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. Welcome back to The Kosher Terroir, the podcast, where we uncork the stories behind the wines, the people and the passion that shape the kosher wine world. Today, we're diving deep into the heart of Israel's upper Galilee with two powerhouses of the industry Alex Haruni, the visionary behind Dalton Winery, and Guy Eshel, the masterful winemaker crafting bold and expressive wines that put Dalton on the global map on the global map From pioneering Israeli terroir to pushing the boundaries of innovation with the Asufa series and upcoming, yet-to-be-revealed wines.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:12

We'll explore how Dalton is redefining what it means to make world-class wines in the Galilee. What's next for Dalton? How do they balance tradition with cutting-edge techniques, and what secret projects are in the pipeline? Stick around, because this episode is packed with insights, surprises and, of course, plenty of wine talk. If you're driving in your car, please focus on the road ahead. If you're home, pour yourself a glass of wonderful kosher wine, sit back, relax and let's dive in. Welcome to the Kosher Terroir, thank you.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:52

Thank you for welcoming me to the Dalton Winery.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 1:56

It's a pleasure, it's so good to have you here again. Pleasure.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:59

Guy. Okay, you've had some incredible international winemaking experience in France, australia, california, before joining Dalton, I should pronounce it properly. I think in 2015 you joined.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 2:17

Yes, so I've completed 10 years here as the head winemaker for Dalton Winery, going to the 11th how have these diverse experiences influenced your approach to winemaking here?

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 2:30

Well, so I think what really influenced my approach to winemaking in general was my time as a student at UC Davis. It was kind of like the beginning of my career. I did work in California since 2007 till about 2012, when I started my education at Davis, and when I was there I met students who were like-minded, like me, you know, passionate about why and interested, intrigued about everything that went on there, and I think that's when my learning curve was like was was very, very steep and everyone brought in a lot of interesting, different aspects and interests about their wine. We started tasting things from all over the world, but like very, very methodically and um, and we were tasting almost every day or several times a week.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 3:39

Um, learning about wines, uh, doing doing wine weekends, where we would go to hit a wine region in California or in Oregon and just spend like a weekend or two nights in an area, and just you know everyone who you call up and say we're a student at Davis. You know the doors are wide open. So learning was very, very, very intense and fast, alongside the academic part, and I was exposed to different styles of winemaking when we started practicing. You know, whole cluster fermentation, carbonic maceration, use of sulfur, non-use of additives, filtering versus non-filtering. It just gave me like a really really broad kind of like hub of and it was kind of like a sheltered kind of like a nest of knowledge and experiences Toolset yeah, a very broad toolset.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 4:43

So that was the beginning of the toolset and when I graduated I decided to follow my passion, which was wines that have the Mediterranean kind of aspect. So I went to the Rhone in France and I learned all I can about the Syrah grape and work at like one of the known producers there, domaine Francois Villard, and as a harvest hand there, who also came back from academic school. They give you a little bit more responsibility. You get to like kind of run all the fermentation monitoring and the fruit receivable the fermentation monitoring and the fruit receivable. And also I had a chance to work in these amazing vineyard sites that are along these steep slopes and it was wow, like once in a lifetime kind of thing, and you got to see a range of different ways to grow Syrah, to grow other Rhone varieties that's where I fell in love with the Roussan, which is one of my other favorite varieties to grow the flavors of the wines, the different areas, different approaches when to use whole clusters, when to de-stem, when to press, how to ferment to reach like different textures in the wine. So all of these really gave me even more tools. That's like a bigger upgrade in your professional kind of skill set.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 6:13

And, following France, I went to Australia and in Australia I learned from Clonacilla, who is another producer of Syrah and Viognier. So I really wanted to continue around the world getting more experience in Mediterranean grapes because my ultimate dream was to come back. After a decade of almost a decade living in California away from my family, I really wanted to come back to Israel to work as a winemaker. I saw that the industry was smaller. I seized an opportunity that I thought would be a really, really nice time to come and join this industry because it was like really on its wave and I think the past 10 or 11 years in Israel have massive, massive improvements.

S. Simon Jacob: 7:06

Meteoric yeah.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 7:08

It's more wine labels, better wines. When I came here, the wines were just starting to kind of come out and there were a handful of wineries that I could say that I was really happy with. And now there's so many small producers, more importations really happy with. And now there's so many small producers, more importations. Uh, the the kosher wine scene as well, in the past 10 years has has, uh, gone crazy. It's gone crazy, yeah, it's. It's exponential, it's uh. When I started out with making kosher wines, we didn't have these selections with all these bordeaux houses and burgundies and Barolos. The wine shops in New York held mostly Israeli wines and some cheaper stuff, and then, of course, you had all the things that come from California.

S. Simon Jacob: 7:55

Not that much at that time, but it didn't have that kind of broad selection and high-quality selection as well.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 8:05

So I think everyone's approach, I think the consumers have improved, the winemakers have improved and also the winemaking skills that young generation winemakers like me, who brought experiences and interests from other places in the world back to Israel, really set a higher standard.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 8:26

And one of the things that really I think contributed to the way I approach making wine is that experience from California and from those areas, the warmer climate regions that make wine, Mediterranean varieties and when I met Alex Harouni at Delton beginning to work, the first wine that kind of struck my eye was the Shiraz from Elkosh Vineyard. I tried that and because it's one of my favorite grape varieties, and I tried the wine that they were making here and I was like wow, okay, this is, this is really good stuff. We talked about the vineyards and after that I saw the vineyards and now I'm managing the vineyards and overseeing the production and I can tell you that the upper Galilee is to to me one of the, if not the most exciting region in Israel because of its diversity, but also with the quality of the grapes and what we can do here with the wines that we grow, with the grapes that we grow under our umbrella.

S. Simon Jacob: 9:43

Cool yeah, with the grapes that we grow under our umbrella. Cool yeah, I was wondering. Dalton really emphasizes the connection to the Galilee, especially the upper Galilee. How does the unique terroir of the area influence the characteristics of your wines?

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 10:07

So you can really see a thread that connects between the wines, especially what we grow under our estate fruit. One of the reasons why we emphasize the Galilee is because we're the first winery, the first commercial winery, to start in the Galilee. When the Arunis, alex and Matt, began with Dalton it was in the beginning of the 90s. There wasn't much here.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 10:29

Most of the grapes that were grown in the Upper Galilee were sold to Carmel and they were planted for Golan Heights Winery and they asked for a lot of Sauvignon Blanc and then they stopped making Sauvignon Blanc in vast quantities. I think they also wanted to focus on the Golan. They seized the opportunity as a Galilean producer to make contracts with some farmers in the area and in the beginning we used solely Galilean fruit, which we still do till today. We do have a vineyard in the Golan. We also have one vineyard in Kidron. Those go for different style wines, but I would say 90 percent of our fruit comes from the upper galilee, with another vineyard in the Golan and we have a little bit in the lower Galilee as well.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 11:23

But, that's our focus.

S. Simon Jacob: 11:24

What differentiates between the Upper Galilee and what you call the Golan Heights? What's the differences between?

