The Kosher Terroir
We are enjoying incredible global growth in Kosher wine. From here in Jerusalem, Israel, we will uncover the latest trends, speak to the industry's movers and shakers, and point out ways to quickly improve your wine-tasting experience. Please tune in for some serious fun while we explore and experience The Kosher Terroir...
www.TheKosherTerroir.com
+972-58-731-1567
+1212-999-4444
TheKosherTerroir@gmail.com
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Thursdays 6:30pm Eastern Time on the NSN Network
and the NSN App
The Kosher Terroir
Practical Guide To Real Wine Tasting- Part Two
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We take you on a fast, flavorful tour of terroir—where soil, climate, and human choices turn grapes into recordings of place and time—and show you how to hear the song each wine is singing. Along the way, we decode labels, separate grape character from winemaking technique, and build a practical tasting vocabulary you can use the next time you open a bottle.
We start with whites and clear the fog around Chardonnay, contrasting Chablis’ steel and oyster-shell bite with buttery, oak-kissed styles shaped by malolactic fermentation. Then we sharpen our senses with Sauvignon Blanc’s green pyrazines—gooseberry, jalapeño, flint—and give Riesling its due, from razor-dry citrus to that coveted petrol note. Rosé gets a serious treatment too: direct press from Provence for pale, saline refreshment versus richer, tannic saignée built to handle real food.
On the red side, we map the two poles: Burgundy’s Pinot Noir, delicate in color yet fierce in acidity and earth, and Bordeaux’s Cabernet Sauvignon, all tannic architecture, blackcurrant, and graphite, with Merlot adding plush mid-palate flesh. Warm-climate champions step in—Syrah toggling between jammy chocolate and savory smoke, Grenache with strawberry candy and white pepper, Mourvèdre’s leathery depth, and old-vine Carignan’s surprising high acid and herbal bite. Through guided white and red flights, we teach you to read color, track aroma, locate tannins, and feel texture from skim milk to heavy cream.
Then the bubbles. We compare tank-method freshness to traditional-method depth, explain how lees aging creates brioche and hazelnut, and reveal why late disgorgement can taste paradoxically younger. We close on dessert wines with a new lens: noble rot’s saffron and honey, ice wine’s pure apricot beam, late-harvest balance, and Israeli innovation, where skin contact gives sweet wines a tannic grip that pairs with savory dishes.
Ready to train your palate and trust your own nose? Hit play, pour something new, and taste the story. If you enjoy the show, subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a quick review—what flavor surprised you most?
www.TheKosherTerroir.com
+972-58-731-1567
+1212-999-4444
TheKosherTerroir@gmail.com
Link to Join “The Kosher Terroir” WhatsApp Chat
https://chat.whatsapp.com/EHmgm2u5lQW9VMzhnoM7C9
Thursdays 6:30pm Eastern Time on the NSN Network and the NSN App
[00:00:00 - 00:00:15]
(Music)
Simon Jacob: Welcome to The Kosher Terroir. I'm Simon Jacob, your host for this episode from Jerusalem.
[00:00:15 - 00:00:37]
Simon Jacob: Before we get started, no matter where you are, please take a moment to pray for the safe return home of all our soldiers. If you're driving in your car, please focus on the road ahead. If you're relaxing at home, please open a delicious bottle of Kosher wine and pour a glass, sit back, and relax.
[00:00:37 - 00:01:27]
Simon Jacob: We spent our last episode in the laboratory. We mastered the tools. We learned the physics of the glass, the surgery of the cork, and the biology of our tongues. But tools are useless if you don't have anything that you want to build. Today, today we leave the lab. Today we travel. We are going to take a tour of the world, one grape at a time. We are going to decode the labels. We are going to learn why Pinot Noir tastes like a velvet glove, and why sometimes Syrah tastes like a campfire. We are going to discuss the concept of somewhereness. Pour yourself a glass, and let's begin.
[00:01:27 - 00:02:33]
Simon Jacob: There is a French word that gets thrown around in our industry like confetti: terroir. You should know that from the title of our podcast. People treat it like magic. It isn't magic. It's actually a recording. Think of a grape as a tape recorder. If you plant a Cabernet Sauvignon vine in the deep, gravelly soil of Bordeaux, where it rains often and the sun is moderate, that grape records those conditions. It tastes like graphite, wet earth, and strict tannins. But if you take that same exact cutting, the same DNA, and plant it in the limestone dust of the Judean Hills or the heavy clay of Napa Valley, the tape recorder records a different song. It becomes lush, fruity, chocolatey. That difference, that is terroir. It is soil plus climate plus the human hand.
