have to decide what trellis system is again equipped to or situated to your site that you selected. And if you, if you uh build a, uh, a vineyard in the negev, for instance, you will have big canopies, a lot of shades, uh, so maybe you will even use a v system or a trellis system or other canopies you know, I saw in germany they were talking about putting photovoltaic cells over the top of vineyards.

S. Simon Jacob: 34:34

And I look around Israel and I go why don't we do this?

Noa Maoz: 34:39

So we're working on it. Actually, there's a small pilot in the Negev next to Yerucham that they already have it and there's going to be one in the Golan next year. It's definitely on the table. I know that there's a few in France and Italy as well. It's on the table. We need to try it. We need to understand how to harvest with the system, because hand harvesting or being 100% depending on workers in Israel is becoming a problem.

Noa Maoz: 35:11

Yeah, yeah, I think it's becoming a problem all over the world, but also in Israel, right, so you can do small plots that you need to handpick, but if you're going to do big vineyards, you need to be machine-equipped. So you have to have the possibility for harvesters to go underneath this.

S. Simon Jacob: 35:31

Right. And then the structure needs to be high, and it's quite complicated yeah but uh, they're working on it definitely in the harvest itself, what's the normal, you know progression for a harvest. When you're you're monitoring, you're monitoring the vines beforehand. Is there like?

Noa Maoz: 35:56

lead-up testing to harvest. Yeah, so basically what we do is we go throughout the vineyard, sample the grapes. We test usually for brix, which is sugar content, pH and TA, which are both acidity variables. It's a little bit of a different test, but it basically indicates the acid content in the grape. And so that's the analytics of it. And then the winemaker usually will go throughout the vineyard and taste and a lot of it depends on taste, when you see the flavors are where you wanted them to be. And then, of course, the chemical.

S. Simon Jacob: 36:38

The phenolics are really coming from the taste testings. Yeah, you can test phenolics.

Noa Maoz: 36:45

There's one, maybe one or two wineries in Israel that do that. It's a complicated test and also there's a lot of variance. When you test the grapes, there will be a lot of variance in that, but there are some wineries that do that. But again, if you have experience, you can taste it. You chew the skin and you look at the seeds and you can see, and you can see whether it's developed.

S. Simon Jacob: 37:11

Yeah, yeah, okay, post-harvest what's the process?

Noa Maoz: 37:18

So usually, after harvest we will irrigate and give some fertilizer, fertilize and then again it depends on the block, if there's a block that we can see, and we also do leaf analysis during the season to see what's the condition of our nutrients. So if we know that we have a problem with a special nutrient, we will give some fertilizations after harvest and again in the spring the next year if it's necessary.

S. Simon Jacob: 37:52

And then they prune it back when.

Noa Maoz: 37:54

We start pruning usually around January in Israel in general. Okay, January, February, March, mid-March.

S. Simon Jacob: 38:03

Because by then then they start blooming again.

Noa Maoz: 38:06

Then they start bud bursts.

S. Simon Jacob: 38:07

Okay, the bud bursts. All right, tell me a little bit about your origin story.

Noa Maoz: 38:12

So just a little bit of history. I was born in the Golan Heights in Katsrin, okay, I had nothing to do with agriculture.

S. Simon Jacob: 38:20

I was going to wonder how you got here to Moron Golan, yeah, to Moron Golan.

Noa Maoz: 38:23

So I was born here, so all my life I spent in the Golan. I love the Golan Heights. I think it's the best area in Israel to live in, so it was really natural for me to establish my life here. But I had nothing to do with agriculture as a child because I grew in a settlement that is not. My parents had nothing to do with it as well. But I studied in the university. I studied environmental studies, so I always had that appealing to nature, to be outdoors, and I really got into the wine world by accident when I was a student. I just found a summer job in Golan Heights Winery Lab laboratory.

