Joseph Herzog: Blending Tradition and Innovation at Herzog Wine Cellars

Is it possible to merge tradition with innovation? Join us as we explore the Herzog family's illustrious wine legacy through the eyes of Joseph Herzog, an eighth-generation family member and Vice President of the Herzog Cellars California operations. Joseph shares his incredible journey from modest real estate ambitions to managing a cutting-edge winery in Oxnard, California. Learn about the family rules and unwavering support that have been crucial in maintaining Herzog's high standards for kosher wines.

Discover the vast and diverse world of kosher wine production across California's renowned wine regions. From the unique terroirs of Napa and Sonoma to the introduction of various sub-appellations, Herzog Wine Cellars is on a mission to ensure kosher wine lovers never have to compromise on quality. We also delve into the evolution of Herzog's winemaking team, celebrating the legacy of the beloved Joe Hurliman and welcoming the expertise of new senior winemaker David Galzignato from Napa Valley.

Finally, we take you behind the scenes of Herzog Winery and Tierra Sur Restaurant, where culinary innovation meets fine wine. Experience the unique dining concept that incorporates wine into every dish, and learn about the exciting new "Yisod" tier inspired by the Herzog family's Holocaust-survivor ancestors. Don’t miss this deep dive into the past, present, and future of the Herzog family's remarkable journey in the world of kosher wine.

Herzog Wine Cellars
3201 Camino Del Sol, Oxnard, CA 93030
(805) 983-1560
https://herzogwine.com/

Reach out to Connect: https://herzogwinestg.wpengine.com/connect/

For Reservations Click Here: https://herzogwinestg.wpenginepowered.com/reservations/

Tasting Room Hours:
Monday – Thursday | 12pm – 7:30pm*
*Food available 3pm – 7:30pm
Friday | Closed
Saturday | Closed
Sunday | 12pm – 7:30pm***
 ***Food available all day

Tierra Sur 
Fine Dining At Herzog Wine Cellars
Address: 3201 Camino Del Sol, Oxnard, CA 93030
 (805) 983-1560

Online Winery Store: https://herzogwine.com/shop/

Joseph Herzog
PARTNER, VICE PRESIDENT
https://www.facebook.com/joseph.herzog.3
https://www.linkedin.com/in/joseph-herzog-76076ba/

Chapters

• 0:09 Herzog Family Wine Legacy
• 15:10 Expanding Kosher Wine Production Across Regions
• 28:52 Herzog Winemaking Team Evolution
• 37:56 Rosh Chodesh Club and Wine Aging
• 43:42 Sonoma Wine Region Overview and Innovations
• 57:00 Future Wines
• 1:05:53 Prayer for Soldiers and Hostages

Transcript

S. Simon Jacob: 0:09

Welcome to The Kosher Terroir. I'm Simon Jacob, your host for this episode from Jerusalem. Before we get started, I ask that, wherever you are, please take a moment and pray for the safety of our soldiers and the safe return of all of our hostages. I feel extremely privileged to present the following interview with Joseph Herzog, the vice president and partner overseeing everything in the Herzog family's California operations. His responsibilities include all of their vineyard partnerships, their modern, state-of-the-art Oxnard winery facility, its tasting room and its world-class fine dining restaurant, Tierra Sur. Throughout California, viewing vineyards firsthand and constantly updating business plans and schedules with a corporate sales and marketing team in Bayonne, new Jersey. I actually caught up with him on the East Coast on one of these planning sessions where I was very appreciative that he allocated me some of his tightly scheduled time that he allocated me some of his tightly scheduled time.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:27

This episode is a rare look into the inner workings of what is a true dynasty of the kosher wine business. If you're in your car, please focus your attention on the road ahead. If you're home, please sit back, relax, open a bottle of delicious kosher wine and enjoy. Without further introduction, I present a conversation with Joseph Herzog. I have a few questions if you've got a few moments.

Joseph Herzog : 1:54

Please thank you. An honor and a pleasure to be here.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:57

It's a pleasure to have you on. I know you're in your ninth generation currently in Herzog, but what does it feel like to be an eighth generation member in the Herzog wine family?

Joseph Herzog : 2:15

Like I said, it's an honor and it's a privilege, but with the honor and the privilege is responsibility. To explain it, I once had a city official in my office and asked me the question how does it feel? And I always say the story. I have on my desk I have a bottle of wine that my father made, going back with my father's signature on the bottle from 1985. And I took that bottle in my hand and I showed it to the person and I said look, this is the bottle of wine that my father made before me.

Joseph Herzog : 2:49

And now I'm sitting here and I'm working for the family and the responsibility from the family to deliver as the A generation, to deliver for the Herzog name and the Herzog quality. And what I see is what I see every day on my desk is a chain link and it's me in the bottom of the chain and I have to make sure not to let go of that chain and continue that chain. So that's really the again. It's interesting because employees ask me. When I interview employees I kind of answer the same thing I said.

Joseph Herzog : 3:22

The honor is that there's all these thousands and thousands, or I could say millions, of people that rely on Herzog, drinking those wines. For every special occasion, whether it's a Shabbos or it's a Yom Tov or it's a wedding, any special, monumental occasion, they use that bottle of wine. So that's the honor. The scary part of it is we have to make sure we deliver from a cashier standpoint of view, that the best, that people rely on us, and that, on a quality standpoint of view, that it lives up for the occasions, for what they're using it for incredible history.

S. Simon Jacob: 3:55

How did you start in the wine business? I mean, I know you're in the family, but how did you get started in it?

Joseph Herzog : 4:01

that's actually interesting and a long story. We'll see how much detail we have time to get into that, but I was. The family actually has rules. People think the Herzog family just family. There's actually a lot of rules and regulations in the family business and that's, thank God, part of the success story of our family business.

Joseph Herzog : 4:20

And I was not supposed to be in the in the wine business. I was actually. My second hobby is real estate development. I was actually working in the winery upstate New York just until when I came back from Yeshiva out of Kolo, came back to the States and having an amazing family that we have, that gave me the opportunity to do something until I find as a launching board, until I find where I go next, baruch Hashem. For that short term that I was in the business, I was able to add and to approve myself.

Joseph Herzog : 4:54

But it came after nine months of working for the family that I had partnership and purchased a piece of land and I was going into the development industry and the family told me at that point when I gave notice, how about we're building a winery in California? How about the opportunity of having you go out and run the winery in California? And that's where it started. So actually I came out with my wife in that February. We came out to look at the winery was still in the middle of being built, uh. But I came to look at a community. I came to look at a whole new something. I always say it wasn't even a nightmare for me to end up in California, but, uh, I ended up. I came, I saw the place, I saw the people, I saw the opportunity and there was opportunity that I couldn't pass on. So my wife, my amazing wife and family, encouragement of family from her family, my family and we took the plunge and we moved out to California and actually, interestingly enough, now June was 18 years since I moved out to California.

