Alicia Wilbur's Journey in Kosher Winemaking, Faith and Organic Living

Dive into the vibrant life of Alicia Wilbur, the awesome Production Winemaker at Herzog Cellars, as she weaves the art of kosher winemaking with her down-to-earth family life, vegetable gardens, chickens and all! Our chat with Alicia offers a rare peek into how she juggles crafting exquisite wines and enjoying Shabbat dinners, all while nurturing a community spirit on the hills above the Malibu shoreline. Her story isn't just about making wine; it's a testament to how one's beliefs can deepen a career, enrich traditions, and bring color – much like her chickens' eggs – to everyday life.

This episode isn't just a single narrative; it's a collection of journeys converging on the path of kosher winemaking. We share tales from a program coordinator turned winemaker inspired by a quest for better Shabbos wines and another who finds their faith intertwined with fermentation after reading Rabbi Joseph Telushkin. With personal milestones met along the way, these stories showcase the dedication it takes to combine Jewish tradition with professional craftsmanship, proving that the industry's challenges are opportunities for growth and innovation.

Our conversation traverses more than just personal anecdotes; it delves into the broader implications of wine creation and consumption. We celebrate the push for organic and biodynamic practices and the resilience required to adapt to climate change's impact on viticulture. As you savor the narrative bouquet of this episode, take a moment to honor those who bring such passion to their vocation, and let's raise a glass to those who ensure that every bottle of kosher wine is not just a drink but an experience.

For more information:

Alicia Wilbur
Production Winemaker
Herzog Wine Cellars
3201 Camino Del Sol, Oxnard, CA 93030
Phone: (805) 983-1560
Website : https://herzogwine.com/

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

Transcript

Solomon Simon Jacob: 0:09

Welcome to the Kosher Teruah. 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. The following conversation is with a truly remarkable winemaker, Alicia Wilbur. I met her for the first time quite a number of years ago when she came in from California to help host a charitable benefit dinner wine tasting for Nachum Siegel's network in New Jersey. I was initially very impressed with her wine skills and palate, but I've come to really appreciate her charming personality and depth of wine knowledge. She is the production winemaker for Herzog Cellars flagship winery in Oxnard, california. That puts her in responsibility of all winemaking operational logistics for the entire winery. As a religious Jewish woman, she has set an incredibly high bar for the kosher wine industry and a wonderful example to religious women and men wanting to make a career of this business.

Solomon Simon Jacob: 1:27

If you're in your car, please focus your attention on the road. If you're home relaxing, please grab a wonderful bottle of kosher wine, sit back and listen in on this very special conversation. Welcome to the Kosher Terroir, alicia. You have many professional responsibilities. How in the world. Do you do it all? Winemaking, family, kids and even chickens? I don't know it, just that blew my mind the chickens.

Alicia Wilbur: 1:56

So Well, first of all, there's no way to do it all. And secondly, thank God for Shabbat, because if I didn't have that break every week. And secondly, thank God for Shabbat because if I didn't have that break every week, I certainly wouldn't be keeping my head the way that I do. It's a really beautiful day just to unwind and unplug and spend time with my family and our friends. In the community. We have a lot of people come over every Shabbos. We have a lot of kids come by. We have a lot of adults come by. I go to a women's class every Shabbat afternoon.

Solomon Simon Jacob: 2:26

It's a really nice community. Very cool, very cool. So what's it like raising kids where you're located? Are you in Oxnard proper or where are you compared to that?

Alicia Wilbur: 2:42

No, we are not in Oxnard. We're a little further out, closer to technically to LA County, but we still live in Ventura County. We live in a small out-of-town community. We're part of a greater sort of out-of-town Lubavitch Chabad community no-transcript dog or on my mountain bike or my road bike Like it's just a beautiful place to live and technically we are only 15 minutes from the beach. Um, if you go down the hill, down the road that we live on, we're about 15 minutes from Malibu.

Solomon Simon Jacob: 3:39

I bet you the way back from Malibu is a lot more effort going back to the hill.

Alicia Wilbur: 3:45

Yeah, it's a pretty rough hill, but it's a good ride. It's a good location.

Solomon Simon Jacob: 3:49

Cool, very cool. I noticed your chickens lay interesting colored eggs, not just white eggs. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

Alicia Wilbur: 4:00

Yes, so chicken eggs are. The color of the eggshell is dependent on the kind of chicken, the breed of chicken that it is. We have quite a few chickens and they lay everything from light green eggs to bright blue, to white, to creamy, to brown. And the interesting thing about chickens is that you can tell what the egg color is going to be by their earlobes. So they don't look like our earlobes but they look like just patches of skin and then they have a specific color and that correlates to the color of the eggshell.

Solomon Simon Jacob: 4:30

So if they have a white patch, that's white eggs.