[00:02:33 - 00:03:04]
Simon Jacob: But interestingly enough, we don't just taste place. We taste time. Wine is a living thing. It has a childhood, an adulthood, and a death. Focusing on young wine, think a bottle released this year. It's like a teenager. It's loud, it's energetic. It is dominated by primary fruit: fresh strawberries, tart apples. It might be a little disjointed.
[00:03:04 - 00:03:55]
Simon Jacob: Some wines go into the dumb phase where they close down. This happens often with high-end wines about two to four years after bottling. The wine shuts down. The aromas hide. It refuses to speak to you. It's the moody college years. If you open up a bottle like this, decanting it for hours and hours and hours might just wake it up. But like a college student, there are no guarantees. After a number of years, wines can reach their peak. This is the symphony. The fruit has faded slightly, but the tertiary flavors have arrived. The leather, the tobacco, the spice. Everything is in balance. And unfortunately, then there's past peak. The fruit dies. The color turns brown. The vinegar creeps in. It is a fading memory. Our job today is to learn what these grapes taste like when they're singing.
[00:03:55 - 00:04:18]
Simon Jacob: So let's walk through the garden of grapes. We start with the whites. And we start with grapes that suffer from the biggest identity crisis: Chardonnay. I hear people say I hate Chardonnay. It's too oaky, it's too buttery. Friend, that is not the grape. That's the winemaker. Imagine a green Granny Smith apple. Tart, crisp, clean. That is what Chardonnay actually tastes like. If you go to Chablis in Burgundy, France, they grow Chardonnay in soil that is made of crushed oyster shells from the Jurassic period. They ferment it in steel tanks. When you drink it, it tastes like lemon zest, green apple, and wet stones. It's like licking a piece of chalk. This is old world style.
[00:04:18 - 00:04:51]
Simon Jacob: Now, take that same apple, bake it, put it in a pie crust, add cinnamon, add a dollop of heavy cream on top. That is new world Chardonnay. California, Israel, or Australia. Where does the butter taste come from? It's a process called malolactic fermentation. Winemakers take the sharp acid of the grapes, malic acid, like green apple, and use bacteria cultures to convert it into lactic acid, the acid found in milk. Suddenly the wine feels creamy. It coats your tongue. Then they put it in toasted oak barrels. The wood gives it vanilla, coconut, and toast flavors. So, when you're tasting a Chardonnay, ask yourself, am I tasting the fruit, the apple, or the process, the butter and the wood?
[00:04:51 - 00:05:19]
Simon Jacob: Now let's pivot to the zest, Sauvignon Blanc. This is the wake-up call. The textbook description for this grape is aggressive. Cat pee on a gooseberry bush. Let's be polite, call it boxwood or black currant leaf. But you know that smell. It's pungent. It jumps out of the glass. If you're drinking a Sancerre from the Loire Valley, it is restrained. It tastes like flint, gun smoke, and grapefruit. If you're drinking one from New Zealand, it's a fruit bomb. Passion fruit, guava, and jalapeno peppers. Yes, green pepper. That is a chemical compound called pyrazine. It's what gives Sauvignon Blanc its green, grassy bite. It is high acid. The drool test we did in Episode 1? Sauvignon Blanc should make you flood.
[00:05:19 - 00:06:10]
Simon Jacob: And finally, the king of acid, Riesling. Riesling is misunderstood. People think it's always sweet. It isn't. Dry Riesling is razor sharp. It smells like lemon zest, white flowers, and actually rubber. If you smell petrol or kerosene in an aged Riesling, don't panic. That is the badge of honor. That is complexity.
[00:06:10 - 00:06:37]
Simon Jacob: So, let's talk about the most misunderstood wine on the shelf. Rosé. There is a myth that rosé is made by mixing white wine and red wine together. Unless you are drinking cheap champagne, that is almost never true. Rosé is a red wine that had a very short date with its skins. The juice of almost every grape, even red grapes, is clear. If you peel a red grape, the inside is white. To make red wine, we let the juice sit on the skins for weeks. To make rosé, we let it sit for just hours.
