THE KOSHER TERROIR

Only a Thousand Bottles

Season 5 · Episode 5
Host: Simon Jacob

Welcome

[00:08] Welcome to The Kosher Terroir. I'm Simon Jacob, your host, coming to you from Jerusalem. Before we start, wherever you are, please take a moment to pray for the safe return home of all our soldiers. If you're driving, keep your eyes on the road.

[00:33] If you’re home, pour yourself a glass of wonderful kosher wine, sit back, and spend a little time with me.

The Bottle on the Desk

[00:42] There's a bottle on the desk in front of me. Yarden Cabernet Sauvignon, 2003. Golan Heights Winery. The grapes grew up in the Golan, volcanic soil, black basalt, high vineyards, cold winter nights, the kind of Cabernet that was built from the start to go the distance.

[01:07] Twenty-three years old. And for most of those years, I've walked past it. Not because it wasn't ready. It's been ready for years. Not because I don't want it. Because I want it too much. Every time I reach for it, a little voice says, not tonight. Tonight isn't good enough for this one.

[01:32] When I lived in New Jersey, I had several thousand bottles of wine. Now I live in Jerusalem, and only have about a thousand. Only. I can say that sentence with a perfectly straight face, and then I hear myself and have to laugh. I've cut back. I've become restrained. Apparently, this is what restraint looks like.

[02:00] There's also a question I want to leave with you. In the Gemara, there's a teaching that comes straight out of Avraham's kitchen. Five Hebrew words about how good people keep their promises. I think it's the best advice anyone has given to a wine collector. And the Gemara wasn't talking about wine at all. I'll tell you what those five words are before we're done, and I'll tell you what happens to the Cabernet.

[02:31] Hold on to both. This is The Kosher Terroir, and this is the episode about the bottles we buy for someday, and how to give someday a date.

How Much Wine Is Too Much?

[02:44] How much wine is too much? I'm asking as someone who loves wine and has, by any reasonable standard, a great deal of it. So, this isn't a lecture. It's a confession with a little arithmetic attached. And I suspect you know the feeling, even if your collection is much smaller than mine. Maybe you have 12 bottles, maybe 50.

[03:12] Maybe a wine fridge that filled up much faster than you expected. The number is different, but the next purchase is just as persuasive. Here's the question I've been carrying around, and I'd like you to carry it with me for an hour. Am I buying wine for the life I actually lead, or for the life I imagine?

[03:37] I don't ask that to scold anyone. The imagined life is beautiful. A long table, friends in from overseas, a Shabbat meal that runs late because nobody wants to get up. Those are the things worth looking forward to. But a cellar full of imagined evenings is still a cellar full of closed bottles.

[04:03] So let me tell you where we're going, because I promise I won't waste your time. First, how a cellar actually grows, one perfectly sensible purchase at a time. I'll show you my own habits and you'll see exactly how a thousand happens. Second, what we're saving it for.

[04:28] Every bottle carries a promise, and some of those promises have quietly expired. Third, a wonderful idea called the Rosh Chodesh Club, which takes the word “someday” and puts it on the calendar. Fourth, this week's parsha, Vayera. Avraham at the entrance of his tent, running towards three strangers.

[04:55] And fifth, the numbers. A simple way to work out how much wine actually makes sense for your house. And then I'll do the uncomfortable part. I'll run my own. And at the end, three evenings I'll never forget. The five words from the Gemara and this bottle. Let's start with how it happens.

How a Cellar Grows

[05:24] Nobody wakes up one morning and says, I think I'll accumulate several thousand bottles of wine. It doesn't work like that. You taste something you love. You discover a producer. Someone whose palate you trust says, “You have to try this,” and immediately the mind gets to work. Who would enjoy this?

[05:49] What would I serve it with? I wonder what it'll be like in five years. Every one of those questions is reasonable. That's the trouble. A cellar grows through a long line of purchases that each make perfect sense on the day you make them. And eventually, you need more shelving.

A Job for Every Bottle

[06:13] Let me show you my own habit, because I think it explains a great deal. When I find an interesting wine, I don't buy one bottle. I buy at least three. If it's really interesting, I buy six, and every one of those bottles has a job. The first bottle is to meet the wine. Where is it today?

