Fine wines in Jerusalem's Judean Hills

[Music] from the latest on Caribbean cruises to kosher safaris pilgrimages to Jewish Eastern Europe and award-winning wines and international cuisine in sundrenched Tel Aviv sit back and enjoy the trip with the travel edition of the Jerusalem Post podcast good where are we well it's afternoon isn't it we're just about afternoon say hello where's your manners hello how are you very well my is in mod in in Israel that's very cocky English of you why what's Mana short for what what Mana do you come from is like what area do you come from oh really your London soul is pouring out finally I was thinking of a Mana as a nice fancy Abode in which one resides you're Northern it doesn't happen I know I know enough of our domestic British idal chitchat chitchat what a lovely view absolutely stunning behind us is the Israeli Coastline when they say behind us it's way off in the distance but just the other side of the buildings we're next to you can actually see all the way to the Israeli coast and we're facing in the direction of Jerusalem can I point out when we were on our way up the hill you couldn't even see the sign to turn right so your chances of seeing the co from here a minimal ladies and gentlemen the new podcast name is abuse David I like that we should do more of that we are looking at a beautiful Valley it is covered in conifers a lot of very natural Israeli plants we're coming out of what's been a very wet winter as opposed to the previous year in England we used to talk about April showers and it's that sort of day even though we're recording this early in March bit of rain the clouds are magnificent they are they're very fluffy if ever you come to this part of the world something to try to do if you can is to drive from Jerusalem towards Tel Aviv or from the mountains towards the coast at Sunset the sunsets here in Winter are otherworldly just stunning very very colorful I love the cruising podcast that's one of my favorite podcasts but if you could top cruising what would it be David for me oh drinking alcohol thank you very much I didn't know where you were going with that what should we do today yeah so we don't live that far away but in order to get to where we are now we had to go right past it on a train get onto a bus come back the other way walk up a hill and all of this so that we could drink alcohol and not drive if you're staying at a nice hotel in Jerusalem it would be much simpler and possibly even Tel Aviv but from modin where we live it was a bit of a trek but we are in Yash Yash oh see I was five short learning to count with Mark we are in Yash in the Jerusalem Hills next to Nan if any of you have watched the main news channel channel 12 news it comes from a building about 200 yards away from where we're standing now and to make this podcast even better later in this podcast we're going to be somewhere else all together in the judian Hills at another Winery we don't know which yet because we're still in the middle of going eeny meeny miny mo we're still deciding but yeah we're at a winery we're going to go into a quick jingly ad break and then we'll tell you about where we are to the side of the [Music] break to talk the latest news in Israel the Jewish world and everything in between this is the jpost podcast I'm Tamar Orel ber managing editor of jpost.com and I'm Tia Klein editor and chief of the Jerusalem Post and I'm Sara benon night editor at the Jerusalem Post join us as we bring some of the most impactful voices to bring you into what it means to be Jewish to be isra today every week we bring you with us into The Newsroom in every sense stop being so dramatic this is just our coffee break you can find us every Thursday on jpost.com Apple podcast Spotify or wherever you get your podcast we'll see you there yala bye so Mark in all of our introduction outside we didn't say where we were didn't we no I don't I've been sat down wine for five minutes so I forgot everything so we're in the Jerusalem Hills in a place called Yad hasuna next to Nan it's right by the main Highway that connects Jerusalem to the rest of the country we're at the daina Castel Winery we are in The Visitors Center we are Sat by a roaring log fire which beautiful it's gorgeous is is a rare thing and we are with the founder and wine maker Ellie Ben zaken Ellie thank you first of all for your hospitality for meeting us and we're going to have a tour with you we're going to taste some of the wines but first we want to know a little bit about you your background and then we'll get on to discussing a little bit more about the winery so where are you from and so on first of all thank you for choosing us for your podcast I was born in uh Alexandria in Egypt we left in 58 I was 14 we went to Italy my parents thought of going to Australia before that so they took me out of French speaking school to an English school I I lost a year in the transition somehow I got a scholarship by one of the Jewish uh Refugee organizations and I was sent to boarding school in England where I stayed for six years I came back to Milan two years at the Bon University studying economics which I didn't like I didn't choose it because I I thought I would like it I chose it because I thought my father would like me too went to Geneva to The Interpreter school I read French English and Italian got married to Monique Jerusalem also from Egypt I had to postpone the wedding because the sixth day war came along and we were supposed to get married in July I came to Israel as a volunteer uh postor exams and