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 11:33

them. So, first of all, the previous question was talking about the terroir and what makes these wines unique, so I'll touch that and then I'll touch the differences between the regions.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 11:47

What makes the Upper Galilee terroir so unique is first of all that most the elevation, first of all. High elevation. That means the climate is more temperate and we have dryness anywhere east of Mount Meron, which is our kind of like staple landmark here, and the vineyards are usually above 500 meters elevation, most of them 500, 600. And then here in Dalton they're around 800 meters elevation. It means cooler nights. The higher you go in elevation, the cooler it becomes you. Still, it's intense sun radiation, which is good for the vines, but under an open canopy, for instance, it's great, but then the nights are cooler here. So that's good for retaining color flavor acid in the wine. Good for retaining color flavor acid in the wine.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 12:51

And then we have about three main terroir types here in the Galilee. We have around Dalton and Karim Ben Zirma. You have the basalt soil, which is very similar to the Golan Heights. So in some areas in Dalton, in the upper Galilee, we can produce wines that are very similar to what the Golan is known for Hot, dry climate and then the basalt soil, making these very robust, smoky wines with a lot of concentration.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 13:17

The majority of the terroir in the Galilee is limestone and terra rossa, which is chalk, with oxidized chalk soil that is red in color and it's very, very rich in minerals.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 13:32

It retains water very well and then it lends to our wines this really beautiful, bright, fruity freshness. The acidity is usually higher, we get lower ph's in the wine, but also a freshness that is very unique to the uh, to the galilee wines. So in cabernet for instance, if we take that as an example, cabernet from the upper galilee to me will have more um cherry, dark cherry aromas, um savory herbs. The tannins will be a little bit finer, more powdery, whereas in the basalt soil you get more like plums, um kind of dark uh graphite. The fruit is like a little bit bolder and the acid sometimes is a little bit lower. And then we have the third soil that we have in Elkosh, which is the upper western Galilee, so it's west of Har Maron, just west, and that's more influenced by the Mediterranean. So humidity is higher but it also keeps the temperature lower, so the vines love humidity. It's just a challenge for us growers to keep everything healthy and nice.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 14:52

And like the Getting fungus yeah fungus and mildew and all that, and we do that well under sustainable vineyard practices with a very minimal chemical use. But the interesting part also is the soil. It's like a sea sedimentary soil and you can see fossils in the soil and the soil is white and brown with uh, with uh, flint, um, stone and um, different types of uh, um, um. Also also the plants that grow there, the natural environment, the forestry, is a little bit different, so it also gives another aspect. The wines coming from there are usually more delicate, with more finesse. It's not going to be those full-bodied, bold, broad shoulders, but those are the wines that I really love and those wines, they, they have excellent aging ability and we're going to try during this podcast uh, a few, a few examples of that and then we can talk about it as well so you mentioned that we're going to try some, so let's, let's take a taste.

S. Simon Jacob: 15:59

This is the first wine.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 16:01

Yeah, this is what this is called White of Earth. It's a brand new release. It's from 2023. Available here in Israel and also in the US. This is your Asufa series. This is Asufa. It's a winemaker's series.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 16:20

Alex likes to call it the winemaker's playground, I like to call it the more kind of curiosity wines that are made from inspiration of other styles and really where we can go wild Experimentation. Yeah, but it was released originally so we can create something different, something new, to talk to a new generation of drinkers and also make wines that we love to drink that are inspired by wines from other places. Everything is in small batches. Tell me a little bit about what I'm smelling on it.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 17:00

So this blend is Sauvignon blanc and semillon 50. I'm getting a lot of like green, green kind of like uh, apple character, some like waxiness, like beeswax, a little bit of grassiness and um. It's a wine that ferments in um, in amphoras, inware, in stoneware. So after we try the wine, you'll see that what I was trying to do here is to create a white wine with a lot of texture that just gives it a nice crunch but also really fills your mouth with texture and with this really really pleasant bitterness and flavors that are that are a little bit more coming from, like the ripe fruit, say, like quince and honey and wax some citrus as well.

S. Simon Jacob: 18:12

Yeah, but it's less. It's not what I was expecting at all. It's very interesting. This is not like. This is a combination of Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon so the Semillon is coming out on this a lot more than the Sauvignon Blanc, which is unusual, especially since it's not this is what year, 2023. So that's pretty incredible.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 18:43

It's lovely, it's it's lovely the it's not like this, um grapefruit bomb. No, it's a little bit more waxy and textural, like I said alex, welcome, thank you, welcome.

S. Simon Jacob: 18:58

Welcome to the kosher toa. I love this. I love this and I love that it's different than.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 19:06

No. Sauvignon Blancs no.

S. Simon Jacob: 19:07

Sauvignon Blancs. I really like it much more. It's not just purely citrus, it's got some body to it and it's the Sauvignon gives it a little bit of a bolder. More shoulders, yes.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 19:26

And that was the idea to create a wine that is more texture, more minerality like, with a nice saltiness.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 19:31

I wasn't looking for like a very aromatic wine with a lot of acid and zip, but more something that is kind of like wh, wider, saltier and and uh. That's also why both of these grapes are grown in that same vineyard in el kosh. And again going back to what I said about the uniqueness of the vineyards of the upper galilee and um and the terroir that we have in el kosh, where is uh, is a region west of miron mountain which, by the Dalton, was the first to explore and to plant vines in the wines lend a salty kind of saline character to them. Reds and whites it's very pronounced in the whites. I think with the type of soil, with that Mediterranean influence that I said, that keeps that unique Uniqueness in it. So it's, it's, it's a really great fermenting in them for us and aging in them for us, which are made of earth, I Think, boosts that characteristic in the wine and that's what we're looking to do are they amphoras from someplace special?

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 20:46

uh, yeah, so, uh, I have several different makes of amphoras. Yeah, uh, we have amphoras that we brought from spain and these ones are actually a company that, uh, that comes from france, but they manufacture them, manufacture their amphoras with a unique producer in Sichuan in China that specializes with ceramics and with porcelain. So they make a special mixture of earth and they use it for their amphoras.

S. Simon Jacob: 21:20

So it has very very low permeability. I was going to ask what's the oxygenation?

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 21:24

So it's lower than a barrel, and that's why it's able to keep that freshness in the wines. Cool yeah.

S. Simon Jacob: 21:32

Alex, I have a question for you. Sure, All right. In 1995, you and your father established Dalton Winery in the Upper Galilee. What inspired the venture and how has the winery evolved since its inception?

Alex Haruni CEO: 21:48

How my dad. I grew up in England. My dad grew up in Israel and then moved to England before he got married, but always yearned to come back and always raised money for Israeliraeli charities and for the joint and whatever. And every time he came here he would bring, uh, bring, I think, call the missions up to up to the north. You really believe that the north was a forgotten and under underestimated and undeveloped part of the country. Finally, I finished school, I finished university, came, I came to live in israel in 91 and my parents came in 1993.