[06:39] What is it offering now? Is there something in the structure, the tannins, the acidity, a certain tightness on the finish, that tells me it has somewhere further to go? And I don't finish that bottle in one sitting. I come back to it that evening, the next day, sometimes the day after. I want to see what air does. Does it open up?

[07:05] Does something new come forward? Does my first impression hold? That isn't a perfect preview of how the wine will age in a sealed bottle. Those are different processes, but it gives me far more time with a wine than one glass ever could. The second bottle is for sharing. If the first one was exceptional, I don't want the story to end with me telling a friend you really should have tasted that.

[07:36] I want to be able to say, I have another. Let's open it together. The middle bottles are for following the wine, months later, a year later, a few years later depending on the grape, the vintage, and how it's showing. And the last bottle is my favorite. That one I keep for the long view. Or for a night when I can set it beside another vintage from the same winery, or the same grape from somewhere else entirely, and let the whole table taste the difference. One to meet, one to share, a few to follow, and one for the long view.

[08:21] As plans go, I'm rather proud of it.

Buying Future Evenings

[08:24] But here is where I have to be honest. Every new wine arrives with that whole set of intentions, another bottle to study, another friend to invite. Another check-in in a year or two or three, another last bottle waiting for the right company. Ten interesting wines at three bottles each is thirty bottles.

[08:53] If I'm enthusiastic about all ten, it's sixty, and I am, unfortunately, frequently enthusiastic. So I'm not just committing shelf space. I'm committing future evenings, future meals, future people, and every one of those has to fit into the life that I actually lead.

[09:19] That's how a lot of very reasonable three-bottle, six-bottle decisions become a cellar of a thousand. I can explain how every single bottle got there. The harder question is whether I've given them the evenings, the evenings I promised them when I bought them. There's something else that happens, and it’s subtle. You get used to what you own.

[09:46] If you always kept six bottles in the house, a case arriving at the door feels like an event. If you have hundreds, another case barely registers. The case didn't change. Your point of comparison did. And if you spend time with people who have truly magnificent cellars, your own starts to look positively incomplete.

[10:14] They have vintages you don't, producers you've never followed, whole regions you've barely touched. You start to notice the gaps. Which is a strange way to stand in a room full of wine thinking about what's missing. I understand it. Wanting to know what you don't know is part of the joy.

[10:40] But I'd like to look at what's already on my shelves with at least as much excitement as I look at what isn't. Because somewhere in those thousand bottles are wines I bought because they thrilled me. Some I haven't tasted in years. Some I haven't tasted at all. That's not a storage problem. That's a treasure hunt.

[11:05] I haven't started.

What Are We Saving It For?

[11:07] So what am I saving them for? If you asked me why I bought a particular bottle, I could tell you in a sentence. I tasted it and loved it. A friend recommended it. I want to follow the producer. If you ask me when I'm going to open it, the answer would take a little longer. Buying a wine and opening a wine are two separate decisions.

[11:35] Most of us are very good at the first one. And the more we care about a bottle, the harder the second one gets. A bottle we bought casually finds its way to the table easily. A bottle we researched, waited for, or paid real money for needs a whole conversation with ourselves. Is tonight the night?

[12:00] Are these the right people? Would it be better to wait? Sometimes waiting is exactly right. If a wine needs more time, opening it too early robs you of the very thing you bought it for. But sometimes the wine is really ready, and we're the ones who aren't.

Four Promises: Near-Future Wine

[12:22] When I walk through my cellar, I find it helps to ask what kind of promise each bottle is carrying. There are really four. The first one is the easy one. Wine for the near future. Shabbat, dinner, guests we’re already expecting. These bottles are doing honest work.

[12:48] But even here I can ask whether the wine I buy matches the wine I actually reach for. If I keep opening one style and buying another, that tells me something. Maybe I admire the second kind more than I enjoy drinking it. Maybe I'm buying for grand dinners when most of my dinners are simple.

[13:13] So here's a test, and I'd love you to try it. An ordinary Friday afternoon, stand in front of your wine. Can you choose something to open comfortably, happily, or does everything seem to require a better occasion? If everything requires a better occasion, the cellar has stopped serving your table.