S. Simon Jacob: 6:00

Wow, you know I've been to the winery in Monroe and I've toured through it.

Joseph Herzog : 6:08

Right In.

S. Simon Jacob: 6:08

Marlborough, New York. I'm sorry, in Marlborough, not in Monroe, it's in Marlborough and I've toured through it and I've also toured through Oxnard, and Oxnard is like light years ahead. It's like such an incredible step forward. It's, it's amazing. Um, what gave you the inspiration to to go from, uh, from New York to Oxnard? You know how did you create such an incredible winery there?

Joseph Herzog : 6:42

So it's actually so, it's not. You're touching on a bigger picture. You're touching on it's more of a family vision. Versus Joseph Herzog. I wish I could take all the credit, but I can't. It's actually more of a family decision and the way I look at it is the Herzog family producing wine, coming from Europe and producing wine in Europe and ending up in New York.

Joseph Herzog : 7:03

I think I might segue for a second in terms of speaking about Kedem wine and what people think, or what we call the baggage in the kosher wine industry, what people know the kosher wine as being the sweet, syrupy or sacramental wine. And it's not really by design or that. That's what kosher wine or that was the setup, that was the strategy. Just the people coming from Europe, the immigrants coming from Europe to the United States, ended up. The majority of Jews just simply ended up in the East Coast. We all know that in order to make great wine, you gotta grow great grapes. Now, new york state is not known as necessarily the great grapes right, and the majority of what grows in new york is concords. Now, nobody has ever mastered or tried to master making an exceptional wine coming out of concrete grapes. So we would basically dealt my family, my grandfather, my father and uncles were basically dealt, coming from the wine industry, coming to the United States and landing in New York, going into the industry and producing wine. You got to be realistic. What were the grapes that were at hand? It was Concord, catawbas, niagara's, all these. It was Concord, catawbas, niagara's, all these French hybrid varieties.

Joseph Herzog : 8:26

Now, in order to make a New York State wine drinkable and part of it is also let me just go back for a second. One of the main things in order to make great wine is having ripe grapes. In order to have ripe grapes, you need to have a good summer. Being in Israel, being in California, we all know what a good summer is, that we have a lot of heat, no rain, so the things could actually get ripened.

Joseph Herzog : 8:53

So in New York, we all know, with the amount of rain that we get, you're going to get a lot of big clusters, big grapes, but you're not going to get the sugar, you're not going to get the ripening of what you need for the sugar level, the pH, the TA all that in those New York state grapes. So in order to make a New York, so if you have to make wine out of New York state grapes and take those grapes, you're going to have to do some modification in order to be able to make a wine out of it. So if the regular picking of the grapes at the ripest that you'll get is most probably going to be at 18 bricks Bricks is B-R-I-X you obviously know it, but just for your listeners, bricks is B-R-I-X, which is the sugar level in the grapes.

Joseph Herzog : 9:33

Now if that ferments, let's just go simply in terms of a fermentation to alcohol conversation. If you convert 18 bricks sugar to alcohol, you're going to get about, at best, a 10% alcohol wine, which we know for wine. That's not the standard. The standard is going to be your 14, 13 and a half, 14 and a half, 15. And but, aside if it doesn't get the sugars, there's a lot of other things also that I'm not getting. So it's if it's not ripening in a sugar standpoint of you, it's not a ripening from a standening, from a TA, a pH color, all these aspects as well. So in order to make a drinkable wine in New York, and even by law, because at a certain point, when it's so high in acid, by law you can't even sell it, so you have to bring down the acid. So in order to do that, you have to add either juice or water sugar in order to bring up those alcohols and make it a drinkable wine. So going back it's a long-winded answer, but going back to making New York State wine in order to make the Concords and the Burgundies and whatever we want to call it, the Takai and the Chablis. At a 12% alcohol wine and a legal acid level, there's a lot of blending and a lot of juice, wine sugar. That had to happen in order to make that. Now, obviously, with doing all that, the quality of the wine wasn't going to be the best quality. So you have to again compromise with sweetening the wine or doing something in that matter to make that drinkable wine. So that was what we lived with making in New York wines and simply because that was the challenge, that was the. As an artist, you could say that those were the colors of paint given to you, dealt to you in order to make your painting, and I think we've made the best what we could out of those.

Joseph Herzog : 11:17

But the family, going back to the history of the family, making great wines in Europe, the aspirations were always for the family to make great wine. Making great wines in Europe, the aspirations were always for the family to make great wine. So the family. Actually, when my uncle, david Herzog, joined the family business and that's a whole long story on its own he went through my grandfather's files and he found that my grandfather, going back in the 60s, was trying to produce kosher wine in Italy and he couldn't get the kosher crew, the supervision, everybody just couldn't get it all together, the people, the employees, to make it happen and it was shelved. So when my uncle came in the late 70s he actually found all the documents of everything, the files that my grandfather had in trying to make a better kosher wine, and he kind of took that mission on and we produced.

Joseph Herzog : 12:10

That was the first time when Bartonura was produced. So that was in the late 70s when the first Bartonura I think it was actually 79, suave and Barbera d'Asti were produced, asti, spamanti, all those were produced and then from there we actually tried making wine in France, scotian wine in France, which was also, I think the first vintage of the Baron Rothschild was 1985, 86 86.

Joseph Herzog : 12:34

86.

S. Simon Jacob: 12:35

I actually have walked through the Asti facility as well. I was actually there. I was blown away. It is huge and you know people think it's just grape juice or what have you. It's not, that is real wine.

Joseph Herzog : 12:48

It's a science.

S. Simon Jacob: 12:49

And there's an incredible science to being able to produce something so consistently.

Joseph Herzog : 12:54

Being in that point, the family had a mission to produce great quality kosher wine and the great quality kosher wine was being in New York, being in the industry, was California. That's where great kosher wine is going to be produced. And in 1985 was the first time that we produced Baron Herzog. So I typically tell people the mission for the family is to produce great kosher wine and we started, like I said, in Italy, france, california, producing great kosher wine. And we started, like I said, in Italy, france, california, producing great kosher wine. So we started that in 1985. Interestingly enough I think it's interesting for the story in 1985, we produced five kosher wines. We produced a Baron Herzog Chenin Blanc, baron Herzog White Zinfandel, baron Herzog Chardonnay, baron Herzog Cabernet and the Baron Herzog Zinfandel. Sorry, those were the five wines and the interesting fact is that the first year that we produced the Baron Herzog wines it was actually produced in a winery in the Christian Brothers winery. It was actually produced in a winery in the Christian Brothers winery.