after staying for 3 months in Israel I decided this is where I see myself living in I became a real Zionist before the war the three weeks of uh waiting Arab students at the University in Geneva would say at this time we'll throw you all into the sea obviously it was a a big relief and a big victory afterwards so in 1970 we came to Israel Elana was already born she was 10 months old Monique was pregnant of aan who was born in adasa we were renting a flat in Jerusalem I decided I wanted to live in a house in the country eventually I found a house in ratel where I am still there you married a lady called yueli and you came to Israel and we sat here well more than 50 years later and you're a wine maker in the hills of Jerusalem how did that Journey happen from coming to to Israel to being a wine maker we are going to get an answer to Mark's story in the minute because we're already at the tasting session normally we do this at the end of the pods but we've done everything in Reverse so you're going to get the tour afterwards and we're actually doing the tasting at the moment we're on to our third sample of one of the wines here so far we have been on whites and roses and this is a razel you had a Castel Ros cast Ros is meroca berran malbeck and it's made in stainless steel tanks and is bottled early five six months after the Harvest Raziel is another wine made in the razel in the our second Winery it is mainly mved from Southern France the great mved granach and a little s it is fermented and aged on the leaves in 600 lit barrels it is aged for about 10 months I think you get there's the difference shall we I think we should I've got the big nose going back to the insult David P I've already finished mine Davidson people talk about Rose and Peach and all these types of things Stone I just smell gentle yes just gentle do you have to find all of these base ideas no we don't have to find anything you just have to tell me you like it and I'll be happy just a broadcasting tip for you listening out there we're doing this now drinking and we've recorded all of our tour because for health and safety we we're not allowed to go around the winery completely drunk this is excellent this is really nice my question was about the 50-year journey to becoming a Jerusalem wine maker and we're not allowed to taste anymore till you answer the question cuz another two bottles just arrived but they have to swallow this cheese we'll talk amongst ourselves while Ellie's sampling his if you come to domain to Castell and you come to the visitor center and you do a tasting it's accompanied by some very lovely bread and cheese we've got also olive oil and I'm guessing that that's a pesto and we also have a cherry or Berry one or the other Jam preserve a cherry preserve as well one of those things that I've have said that often quoted by uh the pr here is that I didn't have a dream but now I have one and in the sense that when I started I didn't have a really a goal to make the best Israeli wine but always to step by step year by year to make as good a wine as I could I'm not all religious but it's as if I was taken uh by God or an entity and taken on a path that led eventually to what we are today I really didn't plan to grow so much I even thought we shouldn't grow so much I should just say at this point because it's not something that we've recorded that that all of this actually started kind of accidentally because you were involved in a local planning issue with the area in which you live and you in order to make your point ended up just planting a variety of fruits in your property and so it was completely coincidental that grapes was the thing that took root I planted fruit trees all over the land around my house but there was one plot that was so thin in soil that I had to break the Rock so that what I thought would be the only plant that would survive would be Vines I had the tractor to break the rock so that the roots might go through and and it succeeded that was in ' 88 the first harvest was in 92 we made two barrels at 600 bottles it's amazing and from there you're now at 400,000 bottles which as you're saying is not huge it's not like some of the big industries that producing Millions but it is huge for us but I think I will not be corrected by saying that we are the largest of the small wineries others that are larger than us are over a million or two and then uh 15 million 20 million like caramel we are large but we also have the capacity of taking care of each Vineyard and take care that every tank uh has the attention that he must have and the wines are there to prove that we must be doing something right we're going to head now into some of the areas of this Winery we might look at the bottling hopefully we'll get to the sellers I noticed that we've been brought another couple of bottles of red this time we'll get back to those a bit later on in the podcast this is Mark Gordon from the Jerusalem Post podcast travel Edition find us on Facebook Instagram and Twitter at Mark davidp pod or mail us at Mark davidp pod gmail.com so now we've come into the bottling room and the packing area beforehand we were in the tank room and we saw a large number of how many tanks are there exactly 36 how big is the biggest tank 13,000 L how many people work here about 40 including the family and the agricultural team this is a family business isn't it I have uh two sons and a daughter they all work here did they have to go away to study viticulture agriculture or or do they learn here not all of them are making wine my sonan