[00:06:37 - 00:07:34]
Simon Jacob: There are two styles you need to know. The first is the Provence style, direct press. This is the popular one. It is pale, like onion skin or light salmon. It is grown near the ocean. It should taste dry, crisp, and slightly saline, like salt spray on a strawberry. It's refreshing and it's perfect for sitting back on a porch and kicking up your legs. The second style is created using the Saignée method. The word means the bleeding. This is a byproduct of making big red wines. The winemaker wants the Cabernet to be concentrated. So 24 hours into the fermentation, they bleed off some of the pink juice to increase the skin to juice ratio in the tank. This rosé is darker, deep pink, and ruby. It tastes richer. It has more alcohol. And because of the longer skin contact, it has tannin structure. Don't be afraid of dark rosé. It is often the best food wine on the table. It has the body to handle a steak, but the chill to handle a hot day.
[00:07:34 - 00:08:27]
Simon Jacob: So now we leave the white wines behind and enter the kingdom of the reds. Here we have to talk about the two parents of red wine. The two styles that every winemaker in the world is either trying to copy or trying to rebel against. Burgundy or Bordeaux. Let's start with Burgundy. The grape here is Pinot Noir. If Cabernet is a sledgehammer, Pinot Noir is a scalpel. It is a thin-skinned grape. And because the skins are thin, the color is light. If you pour a glass of Pinot Noir, you should be able to read a newspaper through it. But do not let the color fool you. We call it the iron fist in a velvet glove. On the nose, it is delicate. It smells like red fruit, cherries, raspberries, cranberries. But as it ages, it gets kind of weird. In the best possible way. It starts to smell like forest floor after it rains. Damp earth, mushrooms, wet leaves, game meat. It has high acid and low tannins. It dances on your palate. It doesn't weigh you down. If you want to understand elegance in wine, you drink Pinot Noir.
[00:08:27 - 00:09:21]
Simon Jacob: Now let's talk about Bordeaux. The star here is Cabernet Sauvignon. Cabernet is the linebacker. The berries are tiny, and the skins are thick and black. Thick skins mean high tannins. When you drink a young Cab, your mouth dries out. Your gums feel like you've been chewing on a black tea bag. This tannin has a job. It binds to proteins. That's why Cabernet and steak is the perfect marriage. The tannin scrapes the fat off your tongue, and the fat softens the tannin. It is a chemical reaction. What's the flavor profile, you ask? Black fruits, black currant, cassis, black cherry. And like its cousin Sauvignon Blanc, it often has that green herbal note. In Bordeaux, we call it graphite or pencil shavings. In cool years, it smells like green bell pepper. If you stick your nose in the glass and it smells like a freshly sharpened pencil and blackberry jam, you've got a Cabernet.
[00:09:21 - 00:10:13]
Simon Jacob: And a quick note on the sidekick, Merlot. Poor Merlot. The movie Sideways ruined its reputation. But it is the secret hero of the wine world. Merlot is the peacemaker. It's softer than a Cab. It has less tannins. It has more sugar, which means higher alcohol and fuller body. It tastes like fruitcake, plums, and chocolate. It's plush. It just simply fills your mouth. Most Bordeaux blends use Cabernet for the skeleton and Merlot for the meat.
[00:10:13 - 00:11:18]
Simon Jacob: But we after all are the Kosher Terroir. And while we love France, many of the best kosher wines in the world are coming from Israel, California, and Australia. These are warm climates. It's very difficult to force a Pinot Noir to grow in the Negev Desert. Typically, it will burn and taste like raisin jam. So we need to talk about grapes that love sun. The Mediterranean varietals. Let's start with Syrah or Shiraz. This is a beast of a wine. In the new world, Australia, Shiraz, it's big, jammy, and tastes like chocolate and blackberries. But in the old world, the Northern Rhone, or in the high altitude hills of Israel, Syrah is savage. It smells like smoked meat, duck fat, black pepper, olive tapenade. If you open a bottle and it smells like a campfire and a butcher shop, that is Syrah. It is savory. It is ancient.
