The Kosher Terroir: Season 4, Episode 23
"The ABCs of Chardonnay Reconsidered"

Host: S. Simon Jacob

• [0:00] Welcome to The Kosher Terroir. I’m Simon Jacob, your host for this episode, from Jerusalem. 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.
• [0:43] Welcome to another episode of The Kosher Terroir. I’m your host, Simon Jacob, and I’m speaking to you today from the heart of Jerusalem. Outside my window, the sun is hitting the limestone walls of the old city with that specific golden hue that has inspired poets for millennia. And it’s that very limestone, that ancient mineral soul of the earth, that brings us to today’s subject.
• [1:18] Now, if you’ve been following our journey through Season 4, you know we’ve walked the steep slopes with Syrah. We’ve weathered the heat with Marselan, and we’ve explored the spicy resilience of Grenache. But today? Today we are talking about the Queen. We are talking about Chardonnay.
• [1:47] I know what happens when I say that word in certain circles. There’s a collective eye-roll. There’s the ABC crowd—the "Anything But Chardonnay" club. They think they’ve moved on. They think it’s "too 90s," too buttery, too predictable. Well, my friends, for the next few minutes, I am going to challenge you to rethink those three letters.
• [2:12] In this studio, ABC doesn’t mean "Anything But." It means "Any Bottle of Chardonnay," provided it has the soul of its terroir. It means "Always Bring Chardonnay" to a dinner you actually care about. And by the end of this podcast, I hope it means "Actually Brilliant Character."
• [2:36] Chardonnay is the most misunderstood grape in the world because it is a mirror. It doesn’t scream its own name; it whispers the name of the winemaker and the name of the soil. It is the winemaker’s canvas, and today we are going to look at the masterpieces being painted with it—from the foggy reaches of the Russian River Valley to the volcanic plateaus of our own Golan Heights here in Israel.
• [3:06] We’re going to talk about a 1976 scandal that humiliated the French. We’re going to talk about the technical "Cold Revolution" that changed kosher wines forever. And we’re going to find out why, when all is said and done, this grape still wears the crown. So pour yourself a glass of something crisp—maybe mineral-forward, a bright Israeli Galilee white—and let’s begin at the beginning.
• [3:43] To understand Chardonnay, we have to look at its birth. And it wasn't a planned marriage; it was a bit of a biological scandal. For centuries, people in Burgundy just thought Chardonnay was, well, Chardonnay. Some thought it was a mutation of Pinot Blanc. But in the late 1990s, a brilliant researcher named Carole Meredith from UC Davis did the DNA fingerprinting.
• [4:15] What she found was a classic upstairs-downstairs romance. One parent is Pinot Noir—the elegant, temperamental, aristocratic prince of Burgundy. The other parent? A grape called Gouais Blanc. Now, Gouais Blanc was a peasant grape. It was hardy, it was sour, and it was so common that the French nobility actually tried to ban it from the vineyards multiple times in the Middle Ages.
• [4:47] They called it "vile" and "low-born." But when those two crossed, they created something with the finesse of the prince and the rugged, grow-anywhere strength of the peasant. That is the secret of Chardonnay’s world domination. It is a survivor with a noble heart.
• [5:10] Now, there’s a story we love to tell here in Israel. It’s a bit of a folk etymology, and while the scientists may grumble, the heart loves it. There is a legend that the name Chardonnay doesn’t actually come from a French village, but from the Hebrew Sha'ar Adonai—the gates of God.
• [5:36] The story goes that during the Crusades, when the knights were returning from the Holy Land, they brought vines back with them. They were so moved by the golden light of Jerusalem that they named the grape after the gates of the city. Linguistically, the scholars will tell you it likely comes from the Latin cardonacum, meaning "a place of thistles."
• [6:04] But you know what? When you stand in a vineyard in the Judean Hills, and the wind comes off the Mediterranean and hits those limestone rocks, and you taste a wine that has that electric mineral finish, Sha'ar Adonai feels like the truth. It feels like the gates of God.
• [6:28] And it was the monks—specifically the Cistercians—who really decoded this grape. These monks were the original terroir geeks. They didn't have pH meters or lab tests; they had just their tongues. They would actually taste the dirt. They mapped out the Côte d'Or in Burgundy inch by inch.