and I are making the wine Elana takes care of exports and Acquisitions Ariel is Big manager so a good bottle of wine isn't just made overnight it takes years two three four years from when the grapes first come to the winery till they're in a bottle it depends on which wine we have wines like so BL of la la white or blond La it's bottled in February after the Harvest that means we Harvest it in July August so it's an early Harvest by February it's in the market but if you take the ground V it will be in the market only for the holiday Period 2 years later when you first started did you get it wrong did you learn did you keep I was lucky I didn't get it wrong somehow I don't know why but I did it right from the first vintage in the testing room that we have a facts there from Serena sliff she's a master of wine she used to be the head of the wine department of SBE and in 95 she got a bottle of the 92 and she wrote back to the journalist who brought her the bottle that was probably the best Israeli wine most important thing she wrote is something must be right with the the soil the altitude and the weather and the the Clone that's it uh at that point we decided to become professionals I want to pick up on that because you've got vines in four locations I'm assuming each one of them is a slightly different altitude each one points in a slightly different direction how do you navigate that I taste the most important decision that a wine maker has to make is the date of the Harvest and then it's a lot of logistics it's not that one morning you decide that's it and you are sure to be able to harvest the next day because you don't have the people to do it so it takes prediction also say okay there is a leeway and not all all the varieties have the same leeway that means Cabernet you have more time from the day you say go you don't have to do it next day it can be even 10 days later but merow the time is much shorter it's under a week Have you listened to the Jerusalem Post podcast travel Edition I'm David Harris and together with my co-host Mark Gordon we bring you the best from the world of travel and tourism we have people who literally fly to Park City just to do the ski minion and it has that Heavenly taste that you don't really find nowadays in the market when was the last time you went to a restaurant and they bought you a picnic basket about eight courses in the Dracula tour that's a very unusual honeymoon option really the Jerusalem Post podcast travel Edition brings you the joys of travel and tourism so why not subscribe today wherever you get your podcasts cheers Mark cheers David as we walked into the cellar we descended the staircase we came through into this cool environment with classical music playing in a background with a video that tells the story of your family and how you began the company and then you look out to this sea of I guess it's a clarot color and a very light brown the barrels and it looks like a sea of barrels stretching into the distance it's beautiful it's calming when you come into this room I'm guessing you get a sense of accomplishment of achievement yes it's a beautiful room it's uh you have to realize that what you see is all handmade that means the wine in the barrel the barrel itself is handmade the setting up of the barrels in rows and one on top of the other it's like a brick layer worker with um a ruler and a the string it's hard work it's one of the hardest work in the winery also to empty the barrels and also to fill them up there's something quite magical about this room that you walk in David mentioned there's the video in the background and you can see the first batch being made but you've also got the smell of the wine coming from the barrels you're lucky about the smell because the smell is because we moved wine around in the past few days so you can smell the wine uh usually you can't as we've wandered around with you and we've had conversations both recorded and non there's a mixture of the traditional so talking about the way that you lay out the barrels but also the technological so the Sorting of grapes how do you see the industry developing in these medium to large siiz wineries that we've got in the Jerusalem Hills and around the country do you see things becoming more and more technological and less and less input from human beings or do you think that you have to have that human touch to make things quality I really think the human touch is definitely the most important factor yesterday we had a meeting of the iivo iivo is the isra one makers Association we had lectures a lot of chemistry in the lectures I stood up and I said you know I'm not a chemist it's nice to understand what is happening or could happen but you will not wine making analyze all the time what's happening in your wine that means you have to taste and you know what interv invention needs to be done simple things like cleanliness sanitation is so important when you made your first batch of wine was it co no and no what was the decision behind becoming we were not doing well in exports but we were doing very well in the country a French wine merchant Jewish Roberto Cohen said to me you know you're making the best Israeli wine I want you to make me some kosher wine and he sent a team of people to make the wine the organizer of the team was French Rabbi morai seba really an expert on kashrut not somebody who is there to make an easy buck and then one day I said to him you know mod if I become ker I would do it with you because he was explaining everything a lot of logic and not