Alex Haruni CEO: 22:31

I wasn't particularly enamored with the family business as it was then. My dad was a very dynamic, uh, member of the gem business, a very uh, um, uh, a very prominent dealer, and I found it very difficult to be within his shadow and I think he understood that as well. So he said come on, let's do something. I've always raised money for the North. Let's actually do something in the North. Let's build a business. I want to touch the ground, I want to bring people to the area, I want to make the Galil a focus of a business. And we were looking around for various businesses and we came across the idea of building a winery, and thus the business began. It was a Zionist venture to really bring focus to the Galil, to the extent where the first bottles we made had a map on the back of the label to help people find where we were because, people wouldn't have been able to find us otherwise.

S. Simon Jacob: 23:38

Wow, wow. Reflecting on the early days, what were some of the significant challenges you faced and how did they shape the wineries direction?

Alex Haruni CEO: 23:50

I think at the time in the in the 90s, there was a degree of hostility from the larger wineries at the look. When we started, I think there were probably about 10 wineries in israel, not much more than that, and we started in an era when there were more and more little people coming into business and more and more little wineries starting, and we were one of those. We started with 20,000 bottles. 20 tons was our first vintage. It's strange because it took us a month to do 20 tons and we do now do 20 tons in half a morning. Month to do 20 tons and we do now do 20 tons in half a morning. Um, and we needed to get raw materials. So we needed to find vineyards and we needed to find farmers, and it was always a battle. First of all, the planting material. We had people from I'm not going to mention names, but large wineries coming up to us and said well, we saw your application for these vines and we're not going to permit them because we need them for ourselves. So get to the back of the queue and maybe one day you'll get them. And then there was finding farmers who are willing to sell us, and at the time I think it's a little bit different now, but at the time it was very much like the Wild West. You'd do a deal with a farmer we would subsidize the planting of their vineyards and then, throughout the years when they'd be selling you, they'd be doing deals in cash on the side and, oh yeah, really sorry, really low yields. This year it was a really bad year, really low yields. What had happened was that somebody had come the night before and paid cash for a row or two rows and we'd get the rest, which basically made us decide that we can't really trust anybody, we have to do it ourselves, made us decide that we can't really trust anybody, we have to do it ourselves.

Alex Haruni CEO: 25:50

So in the late 90s, in the early 2000s, early 2000s, nama Sorkin, who was our winemaker at the time, said look, we've got to take the matter into our own hands. We need to protect our source of grapes, our source of raw materials, because that's the most important thing that makes the wine, and we need to plant our own vineyards. And because of her, we built this huge investment plan, doubling the size of the winery in terms of plantings, overnight. It was a huge challenge, a huge financial challenge for the winery as well, because you know three years planting a vineyard is income. Leaving is negative cash flow for three years. So it was a real challenge, but it put us on the track of becoming a proper estate winery, a proper winery that is in charge of its own raw materials. We have our own agricultural department and that allows us to play around and be more creative in the growing and more creative in what we do in the cellar as well. I think it doesn't put us at the mercy of other people.

Alex Haruni CEO: 27:06

As you said, in those days there was maybe 10 wineries, yeah, and they were all very, very big and powerful wineries. They ran the Meutz, Giffen, Hayai and they ran the country's wine industry.

S. Simon Jacob: 27:20

Now we're moving in on over 400,. I think 400, yeah. Winerieseries.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 27:25

So it's kind of uh crazy I think, and how many only in the past 10 years right.

S. Simon Jacob: 27:31

So I've been here for 10 years and there's been. I think maybe when I came there was 250 wineries or 200 wineries. Now it's closing on 400 and they're really and it.

Alex Haruni CEO: 27:44

it's amazing how much wine some of the smaller wineries are making. I'm astonished sometimes to hear the volumes of, first of all, of the older, more established wineries who, in my memory, they started up with 100,000, 200,000 bottles and now they're making close to a million. I find it astonishing. But just to bring the proportion back again, they're making close to a million. I find it astonishing. But just to bring the proportion back again. I still believe that 80% of the volume of wine in Israel is made by about 10% of the wineries made between 10% and 20% of the wineries of Israel. So I believe that the small wineries add a lot of colour and flavour and excitement to the industry and I think they're really important. I think we can't do anything without them. I think they're very important for the industry, but we can't forget that most of the wine that is being drunk in Israel is made by probably 20% of those 400 wineries.

S. Simon Jacob: 28:44

There are people who can make some incredible wines here, some small boutique wineries that hit it out of the park, but what makes the difference is if they can do it again. There's a lot of winemakers who luck into all sorts of things, but the issue is consistency. Can you reproduce that? Do you have the equipment and the tracking to be able to do those sort of things?

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 29:09

Do you have your own vineyards to be able to supply the Asouf series?

S. Simon Jacob: 29:16

you described as a personal playground, alex for innovation. Elaborate on the inspiration behind this series and any upcoming wines that you're particularly excited about.

Alex Haruni CEO: 29:35

I think the Asufo series is where we can innovate and where we can sell wines that that your average wine drinker won't necessarily go to. It's a series that's focused for the culinary trade. I think people are much more adventurous when they go and eat out If you have a sommelier who can explain about the wine and say, look, you should try this, it's really interesting. It's a very different take on what you're used to. I think people are much more open to it. I think we've seen a great success with the use of Amphora and we want to expand on that a little bit. I think we want to invest more in clay and terracotta and all these alternative storage devices. I think it also gives Guy a lot more freedom to say look, you know what I fancy doing this, this and this, and I'm going to say well, you know what? Now you have an avenue of how to sell it, because there are wines in the Asilfa series that I don't think we could put in any of the I'll call them commercial series, but I think they're more Traditional.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 30:46

Yeah, traditional, traditional more straight laced.

Alex Haruni CEO: 30:48

Yeah, um, uh. I don't think we can get away with having some volatility in in the family collection series or in the estate series people want clean, solid wines, wine or yeah, orange wines? I don't think people. People see something that's a playground. Their minds open up a little bit more and they're more willing to experiment and more willing to be disappointed somewhat than if they're going to spend… or surprised, or surprised, yeah.

S. Simon Jacob: 31:17

Because I'll tell you this… it surprised me, it totally surprised me. I was expecting….

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 31:23

Who doesn't love a nice surprise?

S. Simon Jacob: 31:25

I did but I was totally expecting pomelo, grapefruit. I said okay, but then I smelled it and I'm going boy, there's something more there.

Alex Haruni CEO: 31:38

But we have wines that offer the pomelo and the grapefruit. We have two wines we have the Fumé Blanc and we have the Family Collection. Sauvignon Blanc.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 31:46

Those are standard classic Sauvignon Blancs made very well Now here's a way, but in a Galilei style, in our house, as I said, with the upper Galilei to a water, because it's not. They're special. You know they're not your. I think they're still different.

Alex Haruni CEO: 32:06

And here we have, in the Asufa series, a way that Guy can. Just Guy would come to me and said look, you know what? I think we can make some Petnat. I said what's Petnat? He said, oh, we'll make wine that sparkles in the bottle. We won't filter it and we can just sell it.

S. Simon Jacob: 32:23

I said all right, go ahead.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 32:32

Yeah, we can just sell it. I said, all right, go ahead, yeah, as long as you're not going through all the rest of the steps of making look, yeah, no, and we've done that too. But at the end of the day, it starts out with a, with a barrel, or with a thousand bottles. The following year, we made two thousand bottles. We sold it all after three months. The distributor was like why are you even releasing this? I can't sell it throughout the year then? Then we did 5,000 bottles, then we did 6,000 bottles.