• [6:56] They realized that if you planted Chardonnay in a spot with more limestone, the wine had a flinty snap—like striking two rocks together. If you moved it 20 yards to a spot with more clay, the wine became broader, more muscular. This is why I say ABC stands for a Botanical Chronology.
• [7:21] Chardonnay is the record-keeper of human history and geological time. It moved from the hands of the monks to the tables of the kings, and eventually, it made a journey across the ocean to the New World. But it’s a delicate balance. If winemakers get too heavy-handed, the voice of the soil is lost. And that brings us to the winemaker's canvas.
• [7:53] The technological magic that happens in the cellar: how do we take a grape that is essentially a blank slate and turn it into something that can age for 30 years? Let’s step inside the cellar. This is where the ABC acronym takes on a more technical meaning for me: Artistry Beyond Comparison.
• [8:21] You see, if Cabernet Sauvignon is a bold oil painting that tells you exactly what it is from the very first stroke, Chardonnay is a blank white t-shirt. It is entirely dependent on how the designer—the winemaker—decides to style it. If you talk to a winemaker about Sauvignon Blanc, they’ll talk about the vineyard and the harvest date.
• [8:51] But if you talk to them about Chardonnay, their eyes light up because they get to use their entire toolkit. Let’s start with the most famous tool, and the one that has caused the most trouble: malolactic fermentation, or MLF for short. Now, don't let science-y names bore you. Think of it this way: every grape has malic acid.
• [9:21] It’s a sharp, tart acid you find in green Granny Smith apples. It makes your mouth water and your cheeks pucker. In most white wines, you want to keep that snap. But in Chardonnay, winemakers often choose to let in a specific bacterium that turns the green apple acid into lactic acid—the soft, creamy acid that you find in milk or butter.
• [9:51] This is the mallow magic. It changes the texture from a zing to a velvet. And here's the kicker: a byproduct of this process is a compound called diacetyl. That is the literal chemical used in movie theaters to make popcorn smell like butter. So, when somebody says, "I hate Chardonnay because it’s too buttery," what they are actually saying is, "I’m not a fan of 100% malolactic fermentation."
• [10:31] I remember visiting a cellar in the Galilee a few years back. The winemaker had two tanks of Chardonnay from the exact same rows of vines. One had gone through mallow, and the other one hadn't. The difference was staggering. The first was like a bracing dip in a cold spring; the second was like a warm lemon tart. That is the chameleon at work.
• [11:00] Then we have the oak. This is the salt and pepper of Chardonnay. You have the French oak, which is like a fine silk suit, and it adds subtle notes of vanilla, toasted brioche, and hazelnut. Then you have American oak, which is more like a leather jacket; it’s loud, adding coconut and dill.
• [11:30] But there’s a third way, and it’s the one the ABC—"Always Be Cool"—crowd loves. It’s what we call naked Chardonnay. No oak; just stainless steel or concrete eggs. This is where you see the influences of Chablis. In Chablis, in the northernmost tip of Burgundy, the soil is called Kimmeridgian.
• [12:00] It’s a mix of limestone, clay, and—this is the best part—millions of tiny fossilized oyster shells from the Jurassic period. When you taste a naked Chardonnay from that soil, or from a similar limestone-rich place in the Judean Hills like at Domaine du Castel, you don't taste butter. You taste flint. You taste the sea. You taste the ghost of an oyster that lived 150 million years ago.
• [12:35] And finally, there is the technique of bâtonnage, or stirring the lees. After the yeast has done its job and died, it settles to the bottom of the barrel. Most winemakers would just filter it out. But a Chardonnay specialist will take a long metal rod and stir those dead yeast cells back into the wine.
• [13:00] It sounds unappetizing, but it’s pure alchemy. It gives the wine a bready weight and a creaminess that has nothing to do with butter and everything to do with soul. So, when you’re standing in the wine aisle and you see a bottle of Herzog Special Reserve or Yarden Katzrin, I want you to look at it differently.
• [13:30] Don't just see a bottle; see a decision. Was the winemaker a minimalist, letting the ancient oyster shells speak? Or were they a maximalist, layering the vanilla and the cream to create something opulent? In the kosher world, we’ve become masters of both. But to understand how we got there—how we learned to balance the butter and the flint—we have to look at the decades where we threw the old rules out the window. We need to talk about the technical Renaissance.