inventing things which didn't were not written or exaggerating welcome back to the visitor center I'm being poured some more wine we've sampled six or seven so far so you've been counting Mark a former accountant tells me that it's seven we started with the white we're going through the roses and the Reds but you said we're going to finish with a white chardonay why finish on the lighter the crisper wine it is not lighter it's as complex but it's uh much fresher more acidic and it cleans your pellet at the end of the tasting those of us who were not necessarily Born To Fine Things We would finish a meal at home with Jell-O or jelly or custard or something like that whereas in finer circles we finish with cheese and crackers or cheese and fruit ideally with a white wine and not with a red one this is a traditional way of tasting wine in burgundy that uh the last wine is the white wine do you have a favorite wine your own somebody else's a style a type a country don't ask me that question why not it's like uh you ask who is your favorite child you know even for a very uh critical father I appreciate the things they have positive aspects we tasted the LA red 22 I think it one of the best lav ever made so rewarding for a complex for a wine which is relatively cheap when you get to gr obviously you expect more and I think also we get much more I don't have a really favorite wine sometimes I taste wines like a mut Roi 2005 and I was so jealous I can tell you I have a favorite child I only have one so it's quite an easy decision before we close talk a little bit about your passion as we've already heard this is something that came to you completely by accident your first Passion was for Israel for Zionism it it's through your life and as Mark pointed out you married somebody who's named after the capital Jerusalem but wine was not something that was innate that was inherent within you how has it manifested itself in your soul for those who don't know I owned a restaurant for 22 years in Jerusalem Mia the money from Mia helped to build the winery what I I brought with me as a character or personality is perfection I cannot do anything in halfway or if it is a recipe I will do it exactly up until the end and very much like this I followed recipes in wine making to the sickening end where everybody around me said it's enough give up you know you don't have to but this is my character cleanliness sanitation Aesthetics I believe that the wine knows how it h is treated wine is a living thing how can visitors come and take part in your passion to taste your wines to come and sit in this Center how do they get hold of the details and what can they do at The Visitor Center called the winery and book there's a very easy way to do it these days which of course is the internet the website is Castel C A tel. co.il can people who are from overseas also order through the definitely uh they have to get to the Wi because they cannot pay on the website Ellie benzaken thank you for being a gracious host as well as a wonderful wine maker I'm very very happy yeah you're very happy his nose is going that that pink color he's got the glow around his eyes Ellie thanks so so much thank you very much for having me really Israel wine fact file more than 95% of the world's Vineyards are planted between 30° and 50° latitude North and South Israel sits right in The Sweet Spot or should that be semi- dry Israel produces over 40 million bottles of wine per year and in excess of 10 million bottles of grape juice more than 80% of those are consumed locally with the rest exported Israel is the 32nd largest wine exporter in the world over 40% of exported wines are sold in the US with France Canada and the UK the next three largest export markets Japan is one of the fastest growing markets for Israeli wine red wines account for 2third of bottles produced each year the most popular vintages in Israel are cabinet seron kinan and Merlo the biggest wineries in Israel are Baran Carmel tepperberg and goolan Heights Winery each producing more than 5 million bottles per year the first recorded Winery in Israel was opened by the Gino family the oldest wine making family still making wine is the shaw family they founded their Winery in the old city of Jerusalem in 1848 and now run the Aza and Zion wineries you're listening to the Jerusalem Post podcast travel Edition and this is part two of our Winery trip should we do like six parts for this I enjoyed the first part so much this is going to be very contrasty to where we were before let's try to do this in parallels the first thing we did when we were nearer to Jerusalem uh by the highway was to describe exactly where we were so it really is on the Beaten Track so it's quite easy to get a bus there from Jerusalem and so on and you are next to two or three little Villages here we're in the middle of bloody nowhere I know and there weren't many buses to come here but thanks to my delightful wife who has volunteered to drive us to and from I'm able to fully partake in drinking so before we scare you off and say oh it's impossible to get to first of all obviously if you've rented a car from anywhere in Israel it's such a small country it's easy to get here but I would also say that there are buses along the corridor between Jerusalem and B chesh so don't say no this is a difficult place and in fact if you are Walkers there is tremendous hiking around this part of the country where we are now and what better than to go for a hike and finish it off with a little bit of a wine taste or you could get a taxi to