[00:11:18 - 00:12:00]
Simon Jacob: Then there are the GSM grapes: Grenache, Syrah, and Mourvedre. Grenache is the party animal. It loves heat. It creates high alcohol and sweet candy fruit flavors like strawberry fruit roll-ups and white pepper. But look at the color. It's often very pale, almost like a dark rosé. Mourvedre is the earth. It brings leather, truffle, and game flavors. And not to be left out of this blending party, Carignan. This is a grape seeing a massive revival in Israel. It used to be a workhorse for cheap sacramental wine. But winemakers are finding old vine Carignan, vines that have been in the ground for 50 to 80 years. It's stunning. It has high acid, rare for warm climates, and tastes like rustic cranberries, cured meat, and dried herbs.
[00:12:00 - 00:12:30]
Simon Jacob: Up to this point, I've tried to discuss the varietal flavors by themselves. But for now, let's take a shot at comparing them one against the other. We're going to try to do a virtual flight, a side-by-side tasting of three different glasses of white wine. Let's set the stage. You have three glasses in front of you. Glass number one is a Chenin Blanc, let's say from the Loire Valley or South Africa. Glass number two is a Chardonnay, a classic oaked California or Judean Hills style. And glass number three is a Riesling, dry, from Alsace or Germany.
[00:12:30 - 00:13:58]
Simon Jacob: All right, step one. Look at them against a white sheet of paper. The Riesling in glass number three is likely the palest, platinum, maybe a hint of green. It looks like water with a drop of lime juice. The Chenin, glass number one, is a bit deeper, straw yellow. It looks like dried hay. And in glass number two, the Chardonnay, this is the golden child. Literally. It is deep gold, maybe even amber if it has some age. That color comes from oxygen and oak barrels. Now let's move on to the nose. The Riesling, stick your nose in, pow, it hits you hard. It's high-toned, lime zest, jasmine flowers, and yes, that petrol rubber note. It smells like you're sitting in a gas station. Now, the Chardonnay, the middle glass. It's totally different. It smells wide, vanilla, buttered toast, baked apples. It smells like a kitchen, not a garden. And finally, the Chenin Blanc. This is the wild card. It smells... it smells like damp wool, wet stones, honey. Even if it's dry, it has a waxy aroma like a beeswax candle. It's quieter than the Riesling, but more complex than the Chardonnay.
[00:13:58 - 00:14:38]
Simon Jacob: Okay, now let's taste. Let's take a sip of the Riesling. In the front of your palate, there's an immediate sweetness, fruit not sugar, of peach or apricot. In the mid palate, the acid kicks in. It cuts your tongue like a laser. It's linear. It travels in a straight line down the center of your tongue. And the texture, it feels kind of crystalline, but with no weight. Now let's sip the Chardonnay. In the front palate, it's soft and round. In mid palate, this is where Chardonnay lives. It expands. It coats the sides of your mouth. It feels oily or creamy. That's the malolactic fermentation. It sits heavy on your tongue like whole milk. And its texture is plush and velvety. All right, finally let's take a sip of the Chenin Blanc. Front palate, it starts like the Riesling, high acid, tart apples. In the mid palate, it changes. It gets waxy. It has the texture like the skin of a pear. It has a slight bitterness, phenolic grip, that the other two don't. It's thick and sharp at the same time.
[00:14:38 - 00:15:24]
Simon Jacob: Finally, let's check the finish. On the Chardonnay, the finish is long, but it's a flavor finish: toast, hazelnut, and vanilla. The Riesling's finish is not a taste but a feeling. Your mouth is watering uncontrollably. It cleans your palate. And with Chenin, the finish is honeyed. Even if the wine is bone dry, you are left with a ghost of honeycomb and straw. So in summary, the white flight, the key aromas. The Riesling was lime, petrol, white flowers. The Chardonnay, oak, butter, vanilla, baked apple. And the Chenin Blanc, wet wool, beeswax, and honey. The acidity of the Riesling was very high. The Chardonnay, medium-low. And the Chenin Blanc, high but thicker. The body, light and crystalline in the Riesling. Full, creamy, oily in the Chardonnay. And medium, waxy, grippy in the Chenin Blanc. The experience of the Riesling was kind of like a laser beam. The Chardonnay, a warm hug. And the Chenin, a complex puzzle.