• [14:15] For this chapter, ABC stands for a better class of wine. We are moving out of the Dark Ages of the 1960s and 70s and into what is called the technical Renaissance. You see, for a long time, there was a myth—a very stubborn one—that kosher wines couldn't be world-class.
• [14:45] People thought the kosher part somehow interfered with the quality part. But in the early 1980s, a group of visionaries decided to prove the world wrong, and they chose Chardonnay as their primary weapon. The story doesn't start in a vineyard, though. It starts in UC Davis in California, which is basically the Harvard of winemaking.
• [15:15] In 1972, a professor named Cornelius Ough visited Israel. Now, Cornelius was a man of science. He looked at the topography of the Golan Heights, the volcanic plateau reaching up to 1,200 meters above sea level, and he was stunned. He saw the basalt soil, the cooling breeze coming off the Hermon, and the radical temperature drops at night.
• [15:45] He told the local growers, "You have a gold mine here, but you’re treating it like a coal mine." He realized that if you planted noble French varieties like Chardonnay in those high-altitude cool-climate spots, you wouldn't just make wine; you’d make magic. It took a decade for that seed to grow, but in 1983, the Golan Heights Winery under the Yarden label was born.
• [16:21] This was the moment the Cold Revolution hit the Middle East. They didn't just bring in new grapes; they brought in a new philosophy. They brought in Peter Stern, a legendary consultant from California, to bridge the gap between Napa’s expertise and Israel’s soil. I want you to imagine the scene in 1983.
• [16:51] While the rest of the region was still using old-fashioned open-top concrete vats where the wine would often oxidize and lose its freshness, Yarden was installing gleaming high-tech stainless steel tanks with computer-controlled cooling jackets. Why was this so important for Chardonnay? Because Chardonnay is sensitive.
• [17:21] If the fermentation gets too hot, you lose all those beautiful floral and citrus notes, and the wine ends up tasting flabby. But keeping the fermentation cold—the Always Be Cold rule—they preserve the electric acidity that makes Chardonnay dance on your tongue. The first Yarden Chardonnay in 1983 was a total shock to the system.
• [17:51] I’ve spoken to people who were there when the first bottles were uncorked. They couldn't believe it was kosher. It was clean, it was crisp, it had this elegant touch of French oak that felt like it belonged in a Parisian bistro, not a suburban synagogue. It was the shot heard round the wine world.
• [18:21] And meanwhile, back in California, the same revolution was happening in reverse. You had Ernie Weir at Hagafen Cellars in Napa Valley. Ernie was a guy who knew the dirt—he was a viticulturist for some of the biggest names in California. He decided that kosher shouldn't be a separate category of quality.
• [18:51] He started making Chardonnay from the Oak Knoll District, focusing on precision. He was using the same fruit, the same barrels, and the same techniques as his non-kosher neighbors. Then you have the Herzog family. When they moved their production to California, they didn't just play it safe.
• [19:21] They went to the Russian River Valley and Chalk Hill. These are the Holy Grail regions for California Chardonnay because of the fog. The fog rolls in from the Pacific, blankets the vines, and keeps the grapes cool so that they ripen slowly. This gives the wine a zing, a natural acidity that balances the rich fruit.
• [19:51] The Herzogs hired Peter Stern—yes, that same Peter Stern who helped start Yarden—to ensure that their Special Reserve Chardonnay wasn't just good for a blessing, but was a world-class contender. This era was about a better class of discipline.
• [20:21] To make premium kosher Chardonnay, you have to be more careful than the standard winemaker. You can’t just hire anyone to move the wine; it has to be done by Shabbat-observant Jews under the guidance of the winemaker. It requires a level of choreography and cleanliness that actually benefits the wine.
• [20:51] So, by the mid-80s, the blueprint was set. We had the technology, we had the terroir, we had the talent. The Queen had arrived in the kosher world, and she was wearing a crown of stainless steel and French oak. But as we all know, when you give winemakers a lot of toys and a lot of oak, sometimes they go a little overboard.
• [21:21] And that brings us to the most famous battle in wine history: the moment California Chardonnay took on the French and won, only to nearly lose its soul in the aftermath. In this chapter, the ABC stands for Americans Beat Chablis, and boy, did they ever.