and from and remember don't drink and drive Fair Point yes yes I did mention a car that's a very good point but you'll spill too much that's why you should drink and dry so where are we Mark we are in moshav mat at the bottom of the judan hills sort of the what do you call it Foothills yeah yeah it's the bottom end of the Foothills we're very close to the start of the Ella Valley those of you who are biblically aware or biblical Scholars will know that the Ella Valley is where David and Goliath fought amongst other things um there are also mentions if I'm not mistaken in the Bible of Vineyards in that part of the world and indeed today you can take either guided or self-guided a wine tour through the Ella Valley area yes in organizing this trip there are a plethora of wineries in this area in the Judean Hills we had a wide range to choose from but we chose to come here to the novo Winery on MAV mat a small family Run Winery whereas beforehand we went to domain de Castell which produces 400,000 ,000 bottles a year here this is a much smaller operation should we go in Meet the folks and find out more about it is that before or after we taste the one Israel is the startup Nation a scaleup nation the Unicorn country join me Mayan Hoffman Deputy CEO of strategy and Innovation for an analysis of the most critical Israeli Tech Innovations today we'll highlight new tech Trends discuss the latest Innovations and interview at least one of Israel's most promising companies so if you'd like to know what's on The Cutting Edge then this Jerusalem Post show is for [Music] you you can listen to inside Israeli Innovation on Apple Spotify Google podcast or wherever you get your [Music] podcast my name is leor and I Run nivo Winery for the past four years we're going to start not in the tasting Center but we've actually come down to the Merlo Vineyard and if you can listen carefully you can hear a lovely bottle being opened what are we opening here we are opening a wine named summer summer is a blend of 60% ptiv dough 30% cab and 10% Mero this wine ages for 14 months in a 2-year-old Barrel now because the barrel is older it gives less of the oky flavors of the secondary flavors and the wine is more fruit forward lighter kind of wine and and it's perfect for a summer day since this is how our March looks like wine that is good for summer day is pretty much as good all year round in Israel even though it's March it is a barmy 22 23 degrees out there that's around 70 Fahrenheit and as well as coming to The Vineyards we've also come to meet the local insects who are following us everywhere and in the distance I can see horses there are three horses working the field are they employees of the vineyard yes they definitely are they're part of the team and what's their job basically to eat to provide manure Mark has been given a very generous how you say a generous dollop a generous drop a generous a generous poor a generous poror it is it's very interesting and different to be trying the wine actually where it's grown there is something beautiful about being out in the hills in these Vineyards watching the horses and getting the okay of the wine we should say it's very early in the morning for this type of activity I haven't had breakfast I haven't drunk any water yet what about you oh I came prepared I I had breakfast it's 11:00 which is opening hours for for pubs in the United Kingdom so why not just figure that I don't want to get caught short so I if I know I'm going out into the fields I don't caught short old man's problems right let's have a sniff it's very difficult to get my nose in with the microphone also in there but as you've commented on previous podcast because of the size of my nose I don't have the problem are you getting any hints of anything remember previous Winery that we've been to they say it doesn't matter if you can't smell stones and peaches and strawberries and stuff you just take it as it is I'm getting a good smell of the barrel and a very very full-bodied wine here I think is that true is that accurate first of all it's definitely accurate cuz it's his nose and you can't argue with it and everyone smells and tastes different flavors I feel less of the secondary flavors more of the initial flavors of the fruit I get more red fruit kind of flavors more cherries a bit and raspberries more towards that direction I don't feel as much Barrel actually in this wine but maybe I'm comparing to our other wines basically all the flavors in wine or the smells come from three different Origins can come either from The Vineyard itself so it's the fruity flavors the fruit the smells of flowers spices stuff like that the secondary flavors are from the barrel so it will be your chocolate your vanilla your leather your Oak and the tery flavors will be from aging the wine in the bottle it will be your almonds your candies your forest floor your mushrooms whatever take the last of those which is the bottle the bottle is a new bottle it's not been a bottle of mushrooms for example of course yes and we don't add cherries to our wines but wine gets different flavors from from the surroundings even when it's sealed in the bottle cuz there's still molecules of air going in the wine maturing it irating it and it develop another set of flavors and of smells it's not because we used the bottle for mushrooms and it's not because we added spices to the wine an idiot's question here because I can be an idiot when it comes to Wine are there cherries and raspberries grown near here to get that smell how do you get from grape to