Alicia Wilbur: 4:34

White eggs and.

Solomon Simon Jacob: 4:36

Go ahead.

Alicia Wilbur: 4:37

No, I was going to say Sheila. She's a little bantam silky. She's so cute, she's got fluffy feathers all down her feet and she's just a very fluffy chicken. She's my oldest chicken and she has really bright blue earlobes and she lays these beautiful robin blue eggs.

Solomon Simon Jacob: 4:53

Very cool. I didn't know that and that's amazing. I didn't learn something every day.

Alicia Wilbur: 4:59

They helped a lot during Pesach. We were able to keep up with our egg needs for Passover cooking. They helped a lot during Pesach. We were able to keep up with our egg needs for Passover cooking.

Solomon Simon Jacob: 5:05

Very cool, very cool. Are you vegan or vegetarian? Do you eat chickens as well, or you only eat the eggs?

Alicia Wilbur: 5:15

No, we've Shechted our chickens and we hatched chickens last Passover actually and of 12 chicks that hatched, I think seven ended up being boys or six ended up being roosters, and we can't keep roosters where we are. So we actually did Kaparot for my husband with one of them and then took them to a gentleman in LA and he helped us, he Shechted the chickens and they made delicious soup for our table. They were really you know I hope this isn't offensive, but I really do believe in eat what you grow. And you know we had the opportunity to raise these chickens and they were very healthy and very, you know, like even the show had commented that they looked well-raised when you saw them from the other side.

Solomon Simon Jacob: 6:05

So you were proud of your chicken raising capabilities.

Alicia Wilbur: 6:09

Oh yes.

Solomon Simon Jacob: 6:10

Not only children. Amazing, amazing. I especially like the Polish speckled chicks who look like they have a Hasidic hat and everything and they're just amazing. Looking, crazy, crazy looking. You can't help but smile when you look at the pictures of them. They're really cool. All right, so there are many of my listeners who dream of joining the winemaking business. Let's talk a little bit about your origin story. Was there winemaking always a dream that you had, or where did it come from? And what's your origin, or where did it come from?

Alicia Wilbur: 6:45

And what's your origin? My winemaking story is a funny story. It really is Hoshka Hapratis, and I had no interest in it. I didn't know it existed growing up. You know, we were raised in a very California reform household. We went to temple, we went to Sunday school and Hebrew school and we had bat mitzvahs. Being my sister and my extent of wine and my knowledge of wine was really like the bottle of Manischewitz on the holidays. And then my father would drink Kendall Jackson Chardonnay every night or, you know, sutterholm Weizenpindel, so that was really where I was exposed to it. But my dad my dad would like sip wine and try to kind of talk himself through it and I guess tried to be a bit of a connoisseur but it wasn't anything anybody in my circle was really aware of.

Alicia Wilbur: 7:38

When I got a little bit older and I started working, one of the things I did for many, many years was work as a server in fine dining and I was working at a restaurant in Los Gatos, actually across the street from where I would ultimately get married, and that was really my first exposure to fine wine. They had a fine wine list and they had a sommelier and they had, you know, this staff that was very well trained in the art of serving wine. And my first, the first wine that did it for me now, remember my dad was drinking, like KJ chard um, was Rombauer Chardonnay and it was probably, I don't know, a 1997 or early two thousands wine. I don't exactly know the vintage of it but I had never tasted anything like that. I didn't know wine, the vintage of it, but I had never tasted anything like that. I didn't know wine could taste like that and it was really this light bulb moment.

Alicia Wilbur: 8:30

Concurrently I was also working at that time for Hillel at UC Santa Cruz and I got that position after going on birthright and meeting all those people and meeting the director who was running that trip. He liked my personality, he thought I was funny, he thought I was smart, so he asked me to come in and do program coordination for UCSC Hillel. So as I was growing in my Jewish knowledge, I was also growing in my wine knowledge and there was this epiphany point, which was probably some Shabbos dinner, where we were like mixing Manischewitz with Baron Herzog Weitz and Fidel, because that was just delicious. And I thought to myself there's got to be a better wine.

Alicia Wilbur: 9:12

You know like there has to be a better expression of wine than Manischewitz and no offense to Manischewitz, cause there's, you know, there's a lot of history there and it's it's a really beautiful wine for for a lot of people. Yeah, but that was really the moment was like being at Hillel and doing these dinners for people and drinking this wine and realizing that there was a a lot more than Manischewitz out there, cause the whole Baron Herzog line was available to us, and then be also learning how important kosher wine was for the whole experience. And even when I left Hillel and I was at Fresno State and I was studying to get my enology degree, my bachelor's of science in winemaking, I was involved with the temple there Reformed Temple, and they wanted me to come in and do like a tubi spot seder for women and I had a hard time securing kosher wine and they were like, no, no, it's okay, you don't need kosher wine. And I was like, oh, yes, yes, yes, we do, and you know, even you really need kosher wine. So that's kind of where it started.