Alex Haruni CEO: 32:48

And now we're doing 13,000 bottles and it's like well, the guy has a brief.

Alex Haruni CEO: 32:53

He has from the moment he started. I said look, you've got 20,000 liters that you can do whatever you want with, and I'm not going to be upset if something goes wrong. We'll find somewhere to put it and if not, we'll deal with it some other way. But now we'll be able to distill wines because we're going to have the distillery across the road. But he has an open brief to do what he wants with a certain amount of wines and imagine a different creative stuff. And now we have the ad-lib During.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 33:27

COVID, which we had a lot of time in our rooms. We couldn't leave anywhere, so we came to work and we had a lot of time to play. But let me just add something, and I mentioned that earlier when we did our opening chat. It is, for me at least. It's dealing with the stuff that inspires me and I think that's the most important thing, like it, the commercial side of it as well, and I'm and I'm very, very like well, um, kind of uh driven by that as well, like what can sell, and I don't produce a new wine every year because it's just not I.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 34:07

I also think we need to. We need some stability too and to show that consistency. But it is the place to like make a wine and if it doesn't work we can cancel it and that's fine. But also, um, but also it's like the stuff that I like to drink. You know, like when, when I go to a restaurant and I open a bottle of sicilian wine or something like with skin contact and wow, that's really cool. Or stuff I grew up on in my early years during winemaking, where I was single and we'd hang out with friends and we'd pop a bottle of PetNet. It's just the stuff that I used to love to drink and the stuff that inspires me, or stuff that I have a curiosity for. Sometimes even Alex brings up an idea and we're like, okay, let's do this, let's try, and it's. It's a. That's the greatness of this series.

S. Simon Jacob: 34:57

So that one of the questions I have for you is you know Doton Winery offers this diverse portfolio. Okay, Between Alma State, the Canaan series and what have you. How do you ensure each series maintains its distinct identity while upholding the overall quality of the brand, and can you share a little bit about the insights you started to go down that path into the creative process behind developing a new wine or a new series? Do?

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 35:28

you want to start. Yeah, first of all, I start with the fact that we do have many different wines that we make and, yes, it's a challenge. With that said, we have a clear distinction of what we want in every range. We have a clear distinction of what we want in every range, and I think we're both Alex and I are both individuals who think there's good quality to be made for everyone and we don't like to. You know, we always want more.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 36:07

We have a hunger for more and to do more interest and more and, and that's one of the reasons why we have a lot of wines and that's why we develop new things and and and single vineyards and, uh, it's, it's that curiosity, and not standing in one spot.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 36:21

So we're not the traditional, uh, kind of like a four wine winery, but we have a range that in the Kanaan, we're looking for one thing. In the estate range, we're looking for freshness, for approachability, for quality, for ease of drink and finesse, again made from our estate fruit. And then we go to the Almas, which is something that is an excellent wine for the wine drinker who likes to drink quality things at an everyday kind of rate where you're willing to spend a little bit more and have those vineyards that come from our top fruits. But those vineyards that come from our top fruits, and these are blends that are very generous, that are fun to drink, and the family collection, that's what the family, the Haruni family, keeps for their special events, those are the top wines, those are vineyards with the highest potential.

Alex Haruni CEO: 37:31

Good aging potential wines as well.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 37:32

Great aging potential wines, yeah.

Alex Haruni CEO: 37:33

Wines that we drink, that we go to. I mean, we drink Shiraz Family Collection on a weekly basis at home. These are the classics.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 37:41

They're the true timeless classics with their Galilean distinction. And then we have Asuffa, which we talked about. There's really not much to say more than that. But the single vineyards is kind of zooming in on a quality from a single site that has a vintage variation. But we know these vineyards can portray the very best of the site that they come from. So that's why we choose to show them.

Alex Haruni CEO: 38:12

They're very individual wines. It's a snapshot of a particular day. I see the single vineyard wines as a picture of one day from one year, from one place in Israel, and that's what you've got in the bottle, and we also find that they're very distinct. So when we're tasting the wines blind, we can usually identify them. And that's what's special about the single vineyard is that we can go back year after year and we can sort of identify them blind because they have their own characteristic and we found that that's that's what's important here.

S. Simon Jacob: 38:51

Do you? Do you find that that there are variations in vintage?

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 38:57

oh yeah, look, we don't really have horrible vintages like because we don't have summer rains here. Um, there are in some places in Europe where you have devastating frosts, but there is vintage variation. There's variation between years that have a more consistent temperature than years that have temperature spikes, years that have heat waves, years that are cooler or more temperate how much rainfall we had that year. If we had low yields Last year, we had very, very low yields. So I think there's small berries, the same amount of fruit grown on the vines, but the clusters were smaller and the berries were smaller, fewer.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 39:45

So at the end of the day we harvested about 10, 15 less just because it was more concentrated, so yeah you get a little bit more, a little bit more concentration, more acid, less tempering with the wine that all these wines that come from the from the alma family collection estate and our special edition wines, really there's not much I as a winemaker have to do them, apart from just making sure they follow through properly and using like fermentation techniques like these, are very, very, um low impact wines. So they, in terms of of intervention, right, so they really really are authentic to the place.

S. Simon Jacob: 40:26

The fruit shines through, um don't use a very intense oak profile on our wines our wines are supple they, so we're drinking.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 40:43

Now we're trying the shiraz elkosh 2021 from the elkosh vineyard. It's a single vineyard. Okay, as I said, the soil there is soil, there is chalky with fossils, flint, 600 meter elevation, 18 months aged. In 500 liter barrels, 500 liters.

S. Simon Jacob: 40:59

What are we smelling?

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 41:00

A lot of savory character, nice fruit, cinnamon olives, black olives, really pronounced, yeah, black olives. Some thyme, some pepperiness.

Alex Haruni CEO: 41:18

It's quite restrained as well. It's not in your face. Fruit, no, very elegant. The tannins are very smooth. They're very easy to drink, very, very soft and nice length to it as well.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 41:34

The Shiraz from the parallel series. The family collection is a bit bolder. It's almost like sweeter and full, where this has this elegance and finesse. As I said, when I met Alex for the first time, this shiraz was the one that caught my eye, and when I saw the shiraz from israel with this elegance that we, that I tried for the first time from dalton I was like wow.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 41:59

After coming back from australia and the rhone, I was like, wow, this is this. This shiraz is like up there and it it's unique and I'm really proud of what we do with this, because it's not very easy to make a Shiraz that has this finesse to it, this European almost energy. So it's unique. It's different than everything else we make, and that's why it goes into single vineyard because of that.

S. Simon Jacob: 42:30

As we've been saying, the Israeli wine industry has seen substantial growth in recent years. What do you perceive, or how do you perceive, dalton's, dalton Winery's role in the evolving landscape?

Alex Haruni CEO: 42:44

Well, I think our recent decisions have been based on climate change, so we've planted a lot of white wines. I think we're going to see a lot of people drinking a lot more white wines in the future. Balance has always been 60% reds and 40% whites, and we're moving more to 50-50, even a little bit more in favor of whites. I think we're placing a lot more focus on white wines. I think we're experimenting with vines that can handle the new hot weather as well, and we're trying to push in the direction of more premiumization.

