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. Today we uncork one of the most fascinating journeys in the world of wine. My guest is Jeff Morgan, a man whose life reads like a vintage novel Jazz saxophonist in the south of France, wine editor for the Wine Spectator.

S. Simon Jacob: 0:46

Saxophonist in the south of France, wine editor for the Wine Spectator, author of books that helped redefine Rosé and, finally, the co-founder of Covenant Winery, a label that redefined what kosher wine can be. Jeff didn't set out to make kosher wine In fact, he didn't even grow up religious but what started as a tasting of Napa Cabernet, shared with a late friend and visionary, Leslie Rudd, became a mission to prove that kosher wine could stand tall among the world's finest. Whether you're a longtime fan of Jeff's work or just discovering the soulful side of kosher wine, this is one episode you don't want to miss. If you're driving in your car, please focus on the road ahead. If you're home, please pour yourself a glass of wonderful kosher wine and let's dive into the music meaning and mastery behind Covenant wines.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:48

Welcome to The Kosher Terroir

Jeff Morgan: 1:50

wait, aren't you even going to introduce me?

S. Simon Jacob: 2:01

No, okay, welcome, Jeff Morgan from Covenant, and it's a pleasure to have you in Israel. Welcome home to Israel, Welcome Home.

Jeff Morgan: 2:05

Okay, thank you, Simon. It's a pleasure to be back in Israel. I've been gone too long, yeah, and I don't. I'm not going to let that happen again. Okay, please, god.

S. Simon Jacob: 2:19

There's wars, there's plagues, things like that. Some of the things are out of your control. Yeah, okay, yeah so.

Jeff Morgan: 2:29

Well, now I'm just going to have to fly ELAL, because it's the only airline I can count on.

S. Simon Jacob: 2:33

Yeah, not to cancel my flight. A hundred percent, I know so to see, but they've been.

Jeff Morgan: 2:39

you know LL. To their credit, they've improved things, because the last time I flew ELAL I said I'll never fly that airline again. But that was about 10 years ago, it was great.

S. Simon Jacob: 2:53

They have great flights, great service and if you're in business class you get like seven wines that you can select from. You had two.

Jeff Morgan: 2:57

I had Shiloh Chenin Blanc which is quite good.

S. Simon Jacob: 3:01

The Chenin is good.

Jeff Morgan: 3:02

And then we had a Vitkin Pinot Noir. That was excellent. And then I had a couple of scotches, a couple of movies, a couple of sleeping pills and I'm telling you that was the greatest flight.

S. Simon Jacob: 3:14

I always say if the flight's not good, you haven't drunk enough, so it's yeah, All right. You started your career as a saxophonist touring Europe. How did that artistic path shape your journey into wine?

Jeff Morgan: 3:30

That's a great question, is it? Yeah, so here I was a nice Jewish boy with no religious training whatsoever no education. And I moved to France at the age of 19 to study music whatsoever no education. And I moved to France at the age of 19 to study music at the French National Conservatory. And I went for lunch first day of school and they had a canteen where you could go for 50 cents you get 50 cents. It was government subsidized lunch and it was Friday.

Jeff Morgan: 4:08

So it happened to be fish. Because it was Catholic country in those days, it was fish. So I went, there were all these beautiful salads. I took a salad and I went. The fish was the fish with the head on the fish, everything, a whole fish they gave you. Remember, this is 50 cents.

Jeff Morgan: 4:25

Then, after the fish, there was a cheese course, then there was dessert and then there was somebody at the line who I barely understood because my French wasn't very good, and he said, monsieur, oh, that's me. Red or white, it'll cost an extra franc, an extra 25 cents. And I'm thinking red or white, what? And then I realized I saw these little splits of red and white wine and I decided to splurge. I took the white, and if you've ever heard of Dom Perignon and the champagne, Dom Perignon, he tried for years to get the bottles to stay in the bottle without exploding the bottles and he finally succeeded and he made his first successful champagne and he popped the cork and he said I am drinking stars. I had that same experience with one sip of that white wine, one bite of my little fish, when somebody showed me how to eat it, and I saw stars and I realized I'd been eating and drinking badly all my life with my mom God bless her, rest her soul who made spaghetti with ketchup and other specialties of the house that were not particularly good, and we had to drink the milk with that, as a matter of fact, as I recall. So it was an epiphany for me, a culinary epiphany that I did not realize would take me closer to God and Judaism. Wow, so fast forward.

Jeff Morgan: 5:51

I spent the next five years in France learning how to play better music and also learning how to eat better and drink better, and ultimately I became the band leader for the Prince Rainier of Monaco, and I lived in France for quite a few years, and one night I realized that I was more interested in what I was drinking than what I was playing, even though I had this great band. I was making a lot of money and I decided to become a winemaker. And that brought me back to New York, because nobody in France would hire an American saxophone player to become a winemaker. And that brought me back to New York, because nobody in France would hire an American saxophone player to be a winemaker. I didn't know anything about making wine, I just loved to drink it. And I got a job at a little winery in Long Island, new York, worked there for a few years learning how to make wine North Coast, the North Fork, north Fork and after a while I was making so little money at the winery that I went back to being a full-time musician.

Jeff Morgan: 6:50

But I started writing about wine and I got into the New York Times as a writer. The miracles happen. You know, jews, miracles, that's our trademark. And then the editor of the Wine Spectator magazine saw my byline in the New York Times.

Jeff Morgan: 7:11

I had a story on Long Island wines and he called me and he said you know, Jeff Morgan, are you the Jeff Morgan that was making wine in Long Island, that we liked your wines, that you were making recently and I said yeah, and he said, well, we didn't know you You know, I'm a wine writer now and I was getting very excited because the Wine Spectator is my dream, you know, my dream is to write for the Wine Spectator. I'm also a wine writer. They said, we didn't know you were also a wine writer. And I said, well, yeah, I am. And they said we have a story for you. And I said what is it? This was in 19, that January of 1992. He said we'd like you to write about kosher wine for Passover and I said that was a little of my reaction.

Jeff Morgan: 7:52

I started laughing I said what?

S. Simon Jacob: 7:55

Comes back to bite you I said is this a joke?

Jeff Morgan: 8:00

And they said what do you mean? I said, well, I never had a good kosher wine, I haven't had very many and I don't even know anything about kosher wine. And they said the editor, a guy named Tom Matthews. He says but you're Jewish. Right, 30 years ago, 33 years ago, they could say things like you're Jewish. I said, yeah, I'm Jewish, but like no bar mitzvah, no nothing, I don't know anything about this Jewish. But like no bar mitzvah, no nothing, I don't know anything about this. They said it's okay, you just write what you want. Last year we had a non-Jew write the story and we were accused of being anti-Semitic.