Alicia Wilbur: 10:18

And then also at that time when I was working for Hillel, I managed to meet Benyoman Kants, who is Benyo, the famed winemaker of Four Gates Wine and he was good friends with Shalom, the director of UCSC Hillel. At the time we were doing a fundraiser at a beautiful home in Saratoga or something and he had poured some Zinfandel and I was swirling and tasting and I made some comments and I used some word that was appropriate and he looked at me right in the eyes and he went oh, you know something about wine.

Solomon Simon Jacob: 10:55

And I was like yeah, yes, I do, I didn't know anything about it.

Alicia Wilbur: 11:00

But like here was this person with this incredible I mean, you know him, you can see his neshama, like he's just this incredible person and very humble and very giving and for him to say that to me and you know, the community would go to his house and help him harvest and be there doing Sukkot and like there was a lot of involvement there, so he really was the impetus for turning the whole direction of my life towards winemaking, the impetus for turning the whole direction of my life towards winemaking.

Solomon Simon Jacob: 11:27

Wow, wow. So tell me a little bit about your education.

Alicia Wilbur: 11:34

It's a. It's a again. You know a lot of steps to get to a certain place. So while I was working for Hillel, um, the gal that had the similar position to me, program director at San Jose state, her father was a winemaker and she suggested that I go speak to him and have like an inter informational interview. So I interviewed him and he suggested that I get my head out of winemaking and I get my feet into the vineyard. And you know, don't study oenology, go study viticulture. And while you're at it, go study viticulture in Australia, because their government is really supportive of the wine industry and they pour a lot of money into research, agricultural research and winemaking research, and it would be a very good place to go learn.

Alicia Wilbur: 12:16

This person actually was one of the founders of biodynamic agriculture in California, so he was growing grapes in a biodynamic fashion, um, in his St Edna vineyard down in Paso, santa Barbara area. And actually later, when I was in the Fresno state enology program, we would go visit him as part of our enology degree and, uh, he was one of the people who would, who was going to talk to the class. So, anyway, um, I applied to the class. So, anyway, I applied to the University of Adelaide. I got accepted to their viticulture program and I was changing my life to go move to Australia, and that included moving to Sonoma, trying to get more experience in the wine industry. And there I met an Australian winemaker named Chris Loxton of Loxton Cellars and he was like what are you going to Australia for? You don't have to go so far away, you don't even have to go to Davis, you know, you could go to Fresno State. Like, what are you doing? Like, go to Fresno State. And the people in Sonoma were very they were very encouraging that I would go to Fresno State and at that time it was the only place in the United States that had a commercial winery that students ran. So all positions in the winery, from cellar to bottling to the lab, were run by students. So I started that program in 2005 and I graduated in 2008.

Alicia Wilbur: 13:41

The first day of school, the first day of class, enology 101, professor Thornton asked us all why were we here? What were we doing? What did we want to do? And I raised my hand and I was like I'm going to make kosher wine and I didn't know what it meant. Like literally looking back on it now I had no idea, but it didn't matter, like that's what I was going to do. I was going to make kosher wine and that's what I set out to do and, thank God, it's the only kind of wine since I got my degree that I've ever made.

Alicia Wilbur: 14:15

In the course of getting that degree, I got married and had my first child, and just telling the young ladies here that when I ended up finding out that I was pregnant, I still had one year to go and I went to all my professors before the fall Cause, of course, naturally, being a winemaker, my two daughters two of my daughters were born in their Tishrei babies. So they're like, right between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, in the middle of harvest, perfect time for Bat Mitzvah, and we have a Bat Mitzvah coming up this year actually. Anyway, I went to my microbiology professor and I said I'm going to be missing some classes in the fall because I'm having a baby. And she looked at me and she's like you'll never do it, you'll never pass, you'll never make it, and you know, you tell me that you're going to bet.

Solomon Simon Jacob: 15:01

That.

Alicia Wilbur: 15:02

I'm going to make it right. So here we are. I made it all good, um, but yeah, I had my kaya when I was a senior in in college I was a little bit older and then, um, actually the the last day of finals, I was working on my last final for I don't know some paper and I was simultaneously checking winejobscom and the only two search terms I would ever search were kosher or Israel. And I was typing in kosher and working on my term paper and all of a sudden, this job popped up at Herzog Wine Cellars and this was in 2008. And I applied and I went down, I was invited. Joe Herleman called me back and he invited me down to Oxnard from Fresno and I met with him and I spent eight hours there at the winery and I met, I met everyone that was there at that time. I met Josh and Zev and Joseph and the whole crew, the whole mishpacha, and, uh, joe took me to lunch at TRSR and, like I think, literally the next day, they offered me the job and you know, that was a big, that was a big moment, right, because I had gone to school and I had made this goal for myself that I was going to work in kosher wine making.