Noa Maoz: 39:11

It was the perfect job for students between the years and I kind of got into this world and after that I did a master's in environmental studies as well and when I finished there was a position opening in the viticulture department in the Golan Heights and they offered it to me. They knew me in the viticulture department in the Golan Heights and they offered it to me. They knew me and what I studied is not directly viticulture, but it was close enough and I got into the Swarovski, started working there and that's when I actually kept living in Katsrin for another few years and then I thought about where I want to build my house and my partner and I looked around the area and we always wanted to go up upper in the elevation just because of the climate. We really like that cooler climate areas and the view, of course course, landscape and nature around us. So that's how we found ourselves here and very happy about it. We're here about 10 years, almost 11 when did you go to Australia?

Noa Maoz: 40:26

so I started working in Golan Heights. After 5 years that I was already in the viticulture department, they offered me to go and study. So I went to Australia for it's a year and a half to do the master in viticulture.

S. Simon Jacob: 40:45

Right.

Noa Maoz: 40:46

And then came back to Golan Heights winery, worked there for another five years, and after 11 years there, I went to what I do now, basically, which is I'm independent, I have my own company.

Noa Maoz: 41:01

Consulting also growers and also wineries that need the help, that don't have their own viticulture, and I also work for the Israeli Wine Board. Yeah, started working there on a project that was related to plant material, to clean plant material, and over the years we expanded that job a little bit and now what I do is basically I'm also in charge of all the plant material, but I also every challenge that our industry has in the vineyard side of it, of course, because the industry has many challenges, but everything that is related to to vineyards, if we have challenges or problems that are related to the whole section, I would be involved in it. So, for instance, now we have a new disease that is new in Israel. That is very troubling. Basically it's called the Pierce's disease.

Noa Maoz: 42:08

It's very famous in the US. It's called the Pierce's disease. It's very famous in the US and we only discovered it four years ago in Israel in grapevines, right. It's a disease that is very lethal, so it kills the vines pretty fast. So now we have a big project that is going around that. Now we have a big project that is going around that and again, if there's any challenges that the industry is facing, I will be involved in it.

S. Simon Jacob: 42:41

So when I started doing some research, I found this I know you got involved with the Israel White and Great Board. I know you got involved with the Israel White and Great Board and they actually put you kind of in charge of a project that was just I don't think anybody here knew how to even tackle which was the leaf roll infestation, and you came to grips with what to do with it and you created a partnership with one of the organizations, the Stihl, and instituted some things that they're only keeping. They instituted some things that they're only growing the stalks in greenhouses and all off the ground and their own containers and what have you? But are these plants, now that you're growing, resistant to leaf roll? No, no, they're not.

S. Simon Jacob: 43:51

I wish I know. That's what I thought. So, as much as you're trying, I agree, then, and even with this new strain of disease, it's. I think the thing that caught everybody off guard was that you found that that disease was inside the stock plants that you had, which was like so you're basically selling plants to vineyards with the disease, with it already sick.

S. Simon Jacob: 44:23

So that that's. That had absolutely terrible part and it you know. So they created something called foundation blocks and mother blocks and then so how many plants are you controlling in a thing like a foundation block?

Noa Maoz: 44:40

It depends. So just to go back for a minute, I'll just give the background to whoever is not in the loop of that. So basically, in Israel, grapevine the way to propagate it. We do what we call a vegetative propagation. It's not with seeds, yeah it's not with seeds.

Noa Maoz: 45:00

It's just canes of the shoots of the grapevines. You cut them, you graft them and then you root them not necessarily in that order and you make plants. So in order to do that, you grow what we call mother blocks, which is basically blocks of a vineyard that you grow to have plant material. That's their purpose, and there was one big mother block in the south of Israel and one smaller one, which is not very significant, but this is where all the plant material came, to all the growers.

Noa Maoz: 45:39

To all the vineyards To all the vineyards in Israel, and that mother block was infected with leafworm virus. As you mentioned, there were some other viruses, but leafworm virus, number three, which is the one that is making the most economic damage, and that was infected and it was found out for the first time in 2007. And then they uprooted that block and brought new plant material from the US and some from France and again did another mother block and we found out that it was infected again in 2017, 10 years later. And then that was when the Israeli Wine Grape Board decided that it's going into the plant material business because we have never been dealing with that before. And then they hired me, like you said, and we decided that we will bring new plant material and we will control, or at least inspect, all of the process until it gets to the grower.