Jeff Morgan: 8:32

So this year you're our ace in the hole. Say what you like and we're safe. It's your foot in the door. Morgan, you want to write for the Wine Spectator? So I took it, yeah, took it, and and I, I was completely lost. I didn't even know where to begin. But I I knew that there was some company that sold a lot of kosher wine and it was called Royal Wines. Yep, and I picked up the phone and I called them and I I didn't even know who to call and I said you know, my name is Jeff Morgan, I'm Jewish Doesn't sound Jewish, but I'm Jewish. I'm doing a story for the Wine Spectator. And they said oh, let me pass you to Nathan Herzog. I didn't know who Nathan Herzog was. We now know that he is one of the biggest mockers at the Royal Wine Corporation. So he says well, this is great, but let me pass you to our educator, somebody you know, simon, mr Jay Buxbaum. He will tell you everything you need to know, and more, about kosher wine.

Jeff Morgan: 9:44

And that was really the beginning of my whole thing. Kind of crazy. I never imagined that 10 years later I would be making a wine that has become one of the I think one of the premier kosher wines in the world Covenant. But I had no idea at that time.

S. Simon Jacob: 10:02

So that's actually a question that I have, but I had no idea at that time. So that's actually a question that I have. When you're working on the West Coast for the Wine Spectator, you probably tasted thousands of wines, okay.

Jeff Morgan: 10:13

No, every year I tasted thousands of wines yeah, that's what I mean. But I wasn't at that time. I was still in New York a long island. Okay, all right, they moved me in 1995 to the West Coast, but my job for the first three years was to travel around the world, especially to France, to taste French wines and write stories about French culture, because I was one of the few guys who spoke fluent French. So they took advantage of that and I was happy to go back to France. But what's the question?

S. Simon Jacob: 10:40

No. So the question is what experience, what pivotal experience, made you decide that you want to make your own wines?

Jeff Morgan: 10:48

Well I actually, before I got that job at the Spectator, I was working in a winery in Long Island, so I was making not my wines, but I was a cellar rat and a vineyard and I worked in a vineyard also. So that was a very seminal time for me to learn about winemaking and grape growing. And then, when I moved to California, I I lasted another five years, so eight years totally, with a wine spectator and um, one day I I was getting really bored. Um, you know writing these journalists, you know start recycling their, their articles. I mean, kind of you plagiarize yourself, even if it's not intentional. It's hard, it's hard not to. After a while you do, how many winemakers can you interview? You're probably starting to experience this right now, simon, with your podcast.

Jeff Morgan: 11:32

Yes, and it's like well, I'm really bored, I'm frustrated, I don't want anybody to tell me what to write anymore and I'm going to go back to, I'm going to get out of here and move up to Napa. I was living in San Francisco, so I'm moving to Napa and maybe I'll get a job. I got a job as the wine director for Dina DeLuca, which at the time had a headquarters in Napa, and started making a rosé called Solo Rosa, which was made from bleed. I don't know if everybody listening to this knows what bleed is, but it was pink juice that nobody wanted and I was putting it in barrels and fermenting it and I was making only rosé, solo rosa.

Jeff Morgan: 12:12

I was one of the guys who started the rosé revolution. If we're drinking Odo Mountain right now pink wine it's because solo rosa, which was not kosher and it was not from Israel, it was my California rosé that helped change the world of pink wine, and I can say that because then I wrote a book about it and the French government actually came and invited me to come to France and tell them how to get Americans to buy and drink more rosé.

S. Simon Jacob: 12:40

So the question I was going to say your book on rosé was one of the earliest to treat the category with serious respect. Yeah, why rosé? And why then?

Jeff Morgan: 12:49

Well remember, I was living in Nice, france where rosé is king.

Jeff Morgan: 12:53

So I was drinking a lot of rosé. I didn't know that, yeah, rosé is king in Provence. Nice is in Provence. So I was drinking a lot of rosé and I knew it was good. And then I knew it. I don't know. I just figured nobody else is doing that so I'm going to do it. So first I tried. You know, I was the king of rosé, then I was the king of kosher, it's like. My father was called Hardway Morgan and I think his son has inherited that moniker.

S. Simon Jacob: 13:21

So Because I was going to say at that point in time well, the question I have is has public perception of Rosé finally caught up with what you saw back then?

Jeff Morgan: 13:32

Well, yeah, not only did it catch up, it overwhelmed me. I mean, when I started, nobody was doing this. And then all of a sudden people realized, wait, maybe this is something we can make money at. And I started an organization called RAP, the Rosie Avengers and producers. We had pink outs on the East Coast on the West Coast and we did all sorts of fun stuff and we started with 10 members and then within several years we had 250 members and everybody.

Jeff Morgan: 13:58

You know when you're when you're, you know, yeah, I sound a little full of myself because I say when you're a visionary, you know, when you're, when you're, uh, you know, yeah, I sound a little full of myself because I say when, when you're a visionary, you know, the good news is you're the first one with the idea. But then, once it catches on, um, then you're overcome by all the people who come after you, especially those with bigger, deeper pockets and and uh, we just couldn't keep up with um, we couldn't give up with demand and we couldn't um compete with all of the brands that came out by 2008. Solo rosa was over.

Jeff Morgan: 14:30

However, in 2002 I was up in napa and we had a jewish tasting group and none of us were particularly religious, but we were all jews making some of the most famous wines in napa Silver Oak and Harlan all Jewish winemakers. And we had a little tasting group and we heard that a guy named Elie Ben-Zaken from Dementor Castel was visiting Napa Valley. We invited him to come do a tasting and he brought his I believe it was his 1999 Castel Grand Vin for us to taste and it was absolutely delicious. And two of us there, myself and my late partner, leslie Rudd, who had a very famous vineyard in Napa Rudd Vineyard. We looked at each other and we thought, gee, maybe we can make a great Napa Valley Cabernet like this and as good as Castel. And that was the beginning of Covenant. It was kind of on a lark and the odd thing is that that wine wasn't kosher. The first vintage of Castel kosher was 2002.

S. Simon Jacob: 15:38

Yeah, 2002 was half a year and 2003 was the first full year. Well, 2002.

Jeff Morgan: 15:44

We're tasting is 1999. And 2003 was the first full year. Well, 2002 we're tasting is 1999, which was fully not kosher.

S. Simon Jacob: 15:51

But we were so clueless we thought it was kosher because it was from.

Jeff Morgan: 15:53

Israel. It's Israel, jews Israel. So it's ironic that my entire kosher program and my newly found relatively newly found connection to Israel came from a wine that I thought was kosher from Israel. That wasn't kosher. Ellie knows this and I think we both get a chuckle out of it when I bring it up.