Alex Haruni CEO: 43:32

I think people deserve to drink better wines and I think what I'm seeing is people are drinking less, but people are drinking better, and we want to get them drinking better wines. We offer excellent wines for under $20. I mean, there's a piece in the Wine Enthusiast this week that focused on our Cabernet Sauvignon, on our Estate Cabernet Sauvignon, and gave it a 95, I think 94, 95, really nice review saying here this is a wine that you can open every day and not break the bank. But I think people want to move up and we're doing better at everything and I think that's important. Plus, we're still trying to remain imaginative and still trying to bring interesting surprises to the market.

S. Simon Jacob: 44:27

So I'm going to kick off that a little bit more. Alex, as someone who's kind of leading the business side of the Dalton Winery, how do you envision the winery's growth in the international markets?

Alex Haruni CEO: 44:41

The international market is really difficult, really difficult. I'm not going to candy coat it here. I've never had the opinion, I've never been of the opinion that Israel is going to make a huge breakthrough into the non-Kosher, non-jewish market, because I don't see it happening. Unfortunately, I think there are too many things against us to make that happen. Unfortunately, I see Greek and Turkish wines and Lebanese wines being much more popular and speaking much more to people on the street than Israel. Unfortunately, israel is always linked news-wise to terrible things and we were just before last October, just before October 7th, I think, we were sort of on the way of getting out of that and we were about to be able to stand again proudly as Israel and say, look, these are Israeli wines, wines and we have something to offer with no negative connotations.

Alex Haruni CEO: 45:53

And unfortunately, I think, since the 7th of October, the world has gone back on itself and we have only ourselves to rely on. We have only ourselves to rely on. And now I've seen, in terms of markets, I've seen that there's been support in the United States. Unfortunately, I don't see that support in the United Kingdom. I think, as an English Jew myself, the English have always been very apologetic about themselves. Self-apologizing Jew, I think, is the term that we used to use at university and I don't see the support coming from the United States. I see support coming from the United States, I see support coming from Jewish communities, but unfortunately I don't see that we have the support of the international wine drinking market, which is a huge shame in the United States.

S. Simon Jacob: 46:56

Elvie makes a bottle of wine. That's a quality white that they sell retail in the United States for $10. Right, and I look at that and I go how in the world can they sell a bottle of wine? And they have all the hashkachot issues and all the kashrut issues that everybody else has, but they still have enough of a margin to be able to sell wine at $10.

Alex Haruni CEO: 47:31

But they have also European subsidies for exporting wines, which we don't. So that's one of the questions I'm going to ask.

Alex Haruni CEO: 47:39

So if you want to go into the price, if you want to go into talking about the price, I think we need to look more at California as a producer than Europe as a producer, and I think you need to compare Israeli wines with Californian wines, because our costs are more similar to America than they are to Europe. America doesn't receive any subsidies from the government to produce and you have to count on everything. We pay above minimum wage for everything. We have to pay all the government benefits to all our employees and even to the pickers as well. We have to ensure that everybody that's working for us gets paid, not only minimum wage, but also gets the social security benefits and all the other benefits are given to those people. It's an expensive business making wine here. Nobody's giving us anything. Nobody's helping us along the way to promote our exports, to make them cheaper for the customer abroad. So our price proposition has to be similar to that of the United States and not to Europe.

S. Simon Jacob: 49:05

So when I look at the Israeli market. I'm sorry, I'm only focusing on Alex at the moment but, I figure I'm going to lose him first. No, it's fine, okay. So when you're looking at the Israeli market, I would have said 10 years ago, the wine industry has a real serious problem here, because the younger people were going towards, you know, alcohol, higher-end alcohols and beers and what have you. I think there's been a resurgence here. I don't know. What do you feel? What do you feel about your customers?

Alex Haruni CEO: 49:48

I think I can answer that better than I, because he also makes his own wines and he's in the market a lot more than I am. By the way, I love that oh, yeah, you tried it.

S. Simon Jacob: 49:59

Yeah, the Roussant. Great, I was going to ask you you don't make a Roussant, but yeah, you do, you make actually your own private roussat, yes, it actually started slowing down during the whole judiciary reform protests.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 50:20

That's when it started going down and then the war brought it down further, with restaurants being closed and certain markets just disappearing for months. Like like haifa, like the north um and tel aviv was kind of working, but but slow, kind of like on on autopilot, but but very, very minimal. It's a little bubble.

Alex Haruni CEO: 50:44

Tel aviv is a is a bubble that it keeps plodding along and you can more or less rely on it. But I think there are other factors at work as well. I think there is this general, what I call neo-prohibitionism, this general move away from wines in the world, perhaps not here. I think here we have a good. We have a bit of a lag, I think a 10-15 year lag, generational, yeah, lag between what's going on in the rest of the world.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 51:13

yeah, yeah, so like natural wine, it was popular 10 years ago in the states and then it arrived here and now it's booming here and then slowly it's gonna fade away because people are drinking all the kinds of wines now and in the States they've realized that natural wine is not a home for all flavor. And it's not the end.

Alex Haruni CEO: 51:35

And I'm told the United States is a challenging market as well. Young people are moving into ready-to-drinks and ready-made cocktails and drinking more cocktails. I was in New York a few months ago and we went to a restaurant and we were the only table drinking wine. Everybody else was drinking cocktails.

S. Simon Jacob: 51:57

It was really interesting to see Mixed drinks are big now in the States and even here where you go into a restaurant and they've got a page worth of cocktails that they offer and a little section on wines. That's why I kind of think that some of the specialty, some of the not ordinary wines like this, some of the unusual wines, are actually set for a comeback, because if a person is going to go out and drink wine, they don't just want to ask for. You know, it also depends totally on whether the restaurants actually have a sommelier who's pushing wines and what have you. But they don't want to just drink the same stuff, they want to drink something that's different.

Alex Haruni CEO: 52:49

And yeah, I agree, I have have whenever we go out. My wife likes to take a bottle of our wine to the restaurant. It's good for business and it interests the sommelier, whoever's pouring the wine. I'd say to her look, if I'm going out, I want to drink something else. I mean, I know what our wines taste like, but I want to drink. I want to see what they've done with their wine list, yeah, and I want to know what. And I want to drink something that I don't necessarily drink at home and for me, that's quite important and I think these, these wines offer that to the person, to the person that's going out as well and also one thing that's happening, and I think um, I think the only, of course, and I think we all know this wine lists are becoming shorter, smaller and more focused.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 53:37

So the people who are managing the wine programs at restaurants, they're looking maybe for one producer in each section, maybe having wines by the glass, wines not by the glass, but it's not these books anymore of pages and pages of wines that you can go through, and they and and they're also pulling wine um as needed. So they're pulling six bottles of this, six bottles of that, six bottles of that and then ordering every week um to fill their stocks and not keeping a lot of wine on stock.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 54:06

So the wine lists are becoming more focused and, I think, more versatile and, as a winery producing a range of different things, yeah it increases our chances that a winery, for instance, you know in the city, who already has their staple sauvignon blanc and their staple sh, but then you know we come up with this Souffle series. It's like wow, this old vine Carignan, how unique, it's low alcohol, it's cool, it's vibrant, it's acid, it's nice. Or this, you know, wines made in Amphora or wines fermented on the skins or indigenous varieties brings us into the wine on the skins or indigenous varieties brings us into the wine, because they're not going to keep wines on their list from one producer, four or five different types of their wines.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 54:54

They're going to have maybe one wine from one producer, and that's where tickets come in.