Noa Maoz: 46:47

So what we did, we signed a contract with a South African company named Vititec and bought plant material from them and we established what we call a nucleus block. So the nucleus block is like the safe box. So the nucleus block is a safe box of the plant material, and this is owned by the Israeli Wine Grape Board. And what we did is, we said, whoever wants to buy plant material from us, we'll have to sign a contract and grow it by the standards that we establish. And my job is to keep these standards, that they're keeping it. And a few companies Hishdil, you mentioned, but there's a few more signed that contract and established what they call foundation blocks. So from the nucleus block you take material and establish a foundation block which is bigger than the nucleus block and then after that you establish a mother block which is bigger than the foundation block. Now the size of the foundation block and the mother block is dependent on how many plants you want to create a year.

S. Simon Jacob: 47:54

So how many approximately? What do you deal with? Because you're planting all of Israel. I mean, you're dealing with the. You're not replanting everything every year, but sometimes you are.

Noa Maoz: 48:04

We want to replant at least all the infected blocks, but there are also expansions. The Israel industry is growing, the wine industry is growing, so there's more vineyards than before. I can tell you, in 2023, there was almost 2 million plants planted in Israel. That's about 10,000 dunams, which is 1,000 hectares. Okay.

S. Simon Jacob: 48:31

So how many plants then do you have to take care of in that nucleus block?

Noa Maoz: 48:36

Oh, in the nucleus block we have five plants from every variety.

S. Simon Jacob: 48:39

Okay.

Noa Maoz: 48:40

We have about 50 plants there. We have about 40 varieties, 42 and 6 rootstocks. Okay so that's what we're dealing with there.

S. Simon Jacob: 48:53

And then the mother blocks are how big.

Noa Maoz: 48:56

Again, every company has different mother blocks. It can be usually in this method. It's 5 to 10 dunams, which is pretty small, but the reason is that they grow everything in pots, like you said.

S. Simon Jacob: 49:12

So even for that, 10 dunams of pots.

Noa Maoz: 49:15

Yeah, that's a lot.

S. Simon Jacob: 49:16

Wow, yeah, that's the reason I'm trying to get a scale, but if you want to, grow the same amount of plant material in the traditional way you have to do 10 times bigger.

Noa Maoz: 49:27

Okay About.

S. Simon Jacob: 49:28

Wow. So that's what I was trying to get a grasp of, because you're dealing with a whole country and I know that the vineyards are growing here.

Noa Maoz: 49:38

Yes, that is true.

S. Simon Jacob: 49:39

It's amazing. It's absolutely amazing. I don't know how many vineyards there are. No, I don't know how many wineries there are, but it's well in excess of 350 now.

Noa Maoz: 49:52

Vineyard-wise we have about at the moment. Sorry about 75,000 dunams 75,000 dunams. Yes, 7,500 hectares. Okay, Okay, yeah, it's grown a lot in the last, even five years, I can tell you. In the Golan Heights as well, it's not as much, but it's the most planted agriculture section. So vineyard is now in the Golan Heights, is the most popular, let's say, or most planted section. So we have apples and cherries and pears and everything but vineyard is number one by as far as growing, yeah, okay, growing area.

S. Simon Jacob: 50:40

Wow.

Noa Maoz: 50:41

Yeah, and the reason for that? I'll just say that first, all the other fruits are very affected from climate change and the prices on the market vary. There's export and then you can have a good year and a bad year and a high price or low price and it's very unstable Vineyards. The number one advantage first is water. You don't have to irrigate much. Just for an example, to irrigate an apple orchard you irrigate about 7 times as much as vineyards and then again with vineyards.

Noa Maoz: 51:22

You have long term contracts with the wineries, so you know what price you're going to get for 20 or 25 years. Of course there's adjustments, but it's very stable. So that's the reason many agriculture areas are changing to vineyards.

S. Simon Jacob: 51:40

How do you protect the vineyards against having these diseases? How do they transport? How do they come into the vineyards?

Noa Maoz: 51:51

So when we talk about Liferon virus 3, there's a vector that's called grapevine mealybug.

S. Simon Jacob: 51:57

Yes.