Joseph Herzog : 14:07

So these four Jews, the Jewish family, was producing wine at the Christian Brothers winery in California, which is actually now it's the CIA Institute of Culinary Cooking. So it's actually an interesting history, but that's really so. In 1985, with California and then with France, it kind of became the mission of wherever there's great wines produced, we'll produce great kosher wines. So the mission started, like I said, in 1985. As the company grew and our demands grew and we needed more space and more tanks and more employees and the other wineries were needing space, we were, as I like to say, we were the wandering Jews in the desert of California. So it wasn't 40 years, it was 20 years. But after 20 years, finally, my uncle, David, the CEO of the company, said you know what, it's finally time to build our own home. And that's when, in 2004, we decided it was time to build and find a facility, find an area where to build, and we built our winery in Oxnard, California.

S. Simon Jacob: 15:07

That's exactly 20 years ago.

Joseph Herzog : 15:09

Yep.

S. Simon Jacob: 15:10

Wow, you know, what amazed me with that was that you know you're always striving to make better wines in Oxnard, but it's not just making better wines. You've been so expansive across all the different vineyards, it's just. I don't think there's any other winery Certainly not kosher, obviously, but I don't know that there's any other winery that produces across so many regions and so many terroirs. In California itself You've got actually, more than eight regions that you're producing in across California and it's within there's many more coming.

Joseph Herzog : 15:58

There's many more exciting stuff coming.

S. Simon Jacob: 16:00

And that's amazing to me, because in each region you're making wines that are just spectacular. It's really special.

Joseph Herzog : 16:09

Correct.

Joseph Herzog : 16:10

I appreciate that. Thank you, in terms of all the different AVAs or appellations, American Viticultural Areas. So it starts. You went straight to terroir, but I'll go back a step and speak about the AVAs and speaking about all these different sub-epilations that you're speaking about. So when you're speaking about terroir, you're speaking about basically sub-epilations and I think where we have shown that a lot is mostly in Napa, right? So in Napa we've done all these different single vineyards from Napa or even in our special edition, limited editions, we've done Rutherford and we've done Oak Knoll and we've done Oakville and we've done Calistoga, haystack, we could go all the different stags Leap, all these different exciting appellations.

Joseph Herzog : 16:59

Now, and I think let me step back for a second maybe, I think in France or in Israel, all these regions you look at wine regions in the kosher world there is kind of a standard of what people expect from that region. So when you drink a Bordeaux, you know what a Bordeaux is supposed to taste like and you have enough wines that you could compare. Well, you're going to go to Ponte Canet and to Giscours and to Les Combes. You have enough to understand what the standard is and where the wine falls into place. Same thing, obviously is true for Israel. In California I don't think that existed until recently. I think California was. Herzog was the leader. Yes, you had Hagafen, later on Covenant. Now you have a whole bunch of different ones. You have the Shirah or the Haidu, but there hasn't necessarily been expectations. When you speak in the kosher world about Napa Valley, there's not an expectation of what Napa. All they could tell you is I like the Napa Valley better than the Alexander Valley, or I like the Alexander Valley better than the Napa or the Chalk Hill.

S. Simon Jacob: 18:04

Yeah, because that was their whole world. That was my whole world In 1992, Chalk Hill was just absolutely crazy delicious Right.

Joseph Herzog : 18:19

So exactly to your point, because this is what was available.

S. Simon Jacob: 18:23

Yeah.

Joseph Herzog : 18:24

And that's what we got and that's how we created in our mind okay, by different labels or by different avas of what the standards are and what comes, what the expectations are. I think in napa we've done quite a good job bringing in different avas, which now we're going to be releasing a whole nother tier of mountain fruit of napa. We know valley floor quite a good, we've done good on valley floor. But I think we're going to do a whole nother level of mountain fruit of napa, adding a whole bunch of different sub a sub avas. But also I'm doing that in sonoma and a lot of of people this is, I think, happens to be inside I don't want to say politics but inside in the growing region itself, because Napa, everything is labeled as Napa, and then in Napa Valley, in Napa Valley, as you peel the onion right, you have all these sub-appellations, you have the, like I said, the Oak Knoll, the Oakvilles, the Howe Mountains, the Kalisoga, the Rutherfords, the Diamond Creek, the Mount Vitor, you can go to Howe Mountain, sags Leap, all the different.

Joseph Herzog : 19:32

But in Sonoma it's not necessarily known that way. Right, when you look at Sonoma, you know Sonoma. And then you look at Russian River, you know Russian River, you know Alexander Valley, you know Chalk Hill you don't know necessarily as part of the bigger AVA. And these are the sub-appellations, they're almost all standalone. So one of the things that we're trying to do now and one of the wines I know that you've tasted or you're waiting to taste, which is the Double Creek, chalk Hill, the Generation 8. So, as we've done in Napa and introduced a whole bunch of different sub-populations in Napa, we're now also going to be doing on Sonoma.

S. Simon Jacob: 20:08

Okay, so that's the direction you're going.

Joseph Herzog : 20:10

Very cool, surprise, right, surprise, surprise. Look, I will say this. I'm going to say this here. I've been thinking it but I've never said it aloud, and I'm going to say it aloud now. Okay, we will get to a point. I don't know how fast, but we will get there. We will get to a point where, from the point of kosher or non-kosher, or if a balchuvah comes and says I used to drink whatever and this quality, and I had that for kosher wine you will not give up anything of quality, standard or style or flavor for drinking kosher wine.

S. Simon Jacob: 20:52

From your mouth to God's ears. My dad was a wine drinker. We had a business that was in Southern California and one of the insurance companies was the actual source of funding in the 70s for many, many of the wineries. So my father became very close friends with people like Robert Mondavi and Stag's Leap and what have you. And I had a cellar in my house and I used to be the eunuch who watched the harem because I wouldn't drink anything but kosher wines. But that's also why I started to collect things like the original Rothschild. I had cases of the Rothschild in 86.

S. Simon Jacob: 21:35

I remember going into the wine store up in Riverdale Skyview. It was the place that you could actually buy cases of the early the 1990s and what have you? Chalk Hills, and they had cases stacked to the ceiling and that was my store, even though I lived in New Jersey. What I was going to say to you was that Stag's Leap was something that he always had. I always had it in my cellar and it was something that I'd smelled but I'd never ever tasted. And when you came out with the Stag's Leap, I said I have got to get bottles of this and I've got to taste it.

Joseph Herzog : 22:19

So it's an amazing thing for me as well, from a history point and, to be all honest, I can't just say take credit in terms of the Herzog family for just being so call it adventurous or willing to do the investment and going out. Obviously we could speak about fruit prices and things like that when you start speaking about those sub-appellations and where they go, but it's also the consumer. But it's also the consumer. So it's obviously coming from a world of call it the white Zinfandels or call it the Kedem, coming from the world and educating themselves and learning and getting better and wanting the expectations and wanting to go and bring up that level of the wine. It had to be hand in hand with the producers and the customers as well.

S. Simon Jacob: 23:07

You know. I want to also tell you that the Kedem grape juice. I live in Jerusalem. We buy Kedem grape juice because we have a lot of American seminary students coming in bound and yeshiva and sem students and as soon as they see the Kedem grape juice they go. Oh thank.