[00:15:24 - 00:16:15]
Simon Jacob: Okay, go clear your palate and now let's try to do the same thing with some reds. Glass number one is a Pinot Noir from Burgundy. Glass number two is a Syrah from the Northern Rhone. Glass number three is a Cabernet Sauvignon from the Galilee. Okay, let's check the color. Starting with the Pinot in glass number one, tilt the glass, look at the rim. It's pale ruby. It's translucent. You could read text through it. The Syrah in glass number two is opaque. But look at the edge. It's bright magenta or purple. It looks like ink. And the Cabernet in glass number three is deep ruby, almost black in the center. But the rim isn't purple. It's garnet or dark red. It looks dense.
[00:16:15 - 00:16:40]
Simon Jacob: Moving on to the nose. The Pinot Noir smells pretty. Red cherries, raspberries, but underneath, dirt, mushrooms, wet leaves. It smells like the ground. Syrah smells savage. Black pepper, smoked meat, duck fat, blackberries. It's a dark brooding smell. Cabernet smells structured. Blackberry, cassis, pencil shavings, graphite, green bell peppers or mint. It smells serious.
[00:16:40 - 00:17:10]
Simon Jacob: Now let's move on to taste, trying to feel the physical structure of the wine. With the Pinot, the attack is sweet red fruit. Very high acid, your mouth waters. The tannins, where are they? They're barely there. Maybe a little silkiness in the gums, but no grip. The feel, it feels like skim milk, light, energetic, ethereal. Now let's move on to the Cabernet Sauvignon. The attack is black fruit, but immediately followed by dryness. Focus on your front teeth and gums. Cabernet tannins live front and center. They feel like fine sandpaper. They dry out your upper lip and are architectural. They build a box around the fruit. Interestingly enough, in the mid palate, Cabernet often has a donut hole in the middle. It's all attack and finish. That's why we blend it with Merlot to fill that hole. On to Syrah. The attack is juicy, dark purple fruit. Focus on your cheeks and the back of your tongue. Syrah's tannins are softer, velvety, and coat the entire mouth. They feel more like cocoa powder than sandpaper. Unlike Cab, Syrah is huge in the middle. It's savory. It tastes like olive tapenade and roast beef.
[00:17:10 - 00:17:26]
Simon Jacob: And finally the finish. With the Pinot, the finish is acid driven, tart cranberry. With Syrah, the finish is spicy. White pepper and cloves linger on the back of your throat. And with Cabernet, the finish is drying. You are left chewing on the structure. So to summarize our red flight of wines. The key aromas. For the Pinot, it's red cherry, mushroom, and earth. For the Syrah, black pepper, smoked meat, and blackberry. For the Cabernet Sauvignon, black currant, graphite, and green peppers. The tannins are barely there in the Pinot. All over, especially in the cheeks in the Syrah, velvety and like cocoa powder. And in the Cabernet Sauvignon, your front teeth and gums with a sandpaper like grip. As far as the texture is concerned, the Pinot is light, kind of like skim milk. The Syrah is full, heavy cream and meaty. And the Cabernet Sauvignon is fully architectural and structured. The experience. Pinot is kind of like an intellectual conversation. Syrah, a savory meal. And the Cabernet Sauvignon, a fortress.
[00:17:26 - 00:18:05]
Simon Jacob: So we have arrived at the celebration, the sparkling wine. But I want you to forget about weddings for a second. I want you to forget about New Year's Eve. Sparkling wine is arguably the most technical, difficult, and scientifically complex wine to make. It's a high-wire act of physics and chemistry. First, we have to distinguish the two worlds of bubbles: the tank versus the bottle. If you pour a glass of Prosecco, watch the bubbles. They are big, they are frothy, they explode on the surface and disappear quickly. This is the tank method, Charmat. The wine is fermented in giant steel tanks. It never touches the yeast sediment. The result? It smells like fresh peaches, flowers, and pears. It's all about primary fruit. It is simple, happy, and fresh. Now pour a glass of Champagne or high-end Cava or Yarden Blanc de Blancs. Watch the mousse, the foam. The bubbles are microscopic. They rise in tiny persistent chains that last, maybe 20 minutes or more. This is traditional method. The fermentation happens inside that specific bottle. The wine was trapped in a glass prison with the yeast. And this brings us to the most important flavor in sparkling wine. The bakery. Why does great Champagne smell like toasted brioche? Why does it smell like roasted hazelnuts or biscuit dough? It's a process called autolysis. After the yeast eats the sugar to create the bubbles, it dies. It falls to the bottom of the bottle. We call this sediment the lees. If you leave the wine sitting on the dead yeast for a few months, nothing really happens. But if you leave it for 18 months, three years, five years or more, the yeast cells begin to break down. They release amino acids or mannoproteins into the wine. Leaving your wine on the lees for between 12 and 18 months is the standard for non-vintage Champagne. You get hints of bread dough. But the focus is still on the crisp green apple and citrus acid. It is racy and wakes up your palate. Aging on the lees for three to 10 years is where things get profound. The fruit fades, the bakery takes over. You start to taste marzipan, dried figs, and roasted coffee. The texture changes too. The proteins from the yeast make the wine feel creamy. It coats your tongue like heavy silk. If you drink a prestige Kosher Cuvee from France or Yarden Katzrin's Blanc de Blancs, you are tasting that time. You are tasting the ghost of the yeast.