• [21:51] To understand the weight of what happened in May 1976, you have to realize that the wine world at the time was a strict aristocracy. France was the king, the queen, and the entire royal court. California was, at best, the court jester. People genuinely believed that great wine simply couldn't be made outside of Europe.
• [22:21] The soil was wrong, the climate was too hot, and the Americans were too scientific and lacked soul. Enter Steven Spurrier, a suave Englishman who ran a wine shop in Paris. He wanted to celebrate the American Bicentennial, so he organized a blind tasting. He gathered nine of the most legendary palates in France, people whose taste buds were essentially national treasures.
• [22:51] He lined up four white Burgundies against six California Chardonnays. Among those California bottles was a 1973 Chateau Montelena. It was made by a man named Mike Grgich, a Croatian immigrant who had escaped Communism and arrived in Napa with a suitcase full of winemaking dreams and very little else.
• [23:21] Now imagine the scene at the InterContinental Hotel in Paris. The judges are sitting at white-clothed tables. They are swirling, sniffing, and spitting. Because it was a blind tasting, the bottles were wrapped in napkins. There is a famous story that one of the judges, Raymond Oliver, tasted a wine and declared, "Ah, back to France! This is the elegance of Meursault!"
• [23:51] The problem: he was drinking a Chateau Montelena from Napa. When the results were announced, the room went silent. The California Chardonnay hadn't just done well; it had won. It had beaten the best of France on French soil, judged by French experts. It was the gulp heard round the world, and it proved that the Queen of Grapes was a global citizen.
• [24:21] But here is where the story gets really interesting, especially for us. This "Judgment" created a vacuum of prestige that the kosher wine world was ready to fill. Just a few years later, in the late 70s, Ernie Weir at Hagafen and the Herzog family looked at what Montelena had done and said, "The barrier is broken. Now let’s break the religious barrier."
• [24:51] I want to tell you a story about Hagafen. Ernie Weir’s Chardonnay started winning awards almost immediately. But the real judgment for him came in the 1980s when his wine was served at a state dinner at the White House for King Hassan II of Morocco. Think about that: a kosher Napa Chardonnay representing American excellence to a foreign monarch.
• [25:21] That is the ultimate ABC—Any Bottle Could be a diplomat. The Herzogs, meanwhile, were doing their own judgment in the vineyards. They realized that if you wanted to compete with the Burgundies of the world, you couldn't just use any grapes. You had to go to the cool, foggy Gold Coasts of California, places like Russian River Valley.
• [25:51] I’ve had the pleasure of tasting some of those early Herzog Special Reserve Chardonnays. They had this incredible tension: the richness of California sunshine balanced by the acidity of the Pacific fog. It was a style that said, "We aren't just making wine for a niche market; we are making wine that belongs in the top tier of any cellar."
• [26:21] This era was the Gold Rush. Everyone wanted to plant Chardonnay. But as something becomes that popular, that fast, there’s usually a backlash. And for Chardonnay, that backlash was named butter. But before we get there, let’s take a moment to appreciate the 1976 moment.
• [26:51] It’s the reason I can sit here in Jerusalem today and talk about world-class Israeli and California Chardonnay. It started with a Croatian immigrant, a British shop owner, and a bottle of 1973 Montelena that dared to challenge the status quo. If you’re still with us, you’ve earned a refill. Go get some and enjoy.
• [27:21] We’ve covered the DNA, the technical revolution of the 1980s, and the earth-shattering drama of the Judgment of Paris. But now we have to talk about the teenage years of Chardonnay: the 1990s. In the 90s, Chardonnay didn't just become a wine; it became a lifestyle. It was an era of big—big hair, big shoulder pads, and very, very big wine.
• [27:51] In California, winemakers had figured out that the American palate had a massive sweet tooth for one specific flavor: butter. Now remember, we talked about malolactic fermentation. In the 90s, some winemakers decided that if a little bit of mallow was good, then a 100% mallow soak, combined with brand-new heavily toasted American oak, was better.
• [28:21] They were creating what critics started calling butter bombs. I remember a story from a colleague who visited Napa in the mid-90s. He said he could smell the wineries from the parking lot. You didn't smell the grapes; it smelled like a bakery. It smelled like toasted marshmallows and movie theater popcorn.