S. Simon Jacob: 55:00

I noticed that as well. I noticed that as well. Tell me about a wine that you feel deserves more attention, one that perhaps flies under the radar compared to your flagship wines.

Alex Haruni CEO: 55:12

I'd say a variety that flies under the radar would be Shiraz.

Alex Haruni CEO: 55:15

Shiraz is the perfect variety for Israel. Of all the blind tastings I've done, the Shiraz flights have always been a step above the other flights that I've tasted of other varietals. In terms of quality-wise, Israel makes really good Shiraz, really good Shiraz. We were one of the first wineries to start pioneering it and I think it doesn't get the respect that it deserves. Cabernet outsells Shiraz two to one, if not more than that, and I don't think look, we make a good cabernet. But I think Israel as a country makes excellent, excellent Shirazis and it's a shame that it doesn't get that recognition.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 56:14

I think it's building.

S. Simon Jacob: 56:14

You think Ten years ago, if you went to your distribution in America and said I've got this great Shiraz, they would tell you it's sitting on shelves. Nobody wants to buy Shiraz Nowadays, especially with the global warming. There's a lot of countries that are getting more into Shiraz and I think that it's becoming much, much more popular. But what's also amazing is that there's so many different expressions of Shiraz that you can get. You can get something that's spicy. You can get something that's elegant. You can get something that's elegant. You can get something that's almost as bold as a cab. There's all sorts of expressions of how you make it.

S. Simon Jacob: 57:06

It's versatile. I'm enjoying it a lot I am at least personally.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 57:13

I just poured some Cabernet with. That being said, all that great talk about Shiraz, we're trying the family collection Cabernet Sauvignon from Vintage 22. 18 months in oak barrels. I use two or three different coopers here and it gets about one quarter new oak in the blend and it's also made from a selection of our top parcels spreading from the western Galilee, elkosh to Kfar Shamay in the central upper Galilee, kerim, ben Zimra in Deltan, and it will be a blend of the of our best estate fruit where we have, as I talked about earlier, with the different terroirs. You know, in Deltan it's more basalt, so you have some of the components bringing in more structure and then the ones that coming from the uh, from the limestone series, are that lifted fruit I like this a lot, but I'll tell you I actually like the shiras better.

S. Simon Jacob: 58:28

So, but, but it's um, but it's also a really nice expression. Let's talk a little bit about sustainability. Sustainability is a growing focus in viticulture. What sort of sustainable practices have you implemented in the vineyard and the winemaking?

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 58:52

And we do talk about it quite a bit, but I also think that it starts in the vineyard, but it's really translated to the vision of the company and how we operate as a business, as a family-owned business, from the vineyard, and what we do and then also our practices here in the winery using the right equipment, the right machines. The winery using the right equipment, the right machines, the water processing and waste processing that we do. Here we have our waste management processing plant that we can really bring our waste water to a point where it's also state of the art. It's a machine equipment that was built custom to our needs and with new technology where we can put our waste back and not create an oxygen debt into the environment, into the water supply.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 59:50

And also how we treat our employees. You know we look after them. Every employee has their set progress plan the solar power energy that we create here and we use our rooftops to.

Alex Haruni CEO: 1:00:05

If we could use our own electricity, we'd be independent in electricity. So we've got, you can see over there that roof is completely covered in panels and the roof in this building is completely covered in panels and the roof in this building is completely covered in panels and we we produce we produce more electricity than we consume at the moment. So why can't you use your electricity? You're not allowed to. You have to sell it back to the grid. Interesting yeah so.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 1:00:29

So it starts in the vineyards, and now back to the vineyards, because that's where it starts, the vineyards that we grow, and we also try to influence our growers as well. Um, and we, we have quite good success at them, apart for one or two that, uh, they are very, very old school. Um, but it's something that we, we constantly emphasize and what we want and, um, our growers are not allowed to use any spray chemical that they want. We give them a list of things that we consider to be friendly and sustainable. We use oils, horticultural oils instead of sulfur throughout the growing season, and then we go into sulfur once or twice during the year.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 1:01:17

We try to minimize the use of coppers and use alternative minerals that can combat the, the downy mildew, which is also an issue here in Israel, and these minerals are more sustainable to the environment than copper. Copper leaches into the water bed and it also it's a cause of Alzheimer's and there's a lot of things that are not very healthy with copper, so we try to use mineral-based sprays for that, and then we have sprays that are friendly to the environment. We're not organic certified, but because we like to process sustainability, it's something we put a lot of research in, and we're not very light-handed on what we bring into the winery in terms of prophylactic sprays Prophylactic.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:02:20

Prophylactic sprays yeah.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 1:02:23

And then, apart from that, we don't use herbicides in our vineyards at all. Everything is mowed either by sheep during the off-season, in the spring, before the vines don't bud break, and then we also use mowing systems that are more sustainable than sprays, because we don't spray underneath the vines with herbicides herbicides or we use pest management in the vineyards with, with owl boxes. So we've put an owl box to every 50 dunam of vineyards, in all our vineyards, and then we, which is five hectares okay, every five hectares there's an owl box and most of them have been populated and that helps against rodents that dig and create holes and problems in our irrigation systems. We're trying to use grape varieties. Now we've planted quite a few Mediterranean grape varieties that are a little bit more resilient to hot climate. We're looking at that, we're looking at hybrid varieties, we're looking at varieties from Greece, from Israel, from warmer parts of Europe like Spain and south of France that we're trying to plant and and develop in in that section.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 1:04:00

So sustainability is an ongoing process, but I think, uh, we tick the boxes in turn in terms of it's something that we really care about and it shows in our wine, like when you go, if, if, I would take you to Elkos. You're gonna going to say, oh my, this is wow. This is not like a regular vineyard. It's like a piece of land that is lush and all the native vegetation is there. Most of the vineyards that we grow that are above 100 dunam blocks, which is 10 hectares. 100 dunam blocks, which is 10 hectares We'll have some kind of untouched areas that are used as natural corridors for animals, wildlife and microbes, so that really helps as well. We make our own compost.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 1:04:52

Oh, the list goes on but it's stuff that we do that starts from the vineyard and finishes in the winemaking process.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:05:04

So I always thought that the solar panels were you trying to reduce your own cost? And I guess they do reduce your costs because it gets sold back to the electric. Yeah, it does, but it doesn't feed directly to you.