A Bottle with Someone’s Name on It

[13:40] The second promise is a bottle with someone's name on it. I love these. I have wine set aside for friends I hope will come through Jerusalem. And when I look at one of those bottles, I'm really looking at a person, what they love, what we've tasted together, what I'd like to show them. But a name on a bottle doesn't put the person at your table.

[14:05] They might be waiting for their next trip. Their schedule might be crowded. We might both sincerely say we have to get together. Three years running. So I have to ask, have I actually made the invitation? Have I told my friend, I've put something aside for you? There's a difference between waiting patiently for a visit and leaving the whole thing to chance.

Following a Wine over Time

[14:35] The third promise is the wine I'm following over time. This is where the three and six bottles earn their keep, but only if I actually open them along the way. If I save all six for some distant future, I lose the very journey I said I wanted. A few notes help on this journey, nothing elaborate. What did I notice in the first bottle?

[15:03] Did I think it needed time? When should I come back? Without that, it’s remarkably easy to collect aging intentions and never revisit a single one. Every one of those bottles is going to be opened later. But later is a very busy place. Let me say a word here about what time actually does to wine.

[15:31] Because it's one of the most exciting things in the whole subject. In a young red, you’re tasting mostly fruit—fresh cherry, plum, black… [unclear in supplied transcript] held up by tannin, which you feel as a grip on your gums, on the inside of your cheeks. Over years in the bottle, slowly chemistry goes to work.

[15:57] The tannins soften. The fresh fruit moves towards dried fruit. And things appear that weren't there at all on the day you bought it. Cedar, leather, earth after rain, a kind of savory depth. That's what you're waiting for. Something you couldn't have tasted on the day you bought the wine.

[16:22] But here's the honest part. Most wines in the world are made to be enjoyed within the first few years. Only a minority truly improve with long aging, and even those have a window, a stretch of years when the wine is at its most interesting. And the windows close.

[16:47] Some wines peak earlier than we expect. Some drift away from the very thing we loved about them. And your own taste counts. A wine doesn't have to reach some theoretical perfect age before you're allowed to enjoy it. If you own several bottles, you get to discover when you like it best.

[17:13] That's the real privilege of buying more than one.

The Special-Occasion Bottle

[17:18] Which brings me to the fourth promise, the special occasion bottle. Sometimes, special occasion means something clear: a birthday, an anniversary, a visit we've waited a year for. And sometimes it means an evening that has to somehow live up to the bottle. That's where the trouble starts.

[17:44] Say I’ve kept a wine for years. I've read about it. I've watched its price go up. I've passed over it a dozen times, and each time I decided to wait, the next occasion has to be just a little bit more significant. After all, I've saved this for a long time. The bottle starts to carry the weight of all that postponement.

[18:11] That's the Cabernet on my desk. And I think this is why some of our most treasured wines never get opened. We've made them so important that no real evening can measure up. Because real evenings are imperfect. Someone arrives late. The fish takes longer than you planned. A guest had a hard week.

[18:36] The conversation wanders somewhere you never expected. But that is life. And that's the life we drink wine in. Opening a great bottle isn't a verdict on whether the evening was grand enough. Very often, it's the thing that makes the evening grand. So the question I keep asking myself is this, am I saving this bottle because I have a reason to wait, or because I keep finding reasons to postpone?

[19:12] If it's still too young, that's a reason. If a particular friend lands next month, that's a reason too. If the celebration is already on the calendar, that's also a reason. But if the answer is always “not tonight,” then I'd like to know what tonight would have to look like.

[19:37] Would Shabbat with friends I love qualify? Would three close friends and no milestone at all qualify? If the answer is yes, then I don't need a better occasion. I need a date. There's one more thing I've noticed. When I buy far ahead, I'm making choices for a future version of myself.

[20:03] And the man choosing a wine today may not be the man opening it eight years from now. His taste may have moved. He may have fallen for a grape I haven't even met yet. Some of that is the joy of collecting. Opening an old bottle is like having a conversation with the person you used to be.

[20:28] You remember what excited him. Sometimes you think, “He had pretty good taste.” And sometimes you think, “What was he thinking?” But I'd like to leave that future fellow a little room to make some discoveries of his own.