• [28:51] People were buying those wines by the case. It was the era of Always Buying Chardonnay. But there was a dark side. To get that much flavor, winemakers were leaving the grapes on the vines until they were incredibly ripe, almost like raisins. The alcohol levels started creeping up from 13 to 15% and even 16%.
• [29:21] The wines became flabby. They lost their electric acidity we love. They were so heavy that you couldn't actually eat food with them. It was like trying to pair a steak with a vanilla milkshake. This is where the ABC movement was born: Anything But Chardonnay.
• [29:51] It started as a whisper among sommeliers who were tired of pouring liquid lumber. It became a full-blown revolt. I remember being at a tasting where a prominent critic said, "I’d rather drink battery acid than another glass of over-oaked Chardonnay." It was a moment of crisis for the grape.
• [30:21] But here is where the kosher story gets really interesting. While the mainstream California market was going oak-crazy, the kosher producers—people like Joe Hurliman at Herzog and Ernie Weir at Hagafen—had a bit of a safety net. Why? Because the kosher consumer, especially in those days, was still very tied to the Shabbat table.
• [30:51] And on the Shabbat table, you have salt, you have fish, you have chicken. You need a wine that actually works with a meal. I want to tell you about the Herzog Special Reserve Russian River Valley Chardonnay from that era. The Herzogs were under pressure to make those big wines, but they stayed true to the Russian River terroir.
• [31:21] They kept the acidity. They used the oak like a frame around a painting rather than the painting itself. They proved that you could have the California sunshine without the lumberyard finish. And in Israel? We had our own version of that struggle. In the 90s, we were still a young industry.
• [31:51] We were looking at California and saying, "We want that success." But we also had Eli Ben-Zvi at Domaine du Castel. Eli is a man of incredible conviction. He looked at the butter bomb trend and basically said, "Not in my cellar." He looked towards Burgundy.
• [32:21] His 'C' Blanc du Castel became the antidote for the ABC movement in Israel. It was fermented in French oak, yes, but it was sophisticated. It was lean. It had the Jerusalem Hills minerality. I remember a story about the first time a French critic tasted the 'C' Blanc. He reportedly refused to believe that it was made in the Middle East.
• [32:51] He thought it was a ringer from Meursault. That is the ultimate ABC—Authentically Beautiful Chardonnay. The ABC movement was actually the best thing that ever happened to the grape. It forced winemakers to stop hiding behind the barrel. It led to the un-oaked revolution: wines like the Dalton Oak Knoll or the Netofa Latour White, which are all about the fruit and the soil.
• [33:21] So, if you’re one of those people who still says "Anything but Chardonnay," I challenge you to try a modern bottle. Try a Covenant Lavan from California or a Psagot Chardonnay from the Judean Hills. You’ll find that the butter has been replaced by brilliance. The lumber has been replaced by limestone.
• [33:51] But wait—before we get to the modern style, we have to talk about Chardonnay’s secret identity. Because while everyone was arguing about oak barrels, Chardonnay was quietly responsible for the most celebrated, most expensive, and most festive wines on the planet. We’re talking about the bubbles.
• [34:21] So, if you’re still with me, you’re either a true oenophile or you’ve got a very sturdy liver. Either way, I salute you. Up until now, we’ve talked about Chardonnay as a still wine—the gold in the glass that we swirl and sniff. But now we have to talk about its secret life: its high-energy, high-pressure, Clark Kent into Superman identity.
• [34:51] I’m talking about the bubbles. You see, if you take a walk through the rolling hills of Champagne in France, you’ll find three main grapes: Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier, and our Queen, Chardonnay. But the most prestigious, the most elegant, and the most long-lived bottles of Champagne often have three words on the label: Blanc de Blancs.
• [35:21] White from whites. This is code for 100% Chardonnay. Now, why does this matter? Because while the ABC—"Always Be Carbonated"—crowd loves a good fizz, Chardonnay is literally the backbone of the world’s finest sparkling wines. It provides the acidity, the structure, and that electric nerve that allows wine to age for decades in the cellar.
• [35:51] Let’s talk about the science for a moment because it’s fascinating. When you’re making a still Chardonnay, you want the grapes to be ripe and juicy. But when you’re making sparkling wine, you want the grapes to be almost green. You pick them early—sometimes weeks before everyone else does—because you need that searing mouth-watering acidity.