Joseph Herzog : 23:25

God.

S. Simon Jacob: 23:27

It brings them home and they love it, so it's a big hit here in Israel. And that was another question. Are all of those because of the Concord grapes made in New York, or is the Kedem grape juice?

Joseph Herzog : 23:40

All the Kedem grape juice is all made in the facility upstate New York. We speak of Marlborough, new York, north of Monroe, like you said. Yeah, so all the grape juice because of the Concord the Concord is. I remember when I was in Israel and then obviously the Kedem grape juice and all that wasn't so popular in Israel. I used to get from people.

Joseph Herzog : 23:59

So actually my Rebbe always used to ask me to get him Kedem like he loved the Kedem wines and the Kedem grape juice and to get him kedem like he loved the kedem wines and the kedem grape juice. And one of the people that worked in the office I actually learned in the yeshiva of Chok Hatam Sofer, which they do the kashers, they do the heksher as well, right, so they were actually bothered. They were actually bothered that the rabbi of Rav Anger, actually his yortzai, is by you tonight as we speak. It's his, his yard site wanted Kedem when he gave the kashers and all these different wines, whether Benyamina Carmel, he gave them like they were all upset.

Joseph Herzog : 24:33

Why is he asking you to get him grape juice and wine when we have all these wines that we give kashers on and they would tell me you guys are adding certain things to it to give it that acid, that bitterness. There's Chometz, limon or mashu that you're putting into these grape juice to make that profile. It's not natural, it's not possible and I used to argue with them all the time. No, that's the Concord. If you know anything about the New York State and about Concord, that is the Concord flavor. So that is to be realistic. That is the reason why you taste it and why it's so unique and so delicious is those concrete grapes.

S. Simon Jacob: 25:11

Wow, quick question. When we're talking about, do you have a personal favorite among the varietals that you produce?

Joseph Herzog : 25:19

That's a real tough question and I'm not going to answer no, favorite child, I'm not going to go down that answer. Okay, favorite child, I'm not gonna go down that. That, that, that okay. But you know as good as I know that wine is not necessarily a thing that you have a favorite. Yeah, because, because it always, and I always, I, I have been saying this, this, this pairing food with wine or wine with food not necessarily the same thing, but there's the idea of what you're eating, who your company is what's the weather?

Joseph Herzog : 25:47

as well like it's all that that puts you in the mood. It's the same as a song. You don't always have the same songs. Those, they're different. You're, you're in the mood of, you listen to something, you become in the mood, or you're in the mood of a certain song, a certain type of music. The wine is no different.

Joseph Herzog : 26:05

The now, I could tell you, within cab or within pinot. I love pinot and I love cabs, I love Zinfandels. But it really has to be the right moment and, for instance, a lot of times I have guests by me and so this is a rule that I will say bluntly. The rule is who my company is. If I have someone that really enjoys wine and understands wine, I'll let them go down to the cellar and pick whatever wine they want, because we're going to enjoy that bottle and amongst. That's what the wine is supposed to be. It's supposed to be enjoyed amongst friends and just enjoying a great quality, sipping and talking and having great friends over and appreciating good wine. When I'm just going to be drinking myself, it's going to be a different type of wine, or it's just going to be people that, yeah, just the. They're a good bottle of wine, but they they don't have. Like I could say, simon, that that love for that wine, then it's going to be something else. So it it and that's it.

S. Simon Jacob: 27:01

Could maybe be that that's part of the mood I agree with you 100%, and also I might have a favorite, but then I haven't tasted this Double Creek yet, so I'm really looking forward to doing that with you as well. But one last question before Any varietals that have posed significant challenges to you.

Joseph Herzog : 27:30

So varietals, 100%. There's different varietals that are prone to different diseases, that are prone to different characters, for sure, for sure, lots of them. I mean you're going to speak about Petit Serrat, you're going to speak about Pinot, you're going to speak about Malbec, even the whites, you're going to speak certain Chenin Blanc, and every winemaker will tell you that the majority of the work really happens in the vineyard. I could say it's probably 75% happens If everything is done right in the vineyard. It's way easier to make that exceptional, that great bottle of wine in the winery.

Joseph Herzog : 28:12

But if you don't, then you're dealing with all these issues, what you're saying, harder to make. But the majority of these issues or problems or future problems could be mitigated in the vineyard Again, except obviously Hashem runs the world and you're going to get a rain, you're going to get. But even with all that, the stuff in the vineyard depends what you do in the vineyard and how much control you have in the vineyard and how much, a lot of times, funds or appetite of loss that will dictate that you could mitigate that damage or that issues.

S. Simon Jacob: 28:52

I want to talk a little bit about the team that you have there, because I absolutely adored talking to Joe Hurliman. He was such a mensch, really, really special person and it was an incredibly huge loss when he passed away. But you seem to you seem to have held the team together and grown the team and, you know, continue to build it. Um, tell me a little bit about the, the team itself that does the winemaking sure.

Joseph Herzog : 29:24

So first of all that it's let's take a second and speak about Joe Herliman, actually his first year. I'm going to say your side, but we all know Joe had a Yiddish neshama. He definitely had. He was a mensch, a total mensch family, and I think his mother's maiden name was actually Pinkasavitz. So there's no question that he had Yiddish blood, yiddish neshama, and he definitely has some merit because Klaul Yisrael again Klaul Yisrael drank his wines and appreciated his wine and he actually was.

Joseph Herzog : 30:04

He was no other better word to describe Joe Herleman as a mensch, really a mensch. And I have to say, even for me, when I came out there, you could have certain winemakers and have now a family member coming there and being there. It's not how he welcomed me and made sure for my success and routed for my success. That was something special. My success enrouted for my success, that was something special. And he made great wine and he was definitely an entrepreneur in that and when the family had requests or ideas or stuff that they wanted to do, he was always a champion for it. So, joe Herlemann of last memory. So now what we've done is actually we have a great team and you know quite a bit of the team we have on Star Down in the Cellar. I mean, we have Sruly Levy, a few Levy's and a few Mendel's. But you know, Zev, I think you remember back Zev.

S. Simon Jacob: 30:59

Yes.

Joseph Herzog : 31:00

We have Alicia, we have new crew, a few more people that were brought in winemaking team and then obviously the big one, which is David Galzignato, our senior winemaker. Now I'll say this actually, and this ties in what we're speaking about when I started off speaking about the EVAs, or bringing Napa to the pedestal, bringing that to the forefront, into the kosher world or Sonoma and the different sub-populations, into the kosher world or Sonoma and the different sub-populations, when Joe Herleman was sick and we all knew and we all spoke, including Joe Herliman, of needing to find a new winemaker which is going to be the future face of Herzog Wines, there was a dilemma or there was the conversation in the family. What should we do? The one option is the easiest and the most simple option is obviously grow from within. The secondary option, which is not as easy but also much easier, is go to Israel, find the best winemaker you could to Israel and bring him over to the United States. He knows kosher, he knows ingredients, he knows the marketplace, he knows the Chagim, he knows the holidays, he knows when you need to do it Just also, he just has to get used to new fruit, but other than that, he knows it's plug and play right.