[00:18:05 - 00:19:15]
Simon Jacob: Now look at the label. Does it have a year on it? Most Champagne is NV, non-vintage. This is because it's cheap. It's basically because it's a construction. The winemaker is trying to paint the same picture every year. They blend wines from 2020, 2019, 2018 to create a consistent house style. If you buy a bottle of Drappier, they want it to taste exactly the same today as it did 10 years ago. Their goal is consistency. Vintage Champagne is exactly the opposite. The winemaker only declares a vintage in a perfect year. They are saying, this year was special. We aren't going to blend it away. We are going to bottle the weather. If 2008 was cold and acid driven, the wine will be sharp and long lived. In 2012, if it was warm and sunny, the wine will be rich and fruity. When you drink vintage, you are drinking a history lesson.
[00:19:15 - 00:20:01]
Simon Jacob: And now for the geeks among us. The final frontier, disgorgement. Remember that yeast sediment, the lees? Eventually, we have to get them out of the bottle so the wine is clear. We freeze the neck of the bottle, pop the cap, and the ice plug shoots out with the sediment. That is disgorgement. Then we cork it and send it to the store. But when do we do this? Usually we disgorge it right before shipping. But some houses hold back bottles. They keep them on the lees for 10, 15, 20 years. That's called late disgorgement. But here's the paradox. Would you think a 20 year old wine would taste old? But a late disgorged wine tastes younger. How? The yeast sediment is an antioxidant. It protects the wine from oxygen. So if you take a 1996 Champagne that was disgorged in 1999, the standard practice by the way, it will taste caramelized, nutty, and sherry-like. It has been exposed to the cork and oxygen for 20 years. But if you take the same 1996 Champagne and disgorge it today, late disgorged, it has been protected by yeast for 25 years. It will have the complexity of age, the truffle, the smoke, but the freshness of youth, the citrus, the acid. It is the closest thing we have to a time machine. And finally, non-disgorged. They call it Pet-Nat. It is the hipster darling right now. They simply don't take the yeast out. The wine is cloudy, it has sediment at the bottom. It tastes raw, wild, and yeasty, like sourdough starter or unfiltered beer. It isn't elegant like Champagne, but it is alive. It's kind of like winemaking without the makeup. So the next time you pop a cork, ask yourself: is this a tank or a bottle? Is it a painting, non-vintage, or a snapshot, vintage? And how long did it sleep on the lees? Because bubbles, bubbles are just the delivery system for the flavor of time.
[00:20:01 - 00:20:39]
Simon Jacob: So now we've reached the end of the meal. The finale. And I want to challenge you. When I say dessert wine, most people think cheap, sticky, Kiddush wines. They think sugar syrup. But dessert wine is one of the most difficult things on earth to make. It requires extreme weather, risky timing, and sometimes a little bit of magic fungus. Let's look at three ways to make great sweet wines. And then I want to introduce you to a winemaker in Israel who is completely rewriting the rules. Sauternes is the king of dessert wine. Imagine you are a grape grower in Bordeaux. It's harvest time. You walk out to your vineyard and your grapes look ruined. They're shriveled, they are gray, and they're covered in mold. Most people would cry, but in Sauternes, they celebrate. This mold is noble rot. And here's the physics. The mold punctures the skin of the grape. It drinks the water inside, but leaves the sugar and the acid behind. So the grape turns into a raisin on the vine. When you press it, you get a tiny amount of thick, golden nectar. It doesn't taste like sugar. Botrytis adds a distinct flavor of saffron, ginger, marmalade, and honey. If you drink a Kosher Sauternes like Chateau Guiraud or Piada, look for that spicy, honeyed complexity.