Alex Haruni CEO: 1:05:22

No, it doesn't feed directly to us unless you buy battery farms.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 1:05:29

We haven't got to the stage where we buy battery farms yet, and it's something that's beginning now, I think in the industry that batteries are becoming Very reasonable price.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:05:38

Yeah, there's also a move to cover I was going to ask you any of the vineyards With solar yeah, that's an interesting question.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 1:05:51

It's a new.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:05:55

There's some new advancements in that, yeah.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 1:05:58

Because I have a good friend of mine is in that business, so I've looked into it a little bit. It's the permits that are given are quite small at the moment still in terms of how many dunam you can do. But it's also a matter of like if you own the land or not. I think there's also that question that needs to be answered. And if some of our vineyards are leased, some of the vineyards are contracted, and then you have to see if it makes it worthwhile doing that.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:06:35

I saw an analysis where the the vines, actually, when they're really in full um exposure to radiation perspire, so they end up giving off more water yeah, so you can end up saving water by putting solar panels over them, and even if they could flip, if they can rotate, so you get sun when you want it and no sun when you don't want it, it ends up helping from a number of levels. So it's something I've been looking at. I was wondering if anybody was.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 1:07:09

There's a lot of research done in that and, yeah, it does give some amount of shade. That can be controlled. Bigger canopies release more water. That means that you have to irrigate and supplement with more water. There's a lot of research done and the fact that it's good to keep smaller canopies. That means a leaf area for the vines, that and then they survive in hot climates with releasing less water into the aspiring less, and then you have to water, irrigate less.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:07:42

Do you shade any of them? Do you put shades over any of them at all?

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 1:07:47

No, we do not, but what we do, we do practice, and that's something that I brought in when I started here as a winemaker, learning from California and also in France trying to imitate head-trained vines, so open canopies. Most of our vines are structured in a VSP vertical suit position where you have two cordons or cane pruning it depends, but that's a little bit more rare in Israel for the varieties that we grow and then, instead of doing the vertical soup position you can do, you can let the vineyard just kind of go kind of sprawled so that it shades itself, and then you have less direct radiation on the clusters more surface area for the vine to transpire and you can increase quality and manipulate the quality of your fruit in a positive way.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 1:08:54

So we practice that quite a bit. So tell me a little bit about your alcohol.

Alex Haruni CEO: 1:09:00

So about a few years ago I invested in a distillery in La Votabashan and it was always my wish to take the winery into distilling. And then it became this distillery, Guy Guy.

Alex Haruni CEO: 1:09:24

This is the iron, and now we're building our own distillery. But until our distillery comes, so I'm distilling at this place called Verastil, which is near us in the Galil, distilling at this place called Verastil, which is near us in the Galil, and we sit with them and we sit with their master distiller and we send them wines for distillation. We make the recipes together until we can make it in our own facility. We made a gin already. I saw that Did you taste it. I't. So the gin is made with um uh, with botanicals.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 1:10:02

That guy uh picked from the elkosh vineyard wow, galilean inspired botanicals that are foraged and near and in and around the area of our vineyards and this Arak is made from a wine you know.

Alex Haruni CEO: 1:10:21

During the war, unfortunately, we couldn't keep our eyes on everything. It was really, really. It's been a really challenging year. A lot of stress and a lot, of, a lot of stress, a lot of uncertainty. Was there a real impact from the war? I mean, yeah, oh, yeah, tell there a real impact from the war.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:10:37

I mean yeah, oh yeah, tell me a little bit about the impact.

Alex Haruni CEO: 1:10:40

Every day you come to work Don't know what's going to happen and you? Have no idea who's going to be here. What's going to land on you, right, yeah, the sirens go off after the booms. Right, right here, yes, so you have workers working in vineyards that are they're classified as open spaces.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 1:11:01

So there's no iron dome there. Yeah, there's no iron dome and there's no sirens. Yeah, and then suddenly, you, you hear something and there's a, there's a rocket landing in on the hill in front of you.

Alex Haruni CEO: 1:11:10

You go into the, you go into the vineyard in the morning and there's a huge crater where something landed. The previous night we got through this wall by a miracle. I have no other way of classifying it. We lost 100 dunam of vineyards, 30 dunam of burnt, 70 dunam. We couldn't manage. We couldn't go in there, we couldn't crew them as soon as October started At the border.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 1:11:37

On the fence.

Alex Haruni CEO: 1:11:38

In the water gun.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 1:11:43

And damages like a rocket hitting in a vineyard, and then you lose about half a dunam of vines Just like that.

Alex Haruni CEO: 1:11:51

There would be explosions, and then you'd hear the tinkling of shrapnel landing on the solar panels. Just little bits of shrapnel landing.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:12:01

I'm laughing, but I'm not. I know I was up in Reconadi and we were watching the smoke coming up from here and the smoke coming up from here, and as I drove through Sfat there was fires on both sides of the street. It was like crazy.

Alex Haruni CEO: 1:12:15

I remember. I remember Jonathan, my wife. So we did a lot of outreach during the war. So Billy, my wife and Adiel, from my cousin of Ukraine, I now know how many cases of wine you could fit into a Tesla, because every weekend I would take down 15 cases of wine, if not more, for Billy and Adiel to go to Shukimika, a farmer's market Right Around Tel Aviv, around the Americas, where people would support the north. So there was a lot of outreach during the war where we would have to go out because the winery visitor center was closed but the winery we worked.

Alex Haruni CEO: 1:12:54

Something that I learned from Coronary is you keep working. The winery visitor center was closed, but the winery we worked through there. Something that I learned from coronary is you keep working because it's gonna end sometime and if you're not working then you're gonna have to make up a huge backlog for not for not doing that, but right. It's also really important for the morale of the employees. It's given something to do to make sure that they can work. So we worked every day. Guy came up every single day. I came up three times a week. It was really important for me to show the staff that although I don't live in the area. I'm there with them.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:13:27

You live where? In Tel Aviv?

Alex Haruni CEO: 1:13:29

Three times a week. I was here. The guy was here every day. Everybody was here. Everybody came to work every single day. We didn't know what was going to happen during the day. There were sirens every other day. The ground shook every single day from artillery fire from our end or from rocket fire from their end. Maroon Arras, I don't know if they took you up when you were here. We can go and take a look now. You see, marona russ, it's. We're six kilometers from the border and marona russ is, uh, another kilometer. Perhaps I can see it from my office window. There were explosions happening there all the time. It's. It was not a year, I'd like to repeat, but nobody was hurt and we managed to get a full harvest in, not a full harvest, we managed to get a harvest in and we managed to get employment to our staff for that year and a half, which I think is as important as the end of the years.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:14:45

It's huge. It's huge because most of the people up north were. I have cousins who live in Dishon and they haven't been back to Dishon in a year and a half. It's crazy.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 1:14:58

It's crazy yeah yeah, we have employees displaced At the El Khosm Abivim.

Alex Haruni CEO: 1:15:04

Okay, nobody knows when Abivim will come back, rehabilitated and repopulated, he said.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 1:15:11

They're going to have to spend money out of pocket to rebuild their homes. They will get some kind of government subsidy, but that's not going to be enough.