a smell of cherries and raspberries first of all there 's no cherries here and there's no raspberries here it's a good question and I'm not sure that I have the final and you know the one answer it does have things to do with you as a person because the part in your brain that is responsible for smells is Right adjacent to the one responsible for memories so memories generate flavors and smells very strongly and then if you have the connection in your mind then it will affect the taste of the wine also there's a thing about molecule structure and a Vine is an amazing plant and it does take flavors from the surroundings in this case there are no cherries here but something in the area inspires the vine to give exactly those flavors this is the whole idea behind ter if you grow the same grapes in different areas you will get different tastes how is your old factory system like do do you have strong Recollections of scents tastes and so on if you walk into a room where there's a scent do you suddenly think that reminds me of home or something I think with age it DS a little I like spicy food and I like strong smells so to some extent I still get those smells when I walk into a room but I I don't think I quite get the subtleties what about you well you know I don't I I stick my nose in and it all just smells like wine I think when I used to be a secret smoker and I went home and pretended I didn't smoke people could smell it as soon as I walked in the door so people have a better system than me have you tasted shall we cheers I got gooseberries there I just taste wine by the way I wouldn't know the taste of gooseberries because I didn't grow up tasting a lot of gooseberries so it's very hard for me to detect the gooseberries from The Raspberries from the blueberries from the whatever CU I grew up in Israel about what you said about your nose so first of all biologically usually women have a better sense of smell than men second of all it's like a muscle you need to train basically you need to drink more wine oh de I'm all for that you're listening to the Jerusalem Post podcast travel Edition find us on Facebook Instagram and Twitter at Mark davidp pod or mailers at Mark davidp pod gmail.com now we're going to meet the founder the Creator the CEO and the brains behind the novo Winery fly enough his name is navo no Kazan thank you very much indeed for hosting us at your beautiful Vineyard your first Vineyard you started work on in 2002 but that's not just something that happens overnight so how did it all begin up until 2002 I had no connection to the wine world I was born a wine maker and the only wine we used to drink at home was the kadouch wine on Fridays 2002 we were moving from our small little cabin to the house that we built and as we're moving the stuff we got uh news that my aunt my dad's sister is sick and she need treatments in hadasa she's originally from here but she moved to the north about 30 years ago and I called her and said listen come stay with us you'll be closer to the hospital and we'll get through this together she's a very special person my aunt and she came here with her own bread oven 5 in the morning she would be on the trees picking olives making olive oil picking date making jams and special Breads and we had an amazing time with his aunt during this time she also said you know that har season is coming if you have a friend who grows grapes let's pick some grapes let's press them and let's have wine at home I called a childhood friend of mine who happens to be the local wine grower and I told him that my aunt is here and she wants to make wine and he said sure go to the vineyard whatever you find is yours it's important to say that back then they would Harvest with a machine today we do everything manually but back then they used a machine and we came to the vineyard and we saw suddenly a whole row that was not harvested so I called a friend and I told him that there's grapes that he forgot to harvest and he said that the machine that he uses cannot work there cuz it's too narrow so we found ourselves back at home with 800 kilos of grap we had 800 kilos of grapes with not a lot of knowledge we pulled out plastic baths from the house we put plastic bags on the kids shoes pressed the grapes and put the juice in big plastic tanks after a while smells started to come up from the seller and I'm not sure if now I can recreate it but there was something amazing about this first wine with its strengths and the smells and the tastes and after a year thank God she got better and everything was okay and she went back home and before she left I told her that something about this time with her and this process sucked my soul into it and uh I'm going to continue making wine she started laughing a bit cuz what's your connection with wine up until then I was a semi-trailer driver but I continued making wine and with time I went to school and I studied wine making most of my studying were done here in Israel and during uh this time I also planted a few Vineyards in 2010 we also built the visitor center you've told us about the event that brought you into wine making you had another life-changing event in your life 30 years ago can you tell us about that in 1993 I was driving the semi- trailer then and I was delivering gas to gas stations one night uh we went to a gas station not far from here near Bethlehem and 6:30 in the morning it's very very cold Me and My Bodyguard we're sitting at the office of the gas station he's uh looking at me the whole time with a gun in his hand and after a