S. Simon Jacob: 16:13

So I'm told and I'm not positive that it's factual that Covenant was born in 2003 from a single barrel of Napa Cabernet.

Jeff Morgan: 16:23

False.

S. Simon Jacob: 16:24

What False False See.

Jeff Morgan: 16:26

Yeah, who told you that I?

S. Simon Jacob: 16:27

don't know. That was the story that I heard.

Jeff Morgan: 16:33

No, what happened was I wanted to use Leslie's grapes because he had this very famous vineyard, fantastic Cabernet and I said so, let's start with your grapes, les, because Les was a very wealthy man and he had this kind of an empire. And he said are you kidding? What? If you screw it up, it's going to be the worst kosher wine in 5,000 years from Rudd Vineyard. And I said well, what do you want to do? He said well, you find another vineyard, we'll buy those grapes and we'll start with that and see how you do so. That other vineyard we can, we'll buy those grapes and we'll start with that and see how you do so.

Jeff Morgan: 17:04

That other vineyard was a very famous vineyard called larkmead which, until the for several years prior to 2003, had gone into the rudd wines because rudd had been replanting his vines and so he had been using the larkmead grapes. And the winemaker at Rudd at the time was a guy named David Ramey, who's a very close friend of mine and a great winemaker. And Dave told me that Larkmead was going to need to sell those grapes because Rudd was no longer buying them. So I did a deal with the owners of Larkmead and that deal lasted, I think, for 10 years I sourced grapes from their vineyard, from a single block there. So it wasn't a single barrel, it was a single parcel, it was a single parcel. And it happens to be. When I finally bailed on that parcel, only because I hated the owner and I didn't want to deal with them anymore. It was fantastic grapes. They started using my parcel for their top of the line wine. So anyway, but we were very fortunate to start with some terrific grapes. So we started. I think we made actually I know exactly what we did we did 14 tons the first year. 14 tons is a lot more than one barrel. Yes, you know, you get I don't know, maybe it's you get about two barrels per ton. So per ton, so it's about 28 to 30 barrels. Right, and I needed Shomer Shabbat hands. There were none at the time in Napa.

Jeff Morgan: 18:32

So I had a meeting with Nathan Herzog of Royal Wine Corporation prior to the harvest, prior to starting the project, and I said, nathan, I have this idea I want to make the greatest kosher wine in 5,000 years. And we were having a dinner in a restaurant in New York and I told them this. And then I burst into tears, crying, really sobbing, and it surprised me, it surprised Nathan. And he goes like what are you, m? Are you my sugar? What's the problem, jeff? And I said I don't know. I said, nathan, I just, you know, I wasn't expecting to start crying. I was trying to get you to let me use your winery to make my kosher wine, and so you can do that as long as you let me be your distributor in new york and new jersey. And I said, great.

Jeff Morgan: 19:19

But I think in retrospect we look back and we know that that was the beginning, the door opening to Jeff Morgan and his family, to Judaism, which I hadn't really thought much about up until that moment. Wow, it's kind of all on a dare that this started. I don't think you can do it. I knew you could do it because I knew from writing about. I wrote about kosher wine for the Spectator. For eight years. Every year I had to write that kosher wine for Passover.

Jeff Morgan: 19:52

So I knew you just make kosher wine like regular wine. You just don't work on Shabbat and other holy days and you've got to have so many Shabbat hands. I've made Covenant the way I've made any other non-kosher wines, so I knew we could do it, and we did so.

S. Simon Jacob: 20:06

Covenant set out to elevate kosher wine to kind of world-class standards, I believe. What was the initial reaction from the kosher and non-kosher worlds?

Jeff Morgan: 20:18

So I mean in retrospect, okay, we set out to elevate kosher wine. I think that is a bit pretentious.

Jeff Morgan: 20:30

A little bit of puss, that wasn't really we just wanted to make a great kosher wine from Napa and I think it was more about respect. You know, like, okay, I've been writing about kosher wines. Everybody denigrated them. A lot of them were not so good, but there were some really good ones too. I knew this after all those years of writing about kosher, so it was more of a a quest for parody, so to speak. I mean, I'd spent by that time.

Jeff Morgan: 20:57

I spent 20 years tasting the greatest wines in the world, from Chateau Petrus to DRC. I mean, I've tasted the greatest, greatest not kosher wines made anywhere in the world. And my goal was to make wines that approach that kind of quality and keep it kosher. That was the goal and I think we've been successful, because we don't succeed every vintage to the same level, but some of our wines are as good as the greatest wines I've ever had. And if we don't get 100 points from various pundits, it's only because anti-Semitism is still rife in the, even among Jewish wine writers. Nobody can believe it. So they give us 96, they give us 95, they give us 94, but God forbid, they should give us the 100 points we deserve for 100.1. And they don't yet, and maybe they never will, but it's okay.

S. Simon Jacob: 21:49

So, going back to your comment that you didn't grow up religious, but kosher winemaking became a major part of your life. What prompted that personal and professional shift?

Jeff Morgan: 22:01

Well, it was kind of that story I said the tasting with Castel Yep Right there with you know, it's like Elie was there he didn't know it.

Jeff Morgan: 22:09

But I mean, I kind of we were talking to, I'm kind of doing sotto voce to Leslie Rudd, I'm going do you think we can make something this good, you know, keep a kosher out of Napa. And it was kind of like, well, yeah, let's try to do that. And I really wanted to make Cabernet Napa Valley Cabernet, not kosher, just any Napa Valley Cabernet. I was living in there. Napa Cabernet is the most famous of all their varietals and we argued for a full year From 2022 to 2023, we argued about this and I said I really don't want to make kosher and he said, yeah, yeah, we can do this. And I thought, okay, we're going to do it. And so that was the pivotal. It was kind of like the only way I could get started was to keep it kosher. I wasn't religious at all. I'd never gone to synagogue in my life. In fact, I didn't join a synagogue until I was 60.

S. Simon Jacob: 23:05

Was that Castile wine really good?

Jeff Morgan: 23:08

Yeah, it was good enough to inspire us to try to make something equally good from Napa. I've had some phenomenally good Castile over the years.

S. Simon Jacob: 23:15

Me too, yeah, me too. At my daughter's wedding recently, I had a Magnum of 2003 cab and it was just great.

Jeff Morgan: 23:30

It was just wonderful, and I think Castel maybe has possibly the most beautiful winery in Israel. I'm terribly jealous. What can I say? I want that winery.