Alex Haruni CEO: 1:15:19

The irony is that they only just finished repairing the infrastructure in Avibim from 2006. Right, and now it's all gone again. So this why? Because of the atmosphere that we had. You know, people weren't always concentrating and people weren't always. Guy and I sit down usually three times a year to sort the wines. We weren't able to sit down for more than half an hour to sit and taste some wines and say, look, this is good, this is better, this should go there, this should go there. Usually, we spent two full days doing that. That didn't happen this Arak. It is the result of a wine that got lost along the way.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 1:16:06

But distillation made wonders. I know. No, it's an amazing thing. It's made from the scat. Yeah, it's delicious. Muscat Arak, wow. Just like you would drink in Lebanon, syria, iran or Iraq. Muscat Alexandria Arak, wow, delicious, it's delicious.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:16:30

It's very palatable even at this time of the morning. It's delicious Soft.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 1:16:36

Yeah, it's soft Splats down my throat.

Alex Haruni CEO: 1:16:38

An uncle who put his longevity down to the three glasses of arak he had before breakfast. So he knew, coming from the region in which we came, that was the way they met. That's what they loved in those days.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 1:16:50

That's right. Yeah, it's a really nice arak. And then there's a few others. There's a gin that's been being made kosher for passover gin for the past few years. It's really nice. And, uh, we have the um. We have a brandy. We made a few years of brandy. We made two years of whiskey. That's still aging, so it's uh, that's cool. Some people do grappa brandies. I think it's. It's um, it could be nice, as, like israelis usually, uh, drink it as a nice kind of aperitif, like a digest for, like at the end of the meal, like a little chaser I don't know if you're a gin drinker.

Alex Haruni CEO: 1:17:26

I am a gin drinker actually, so this is gin. We goes in Altosh, very, very. I wasn't going to be sure there was no. Nobody would mistake that it's not gin so there's a lot of citrus in it a little bit of Zatar, a little bit of what did we put in here, kai?

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 1:17:57

Wormwood Zatar za'atar. A little bit of what did we put in here, guy Wormwood za'atar, native mint juniper that originally we foraged in Mehron but we also now we use commercial organic juniper as well, because it's quite endangered. We use myrtle.

Alex Haruni CEO: 1:18:17

Some lemonade a bit of orange peel, lemon peel.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:18:24

I think that's amazing. High on the juniper, yeah, high on because of the gin. But I think that's like an incredible selling point that you're basically tasting the terroir of, you know of the're basically tasting the terroir, yeah Of you know, of the gene Aladin terroir inspired. Yeah, that's cool.

Alex Haruni CEO: 1:18:42

Yeah, and then we did this project in Tennessee, tennessee.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:18:54

In Kentucky. They put it in barrels in Kentucky.

Alex Haruni CEO: 1:18:56

Yeah, we sent the barrels over and they finished it in our Anna, our liqueur wine, right. So they finished a few batches in barrels that we sent them. Very cool, Just cool.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:19:11

The Anna's fantastic.

Alex Haruni CEO: 1:19:13

Yeah, that's really another hyper limited wine. Really very, very small ventures we make ever since the new packaging.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 1:19:24

It's just, you can't keep it on the shelves and people want it. We just can't make more because it's just. We try to increase the production every year, but it takes many, many, many takes eight or nine years, until we've tried to expedite the production. It just doesn't happen. Work the same it needs.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:19:43

It's that long aging so I I always have a question why in the world would you make champagne? That's what I ask why would you make champagne? I know we're not making it anymore. Okay for prestige, I could see it, but it's so much effort.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 1:20:02

Yeah, it's a lot of effort. It's. It's also a lot of fun, but it's a lot of effort and at the end of the day, I'm not gonna put houses what you call it but have the function I can. How I think, houses that make champagne when you focus on it and when your grapes, all of your vineyards, are made for that. It's just different. It's different logistics, it's a different way of working. It's a lot of work. It's a lot of work. It's a specialized equipment of work. It's a lot of work. This is a specialized equipment you can make. I think it becomes worthwhile when you make tens of thousands of bottles or a few thousands of bottles of it.

Alex Haruni CEO: 1:20:43

No, it's hard to do.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 1:20:46

We started it because it was another thing to try, right we did it for three years and we made a lot of backstock we've got a few thousand bottles sitting on Lees.

Alex Haruni CEO: 1:21:01

We found out that making PETNAT is easier and very, very similar and sells quicker and we can turn over the stock a lot easier.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 1:21:17

And we didn't need as much as specified equipment for it as well.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:21:21

Yeah, because you don't go through the whole, the whole.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 1:21:26

Disgorgement and gorging process. So we know how to make. We've done champagne three years. We know how to make it. Well, I think, I think our it tastes nice. We took a bottle back. Uh, we'll make it whenever we feel like it. You know now, we make it whenever we feel like it. If we run out of stocks, we'll make a little think, because it's a lot of work the advantage of. Very technical.

Alex Haruni CEO: 1:22:07

The advantage of Champagnois is that it hasn't been disgorged. It doesn't go bad. Um champagne was that hasn't been disgorged. It doesn't go bad, you can keep. You can keep it on a. You can keep it on lease for a long, long time.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:22:22

Well, I never thought of that. I never thought of that. That's. That's interesting. I never really thought of that. Yeah, yeah, because actually it benefits to be sitting on the lease. Yeah. It gets it be sitting on the leaf. Yeah, it gets really nice. It's interesting. I also like that you're going to Amphoras for some of the wines. It's kind of the roots of this contract.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 1:22:46

It's something going back to the. It was one of the ideas trying to make wines with ancestral methods.

Alex Haruni CEO: 1:22:54

It's funny, one of the Amphoras that he got from Spain, they come with their little Magen Davidon, yeah, and he asked the family who make them. Why is there a Magen Davidon?

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 1:23:03

They said, well, we've been putting them on for as long as we can remember and it seems that the family who makes them is a family who were crypto-Jews in the 15th century Amphora is Moreno, leon and their last name is Moreno, and Moreno is the name for yeah Jews, crypto Jews, and they have always signed off with a Star of David on their employees.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:23:29

Looking ahead what are your aspirations for Dalton Winery in the next decade?

Alex Haruni CEO: 1:23:36

I want to grow the winery to become bigger. What are your aspirations for Dalton Winery in the next decade? I want to grow the winery to become bigger. I think we're at around 1.3 million at the moment. I want to get to 1.5 million 2 million. I want to be able to focus more in the premium sector. I want to expand our premium wine portfolio. I want to be able, when people say, name the top three wineries in Israel, the Dalton will be in people's tongue. That's my aspiration for the next decade and I think we can get there. I think we're working hard enough and we're making real great efforts in the cellar and in the vineyards. That we'll be able to be where I want to be in a decade.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:24:28

Very cool well, I've only seen it getting better and better and better, so it's really a pleasure. Thank you very, very much for all the time. Both of you.

Guy Eshel Winemaker: 1:24:40

Thank you for coming. Thanks for coming and getting to know us.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:24:43

No, it's a pleasure, really a pleasure. Thank you, it's really nice to meet. Let's talk. Yeah, this is Simon Jacob, again your host of today's episode of The Kosher Terroir. I have a personal request no matter where you are or where you live, please take a moment to pray for our soldiers' safety and the safe and rapid return of our hostages. Soldier 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 Terroir, please check out our many past episodes.