few minutes it became very very hot and I asked him to escort me to the truck to change from the very heavy suit I was wearing when I came back from CH Jang I sat down in the chair in the office and I looked to the window that was on my left suddenly I heard a big explosion and when I looked back I saw that there's no bodyguard anymore the next thing I see is a guy standing in front of me with his gun pulled towards my head he's pulling the trigger and nothing happened no bullet came out he tried again and no bullet came out for the third time I was able to stand up I fought the guy a bit I was uh able to run off as I was running the guy found the gun of My Bodyguard and shot five bullets you see me standing here and the guy missed I reached to the end of the station and there was like a a holder a pit and I jumped in at that's point the terrorist took car and drove off I was able to climb out and I took The Bodyguard to a hospital in Bethlehem it was before the agreement so that was still allowed from there he was with a helicopter they moved him to adasa and where they were able to save his life and the guy today is alive what does that story bring to what you do now I'm telling this story now because I'm a big hero but for years I didn't treat myself and as I started making wine I also started to looking for answers to that problem me and my wife and we found this doctor in the US that treats soldiers coming back from Iraq she had student here that treated similar problems and I connected them and I went through a very intense long therapy during which I had to relive this whole situation over and over again including going back to the same place with bodyguards and with help this time the guy now that stands in front of you is is not the same one that was here before this treatment everything you experience here in the winery in The Visitor Center is all part of that change that uh changed the way I think and I feel and I operate in the smallest Things Have you listened to the Jerusalem Post podcast travel Edition yet hi there I'm David Harris and together with co-host Mark Gordon we bring you the very best of the world of travel we've had our safety instructions and we're in a basket e the cars are shrinking or we're going higher now sat on a high chair you're listening to the last whe and test of Mark Simon Gordon we're in the independent micro nation of uis if I wasn't married I'd be chasing away your indigenous 78-year-old and taking you for myself the drink afterwards just to calm my nerves will be number one but this is definitely up there the Jerusalem Post podcast travel Edition brings you the joys of travel and tourism so why not subscribe today wherever you get your podcasts that was really nice being in a field horses strolling in the background and every time we spoke to Novo the horses obviously had an opinion and wanted to join in here's a question for you quiz question what noise does a horse make nay they say the whole time that's their noise spell PR PR PR P you're in the world of PR so you should so we've now come into the lovely Visitor Center it's a small area probably for what about 40 people I'm guessing yeah we're sharing it with a group of about 14 gentlemen who are here letting their hair down I think they've been in the Army and in front of us is a lovely blend from 2020 based on Petty Verdo some beautiful cheeses some oil some fresh break bread should we give it a go I think so it'll be rude not to that was my head David sound like a bell exactly there's nothing in there except just one thing going from side to side okay like time for a sniff that was a stereo sniff we both did it at the same time it's really rich and fruity I just smell wine I'm I'm hopeless absolutely hopeless you know wine is made from fruit yes grape is a fruit oh so you were just covering Yourself by saying fruit sounding like you know one of the interesting things we learn when we're in the field is and again it was going back to how it picks up its taste yes while we were in the Merlo fields we found out that the fields El are surrounded by plants with zatar and herbs and spices and and the bees make their way between the vines and these herb plants and back again and infuses the grapes with a spice that gives it an even stronger flavor amongst the others I know he mentioned there was time did I hear maram I'm not sure but it it was really interesting what's the Hebrew for maram I actually do know that we have some at home and I had to look it up but it's not margarum it does have an interest it's not Mar is it Marva I'm asking you I have no clue quiz question where's my phone I'm going to look it up while I'm looking it up why don't we have a a sip a comical slurp from David this one is going to stay on my tongue for a long time can you feel it entering the crevices of your tongue I don't we sound so pathetic or at least I do because we don't have the wine knowledge and we know that there are many people who will talk about wine and use all these fancy words and whatever but bottom line it's it's as we've heard through this podcast it's about whether you like the wine or not exactly do you know what I think to help improve from every podcast going forward we should just go to another Winery should tried the cheeses so we've got a double is it multicolored or two-colored two colored orange and cheese yellow cheese with a nice crust on it crust skin skin peel rhined m Ryan she well done we've lived outside of the UK for too long and if you live in Israel um you kind of at some point you lose your