Joseph Herzog : 32:20

The third option, which is the hottest and the most difficult and which is basically bring a top winemaker out of Napa Valley, out of the world of wine, out of kosher, get someone like that, convince him to come to go from the big world and to be a top winemaker in the world of Napa, in the world of non-kosher wines, to want to take a job in a kosher winery.

Joseph Herzog : 32:52

And those were the conversations and the family. We all decided this is the opportunity for us to go and to find someone that lives and breeds Napa, sonoma, california, that knows every which vineyard, that knows basically and it's not a joke that knows Napos and Om on the palm of their hand, it knows every vineyard, it knows every grower, it knows every winemaker he's speaking from all these big and prestigious different wineries. And so we all decided, the family decided, that that's what we're setting out for and I have to say it wasn't an easy thing. And I have to say it wasn't an easy thing and I'm sure at one point or another you'll have David Galzignato, the current winemaker, on. But David came from the Mondavis, from the world, from Charles Krug, from provenance. He's worked and he's been in the world of wine. Again, he has played in the what we call the creme de la creme of the world of wine In France.

S. Simon Jacob: 33:48

The major leagues.

Joseph Herzog : 33:49

So we had to convince. We had to go out and convince a guy like that, like David, to want to come from that world and immerse himself, to come to the kosher world. Now, it wasn't easy, I will say. All of his friends and he'll admit it to you, all of his friends made fun and are still making fun of him. So you went from being in the big pond with the top guys to being the yes, the number one winemaker in the kosher world, but still a very small pound of kosher.

Joseph Herzog : 34:24

And it wasn't just as simple as, yes, the winery, the setup in the winery, like you said, an impressive winery, it was grapes, it was yeast, it was coopers, All these challenges a winemaker coming from that league is looking to. He needs his tools and he needs, like an artist. You're not going to bring an artist and just give him here here's two paintbrushes and a pastel and a canvas and just go ahead and you need the tools in order to do what you expect from him. Right, if you want him to deliver, you got to give him the tools. So I have to say it was equal. Both of us were so invested in doing this that he was invested to come and to be the number one kosher winemaker, and we were invested to go ahead and invest and buy him the tools in order to be able to make that.

S. Simon Jacob: 35:20

Wow, wow, wow.

Joseph Herzog : 35:23

And that goes from grapes to equipment in the winery, to optical sorters, to tanks, to coopers, to different yeast Across the spectrum. We had to go. Actually I'll tell you this much we hired him in August. It was the final day that we hired him, day that we hired him. The second day on the job, we gave him a challenge that we want to produce the best kosher wine that exists. Go out, find the best vineyard, make the best bottle of wine, to which he came back after two, three days and says I could do it. I could buy the grapes, I have a source for the grapes, but I need A, b, c, d and E investment of millions of dollars in order to be able to do it. And we said not a problem, we're going to go ahead and do that, which I think that leads us into the Generation 8, into the different wines we could say about the future wines that are coming out. We could throw that out there, so we'll get an understanding a little bit of what we're talking about.

S. Simon Jacob: 36:31

Should we try some?

Joseph Herzog : 36:32

Yes, please.

S. Simon Jacob: 36:34

Okay, I think we should Go ahead. Which one should?

Joseph Herzog : 36:40

we've got go ahead. Which one should we start with? We've got two wines that we're tasting. So, since you spoke so highly, and about your memories and everything about stag's leap, yeah I don't know if you tasted it already before or all you have is that aroma that you smell still as a child, from your father's collection of stag's leap.

S. Simon Jacob: 36:57

I was saving it for a special time, so it's sitting here and I haven't tasted it yet. So it's really and it's wow. So this is, this is the 2018. Well, this is a generation.

Joseph Herzog : 37:13

this is a generation, generation nine, for the nine generation that has joined the family.

S. Simon Jacob: 37:18

Okay, that's what joined the family. Okay, that's what it was for, okay.

Joseph Herzog : 37:23

So you saw Michael before. He has a son in the business. You know Nathan Yoichi. He has a son in the business. My other brother, eli, has a son in the business and my cousin, ari I don't know if you met him before also has. So there's now four of the nine generations in the family business.

S. Simon Jacob: 37:42

Wow Berach on the Wine

Joseph Herzog : 37:51

I'm just going to give you a challenge before I speak about the wine You're going to have to remember today. You don't do it often You're going to make a Ha Geffen, not Al Gaffna, because you drink in California.

S. Simon Jacob: 38:06

Yeah, no no, yep, it is. I know I really enjoy saying Gaffna. I really enjoy saying Gaffna, to be honest.

Joseph Herzog : 38:17

You wouldn't be living there if you wouldn't. So the first thing I want to dive in and again, if we're going to try to build and separate between the Napa and the Sonoma, that dense fruit smelling that, that lively cherry or dark blue fruit, that's I think that's one of the giveaways, dark blue fruit, that's I think that's one of the giveaways. So, as an MW, anything like that, when you're going to have to just by smell, taste and be able to describe the wine with the varietal and where it comes from the nose on this wine is going to be a giveaway for.

Joseph Herzog : 38:51

Napa. Right, you get the intense dark blue fruit, blueberry, currants, cherry this is so nicely balanced. With these type of wines, you're expecting that bigger mouthfeel, that big profile, but yet almost that elegance to it. I think what you're saying is the well-balance, the elegance, Yep it's the elegance, but the beautiful lingering, lingering, finish, the beautiful lingering, finish.

Joseph Herzog : 39:21

The, the, the deep, fruit, dark concentration of of all this is just just beautiful wine, and I think this is the reason of why stag's leap was the, the wine that won the uh, the uh. What was the competition against the French wine?

S. Simon Jacob: 39:36

The Judgment of Paris. The color is also absolutely beautiful. This bottle is just perfect. It's just perfect color, it's excellent, incredible.

Joseph Herzog : 39:49

So you're drinking the 18. The color obviously is a little bit lighter already. It's still obviously a dark and intense wine but in terms of bottle age that's already almost six years of age, or four years of bottle age already for that bottle.

S. Simon Jacob: 40:05

Yeah, but it's not. It's not bricking or anything like that, not at all. It's like a very young wine.

Joseph Herzog : 40:12

I'm going to give myself a challenge and I'm going to give you a challenge.

S. Simon Jacob: 40:14

Go ahead, Go go.

Joseph Herzog : 40:15

Next time when I come to Israel, we're going to drink some great aged wines in Israel by you. And the next time you come to California I'll open some aged bottles for you, Okay.

S. Simon Jacob: 40:26

I would love it. I would absolutely love it.

Joseph Herzog : 40:28

Beautiful. All right, this is lovely wine.