S. Simon Jacob: 23:39

I know you could eat off the barrel room floor. You know it's crazy, I love it. Yeah, so that I mean that winery. I know you could eat off the barrel room floor. You know it's crazy, I love it.

Jeff Morgan: 23:45

So I mean, that's how it all happened. It was kind of certainly not planned. And then what happened is, you know, I was bringing my wines, driving my grapes, down in a big truck to Herzog's winery down in Southern California, yeah, working with his very dedicated they're a very dedicated team of cellar guys who were Shabbat. And you know there were two rules. One rule is I can't touch the wine. The other rule is they couldn't touch the wine unless I'm there. So, because I want to make sure they do it my way and not whatever other way they might do it, so we, you know.

Jeff Morgan: 24:21

So I spent a lot of time with them during harvest and I watched them do things I'd never heard of something called Menchah, something called Marav, something called Tehillim. They were reading I don't know all this stuff and I realized I really don't know anything about what it means to be Jewish. I know nothing. And that was, I guess, the first year I realized that maybe I should learn something I didn't know. The covenant was going to be so well known, but I had a feeling that if I was going to become a kosher winemaker, I better know something about Judaism. So I started learning.

S. Simon Jacob: 25:00

I was going to ask how did the Jewish tradition evolve along with your wine journey?

Jeff Morgan: 25:04

I think it was really inspired by the guys in the cellar at Hertzog Wine Cellars. Originally, jonathan Haydu was there, the Weiss brothers were there, all these guys and a guy named Josh Goodman was there. Josh is fantastic. We're still working for Royal, but he's not in the cellar there. All these guys really were inspirations to me when it comes to getting more connected to Jewish tradition and I'm very grateful for that. Nathan Herzog, very, very instrumental in keeping me connected as well.

S. Simon Jacob: 25:46

Have you found that you've got an increasing number of non-kosher wine consumers buying Covenant? I don't know how you know that.

Jeff Morgan: 25:55

I'd like to think we do, but when we sell a bottle of wine, we don't ask are you Jewish? You're not Jewish, so we have no idea. I suspect that maybe 80% of our customers, or more, are observant. I think non-observant Jews might dispute this, but they're our worst customers because they can't believe koshers. They're the only ones who really don't believe kosher can be good. Are the guys, are the non?

Jeff Morgan: 26:24

the secular Jews who will spend a thousand two thousand dollars on a bottle of Petrus, but, god forbid, they should ask, pay 200 bucks for a bottle of Covenant. No, there's no way it could be that good, but they don't know, they're clueless, whereas you, at super famous restaurants like the French Laundry, they just bought a case of our Syrah from the Biennacido Vineyard. There are plenty of famous non-kosher restaurants. We're by the glass at some super famous restaurants in San Francisco, so nobody knows that the wine's kosher. In those restaurants it's not marked. There's no billboards flashing kosher, kosher. So I think people drink our wine they don't know. Which is fine with me.

S. Simon Jacob: 27:11

Covenant once had a thriving Israeli wine operation. Looking back, what did that chapter mean to you and the winery?

Jeff Morgan: 27:20

Whoa, that's a big question, I know. So why did we come to Israel? In 2011,? Leslie Rudd, my late partner, and I we had become, thanks to people like Robert Parker, who wrote the Covenant's, the greatest kosher wine on planet Earth. We became pretty famous, at least pretty well known in secular and religious circles Actually, more in the secular world, because the religious people didn't even read Robert Parker because he's reading. 99% of the wines reviewed by Robert Parker were not kosher. So, but we became pretty well known and I don't know, around 2010, 2011, les and I said gee, you know, maybe we should go to Israel, maybe we should like see what's going on over there.

Jeff Morgan: 28:04

I came to Israel for a month when I was 19. On my way to France, I stopped in Israel. It was 1973. I got out just before the war broke out, not knowing there was going to be a war and Les hadn't been back for 20, 30 years either. So I came to Israel.

Jeff Morgan: 28:17

I have family here, saw my family and looked around, went up to the Golan, went up to Galil. Particularly in the Galil, where there's a lot of red soils and a lot of limestone, I was thinking, wow, this looks just like the Rhone Valley and it looks like parts of Napa. I mean, this is a great place to grow grapes, and, of course, it's a great place to grow grapes because this is where it started I mean here and then other areas right around here thousands of years ago. And so then I thought in my mind, I thought you know, why are we not making wine here? We're Jews, I mean sure, we're Americans, we live in California, but this is really our homeland. We should make wine here. So we started here in 2013 with my dear friend, the winemaker Ari Earl, who's still here. He makes wine for Bacelomo and some other wineries.

S. Simon Jacob: 29:09

We just had a rosé by him last night.

Jeff Morgan: 29:11

He makes a nice Debuki also, and I think that might be his own label.

S. Simon Jacob: 29:16

Yeah, it was, it was his own label.

Jeff Morgan: 29:18

And anyway. So Ari had been living in Napa and we knew each other from Napa Valley, so I knew he was here and so we hooked up. I said look, you want to make wine with me here? I got to make wine here. So we started in Israel. We started with three barrels in 2013, which we made at Bachelon. Not at Bachelon, we made it at Jezreel, because Ari was their winemaker at the time also, and I made the first couple of vintages at Jezreel. And then I moved up to Adir, up in the Galil, where they had more space, because we were growing and I was sourcing grapes from different vineyards, most notably at Sivon, which is a biodynamic vineyard not far from the Dalton wine groups. Yeah, it's just north of the Tanajish.

Jeff Morgan: 30:09

And our blocks were bombed in the last year, yeah, but in any case, so you know, I thought, well, I make wine in California, I can make wine here. And we did. We made wine using my methods. I was going back and forth, I was here, believe it or not, I was here like four months a year, but you know, two weeks, three weeks at a time, then back to California. It was kind of exhausting, but it was very exciting and, of course, getting to know Israel from a viticultural perspective as well as a cultural perspective was, for me, very exciting.