Noa Maoz: 51:58

And the grapevine mealybug is something that we have in the vineyard. Definitely, some years more, some years less, but the females, only the females, transport the virus because they're the only one who eats from the vine, feeds from the vine, and they're the only one who eats from the vine, feeds from the vine, and they're very small, they can't fly.

Noa Maoz: 52:20

They're walking with their little legs very small distances. So it's relatively easy. Not easy, but it's definitely controllable. So first we have materials that kill them. First we have materials that kill them. So if we identify mealybug in the vineyard, we can apply some pesticides to kill it. And what is most important is that we don't have vines that are infected with lethal virus tree, Because if you don't have the vines that are infected, the mealybug is not an issue. It's an issue for other reasons.

S. Simon Jacob: 52:58

But it can't eat and pass it on to something else.

Noa Maoz: 53:01

If you don't have the virus in the vineyard, it's not an issue. But what does happen is that it can come from neighboring vineyards. So even if you have a clean block and your neighbor has an infected block, you are in danger of infection. But again, you can still control it within your block.

S. Simon Jacob: 53:22

Okay, how prevalent is it here?

Noa Maoz: 53:26

In Israel in general, it's still a big issue. Yeah, last year we estimated that still 40% to 50 percent of the vineyards in Israel are infected. It's getting lower as we go with years because we're uprooting them and planting new material.

S. Simon Jacob: 53:49

Is there a way to cure it?

Noa Maoz: 53:50

No.

S. Simon Jacob: 53:51

No.

Noa Maoz: 53:53

Just to take out the vineyard. Okay, wow, no, no, it's Just to take out the vineyard.

S. Simon Jacob: 53:56

Okay, yeah, wow. So these sort of diseases are diseases that there's no way to reverse them inside. So if you've got it in your vineyard, why don't you just replace the?

Noa Maoz: 54:10

vines.

Noa Maoz: 54:11

So the trick is the smart thing to do is to identify the very first vines that get infected, Because this is not a zero to hundred in a year. Yeah, it's a slow process. So if you identify the first grapevine that are infected with the disease and you take it out, you can control the disease, the virus in the block to be very, very, very low and then the spread will be very slow. So we have vineyards here that were planted in 2009. So there are 15 now next to 100% infected blocks and they are still clean, and only by you have to watch every year. You can see the symptoms of the virus around October.

S. Simon Jacob: 55:03

Yeah.

Noa Maoz: 55:04

It goes throughout the vineyard. You look for these vines if you have infected vines and if you do, you take them out. And that's the way to control it and hopefully, over the years, we'll have less and less vineyards With it With it and it will be way to control it and hopefully, over the years we'll have less and less vineyards With it With it and it will be easier to control.

S. Simon Jacob: 55:19

What's the normal life span for a vineyard here in Israel, for a vine in Israel?

Noa Maoz: 55:25

Unfortunately, because of the leaf-off situation that we had, what happened is that blocks were planted with infected material.

S. Simon Jacob: 55:36

Yeah, and they just spread it.

Noa Maoz: 55:38

So people planted a block and a year or two or three years later realized they were 100% infected and these blocks, by year 10, already the yields and the quality of the wines were so low that it wasn't economic to grow them. So there's many in the last 10 to 15 years. There are many blocks in Israel that was uprooted only when they were 10, 12, 15, which is very young for vineyard. So the average years I think now in Israel because of that problem is somewhere between 17 to 20. But there's no reason if you have a clean block to not grow it for 30 or 40 or 50 years.

Noa Maoz: 56:23

There are vineyards that are 50 years old in Israel, but just a few percentages.

S. Simon Jacob: 56:29

Are there varietals that it doesn't touch?

Noa Maoz: 56:31

No.

S. Simon Jacob: 56:32

Okay.

Noa Maoz: 56:33

No, but there are varieties that are not showing the symptoms as much as others.

S. Simon Jacob: 56:39

Like Carignan.

Noa Maoz: 56:41

Yes, okay, carignan doesn't show it as much as Because. I'm just thinking about what are the oldest vines that they have in Israel, but again the Carignan vines that are still here in Israel, the potential yield can get to three tons per dunam, and now they have, I don't know, 600 or 700 kilos per dunam, and then they make great wines out of it because the yield is so low. Okay, all right. But, definitely, it's not.