S. Simon Jacob: 40:33

I'm thankful to God for a lot of things. I'm very thankful for Yossi Horowitz because he gave me an excuse to get people together to drink kosher wines. The world famous Rosh Chodesh Club. This Rosh Chodesh Club thing is what made high-end wines drinkable, because they just sat in my cellar. There was nobody to drink them with, except once in a blue moon, and this gave me a monthly challenge.

Joseph Herzog : 41:04

It's a wonderful thing, I think the Wall Street Journal once had an article in their write-up about that. They wrote that everybody has that special wine that they're keeping for that special day. But a lot of times you're just holding on too long and that special day doesn't arrive and the optimum time or the peak for that wine passes and you miss that special day. And I think they call it I don't know when it is or they have always once a year that special day to open that special wine.

S. Simon Jacob: 41:33

Right.

Joseph Herzog : 41:34

So we have Rosh Chodesh Club.

S. Simon Jacob: 41:37

But the Rosh Chodesh Club absolutely satisfy that need and there are so many incredible people around the world who are enjoying kosher wines now. It's just whether it's in England or whether it's in all over all over the place. It's quite remarkable.

Joseph Herzog : 41:56

In California I think they have actually two or three Shodish clubs, different groups of Hebron.

S. Simon Jacob: 42:01

Well, in Israel we have three. In Israel, we've got a Jerusalem, we've got a Beth Shemesh and we've got one in Ranaana.

Joseph Herzog : 42:09

In California. I think it's a little different. You have the Hasidic one, you have the Litvish and you have the Chabad one.

S. Simon Jacob: 42:15

So in New York it's like that They've got the Hasidic one and they've got the Syrian one with Ralph Medeb, and then they've got. You know, then they've got the regular one in Teaneck.

Joseph Herzog : 42:25

New Jersey, the Lakewood one, yeah.

S. Simon Jacob: 42:27

Yeah, it is Lakewood. One is also awesome, crazy people, you know it's very special people. While we're in between tasting and I want to taste this I want to taste the new Generation 8, what you call it Double Creek, because this is brand new and actually your video introduced it to me and I said I've got to get a bottle of this and try it in Israel and I really want to put it up on the podcast and I wanted to do it actually before Shavuot because I actually got it before Shavuot but it went through such an arduous travel with Yakov Shakatowitz came from LA and he picked it up and he brought it to me, hand carried it. I was scared to open it up too soon because I didn't want to mess it up. I really wanted to give it a fair shot.

Joseph Herzog : 43:27

So now it's been sitting for a while, I'll tell you honestly, it's still too young, it's way too young, it's way too young. It's way too young and we'll speak a lot when we get to this, a lot about the whole story of this vineyard. But yeah, you're in for a treat.

S. Simon Jacob: 43:41

Okay. So visiting Oxnard, what should people know? What should people look at? I know the restaurant's incredible because I was there, but I'm sure you've done more with it. Is it a place to come to sit at a bar and taste wines as well, or do I have have a reservation and come to eat in the restaurant, or how does it work?

Joseph Herzog : 44:05

great question and I'm happy that you're giving me the opportunity actually to speak about this. What we've done is we've done a little changes. So now actually you could get food in the tasting room, at the bar there's a bar menu so you could get the opportunity actually not just taste wine and and just kill your palate on two bottles of wine and not be able to move forward. There's actually a bar menu, so that's throughout the day, starting at 12 o'clock in the afternoon. Uh, you have, there's no lunch in the restaurant, but there's the bar menu, the tapa menu that happens in the tasting room, so you have an opportunity to eat and taste wine along side by side, which is great. And then we did a new concept in the restaurant which I think and I have to actually thank part of the idea came.

Joseph Herzog : 44:52

The visionary for this idea was Mike Gershkowitz, from Mike's Bistro, of what we did in the nighttime menu and he basically said Joseph, Mordy, Joseph, you have a restaurant and a winery where you produce all the different wines. Why are you operating as a regular restaurant where people buy wine and food restaurant where people buy wine and food? Every dish should be a component to the wine that you could elevate and showcase the wine food and wine, wine and food. But this should be opportunity where people could come and try wines and try it in a setting that they wouldn't have the opportunity otherwise brilliant.

S. Simon Jacob: 45:36

I didn't know you did that and that's brilliant.

Joseph Herzog : 45:38

So we basically took a concept and and and we went with that concept of steroids, and it's something that doesn't exist in the world. I don't even think in out of kosher. It doesn't, because you don't. You don't typically have restaurants and wineries, but we now do. Every dish incorporates wine in the dish. So we all, as wine drinkers, we all know the phrase you don't want to cook with wine, that you wouldn't drink, right. But we all know in every restaurant kitchen I don't know how many restaurant kitchens are going to hold that true In our houses. In our houses, maybe, because we'll be sipping while we cook as well, but in the restaurant kitchens they ain't cooking with the wine that they're serving you to drink. Well, at Herzog or at Tierra Sur, that is the anomaly. That's different. So we now each dish and whether it's going to be a fish dish or a chicken dish or a meat dish, there is a component in the vegetables and the sauce and the reductions of the wine in that dish.

Joseph Herzog : 46:43

And then it's paired with that wine as well Unbelievable. So you're getting to sit down and you might be thinking of a Pinot Noir one way, or a Petit Syrah, or a Malbec, or a Cab different, Canapa, Cabo, Alexander Valley, think of it one way. But here you get the opportunity to taste a dish that is meant to pair with this wine and all of a sudden it elevates everything. Your food is better, your wine is better and all of a sudden, wines that you would have never. A Malbec. You wouldn't have gone out and bought a Malbec because you don't like the spice or you don't. And all of a sudden you had it in this environment that it was just that perfect wine and perfect food.

Joseph Herzog : 47:22

And you go out and you buy a bottle, or you go to your home store and you buy a bottle and you drink that wine and introduce it to somebody new because of that impression that it made. So that's the new change and that's dinner. So the Thierry's store is open for dinner. Occasionally. We still do Sunday brunches or different stuff like that. Then obviously we have the wine club events, that we do the pickup dinners and all like that, which is also obviously paired. But that's the idea. The idea is it's now a wine incorporated restaurant into each of its dishes.

S. Simon Jacob: 47:50

Brilliant. Really good, I love the idea. Now I'm really psyched to come All right. I'm really psyched to come Red right, I'm really psyched to come.

Joseph Herzog : 47:59

Red carpet treatment We'll roll the red carpet out.

S. Simon Jacob: 48:02

Thank you. Let's talk about the Double Creek.

Joseph Herzog : 48:08

All right, so you have the bottle in front of you, I'm sure.

S. Simon Jacob: 48:11

I do, I do actually.