Jeff Morgan: 30:43

We became Israeli citizens three or four years ago, as Jodi did. My daughter, zoe, was living here. She'd gone to the University of Haifa and eventually married her Israeli boyfriend, and Zoe worked with us as long as we were operating here, and now she's working with us in our California winery and it was just awesome. And I, you know I have so many good friends here who are winemakers and connected to the wine business. I feel, uh, and I haven't been back for three years, which is partly because of the war, partly because whatever we got you know there's covid and yeah, so, um, but I feel very connected to israeli wine, even though and here's what happened. Uh, basically, we just had a lot of trouble. Um, cost, the cost of making wine here is not necessarily more than it is in the states, but I don't didn't have my own winery here, so I couldn't control my costs. Uh, the way I can control them. Um, you know, with my own space, my own winery here, so I couldn't control my costs. Uh, the way I can control them. Um, you know, with my own space, my own, my own crew, um, there are just uh economies of scale that work really well when you control your winemaking space, and if you don't, every bottle costs you a lot. We just couldn't make enough profit, even though we sold a lot of our wine to the states. And then we finally, after about six, seven years, people started to believe me that when I said, yeah, I really, I really believe in israeli wine. And so we were doing very well in tel aviv in the uh restaurant scene here, secular restaurant scene, uh. But then um, covid came in, killed the restaurant scene, so we had, like two years, no income whatsoever from, you know, israel, practically, and it was a challenge selling enough wine making and selling enough wine in america. So we for our israeli products. So we just in 2021.

Jeff Morgan: 32:34

I tearfully listened to my wife and my cfo here and we realized we're just going to go way, broker, than we already are here in israel and we had to stop and I didn't want to. I still don't want to and if anybody listening to this podcast very important here this is the most important part of the podcast. If you know anybody with seven to ten million dollars, I have a spot that's for sale. I know where it is. I can tell anybody and I know where I want to build that winery that I never was able to raise enough money for here in Israel. So I'm still trying to do it and I want to build my winery and plant my vineyard here in Israel.

S. Simon Jacob: 33:10

So you still think there's potential for world-class kosher wine from Israel? When you're talking about potential, come on, sam, I love it. No, no, I'm asking you. You've been in California. You've been in wine for almost all your life. I've tasted more wine and reviewed.

Jeff Morgan: 33:27

I've made so many people rich at the Wine Spectator. I know what good wine tastes like all over the world. In fact, nobody, Not one winemaker on planet Earth, has tasted and reviewed as much wine as I have.

S. Simon Jacob: 33:40

Okay, I've got a master's of wine.

Jeff Morgan: 33:42

I mean, you know they've also tasted a lot of wine and I respect them for that. But I know what great wine tastes like. Sometimes we make great wine too. It has nothing to do with whether it's kosher or Israeli or whatever it's like. You get a good vineyard and you don't screw it up and you make awesome wine. So yeah, but the only thing missing from my equation here is that I just I didn't start with enough money. You know, it's true what they say about the wine business you make a small fortune, you start with a large fortune. Well, I didn't start with a small fortune. I started with, like a bank loan in Israel and in America as well, and I just we just couldn't make it work fiscally. But I haven't given up, I'm just kind of. You know, let's talk about old Jews who made it late in life Moshe, he started kind of late. There are others who got a late start Akiva, he didn't start what like 46 when he got started.

S. Simon Jacob: 34:40

Yeah 40. 40, I don't know 40 when he started. It's a little bit, I know he's done.

Jeff Morgan: 34:46

Yeah, so we can do this. You know, I just need the money because I'm not coming back without having enough money. It costs a lot of money to get started.

S. Simon Jacob: 34:55

There you go, so you've worked closely with your wife, jodi. Yeah, co-authoring cookbooks Ten Building compliments Ten cookbooks Ten.

Jeff Morgan: 35:04

Wow, Because that's what you've got to do when you're not making enough money in the beginning selling the wine.

S. Simon Jacob: 35:10

So what's the secret to that creative and marital partnership?

Jeff Morgan: 35:15

Ah, that's an excellent question that I will answer, because Jodi doesn't have a mic, even though she's in the room here listening. You could wear mine, I don't mind, I have a great answer.

S. Simon Jacob: 35:23

I don't care, it's a good answer.

Jeff Morgan: 35:26

So you know, a lot of people say, oh, how can you work together? Well, I think what makes a great marriage is having shared vision, shared goals, and that could be your children, your family. I think that's shared vision. And I think for Jodi and me, jodi and I didn't always work together, but after about a year or two of trying to run Covenant by myself, back in, say, 2004,. 2005,. I really needed Jodi was a social worker and then she was an executive director for a fruit and wine organization in the States that was founded by Julia Child and Robert Mondavi. So she was very busy. But I said, honey, I need help and she graciously agreed to stop doing her other things to help me run Covenant, which she has done, thank God, for the last almost 20 years. And it gives us a shared goal in life to make it work, to make it sing, to make it successful. And so you know, we don't come home, we don't leave the house in the morning, go off to work and then come back and say, well, how was your day, honey?

S. Simon Jacob: 36:42

We know how our day was, because we lived it together.

Jeff Morgan: 36:45

She's got the big office at the winery. I have a smaller office.

S. Simon Jacob: 36:50

You're out in the vineyards, I'm out in the vineyards a lot.

Jeff Morgan: 36:54

So anyway, it's great. I think that if you like your work, you like the vision. Even though it's challenging, it's hard, I think the work has brought us closer together and so I'm very grateful for that.

S. Simon Jacob: 37:15

Your daughter, zoe, has taken on a growing role at Covenant. What's it like to see the next generation step in?

Jeff Morgan: 37:23

Well, it's fantastic. I mean, Zoe is now the general manager at Covenant and that's very important. She kind of keeps everything moving smoothly. She has to deal with personalities and logistics and all sorts of stuff, and she does a great job at that. She grew up in the wine business, she grew up in Napa Valley. She grew up she also speaks fluent Hebrew. She's Israeli and so and she speaks, by extension, fluent Jewish. She gets our people, our customers, who come in various sizes, shapes, colors and perspectives, and she's invaluable, uh, in terms of running covenant, along with our other, the other members of our, of our team.

Jeff Morgan: 38:10

But I, uh, I hope that my kids my other daughter is a, her sister, sky is in the restaurant business.

Jeff Morgan: 38:17

She's the publicist for a small restaurant group called the French Laundry Restaurant Group, which is actually a very big restaurant group in America. So both of them are into food and wine and I hope that they will continue to do so and maybe take Covenant to an even higher level, along with our fabulous crew, which includes the famous Jonathan Haydu, who's been making wine with me for 20 years, 21 years and who has his own brand, as you know, haydu Wines, and Segi Kleinlerer, who is our managing director, and he has his own brand now, which just became kosher Kleinlerer, really, yeah, and both of them make their wines at Covenant, so that's kind of cool. And then we have just an awesome group in the cellar Nomi Furman, who is our, who is our oenologist Dashiell what's Dashiell's last name? What is it? Dashiell Ferguson, who is the master of piping the right music into the cellar to work, and also who's a terrific. He's basically the cellar master. And then, of course, we're losing.

S. Simon Jacob: 39:32

we're losing Nelly Sagi who's been with us for three years three years.