The Rosh Chodesh Club

[20:47] And that's where a friend in New York had a brilliant idea. It's called the Rosh Chodesh Club. Most people just say the RCC. It was started by Yossie Horwitz. Many of you know him from Yossie’s Corkboard, around his own dining room in Manhattan, a little more than a decade ago. He took his inspiration from a pair of newspaper wine columnists who had been promoting one night a year when you finally open that bottle you've been saving.

[21:22] Yossie thought, “Why only once a year?” So every month around Rosh Chodesh, a small group gathers, about ten people at first, good food, and everyone brings a special bottle to share. And in the early days, there was a rule I loved. The bottle had to be at least seven years past its vintage.

[21:48] Think about what that rule does. It goes straight into your cellar, past all the young, easy bottles, and puts its finger on exactly the wine most of us are hoarding. It doesn't say bring something nice. It says bring the bottle you've been walking past. The idea spread. There are groups in San Diego, all over the New York area, Brooklyn, Teaneck, the Syrian community.

[22:19] Group known as the SRCC, one in Ra’anana, at one count more than 30 around the world. And for a while we had one drawing people from Jerusalem and Beit Shemesh, though I have to admit, we haven't met in quite a while. What I love most is how simple it is. It changes the question you ask when you stand in front of your wine. You’re no longer asking, when will there ever be an occasion for this?

[22:52] There is an occasion, and it's on the calendar. People are coming. Now the only question is, what do I want to bring? That may sound to you like a small shift, but for someone who finds it much easier to buy a wine than to find a night to open it—and you know who I’m talking about—it changes everything.

[23:17] The bottle has somewhere to go. The anticipation has a date. Think about what usually has to happen before one of those special bottles gets opened. First, somebody has the idea. Then the guest list, then the schedules. One person is traveling, another can't do Tuesday. A new date gets suggested, and now the first person is busy. And eventually, someone says the most dangerous sentence in the Jewish calendar.

[23:50] Let's do it after the Chagim. And then the bottle stays exactly where it was. The RCC takes all that and makes it recurring. The people already know why they're coming. You don't have to build the evening from nothing every time. And then there's the wonderful part. When you arrive with a bottle you chose yourself, you arrive with a story.

[24:22] Why this producer? Why this vintage? Why tonight? Every bottle on that table tells you something about the person who brought it. What they’ve loved, where they’ve been, who first poured them a glass of something that changed their mind. That can be as fascinating as anything in the glass. And everyone tastes everyone’s bottle. Somebody notices something you missed.

[24:52] Somebody knows the vineyard. Somebody else isn't impressed at all. And that's fine too. I don't need a unanimous vote to justify my choice. Part of enjoying wine together is letting people have their own experience of it.

Appreciation and a Welcoming Table

[25:10] Which brings me to a phrase I use myself. I want to open it with someone who will appreciate it. I mean that, but appreciation comes in many forms. One person knows the winemaker, the soil, the history of the vintage. Another knows almost nothing technical but is curious and paying attention.

[25:35] A third is simply touched that you thought of them. All of those are appreciation. I never want a table where someone feels that they have to earn the bottle. A good table makes it easy to say, I love this, and I have no idea how to describe it. That's a perfectly good tasting note. And let me add, the number of bottles on the table is an invitation, not an obligation.

[26:06] Small pours, taste and pass. Leave something in the glass. A welcoming table leaves every guest comfortable with their own choices.

Shopping in My Own Cellar

[26:18] Now, I have to confess a complication. A monthly gathering gives me a reason to open something from my cellar. It also gives me a reason to buy something new. There's an RCC coming up. I have about a thousand bottles. I taste something and think that would be perfect to bring. You see the problem?

[26:44] So before you go shopping for the occasion, I'd like to go shopping in my own cellar first. Which bottle excited me five years ago? Which wine have I been meaning to revisit? What have I been saving for exactly this kind of crowd? Rediscovering an old purchase is its own kind of thrill.

[27:10] You meet your own curiosity from years ago. and now you get to follow through. And then there's the harder question. Our Jerusalem group hasn't met for a long time. I miss it. I have to ask myself, am I just waiting for somebody else to send the message? Because the very problem we've been talking about. bottles waiting for an evening happens to RCCs too.