Joseph Herzog : 48:12

The Double Creek Vineyard, yep, the Double Creek Vineyard, Chalk Hill. So, as I said before, there is the avas. Like we said in napa, we have all different avas that will come to expect from napa or the sub-appellation is a single vineyard which is generation eight. Oak Knoll is a single vineyard. The generation nine is a single vineyard. Rutherford typically doesn't say but these are again all these different, but you have microclimates within microclimates. You have Chalk Hill is an AVA.

Joseph Herzog : 48:47

In our world people only know Chalk Hill. They don't even know Wernicke Vineyard, the Cabernet, they just know that bottle by Chalk Hill. Right, okay, but if we go into the area and we go into different vineyards, it's it's a whole different world. So this is actually a vineyard we went into because chalk hill is limited. I mean, obviously everybody knows from supply it's it's limited how much grapes and there's there's a one called chalk hill that basically consumes and owns the majority of the planted land over there. So in order to get more grapes it's a difficult task. So we were out there looking desperately for more fruit.

Joseph Herzog : 49:30

So we came upon this vineyard which is some doctor built himself a beautiful house on the hills and I think you saw a little bit of that on the video and planted the seven acres of vineyard on all different slopes around the house and these you're speaking about slopes probably 30-degree slopes where there's no tractors, there's nothing going up. This is all manual labor manual picking everything done by hand going up. This, this is all manual labor manual picking everything done by hand. And it's it was almost this little own, not almost. It is this own microclimate, based on how it's surrounded by all the mountains and then the soil, the clay, the rock that made this vineyard. It was just special from the moment where we're in there. It was a specialyard. We signed a long-term contract on that fruit without even having the history or anything on that fruit, and so this is the first vintage, also for our wine maker, for David Galzignato, which is 2021. And we actually had a demo that year on an optical sorter. I'm sure you know what that is. You've heard of that, sure.

S. Simon Jacob: 50:39

So we have one here in Israel, we have some in Israel.

Joseph Herzog : 50:42

Yeah, you have some. Castel has one Or Haganuz.

S. Simon Jacob: 50:44

has one.

Joseph Herzog : 50:46

So we actually demoed the piece of equipment that year. We demoed it on disc grapes. So what we did is we really went everything for the top tier, the best quality. A lot of times I pick certain projects that we speak about. For instance, we just did a new plant in Lake County that I call these projects R&D. It's not necessarily about what my expectation is. I'll make a portion the way where it's supposed to go in a program that it's supposed to go, but we'll take a portion and forget about the dollars and cents and just do R&D. What is the best, what's the potential? It's almost like a Bacher and Yeshiva what is the best potential for this Bacher that he could become? And that's what we did here with this double creek.

Joseph Herzog : 51:41

It is so deep, so it's Sonoma so first of all again let's speak a little bit, because we spoke about Napa, napa and I said about the difference, so Sonoma, obviously, when we smelled the stags leave, we said Napa, napa, right away, sonoma is obviously it's the other side of the mountain, right, so it's more ocean, ocean breeze, ocean side, that side facing the ocean, getting that heat Foggy mountains in the morning.

Joseph Herzog : 52:08

Foggy mountains, getting a little bit cooler than Napa, so that alone is going to lend in differences right of the characteristics of the wine. So typically, sonoma is going to be more of your earthy wine, more leather tobacco, coffee. It's going to lend itself away from the Napa which is fruit, fruit, fruit concentrated, overly concentrated in fruit. You're going to get much more, a lot of times even more pruned to green, more bell pepper and typically Sonoma. You're not going to have it in this wine but typically overall is one of the characteristics of Sonoma. You'll have that more.

S. Simon Jacob: 52:48

Barucha

Joseph Herzog : 52:50

Barucha.

S. Simon Jacob: 52:59

I take every opportunity these days to make a bracha.

Joseph Herzog : 53:06

So you also got to, from the get-go, first of all, understand that 2021 was much a riper year than the 2018. And we could spend probably days speaking about expectations of vintage to vintage variation and what to expect and why they're so different. So when we compare those two wines, we obviously have to take into consideration 2018 versus 2021.

S. Simon Jacob: 53:35

This is much, much more leather.

Joseph Herzog : 53:39

Right, you get the leather, you get that. Finish, you get that. I don't know why I want to say this, but I'm saying almost like you're in a nutmeg you keep getting.

S. Simon Jacob: 53:50

Yep.

Joseph Herzog : 53:52

But that finish on your mouthfeel definitely. You get that leather, you get the tobacco. Now way too young to be drunk, I know, but I definitely would call it a beast.

S. Simon Jacob: 54:06

It is, it is, it's going to be amazing, it's going to be amazing. And actually there's a bunch of us tasting this tomorrow in Jerusalem, a small group that's getting together. We wanted to taste this. We also wanted to taste crazily enough, there's Ramat Negev wine that just got a Decanter 97 award and uh, was awarded of 97. So we, we all, all of a sudden, you know like with a with a rating like that, wait a second, bring that back on. I want to taste that again. So we're, we're tasting that, but we're also tasting these two bottles at the same time, because they will have had some air for a while.

Joseph Herzog : 55:06

There's no question about what's happening. The transformation of the wines coming out of Israel is just mind-blowing.

S. Simon Jacob: 55:16

There's a lot of incredibly creative winemakers here and uh, and I'm I'm so blessed I came eight years ago. I mean, we I've been coming back and forth to israel for years and years and years. The explosion of uh, kosher wines since the 90s is crazy. I was, I actually. Aaron Pick did a podcast with me a week ago and he spoke about the Judean hills and how, literally in the early 90s, there was nothing there. They had orchards, there was no vines left and since then now, something like 98% of the agriculture in the Judean hills is wine. In such a short period of time.

Joseph Herzog : 56:14

When I speak to non-kosher people in the industry or anything and I want to speak about kosher wine I typically say you know, we have historical. Speaking about R&D. Right, everybody's busy with R&D and all the different. I said, in terms of the wine industry, we have the longest history of winemaking, a documented history. You can go back to Noach coming out of the Teva, but going back before going to the Beis Hamikdash.

S. Simon Jacob: 56:57

The wine that was poured in the Beis Hamikdash is the best of the best free run, no added like high alcohol, all these, that's what it was. Can you talk about future wines in the portfolio, sure, without giving away stuff.

Joseph Herzog : 57:04

No, if you give away, they're going to come out for Shoshana. I think we're close enough that we could start speaking about this. So we're actually doing, we're actually releasing a new. So the challenge I told you about the challenge that we gave to the winemaker. So we obviously what is that challenge? What is that? Wines, what are the vineyards and so forth, and I think you're going to appreciate this. This is going to be the first We'll put this information out, but knowing your background in Napa like you said, stag's Leap you'll find this fascinating. So, with that challenge, we decided to come out with a new tier which is going to be the top of the top high-end tier, and the name, the brand actually, for that is going to be called you sowed you sowed.