Jeff Morgan: 39:39

yeah, this is Israel's gain and covenant's loss, and anybody who needs a really great hands-on Shomer Shabbat cellar worker should not hesitate for a moment to hire Nelly Segev, who knows all my secrets and who will be here in July. He's moving back home to Israel, so what else?

S. Simon Jacob: 40:04

so you recently returned to music with your band free run and love the name, by the way. Yeah, how was we?

Jeff Morgan: 40:14

yeah, I love it my wife is just kibitzing here. She's reminding me that all of my best ideas come from Jody, including the name Free Run, which is a reference to the first wine that we let flow out of the tanks after fermentation. It's the best wine. It's not the press wine, it's the free run, it's the free run.

S. Simon Jacob: 40:35

How has that reconnecting with jazz influenced your day-to-day life as a winemaker?

Jeff Morgan: 40:40

Well, it hasn't. What it has is influenced my day-to-day life, because then I have to practice every day.

S. Simon Jacob: 40:48

I thought it was a way you could let off steam.

Jeff Morgan: 40:51

Well, you know what it is. It's kind of like covenant. What does covenant mean? Covenant is about a connection, okay, connection to each other, or us, god, religion, our heritage All that stuff is about connection. Well, the saxophone I had not played for nearly 20, 25 years. I stopped playing because I got busy with wine and during COVID, when I had time on my hands, I thought maybe I should start to play again. So the horn reconnected me to something I loved and I had forgotten how much I loved. So we have incorporated some really interesting wine tastings into the music.

Jeff Morgan: 41:35

For example two years ago we did a concert with some of my old buddies who are super famous musicians now and we did a concert at City Winery in New York where we did, in addition to the concert, we did 20 vintages. We poured 20 vintages, every vintage, practically of Covenant. That was really cool and we filled the room 200 people. I don't think they came for my saxophone playing, but it's okay, I play pretty well but they came for the wine and that was a lot of fun. Are you going to repeat it again, maybe? I mean, it's not so easy to get a room at the City Winery, it's a pretty expensive venue. We also did a concert in Paris last year that was a lot of fun, at a jazz club where I think they had some of our wines, which was good, and we have concert series at the winery where I just played.

Jeff Morgan: 42:25

One night, about two weeks ago, I played a gig with my quartet, with the Free Run Quartet, and that was a lot of fun drinking Covenant. So somehow we try to connect them. But I wouldn't say that the wine is. It is somewhat of a spiritual pursuit, just like the wine is, and it's an aesthetic pursuit, just like the wine is. So in that way I would say they're related.

S. Simon Jacob: 42:55

Okay, any new directions or projects? Exciting you at Covenant.

Jeff Morgan: 43:03

Twist my arm. Let me tell you about it. Oh please, I'd love it. So have you heard of the Black Label? Yes, I have actually.

S. Simon Jacob: 43:11

I've heard only great things about it. So the Black Label.

Jeff Morgan: 43:13

So you know the Black Label is. For years people have been asking me to make Mavushal wine and we finally succumbed to the Mavushal requests. I don't know, maybe seven, eight years ago, to the Mabuchal requests I don't know, maybe seven, eight years ago we were using something called flash detente, which is used by a lot of wineries in California to heat the grapes before fermentation and then you don't have to heat the wine. Okay, it's not very nice, it denatures the tannins a bit in the reds, but it's good enough.

Jeff Morgan: 43:44

But that wasn't our top-of-the-line wine and our business partner, jeff Rochwarger who lives in Beth Shemesh, by the way, and who took over after Leslie Rudd died and became our partner and has basically been an extraordinary support for us in the six or seven years since Leslie died. So Jeff is a wine lover, obviously. And he said you know you, really you got to make a high-end Mabuchel. And I said ah, come on, jeff, you know we're making Mashiach wine here. We want Mashiach. We want our best wines to be like, not Mabuchel, because that's what we're going to give to Mashiach.

Jeff Morgan: 44:25

And Jeff said well, there's a market for high-end mabuchal. Do you think you can do it? And I said I can't do it with a splash detente. So I went back to the drawing board with Jonathan Hadu and Jonathan, who's a really good tinkerer inventor, he created a new mabuchalizer for us, a new mabuchalizing machine, which is just awesome. It's very small. It's only about I don't know, maybe three feet four feet long and maybe two feet high. We are able to push the wine through it, heat it super fast and get it out of there, cool it down really fast. And we did an experiment with high-end Cabernet and to my surprise we discovered that this Mabuchalizer softens the tannins a little bit and heightens the fruit quality, so it actually makes a younger Cabernet taste pretty damn good.

S. Simon Jacob: 45:16

You're the second winemaker who's told me that, so yeah, so I was kind of surprised.

Jeff Morgan: 45:24

And then Wow. So then we also make Pinot Noir. But we make a Pinot Noir with our Lanzmann line, which is a club wine which is not sold in retail shops, but I wanted to try it with Pinot anyway. So we use some of our Pinot and we mouvouchalize the Pinot and we also noticed it was pretty good. So what are you going to? What are we going to call it? Because I don't want it to have the same label as the Covenant Regula, right, regula and Mabushel. The same label would be confusing. So we decided we kept the logo, the Covenant logo, we kept the gold. But then I was thinking what is like an immediate, immediate eye catcher, immediately recognizable as quality? And I'm thinking well, there's Johnny Walker Black Label, it's going to be Covenant Black Label and, by the way, covenant Black Label came out way before the Carmel Black Label.

S. Simon Jacob: 46:24

I'm sorry, really, I already saw that, but the good news is that my Black Label costs $100 more than Carmel's black label.

Jeff Morgan: 46:31

So how about that, guys? Yeah, and our black label is at the top of the spectrum and we have. Last year I lost a Petit Syrah vineyard that was going into most of which was going into our Red Sea blend. So I was looking around for another vineyard and I found a vineyard right next to the Matanzas Creek Winery which came out with the first $250 Merlot in California about 20 years ago Very famous vineyard for Merlot. And this vineyard is right next to Matanzas Creek and they didn't have a buyer and I said, well, I'll take those grapes. I don't know what I was going to get out of it.

Jeff Morgan: 47:15

The grapes are extraordinarily good and we decided that they're so good that we're coming out with a black label Merlot and we're bottling it in July. So we'll have the black label Pinot Noir, black label Merlot and the black label Cabernet, and none of it is Napa anymore. But it's just awesome quality, very, very fine vineyards from Sonoma. All of them are from Sonoma and I'm really excited about this. Now we're still making our flagship Napa, not Mabushal Cabernet and the Solomon, which is even more expensive, and I'm proud of those as well. But I'm really happy that the diners in kosher restaurants and also at Sim Khaz, where they actually want to spend real money on real wine, have our black label available. Then we have a, you know? So we have a bubbly, that's also a babushal and that's our. Okay which one? I'm getting prompts here, so it's ever loud.