[27:39] Everyone loves the idea. Nobody sets the date. Everybody’s busy. Somebody has to start the conversation. Somebody has to offer a table. And you don't need a formal club to do it. Invite the one friend who's always asking about your wines. Ask the friend visiting Jerusalem to keep a night free.

[28:04] Choose a bottle you've been looking forward to and give it a date. What matters is moving from we should to we did. I've made a great deal of room for bottles. I need to make some more room for friends.

Vayera: Making Room for People

[28:23] And nobody in our tradition made room for people quite like Avraham Avinu. This week we read Parshat Vayera. Avraham is sitting at the entrance of his tent in the heat of the day, the Gemara in Tractate Bava Metzia tells us that it was the third day after his brit milah, the day the pain is at its worst.

[28:53] He has every reason to stay exactly where he is. He looks up and sees three travelers, and he runs. Vayaratz likratam. He ran to greet them. That's the first thing I noticed. Not the meal, not the menu, the movement. Avraham sees people and he goes to them. I can spend a great deal of time imagining whom I'd love to host.

[29:22] I can plan the food, I can choose the wine, but until I actually go to the person and say… [Gap in supplied transcript.] The invitation looks like the smallest part of hospitality. It really is the part everything else depends on. And sometimes the guest we keep meaning to invite isn't a friend flying in from overseas.

[29:51] It's someone ten minutes away, a neighbor we like, a friend we haven't seen since the summer. Someone whose name keeps coming up in conversation and never quite makes it onto the calendar. I've probably already chosen the bottle I'd open for them. I could spend a little less time on the bottle and a little more on the phone call.

[30:16] Then listen to what Avraham Avinu offers his guests. A little water to wash their feet, rest in the shade of a tree, and I'll bring a morsel of bread so you can refresh yourselves. A morsel of bread. He hurries into the tent to Sarah. Quickly, three measures of fine flour. Make cakes. He runs to the herd himself and chooses a calf.

[30:42] Tender and good. He brings butter and milk, and he stands by them under the tree while they eat. He promised a piece of bread. He brought a feast. The Gemara notices that too. Hold on to it. I'll come back to that in the end. What moves me most here isn't the size of the meal. It's that Avraham's attention stays with his guests.

[31:10] He stands by them while they eat. He isn't off somewhere fussing. He's present. And that's the real lesson for anyone who loves wine the way I do. Because it's possible to get so absorbed in the arrangements that there's nothing left over for the people. Is the wine at the right temperature? Does it need more air?

[31:35] Are these the right glasses? Should I open the next one now? I enjoy all that. It can make the evening better, but the preparation is supposed to help me settle into the company, not replace it. And there's a particular temptation when you finally open a bottle you’ve waited years for. You want to know what everyone thinks.

[32:00] Is it showing the way you hoped? Do they taste what you taste? But the guest across from you may have arrived with something else entirely on their mind. News, a hard week. They might be grateful just to sit somewhere warm. [Gap in supplied transcript.] without being the subject of it.

[32:28] The care I put into choosing the bottle should become part of the larger care. It should say, I thought about what you might enjoy. And now that you're here, I want to hear how you are. That's a standard of hospitality I'd be happy to spend my life working toward.

Wine in the Middle of the Welcome

[32:50] There's one more scene in Vayera I want to share with you. A few chapters later, in Beersheva, the Torah tells us that Avraham planted an eshel. The Gemara in Tractate Sotah records a disagreement about what an eshel was. One opinion says it's an orchard. Another says it's an inn, a place where travelers could stop, eat, and rest.

[33:19] And Rashi brings a beautiful reading of the word itself. The spelling eshel: aleph, shin, lamed. Achilah, shetiyah, levayah. Eating, drinking, and at the end walking your guest out on their way. Drinking right there in the middle of Avraham's hospitality.

[33:44] Not drinking alone, drinking as something you offer between the meal you serve and the way you send someone home. That's where wine belongs in a home, in the middle of the welcome.

Gratitude

[33:58] And I want to say something about gratitude. And I want to say it once, only once, so that it lands. I'm fortunate to be able to ask any of these questions, to live in Jerusalem, to drink wine from our own hills and valleys, to have wines from the rest of the world on my table as well, to have bottles I'm excited to open, and people I'd love to open them with.