[00:20:39 - 00:21:30]
Simon Jacob: Now let's go to the other extreme. Imagine freezing cold in Germany, Canada, or the high Golan Heights in a freak winter. Ice wine is made by leaving the grapes on the vine until the first deep freeze below 17 degrees Fahrenheit. The water in the grapes turns to ice. But the sugar does not freeze. So while the grapes are frozen solid, you press them. The ice stays in the press and the concentrated sugar syrup drips out. The taste, unlike Sauternes, there is no rot. No mushroom, saffron notes. Ice wine is pure fruit. It's like a laser beam of apricot, peach, and tropical fruit. It's high acid, high sugar, and incredibly clean. The third or the most common method is to just leave the grapes on the vine. They dehydrate, and they become raisins. The sugars concentrate. Late harvest Riesling is the classic. You get the petrol, the lime, and the sweetness all in one. But the key to all of these, Sauternes, ice wine, late harvest, is acidity. Without acid, these wines are just syrup. You need that lemon juice cut to wash the sugar off your tongue so that you're ready for the next sip.
[00:21:30 - 00:22:21]
Simon Jacob: But now I want to talk about the new school. There is a winemaker in Israel named Yaacov Oryah. And people call him lovingly the mad scientist of Kosher wine. And for good reason. He is obsessed with texture. He is obsessed with skins. He has released a series of dessert wines that are totally unique in the Kosher market. They are called the Alpha Omega series. You will see them labeled with single letters: V, G, and S. What is he doing differently? Usually for white dessert wine, you press the juice and throw away the skins immediately. Oryah says no. The flavor is in the skin. So he takes these sweet, late harvest grapes and he ferments them on their skins like red wine or orange wines. The V, for Viognier, is usually floral and oily. Oryah's version is sweet yes, but because of the skin contact, it has tannin. Imagine that, a dessert wine with the grip of a red wine. It smells like dried apricot, orange peel, and tea leaves. The G, for Gewurztraminer, is usually lychee and rose water. But this G, it has this savory spicy edge. It isn't just candy. It has bitterness, a pleasant bitterness, like tonic water or grape pith that balances the sugar. And the S is for Semillon. Semillon is the grape of Sauternes. But here, without the rot and with the skins, it becomes this deep amber colored elixir. It tastes like roasted nuts, dried figs, and savory herbs. Why do these matter? Because they change the game for food pairing. The standard sweet Riesling is great with apple pie. But Yaacov Oryah's V and S, because of their tannins, they have structure. You can drink them with savory food. Pour the G with foie gras. Pour the V with a rich funky cheeseboard. They are a bridge between the main course and the dessert. They are intellectual wines. So here's your homework for this episode. Don't skip the dessert wine. But don't just buy a blue bottle you've been buying for 20 years. Find a late harvest with high acid. Find a botrytis wine with that saffron note. Or if you can find them, hunt down the Oryah Alpha Omegas. Taste the sugar yes, but look for the acid. Look for the tannin and look for the balance.
[00:22:21 - 00:23:09]
Simon Jacob: So we've covered 3,000 years of agricultural history and modern chemistry in just over an hour. We've learned that the glass shapes the taste. We've learned that the air is both a friend and an enemy. We've learned that tannins are the skeleton and acid is the blood. But here is the most important thing I can tell you right now. There is no right answer. The WSET grid, the aroma wheels, the experts, we are all just giving you a vocabulary. But if you taste blueberries in your Cabernet, and I taste blackberries, we're both right. Your palate is your own. It is a muscle. The more you use it, the stronger it gets. The goal of The Kosher Terroir isn't to tell you what to like. It's to help you notice what you're drinking. To stop, to swirl, to listen.
[00:23:09 - 00:23:43]
Simon Jacob: So this week, I want you to buy a bottle you've never tried. Maybe a Carignan, maybe a Riesling. Cut the foil low, pour to the line, close your eyes, and taste the story. I'm your host and this is The Kosher Terroir.
[00:23:43 - 00:24:55]
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Simon Jacob: This is Simon Jacob again, your host of today's episode of the Kosher Terroir. Please subscribe via your podcast provider to be informed of our new episodes as they are released. If you are new to The Kosher Terroir, please check out our many past episodes.
[00:24:55 - 00:25:31]
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