S. Simon Jacob: 48:22

That's why she's here.

Jeff Morgan: 48:23

Wait, you think I was going to forget about this. So that's the next project. This is very exciting. By the way, we didn't talk about our brandy, which is the double-edged sword brandy, which we started making about four or five years ago. Okay, it's pretty expensive, but it's way better than the crappy, crappy cognac that I see a lot of people drinking, that's artificially colored, not made with good grapes and just not worthy At $350 a bottle. Thank you very much. I'll pass, but our wine, the Double-Edged Sword, very simply made Chenin Blanc, distilled aged two years in covenant barrels, tastes pretty damn good and I defy anybody to tell me it's not better than your overpriced cognacs that people are buying because they think cognac is good. So the double-edged sword is what? 175 bucks in the states, and, yeah, you're not going to drink a lot of it. It's a lot of money to me that's my go-to during pesach that's right.

Jeff Morgan: 49:21

Listen, I drink a lot of scotch too, okay I drink a lot of scotch, but I'm a cognac yeah, we were at a pesach, we were at a.

Jeff Morgan: 49:28

We were at at a Pesach week at a resort in Cancun this year and they just like drink that stuff like it's water. It's very smooth. But anyway, the next newest exciting project is just starting to come to fruition because we spent the last eight months trying to get the licensing for it, and it's our Woodacre Spirits program. That is a joint venture with the great Jonathan Haydu and Covenant Winery, so we're partners in this, and Jonathan is you know, he loves distillation, he loves to distill things, and so Is it vermouth or something distillation.

S. Simon Jacob: 50:09

He loves to distill things, and so Is it vermouth or something.

Jeff Morgan: 50:11

No, he makes a vermouth, but we're probably, maybe we'll make a vermouth, a dry vermouth. He makes a sweet vermouth, which is not appropriate for this Right. But so we're coming out with gin. Everything we'll make will be Kosher L'Pesach, except the whiskey that we're going to do also. So the gin and the vodka we're going to do in-house, and the gin is made with herbs and botanicals that we harvest ourselves in the hills of the town of Woodacre, which is in the mountains just before you get to the Pacific Ocean, in the village of Woodacre, and so we've decided to call this brand Woodacre and it's really good. And we're going to also eventually come out with a most likely Kentucky bourbon that will be aging in Covenant Barrels. We'll have to source it out of Kentucky and eventually we'll get to the mezcal also. So we'll have four new spirits. They will not be stupid, expensive, but they'll be very affordable. Yeah.

S. Simon Jacob: 51:22

Wow.

Jeff Morgan: 51:22

Yeah, so that's going to happen soon.

S. Simon Jacob: 51:26

Talking along those lines. Are there any varietals or styles that you've always wanted to experiment with but haven't been able to?

Jeff Morgan: 51:34

Well, how about the ones that I always that I've been experimenting with, that I'm crazy about, like the Viognier that we?

S. Simon Jacob: 51:39

made in Israel.

Jeff Morgan: 51:41

And so when we came, when we stopped making wine in Israel, I thought I've got to make Viognier. And I found a really great small Viognier vineyard in Lodi California, and so we were we're on our we started with that, next to the Zinfandel.

Jeff Morgan: 51:51

Yeah, well, it's near the Zinfandel and we started with 150 cases that sold out immediately and then we went to 300 cases that sold out way fast. Last year we did 450 cases. I don't know if I'm are quite good I also. What else do I want to? What else is unusual that we do? I love Chenin Blanc and we made some extraordinary Chenin Blanc, one of my favorites For our Double-Edged Sword Spirits program. But the problem was was it was so good that he didn't want to distill it all, so he kept some back and we bottled it and I couldn't sell it. Nobody wanted it, so I drank most of it myself. It was fantastic.

Jeff Morgan: 52:43

I don't know what's wrong with it. Anyway, I'm not ready to start up with Shannon, but I love Shannon and maybe I'll I love it as well.

S. Simon Jacob: 52:48

It's becoming popular here now. Yeah, what's wrong with it? Anyway, I'm not ready to start up with Shannon, but I love Shannon and maybe I'll I love it as well. So I don't know. It's becoming popular here now. Yeah, I know it's becoming popular. I told you.

Jeff Morgan: 52:55

I had Amichai Lurie's Shannon Blanc on the plane coming over here from Shiloh.

S. Simon Jacob: 53:01

It was fantastic. I had it with half a week ago. Are there any of your wines that you don't feel get enough?

Jeff Morgan: 53:13

correct attention from consumers, that's a good question.

Jeff Morgan: 53:17

I think that Syrah is still not getting the respect it deserves, although we make three Syrahs and they all sell pretty well. But when confronted with an $80 Syrah and $120 Cabernet, most people will go for the Cabernet. And I look at them and I say what's wrong with this picture? Syrah is an extraordinary grape. Some of the greatest red wines in the world are made from Syrah in Israel, which I think is the superior red grape in Israel. Don't talk to me about Arguman. It's very nice but it doesn't even come close.

S. Simon Jacob: 53:54

Just be patient. Everything takes time. No, no, no, I know, I know, I know what you're saying.

Jeff Morgan: 53:59

It's very nice. No, no, no, forget it Okay.

S. Simon Jacob: 54:02

I hear you, I hear Maybe they're right.

Jeff Morgan: 54:06

Wine is definitely made in the winery and not in the vineyard. Let's remember that.

S. Simon Jacob: 54:10

That's a question I normally ask.

Jeff Morgan: 54:12

Well it's totally made in the winery, because you can have really great grapes come out of a vineyard and one yucky winemaker screws it up and the other does a great job with it. So where was that wine? Where did it achieve its potential? In the winery. Now, it's very hard to make a great wine from mediocre grapes. I'll give you that, but that's obvious. But it's made in the winery and don't let anybody tell you otherwise. But it's nice to start with really good quality grapes. I'll give you that and the.

Jeff Morgan: 54:40

Argumon, it's nothing. I don't think Argumon is a good grape. It's a very good.

S. Simon Jacob: 54:45

I'm not saying that. I just haven't had any that was that moved the needle at all. Beyond just being beautiful colors, it's like Zinfandel.

Jeff Morgan: 54:54

I like Zinfandel, but I don't think Zinfandel can ever achieve the same greatness as Syrah or Cabernet. When we make Zinfandel, it's my, it's my go-to least expensive wine.

S. Simon Jacob: 55:03

It's easy to drink, it's lovely, but any updated feelings about Mavushel that you talked about? Yeah, great surprises.