• [36:21] In the kosher world, we have a legend in that category. If you’ve been listening to the show for a while, you know I have a deep respect for the Golan Heights Winery. But their Yarden Blanc de Blancs? That wine isn't just wine; it’s a masterclass in patience.
• [36:51] I want to tell you a story about Victor Schoenfeld, the head winemaker at Yarden. Victor is a man who thinks in decades, not years. Making a world-class Blanc de Blancs in the Golan Heights is not easy. You’re dealing with intense sun, but you have the use of that high-altitude coolness that keeps the grapes tight.
• [37:21] I remember visiting the winery and seeing the cages where these bottles sit. The Yarden Blanc de Blancs stays on its lees—those spent yeast cells we talked about earlier—for five, six, sometimes seven years before they ever see the light of day. Why, you ask? Because that’s where the magic happens.
• [37:51] That’s how you get those incredible aromas of toasted brioche, roasted hazelnuts, and lemon zest. When you pop that cork, you aren't just drinking fermented juice; you’re drinking seven years of Golan history captured in a bubble. And the world has noticed.
• [38:21] Back in 2008, at the International Wine and Spirit Competition in London—one of the most prestigious stages in the world—the Yarden Blanc de Blancs 1999 won the trophy for the best sparkling wine in the world. Read that again: it didn't win best kosher wine.
• [38:51] It beat out the famous French Champagne houses. It beat the Brits, the Italians, the Californians. It was a Judgment of Paris moment all over again, but this time it was for the bubbles. It proved that the Queen could take the volcanic soil of Israel and turn it into a crown of diamonds.
• [39:21] Now let’s look at California. The Herzog family and Ernie Weir have also dabbled in the sparkle. Herzog Selection Blanc de Blancs is a staple for a reason: it’s approachable and bright. But there’s a new wave of artisan kosher bubbles coming out of California that is very exciting.
• [39:51] Think about Covenant. They’ve experimented with these pét-nats styles and traditional methods that lean into the mineral side of Chardonnay. They’re moving away from the sweet sparkling wines of the past towards something that is bone-dry and sophisticated.
• [40:21] And I have to mention the ABC—a bottle of celebration—aspect of this. There is a psychological change that happens when you pour Chardonnay with bubbles. It stops being a controversial grape and starts being a unifier. Even the most die-hard "Anything But Chardonnay" person will happily accept a glass of Blanc de Blancs.
• [40:51] Why? Because the bubbles hide the varietal character and emphasize the texture. It’s the ultimate expression of the grape's purity. When you strip away the heavy oak and the butter and you’re left with nothing but the acidity, the yeast, and the $CO_2$, you see the true soul of the Chardonnay. It is clean, it is bright, and it is timeless.
• [41:21] So here is my advice: next time you’re at a wedding or a Kiddush or someone offers you the bubbles, ask them if it’s a Blanc de Blancs. If it is, take a moment. Don't just gulp it down. Look at the persistence of the bubbles—it’s called the perlage. Smell that freshly baked bread aroma.
• [41:51] That’s our Queen, Chardonnay, showing you her most festive, most elegant side. But as much as I love the sparkles, we have to come back down to earth. We have to talk about where our grape is going now. We’ve seen the butter bombs, we’ve seen the sparkle, but what about the modern style?
• [42:21] What are the winemakers in the Judean Hills and the Sonoma Coast doing today to make sure Chardonnay remains relevant for the next 100 years? In this next segment, the ABC stands for acidity, balance, and complexity. This is the holy trinity of the modern Renaissance.
• [42:51] We’ve moved past the heavy oak of the 90s and the identity crisis of the early 2000s. Today, winemakers in both California and Israel are obsessed with one thing: transparency. They want the wine to be a window into the dirt, not a mirror of the winemaker's ego. Let’s start right here in my backyard: the Judean Hills.
• [43:21] If you drive 30 minutes out of Jerusalem, you enter a landscape that looks like a rugged Mediterranean version of Tuscany. It’s all terraced hillsides, pine trees, ancient limestone, and that limestone is the secret weapon. At Domaine du Castel, I mentioned them earlier, but we have to go a little bit deeper.