Hebrew and you lose your English it's cuz you're trying to say the word in Hebrew and you're thinking now what was that in English I don't have that problem I don't know the word in Hebrew or English but anyway we're going to get back to drinking a little bit more wine and I guess you'll hear from us in a few moments maybe half an hour Mark David I am so relieved that there was a plate of cheese and bread and olive oil cuz otherwise I would be under the table and between you and me and off the Record we did do some pretty heavy drinking last night as well I think about to say off the record I love cheese and by the way you know when you say on a microphone it isn't off the record I love cheese anyway we are on Sample number four have you tried it yet I've smelt the bouquet okay let me have a go another sniff oh that was a snort not a sniff like a straw for I'm just going to swap hands because I've actually got my tasting hand and my microphone is the same hand while I'm swirling can you explain where this uh glass came from or well not the glass the wine the glass was manufactured in China we're finishing off with uh 100% Mero and if you remember back 10 15 minutes which we don't we were in the vineyard with Novo and we were watching the Malo Vineyard being prepared for the upcoming harvest the horses wandering up and down all the midges like flying around us to people outside of the UK know what midges are I don't know is so an American word for little things that buzz around little biting buggers that are not mosquitoes biting buggers oh there's an alliteration all the Americans will be thinking it's something to do with their nose I'm with you now I was trying to out where Americans put mides up their nose anyway as you can tell we've been drinking we are coming to the end of making this wonderful podcast because David told me we can't have seven wineries on this podcast can we taste it I smell black currant oh I've drunk it I didn't bother smelling it I think we say sniff or snort I thought you smell wine try to drink it to be honest or inject it we're going to be listened to very very carefully by our friends at two wineries who are featured in this podcast and they're going to be listening to this last bit and thinking to themselves my God the Philistines so I'm going to remind they're busy drafting a letter saying dear Jerusalem Post do not send these Philistines from the podcast here ever again we are actually very close to the Philistine cities and that whole area was surrounded in historical Times by Vineyards and as Leo was telling us um I think when we were not recording she was saying that throughout this area they found ancient what you call it where people would make wine like you stand on the wine and stuff presses yes yeah all over this area so so there is a historical link to the Philistines should we say a few thank yous to the nice people who made this a fabulous podcast for us black currant I really do taste black currant this is really good you're on the right bean and you've picked up the wrong bottle for those people who don't know what R it's a black current drink yes we should say thank you so oh no you go first you're challenging you think I can't remember the names to Ellie Ben zaken to Novo Kazan and to Leo something thank you to all three of you thank you for having made the last couple of days a lot of fun but not only that to show that there is tremendous love for the land here that in both cases of the two wineries it was never the idea in the first place one was a semi-trailer Drive and one began because of a whole planning issue with the local Authority I'd also like to say a big thank you to someone you've not heard on the podcast Adam Monte Fury is the Jerusalem Post wine correspondent we spoke to him online during Corona and said when this is all over we should go out and do a wine podcast and we didn't bring him with but a book that he wrote has given me the inspiration to find some of these wineries in the Judean Hills in fact he wrote the biography of daina Castell so he's played quite a large part in this podcast without actually being here and I just want to say a special thank you to Mark's wife because as we said when we were coming to Novo it's not easy to get to from modin and she's very patiently been waiting for us while we recorded this whole podcast so thank you to you anything else before we say goodbye we highly recommend Israeli Wines in general they are very very competitive they are highly regarded around the world we focused on a couple of kosher wiers of course there are many that are not Kosher you can find Israeli wine probably somewhere very close to where you live and a lot of the wineries you can actually order online certainly as is the case with the novo Winery where we are completing this podcast for those of you listening in Israel in this time of War it's important to support Israeli businesses so try and make an effort to come out to some of the wonderful Wineries and visitor centers in Israel for those who listening overseas who are planning on coming to Israel most of the good wineries have good visitor centers we've bought you two wineries there are hundreds of wineries in Israel and if you want more details on the other wineries you can always reach out to us at Mark davidp pod or drop us an email Mark davidp pod atgmailcom folks thanks so much for joining us we hope you've enjoyed this as much as we have and as we' like to say in this part of the world at the end of one of our podcast rate US with a five star rating [Music]