[34:28] These are blessings, and I'm grateful to God for them. And when I think about what's inside a bottle, there are so many hands in it. Someone pruned those vines in the cold winter. Someone watched the weather all season. Someone made the call on harvest day. Someone sorted, fermented, tasted, waited, and decided the wine was ready.

[34:55] By the time it reaches my table, I’m receiving years of other people’s work and [unclear: “pain” in supplied transcript], and especially their experience. And before we drink, we say, Borei pri hagafen. Blessed are you who created the fruit of the vine. With everything we talk about on the show, the vintages, the soil, the oak, the scores, the blessing brings us back to the fruit.

[35:24] Something grew out of the ground. That's where it all started. If I can carry that awareness into how I collect, I think I'll collect better. Appreciate the one in front of me before I start thinking about the next one. Remember that having so many to choose from is itself a gift. And remember that that gift is meant to be shared.

How Many Bottles, Actually?

[35:51] Which brings me finally to the question. I've been circling it the entire episode. How many bottles, actually? I've given myself plenty of good reason to enjoy wine. Curiosity, hospitality, following a wine across years, sharing something wonderful. And if I stop at the words like gratitude and generosity, I can justify almost any number.

[36:23] I can stand in front of a thousand bottles and say, look at all of this potential hospitality. Well, yes, but at some point, the intentions need a few numbers beside them. So let's do some simple arithmetic. To be clear, these are numbers about a household: bottles opened at meals shared with guests, carried to friends, given as gifts.

[36:54] They're planning examples, and certainly not advice as to how much anyone should drink. The first number is the only one that really matters. In an ordinary month, how many bottles leave your house? Not how many you buy, how many leave. If you don't know, write it down for a couple of months.

[37:21] What you open, what you give away, what comes in. You may find your instincts are right, or you may find you’re buying for a social calendar far more ambitious than your real one. When I picture how many wines I need, I picture a busy month, guests every Shabbat, a dinner, a visitor from abroad, a chag around the corner.

[37:51] I don’t picture a quiet month, so count the ordinary months, and plan the big moments—the Seder, the smachot—separately. You don't have to stock for Pesach twelve times a year. Then decide how far ahead you want to be covered for wine that's ready to drink. For this exercise, let's say three months. That gives you choice and flexibility without pretending you need years of everyday wine on hand.

[38:21] Bottles that leave each month times three. That's your ready-to-drink shelf. Let me show you how different that looks in two houses. Picture a home that opens one bottle over Shabbat each week. That's about 52 bottles a year. Three months of wine is about 13 bottles. Two bottles for Shabbat, about 26. Look at that.

[38:47] A couple of dozen bottles can give your family real variety. A few favorites, something that goes with the fish, and something for the meat. One thing they've never tried. They don't need hundreds of bottles to have an interesting table. If they own more, that's collecting, which is wonderful, but it's a separate decision and it deserves its own thought.

[39:14] Now picture a house that hosts all the time. 26 bottles leave every month over a year with the holidays, the gifts, call it 320 to 350 bottles. Three months of ready wine in that house is around 80 bottles. Eighty bottles is three months for one home. For a family that opens a bottle each Shabbat, the same eighty bottles is a year and a half.

[39:47] Same shelves, completely different meaning, which is why the total number by itself tells you almost nothing.

The Aging Rotation

[39:56] Now collecting the wine you're deliberately aging. Here's a simple picture. Say you set aside 24 bottles every year to hold for about five years. Once that rotation is running, you have roughly 120 bottles in the pipeline. Five years’ worth, 24 each.

[40:21] Each year, the oldest group becomes ready to move to the table, and a new young group comes in at the other end. Real life is a lot messier. Different wines, different windows, but it gives the collection a shape. You can see why the bottles are there, and roughly when they'll leave. And here's a piece of arithmetic almost everyone misses.

[40:46] I certainly did. The aged wine has to be counted [unclear in supplied transcript] what you open. If your house goes through 150 bottles a year and 24 of them are coming out of your aging collection, you don't need to buy 150 to drink and then 24 more to age.

[41:11] Some of this year's evenings are already in the cellar. But here's what actually happens. I buy a young wine to keep, then Friday comes, and I buy something new for dinner. And the mature bottles stay exactly where they are. Do that for enough years, and the aging collection never completes its circle. It just grows.