• [43:51] Eli Ben-Zvi and now his son Gilad produce the 'C' Blanc du Castel. This wine is widely considered the best white wine in Israel and arguably the best kosher white wine in the world. The story of 'C' is a story of uncompromising French discipline. They use 100% French oak, which should, in theory, make a butter bomb.
• [44:21] But it doesn't, because the fruit they grow in the high-altitude vineyards of Ramat Raziel has such high natural acidity, it eats the oak. The oak becomes a structural support, like the skeleton of a building rather than the facade. When you drink a 'C', you’re tasting 30 years of family saying, "We will not follow trends; we will follow the limestone."
• [44:51] Now let’s fly 7,000 miles west to the Sonoma Coast and the Napa Valley. In California, the new style is being led by people who aren't afraid to be rebels. Take Jeff Morgan of Covenant. Jeff is a former wine critic—he literally wrote the book on Rosé—and when he started Covenant, he wanted to make a Napa Chardonnay that could stand toe-to-toe with the legends of Montrachet.
• [45:21] He created Lavan. I love the story of the Lavan. Jeff doesn't just use the standard kosher playbook. He uses native yeasts. He doesn't fine or filter the wines excessively. He wants the wine to have texture. When you drink Lavan, it has this weight on the palate—it’s luxurious—but it’s also bright.
• [45:51] It’s a high-wire act of balance. It’s the Absolutely Brilliant Clarity of Napa fruit. And we can’t forget the Herzog family’s move towards single-vineyard expressions. They have been sourcing from the Chalk Hill region. Now, Chalk Hill is unique because of its volcanic ash and quartzite soils.
• [46:21] It’s warmer than the Russian River, but cooler than the valley floor. The Herzog Special Reserve Chalk Hill Chardonnay is a masterclass in place. It has this specific aroma of yellow plums and ginger that you just don't get anywhere else. It proves that the Queen has different dialects.
• [46:51] In the Judean Hills, she speaks with a flinty mineral accent. In Chalk Hill, she speaks with a spicy sun-drenched California drawl. The modern era is also dealing with a new challenge: climate change. As the world gets warmer, Chardonnay is moving.
• [47:21] In Israel, we are seeing more plantings in the Upper Galilee and the Northern Golan, where the elevation provides a refrigerator effect. In California, winemakers are moving closer and closer to the true Sonoma Coast, so close to the ocean that the vines are practically getting salt spray.
• [47:51] This is the most exciting time to be a Chardonnay drinker. Why? Because the ABC—"Anything But Chardonnay"—cliché is officially dead. It’s been replaced by a generation of drinkers who realize that if you want to know what a specific piece of earth tastes like, you ask Chardonnay to tell you the story.
• [48:21] Whether it’s a bottle of Flam Blanc, a beautiful blend where Chardonnay plays the lead, or a Psagot single vineyard, we are seeing a return to elegance. We are seeing wines that are built to age 10, 15, even 20 years. So as we move into our final section, I want you to think about your own Chardonnay narrative.
• [48:51] Which style speaks to you? The stony pulse of Jerusalem, the golden opulent silk of California? Because the beauty of the Queen is that she doesn't make you choose; she offers it all. We’ve reached the end of this episode, and I hope I’ve convinced you that Chardonnay is not a tired grape.
• [49:21] It is a living, breathing narrative. The "Anything But Chardonnay" movement was a moment in history, but the Actually Brilliant Chardonnay movement is forever. It is the grape that bridged the gap between the Old World of the French monks and the New World of the California and Israel pioneers.
• [49:51] It is the grape that survived the 90s butter craze and came out the other side more refined, more site-specific, and more delicious than ever. As I look out over Jerusalem, the sun has finally set and the city is glowing in a different way. It’s a reminder that things change—styles change, tastes change—but quality is a constant.
• [50:21] Whether it’s a Sha'ar Adonai legend or a Judgment of Paris victory, this grape tells the story of our ambition and our connection to the land. So the next time someone says ABC to you at a party, just smile. Pour them a glass of a well-chilled mineral-driven Judean Hills Chardonnay.
• [50:51] Don't say a word; just let the Queen do the talking. I’m Simon Jacob, and this has been The Kosher Terroir. Thank you for joining me on this journey. Until next time, may your glass be full, your heart light, and your Chardonnay... well, may it be anything but ordinary. L'chaim from Jerusalem!
• [51:26] 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.