S. Simon Jacob: 57:12

So what about this new virus? How did this come about? So the new disease, it's actually a bacteria.

Noa Maoz: 57:18

It's a bacteria that is inside the vine. We don't know for sure, but we assume that it got to Israel from Lebanon. It's transformed with a bug. It's a bug that is pretty large and can fly, fly. It's very similar to sharpshooters. So we think it might have come to us from Lebanon. The reason we think that because it was first found in the northern Hula Valley in the upper Galilee, just next to the border with Lebanon, and it's slowly. It's mostly found at that moment. It's mostly found in the upper Galilee, but there's a little bit in the Golan Heights and a little bit in the Shomron. So if it's a bacteria isn't it treatable.

Noa Maoz: 58:09

At the moment. So this disease is known in the US for over 100 years and they haven't been able to. They haven't been. There are a few things that they're working on, some extractments from all kinds of things that you can spray, but there's nothing really promising.

S. Simon Jacob: 58:31

And it also just kills the yield of the vines. What they do is just they kill the vine and it also just kills the yield of the vines.

Noa Maoz: 58:35

What they do is just they kill the vine. It's developing in the xylem tubes that move the water up and down and basically what happens is the leaves turn yellow, the fruit dries and eventually the vine. Takes about three to five years and the vine dies. And what we're doing at the moment is trying to locate all the infected vines, take them out and slow the spread. So in the US there's a few good examples of countries like California and Texas that have managed to control this disease, but the only way to control it is really uprooting the infected vines.

Noa Maoz: 59:19

Okay.

S. Simon Jacob: 59:21

One of the things you did for the Israeli Wine and Grape Board is that you focused also on transparency being able to with a website to be able to discuss things and share information, which I can only imagine how secretive people were about it at the beginning, because it impacts a huge amount of the economy, but the way to deal with it is to open up the transparency and let people know what's going on, so that must have been an incredible challenge for you.

Noa Maoz: 1:00:06

The Israeli Grape Wine Board is actually. I'll just say a few words about this organization. It's a nonprofit organization and it's a volunteer organization. So in Israel, for instance, in the fruit section or the milk or the honey, they have these organizations like ours, but they're obligatory. So if you grow I don't know peach, you have to pay that amount of money to this organization. The Israeli Wine Grape Board is a volunteer organization, so whoever wants to be a member can be a member, and if you don't want to be a member, you don't have to be a member. And it's all funded. It's 100% funded by the wineries and the growers. We don't have any government fundings as well. So we estimate that about 80% of the industry at the moment are members, and all the data that is presented in the website, as you mentioned, it's only data from the members of the organization, so it represents about 80% of the industry. The data was always collected, but it was published on the old website only, like in PDF files that no one could really do anything with it Exactly.

Noa Maoz: 1:01:26

So what I'm doing is really make it very graphic and also do all kind of analysis like what is the best, I don't know, the 10 most popular red varieties, or what happens over the years with the plantings and with the harvests, and all kind of interesting information.

Noa Maoz: 1:01:44

I hope it's interesting. So, yes, definitely, if you come into the industry now, you can see what's happening around you, where's the direction that the industry is going, and you can make maybe better decisions. And also what I tried to do that was, for me, was very missing. There's a lot of research going on in Israel for the last I don't know 40 years and no one could find the publications. It was just all over the place with the researchers that did it, I don't know, 30 years ago, 20 years ago, and it wasn't available for the public. And what I tried to do and I'm still trying is collect all of the knowledge that has been accumulated here and all of the research that has been published and put it in one place by topics that, again, growers and winemakers can easily reach and read and learn.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:02:42

So do you deal with the universities?

Noa Maoz: 1:02:43

So yeah, we're in good contact. So Shivid Rory, and also Ishai Netzer and Aaron Fayet from the Negev, so all of the Everyone who's it's a very smallgev, so all of the Everyone who's it's a very small industry, so basically all of the researchers that research grapevine. We're in contact with them and they give us the publications. Very cool and we're trying to put the knowledge out there.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:03:11

Is there a government agency that would have been there or that should have been there, or is there? It's complicated.