My Own Numbers

[41:36] Now the uncomfortable part. My own numbers. I sat down and counted. In my house, about twenty-six bottles leave a month: Shabbat, guests, friends passing through Jerusalem, bottles carried to other people’s tables, gifts. Across a year, somewhere between 320 and 350.

[42:01] So that's a busy house, just as I described. That's me. Which means a thousand bottles is roughly three years of wine. And I have to tell you, when I ran that, I was surprised. I expected to catch myself. I expected the number to say ten years. Instead, it says three. That isn't a hoard.

[42:26] That's a well-stocked house with a long memory. So, is my problem the number? I don't think so. I don't think it is. I think the real question is which bottles are leaving. Because if the 300-odd bottles that leave every year are mostly the ones I bought recently—the easy ones, the ready ones—.

[42:53] Then the bottles I'm saving never move. The count stays steady, and the treasures at the back just get older, waiting for an evening I never give them. Three months of ready wine for me is about 80 bottles. That means something like 900 bottles in my cellar are wine for later.

[43:19] Wine for someone. Wine for someday. And that's a lot of someday. So the arithmetic that matters isn’t “how many.” It’s this: How many of the bottles leaving your house each year are bottles I've actually been waiting for? If 26 bottles leave a month, what if just two of them every month came from the back, from the special shelf, from the wines with someone's name on them?

[43:54] Two a month is 24 a year. That's exactly the rotation an aging collection is supposed to have. It's also one RCC night a month with a bottle to spare for Shabbat. That isn't cutting back. That's opening up.

Budget, Storage, and Discovery

[44:15] A couple of other limits are worth having. A budget, because a bottle count tells you about space. But a budget asks how large a place you want this pleasure to have in your life. And storage, the longer you mean to keep a wine, the more the conditions matter: cool, steady, dark, and still.

[44:41] And inside those limits, I'd keep an allowance for discovery. Some money, some space, a few new wines a season that you'll really follow. Then, when something thrilling comes along, you can ask a better question than, do I want it? You can ask, would I rather have this than the other wines that I was considering?

[45:06] Would three bottles do? Do I already own something like this that I've been meaning to open? Sometimes the answer will still be yes. And that's a wonderful yes, because you know exactly where it fits. So if you wanted to start tomorrow, here's the whole thing. Count what leaves in an ordinary month, decide how much ready wine you want on hand.

[45:32] Look at what you're aging and what's ready now, and compare what comes in with what goes out. If more keeps coming in than going out, ask one question. Did I choose this size? Or did each lovely purchase choose it for me? I can choose to have a big cellar. I just want to choose it on purpose, knowing what it asks of me.

[46:01] Because how much is too much becomes a lot easier to answer once you know what enough is for.

Three Evenings I’ll Never Forget

[46:13] And I've been thinking a great deal about what it's for. Over the years, I've had the privilege of tasting some extraordinary wines. But when I think back on my most memorable wine experiences, something interesting happens. It's often not the wine I remember. It's the people. Let me tell you about three evenings.

[46:38] The first one was a Friday night at my friend Jay Buchsbaum’s home. I just arrived from Israel. Jay's wife had gone to help with a new grandchild. So it was just the three of us, Jay, his mother-in-law, and me. Jay invited me to choose some wines from his cellar, and we began tasting. Now his mother-in-law was an older woman who rarely drank much.

[47:07] But that night she joined us. One taste led to another, and before long, the three of us were having the most wonderful time. Somewhere along the way, she became my drinking partner or drinking buddy. And the name stuck. For years afterwards, whenever I spoke with the family, I’d ask, “How’s my drinking partner?” She passed away several months ago.

[47:34] May her memory be a blessing. I couldn't tell you a single wine we opened that Shabbat. But I'll never forget the laughter, the warmth, and my drinking partner. The second evening came after KFWE, Kosher Food and Wine Experience in Florida. The show was over, the crowds had gone, and a group of us found a quiet side lobby in the hotel.

[48:01] Amichai Lourie, the winemaker from Shiloh Winery, was there. A good friend, Kenny Friedman, and his brother, and a bunch of other friends, but especially Elk—Elk Hellinger. Now Elk had been very busy. As the exhibit was closing, he'd gone from table to table and collected perhaps twenty open bottles.