Joseph Herzog : 57:51

Wow, so okay, and the, the idea. The idea actually is speaking to and having conversation with a new winemaker, right and speaking about Herzog and speaking about all these different things. It was like how about this? It came to a point where I stopped and said, look, we are the Herzog family. My father was a Holocaust survivor, my grandfather was a Holocaust survivor, my grandfather was a Holocaust survivor. They have been five generations beforehand in Europe going through World War, I going through communism, going through all of that suffering and coming to the United States, building back up to where we are. We are proud of who we are. We're proud of where we come from. We are not coming and reinventing the wheel of doing anything. We're building on the cornerstones of what our parents and grandparents have laid before us. That's who we are. We're proud of that. That's who we are. And he was like wow, what's that name? What's the cornerstone? And the idea was foundations. We're building on the foundations. Then we have what name for foundation?

Joseph Herzog : 59:02

The idea Yesod and Yesod. Obviously sod is wine. We could go into the whole all of that, but plain and simple, it was about Yisod. We are proud from a Jewish standpoint, where we come from, our parents being the Orthodox family in the business. What we're doing, we're proud of we're not running. None of. You'll find no Herzog that will be trying to run away from who we are, where we come from. We couldn't be any prouder, and that's the idea. So what we did is and I'll send you a picture with Yised, but the bottle itself is a cartouche, so it's the glass bottle, which is actually a bottle that we have in the office I'm sure you've seen it when you were an accident on the wall there's that Jacob Herzog Piva bottle of Werbever 1848.

S. Simon Jacob: 59:53

Yeah, yes, absolutely With the glass. It's glass pressed.

Joseph Herzog : 59:56

Correct. So that's what we did. Wow, we did the custom glass bottle to have that J Herzog Verba by 1848. And the label doesn't say Herzog. The Herzog is only on the glass. It's Yesod, stands on its own Yesod. And the first year we did three vineyards. The first vineyard is, or a sub-Appalachian vineyard, Pritchard Hill.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:00:26

Wow.

Joseph Herzog : 1:00:28

So I'm speaking about. So there's a kosher. Pritchard Hill 2021 Cabernet Sauvignon coming to the industry. It has the first in history. There's never been one, so that's crazy. That is unbelievable. Right, yep, pritchard Hill is La Havre de l'Eleve, half a half a dollar. When you're speaking about Pritchard Hill, you're speaking about Kodesh HaKadoshim, of Napa Valley of California, of what it is. So that's Pritchard Hills number one. Number two is Atlas Peak.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:01:05

Atlas Peak okay, Atlas.

Joseph Herzog : 1:01:06

Peak. Number three is actually a PADIS. So from PADIS we took some of the clone six and it kind of, like I said, we did the R&D of what the best and we took a total of just four barrels of the best the best put into. David went crazy with barrels. We have certain barrels and then I'm not going to put out the names that were the only ones in the state of California, which are all the wine names, and I don't have to tell you what that means specialty barrels that were the only ones in California to have those barrels that those wines went into. So that's three of them. One of them didn't make it but will make it the next year again In order to make those three wines. There have been a lot of other appellations that we made that didn't make it into this, but in the future you'll have Howe Mountain, you'll have a whole bunch of Diamond Mountain, you'll have a whole bunch of others coming into this category, into this level of wine cup.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:01:59

You're trying to make everything accessible to me. That's wonderful.

Joseph Herzog : 1:02:03

I love this. You appreciate it more than anybody else could appreciate it, anybody living the world of being able to drink those wines. And when they speak about being a Balchube and giving up certain foods and giving up certain wines, this is real. Someone that has drank Stag's Leap or Howe Mountain or Bridget Hill, someone that comes from that world and now comes to the world of kosher, they have this yearning, they're missing something. So that's one aspect. The other aspect is, like I said, there will be a time and I don't know how fast, but there will be a time that kosher wine you will not have anything less in the kosher world than not in the kosher world.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:02:43

Amazing, awesome. So you're in New York now.

Joseph Herzog : 1:02:46

I'm in Bayonne, New Jersey.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:02:47

You're in Bayonne, I mean, I meant Bayonne.

Joseph Herzog : 1:02:49

And I'm going to be heading back to LA. Yahrziet father's was on Tuesday, so I came in and then business meetings, and then I'm back.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:02:56

You're at Sadik.

Joseph Herzog : 1:02:57

Tuesday, so I came in and then business meetings and then I'm back. So that's in terms of I know, one of the questions you wanted to ask vineyards. I don't know if we have the time, but that's again a whole, nother impressive story of what we're doing in terms of vineyards. You'll see I don't know if you had yet the Lake County, the 2021 Lake County.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:03:14

I didn't have it yet, but I've seen it.

Joseph Herzog : 1:03:17

Yes, that's another bottle of wine that you need to put yourself and get Okay, We've planted a vineyard over there which is just breathtaking. I mean, it's just really amazing. You'll be up and anybody that comes up and sees that vineyard. You cannot go away without crying on that vineyard. It's just so spectacular, crying on that. It's just so spectacular.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:03:37

You know, my introduction to Kerem was when I was, I think, 16 years old. I went to a forbringan in Chabad and they had the only thing they drank was Kedem. Yeah, and it was just like crazy. I'd never seen it before, I'd never tasted it before. It was like unbelievable.

Joseph Herzog : 1:04:06

But that goes back to the story, I think, putting stuff in perspective of what Kedem, where that sweet syrupy wine comes from, and why yeah? I think where? Go back to Manischewitz, where the Jews immigrate to. I think it's an interesting perspective for people to appreciate of why and where we've come today.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:04:24

It was a purpose you were fulfilling, a need that the community had at that have is how many millions of brachot have people made over your wine? It's an unbelievable legacy. It's an unbelievable legacy.

Joseph Herzog : 1:04:51

And it's more than a legacy. As I told you, when I interview any mashgiach, any kosher employee in the cellar, I tell them this I said it's the legacy, but more than that it's the legacy, but it's the responsibility.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:05:07

Yeah, no, it has a responsibility.

Joseph Herzog : 1:05:10

And the responsibility scares me, because that's the responsibility of people drinking kosher wine, relying on you to deliver the highest standard of kosher Right. Thank you very much for being on the Kosher the highest standard of kosher Right.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:05:19

Thank you very much for being on the Kosher Taiwan spending so much time with me. I know you're very busy these days and especially you're going to run back to LA, so thank you very, very much Well.

Joseph Herzog : 1:05:30

Bravo, we'll make sure when I come to Israel, which?

S. Simon Jacob: 1:05:33

I need to be there.

Joseph Herzog : 1:05:34

I'm scheduled to be there soon and I have kids there as well, so hope to be there soon and I have kids there as well, so hope to be there soon and hopefully do some tasting and some, maybe even some touring with you.

S. Simon Jacob: 1:05:53

This is Simon Jacob, Again your host of today's episode of The Kosher Terroir. I have a personal request. No matter where you are or where you live, please take a moment to pray for our soldiers' safety and the safe and rapid return of our hostages. 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 and thank you for listening to The Kosher Terroir.