Noa Maoz: 1:03:20

So until the wine industry is kind of just forming hands all the time between the government offices. So it was under the agriculture department and then it went to economics and then now it's in the health department. It's a new change of who is in charge of the wine industry, so we kind of feel, in a way, that we don't have a mother and father in the government.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:03:50

It's not easy, which is crazy.

Noa Maoz: 1:03:52

It's crazy.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:03:53

This is such a huge industry and it's such an important industry and all of your, you know all of the countries around surrounding Israel. This is like a key industry and the government views it as a key industry and here we don't. It's like….

Noa Maoz: 1:04:12

I won't say that we don't at all, but we have to run between offices and speak to so if we have a problem in the vineyard, so we'll go to the agriculture department. If we have a problem with regulation, you have to go to the economics or to the health. It's a little bit all over the place and there's still like data. We're talking about data. There's no data. We're talking about data. There's no data in the government about how many videos we have here. What's planted when it was planted? The data is missing. Yeah, because there's not a lot of regulation in this area.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:04:52

So you also have a consulting business. Yeah, who are your clients? I mean, I don't mean precisely, are there big clients, little clients?

Noa Maoz: 1:05:04

I have all of the above I can work with. Uh, there's a winemaker that used to work for a big winery and left the winery, planted a seven Dunam block, which is a very small block, and making his own label and his own wine. So I can work with people like that and they're very, very small. And I work with kibbutzim, kibbutz and moshavim that are very big. So, for instance, there's kibbutzim here in the Golan Heights that they have a vineyard that is almost 1,000 dunam, so I consult them as well. And then there's wineries, like I said, that don't have a viticulturist, that take me Like wineries usually that produce I don't know 100,000 to 150,000 bottles and can't afford to have a viticulture's full-time job.

Noa Maoz: 1:06:05

I would do the consulting for them. So sometimes I'm hired by the winery and sometimes I'm hired by the grower, okay, and I try to give each one of them what they need. It's not always the same target, but I can say that I consult only only growers that are growing for premium wines. I don't do any, I don't consult any. I don't consult vineyards that are growing for juice or for bark wines or for it's not what I do, it's not my expertise. So it's usually to vineyards that are producing, selling or producing high quality wines.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:06:51

So you're super busy. Super, I was going to say do you want more clients? No, no, I don't All right.

Noa Maoz: 1:06:59

Especially not from far away. So when I started my business, it was eight years ago everyone who approached me said yes, because that's what you do when you start a business, and I was just driving all over Israel, right, and the last three years I'm more focused on the Golan Heights and the Galilee. Yeah, you're just so close to such a huge chunk of the growing, yeah, half of the industry is here. Right Half of it it's just a huge, huge and there's so many fantastic wineries up here.

Noa Maoz: 1:07:31

It's just amazing, absolutely, absolutely so half of the vineyards in Israel are located in Golan and Galilee and, of course, for the Israeli wine Job. I still travel a lot because most of the nurseries and the mother blocks are actually far away around Ashkelon.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:07:47

Yeah, I could see them being in the middle of the desert. So you can.

Noa Maoz: 1:07:50

Yeah, I don't mean, well, not the desert, but it's. Yeah, we have Ashkelon and that area. There's not a lot of vineyards there, which is an advantage, and the conditions are good for the for growing.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:08:06

Okay, very good. Yeah, thank you very, very much. I hope it wasn't.

Noa Maoz: 1:08:12

It was a pleasure. It was a pleasure for me. I'm happy to share things that people maybe are not aware of. That is happening here.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:08:22

I really am so excited to have met you because it's such an important component of the wine industry. Absolutely, People look at winemakers. Not many people look at growers.

Noa Maoz: 1:08:46

True.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:08:48

And even less people look at the culture Right. It's true.

Noa Maoz: 1:08:52

It's like… it's okay, I'm okay being in the background, it's fine. No, I know, but it's such I'm okay being in the background.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:08:56

No, I know, but it's such an important role it is yeah it's a pleasure to have met you, 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 are new to the Kosher Terwa, please check out our many past episodes.