[48:26] And not just any bottles, the finest wines from all the different wineries in the room. He set his treasure down in front of us, and suddenly the cream of the entire show was sitting on one table. No presentations, no schedule, no flight to catch. We sat on those sofas until maybe three or four o'clock in the morning, tasting extraordinary wines, laughing, telling stories.

[48:55] The pressure was off. Everyone was simply happy to be together. The wines were exceptional, but that isn't what I remember the most. I remember the company. Sometimes the best tastings begin after the official tasting ends. And third, if you know Elk, you know he's a party in a glass.

[49:21] A tasting in Brooklyn, Elk was sharing wines with a close friend of ours, Ellie, who uses a wheelchair and has one of the most extraordinary palates I know. The two of them were having a marvelous time, tasting, egging each other on. Just one more, just one more. At one point I stepped out of the room, and when I came back, I couldn't believe my eyes. There they were, arm in arm, standing together, singing at the top of their lungs.

[49:53] I had never seen Ellie stand before. And there he was, shoulder to shoulder with Elk, and the two of them having the time of their lives. I still smile every time I think about it. But that's Elk. Wherever he goes, there's laughter, friendship, and usually a very good bottle of wine. Three tastings, three wonderful memories, and not one of them was really about the wine.

[50:22] I've tasted thousands of bottles of wine over the years. I’ve forgotten a great many of the bottles. I've never forgotten the people I shared them with. So that's what a cellar is for, not the count. The evenings. a thousand bottles is a thousand chances for someone to say, years from now, do you remember that night?

Three Lessons and Two Invitations

[50:47] Three things I’m taking to the table this Shabbat. One: a cellar is meant to be opened. A thousand bottles isn't a problem. A thousand bottles that never move is. Two: count what leaves, not what you own. The number on the shelf means nothing until you know how fast your life moves through it, and which bottles are actually leaving.

[51:15] Three: someday needs a date. The occasion is rarely what’s missing. The invitation is. And two things I'd like to actually do. This Shabbat, Shabbat Vayera, go to wherever you keep your wine and find the bottle you keep walking past. Not the most expensive one, the one you've been saving for something special.

[51:42] And ask yourself honestly, what would that night look like? Who would be there? If the answer is “people I love around my table,” then that bottle belongs on the table this Shabbat. And second, Rosh Chodesh Kislev is just a few days away. Make an invitation for it. Join a club if there's one near you.

[52:08] If there isn't, start one. Even if it's just four friends and four bottles. Just one rule. Everyone bring the bottle they've been walking past.

Say Little and Do Much

[52:21] So, the five words I've promised. The Gemara in Bava Metzia looks at Avraham Avinu. He offered his guests a morsel of bread, and he served them cakes of fine flour, a tender calf, butter and milk. And Rabbi Eliezer says, from here we learn, Tzadikim omrim me’at ve’osim harbeh. The righteous say little and do much.

[52:52] When I was preparing that and read that this week, I thought about my cellar. Because a cellar is the opposite: bottles that say a great deal. Every one of them says someday, for some special occasion, for when so-and-so comes. A thousand promises. Avraham Avinu teaches us to turn that around.

[53:17] Promise a little, then pour a lot. And so, the Cabernet.

Giving the Cabernet a Date

[53:23] Yarden Cabernet Sauvignon. Volcanic soil, high on the Golan. A wine built to last. 2003. Twenty-three years past vintage. By Yossie’s old rules, it qualifies three times over. Is it still singing? I believe it is. A wine with this kind of structure, kept cool and quiet all these years, has every chance.

[53:52] And if it's past its best, then we'll find it out together, around a table, which is its own kind of good evening. Either way, we'll know. And that's more than this bottle has been able to tell me for a very, very long time. Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to stop saying someday to this bottle.

[54:18] I'm sending the message about the Jerusalem group this week. On Rosh Chodesh Kislev, this is the bottle I'm bringing. After all, I have only about a thousand bottles, and there ought to be a few good evenings in there. May your cellar always be a little emptier than you planned, and your table a little fuller.

[54:43] May you say little and pour much. And may the bottles you've been saving find the people they were meant for. Shabbat shalom, my friends, and as always, L’chaim.

Closing

[55:06] 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.