Jeff Morgan: 55:12

We make 20 wines at Covenant Wow.

S. Simon Jacob: 55:15

Yeah, 20. I didn't realize that, yeah.

Jeff Morgan: 55:17

And six or seven of them are here are still sold here in Israel. I don't have any Mavushel wine here, but I think it's coming. We make a really nice, less expensive Cabernet, uh, called the tribe. Yeah, um, tribe cabernet, it's very nice, and, uh, we make a tribe chardonnay. That, I think, is like really fantastic. Reminds me of really good chablis from france, both mouche wines and they're, you know, 30, 30, 30, 35 dollar wines in the states. So they are quite affordable. But just because I think we can mabouchalize successfully, my basic wine philosophy is not interventionist, so we don't add any yeast, we don't add anything really you don't add yeast.

S. Simon Jacob: 56:03

Why would I add yeast? I'm asking.

Jeff Morgan: 56:05

No, I'm not adding yeast. Actually I was, was just harassing you there. We don't add yeast because I'm not a chicken shit winemaker. Okay, okay, that's very simple. Okay, okay, you know, when I started, I was using yeast uh, commercial yeast, commercial kosher yeast because I was terrified of, like, stuck ferments or whatever. And uh, in 2008, my friend and mentor, david Ramey, who was a pioneer of indigenous yeast winemaking in California and who taught me how to make wine, basically said to me Jeff, how come you're not using native yeast? Really, try it.

Jeff Morgan: 56:43

It's a slower ferment and it gives you, I think, more complexity. You can buy yeast. It's going to give you more bananas or more apples, or more red fruit or more, you know. Whatever it's going to go faster. It's going to go slower because all these yeasts have been developed in laboratories to do certain things. Or you can use yeast from Hashem. The yeast from Hashem, which basically native yeast, comes in. Either it comes in from the vineyards, it's on the skins, maybe it's overwintering in the winery, I don't know. We don't know where it comes from, but it works really well. So in 2008, I started and I haven't used it.

S. Simon Jacob: 57:18

I haven't looked back everything we do is native yeast so I want to tell you something. The comments I get from people that I hear from people about your wines are definitely showing an increase of complexity, so maybe that's what's been precise.

Jeff Morgan: 57:36

Well, we ferment. We have changed our winemaking protocols over the years, so, in addition to native yeast, I've started fermenting at cooler temperatures than I used to. I used to let it go a little warmer and then at the end I would raise the temperature in my tanks and, you know, give it a to try to get more extraction. And then I've I've decided I don't like that extraction, I like something that's more elegant and perhaps more complex, and so we keep it. Um, you know, around 78, 80 degrees, uh, fahrenheit. So I find you get a slower ferment, you get the native yeast and you get more levels of complexity. I don't have some like menu that I follow. I don't really know why it comes out tasting good almost all the time. I don't know why I learned how to make wine from David Ramey and another guy named Michel Roulon.

S. Simon Jacob: 58:37

Okay, yeah, slightly famous person.

Jeff Morgan: 58:41

And these guys were very generous and shared their so-called secrets with me Not secrets, really, but their techniques. Yeah, you know, if you get good grapes and you just let it happen and you control the temperature of your ferment native yeast, you can make some pretty good wine.

Jeff Morgan: 59:00

So, not too much oak. I don't like to have too much new oak, except a few of our grapes Like my. Syrah is like 75% new oak and a Solomon can be 75% new oak, but typically it's 20% to 30% new oak. If that much Red Sea has no new oak, okay.

S. Simon Jacob: 59:18

You've worn many hats musician, author, editor, winemaker. What do you consider your greatest legacy?

Jeff Morgan: 59:28

Well, I do think and it was not necessarily intentional, but I do think that I, along with a number of my colleagues, like Elie Benzacan, we have raised the bar for kosher wine, wine and, um, we have given our uh, our wines more respect, uh, throughout the world, in both the jewish world and the secular world, and, um, I, that means a lot to me. I mean, you know, we invented, you know psychology, the atomic bomb, physics, you name it, everything right. Why should we get less respect for our wines, which basically are part of our heritage and our religious practice? So, like I said, that wasn't necessarily my goal. Okay, I just want to make a really great kosher wine, but, looking back, I think that's a shared legacy. I share this legacy with many of my colleagues who have also raised the bar here.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:00:36

So you mentioned a little bit, but I just want to ask you one last question Future dreams what do you still hope to achieve?

Jeff Morgan: 1:00:45

Well, aside from building that winery and planting that vineyard in Israel, that's a huge dream, it's you know I'm not getting younger, so anybody with the money, let's talk. Yeah, um, I know what to do, I just need capital and uh and you even know where I know where, I know how to do it.

Jeff Morgan: 1:01:02

Yeah, I know this stuff. I mean, I've been doing this for a long time now future. Well, I'd like to work a little less, but I don't ever want to stop. So I would like to manage my team in California a little less hands-on, a little more intellectually, and I would like to have time to manage a new team in israel very cool.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:01:32

I can't wait till you come back. I can't wait till you come back and I'm not telling, I'm not wishing you bad by that, I'm wishing you only good. Um I I was so excited when we talked in the restaurant, you, jay and I, and you took out this bottle with the map of Israel on it and I, just like I, freaked out, I started to cry.

Jeff Morgan: 1:01:54

I think that was one of the more fun moments of my life because you were sitting there and Jay wanted to introduce us. Jay Buchbaum of of of uh Royal Wine fame, right, and we're sitting in this restaurant and Jay had been talking to me about you. This is, you know what?

Jeff Morgan: 1:02:10

12, 13, 14 years ago, yeah, and he said you know, I want you to meet this guy, Simon Jacob, but he only will drink Israeli wine. And I said well, Jay, I got something to show and you were one of the first people to see this.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:02:27

Yeah, I have a bottle of the 13 from you. It's pretty good. Yeah, it's still amazing. It's great.

Jeff Morgan: 1:02:35

Why do these wines last so long? I don't know. You make them and you bottle them when they're stable and they've been in barrel long enough. And this is unfiltered, unfiltered, unfine, what can I say?

S. Simon Jacob: 1:02:51

Thank you very much for being on The Kosher Terroir and especially allowing me to take over your dining room to record, so I can't wait till you come back again.

Jeff Morgan: 1:03:03

Well, simon thank you for having me on the show. Being such a great supporter of Covenant, and I love your enthusiasm for all of the wines in Israel and all of our winemaker friends. You are really no. We need people like you to help carry this message to the public, please.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:03:23

God, thank you, please. God, thank you. Thank you very much. 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.