Alicia Wilbur: 16:13

And then here I am, like, at the precipice of graduation, and all of my friends are leaving to France or South America or I don't know wherever they're going, and they're all getting these internships in Napa or Paso. And I got offered this position at Herzog and it was overwhelming. And at the same time, my husband had been offered a position in Wisconsin in his industry, and because I had this eight month old and because he had this opportunity that would allow me to stay home, I said thank you, but no, thank you, I can't take, I can't accept this offer right now. I said thank you, but no, thank you, I can't take, I can't accept this offer right now. So I, I didn't do it. I, I, I stepped away from wine and um raised my daughter and then, of course, six months later, that company folded and laid everybody off.

Alicia Wilbur: 17:07

So we were in the middle of the U? S in Wisconsin beautiful place, by the way, fantastic people, some of the best people in the whole world are in Wisconsin and um, my husband, was unemployed for a little while and you know, I had this baby. We didn't have anything that we were doing and my husband ended up finding work in New York. So we moved further East, all the way to New York, in Westchester County. I had my second child there and when he turned a year old I decided it was time to go back to work. And what are you going to do? You're not going to. You know, I didn't want to be a secretary, you know.

Alicia Wilbur: 17:43

So at that time I had heard about the court of master sommeliers and I decided to pursue a certification in being a sommelier. So I passed the introductory course that was up at the CIA up in the Hudson Valley, and then I took the certifying course in Manhattan and became a certified sommelier. And then I helped open a winery or sorry, a wine restaurant in um, larchmont, new York. So shout out to vintage 1891 on Larchmont Avenue in Larchmont, new York. I became their wine director.

Solomon Simon Jacob: 18:18

I happen to know where that is. I happen to know where that is my. I happen to know um my. My wife, when I met her, was actually living in Larchmont, new York.

Alicia Wilbur: 18:32

Surprisingly, yeah, so so, wow, this is right. So actually jonathan actorloni, our um manager of the restaurant, is from largemont as well it's a small world, very small world.

Alicia Wilbur: 18:39

Yeah, very small, very cool, yeah, yeah so I was um doing that and I happened to. Still, I was like active on linkedin and I was actually visiting my mom in um, california, was there with the kids and I'll never forget. We were on the freeway, we were driving like South on one-on-one to go to some splash pad or something and my phone rings and I pick it up and it's like Joe Hurleyman on the screen. I was like what is Joe Hurleyman, you know doing calling me? It's four years later, right, cause it's 2012 at this point. And he called me and he said you know, do you ever think about getting back into the winemaking business? And I was like yes, yes, I do. Every once in a while I think about it Big smile, big smile.

Alicia Wilbur: 19:26

Big smile, just like totally jumping up and down in the car, big smile, just like totally jumping up and down in the car. And you know, when I went back to New York, he invited me to KFWE. And I came to KFWE and I, not least of all because of that drive and and like where Bayonne is and uh, going there by myself, but I met with everybody and, and you know, the rest is history, as they say, and I came in June of 2013 to California to start with Herzog Very cool very cool.

Solomon Simon Jacob: 20:10

You know, you, you constantly mentioned Jewish and kosher as being extremely important to your identity. Um, anything, anything special you want to tell me about that? I mean, how did that come about? And I we've gotten a feel for it, but, um, it seems to kind of be one of the core values in your career.

Alicia Wilbur: 20:37

So when I was 18, I had graduated high school and I went and I moved to Paris, France, or a suburb of Paris, as an au pair and I was paired with a Sephardi family, a Sephardi Jewish family just incidentally, I didn't, you know, request that and the kids were seven, 12 and 17. And, um, it was my first time away from home. You know, I had literally just graduated high school. Um, technically, I was 17 when I graduated. So when I had moved to France excuse me, I was 17 and I was with this family and going through the Hageem in the fall and feeling kind of out of sorts and not knowing what was going on. And then we got to Hanukkah and talking to the little boy and I was asking him, like, do you know what the letters on the dreidel mean? And he didn't know what the letters on the dreidel meant.

Alicia Wilbur: 21:28

And, um, I've always had kind of a conscientious relationship with Klonica anyway, just because it's this. I mean, you know, right, it's this holiday about remaining true to who you are and standing very strong against being assimilated. And it kind of has become this, very especially for someone who grew up. Reform like it's a very assimilated holiday. Um, a lot of associations with that time of year and you know, being in public school systems, and what those expectations were for that. So I was really floored, you know, as this 18-year-old just totally floored, that this kid didn't know what the letters on a cradle meant.

Alicia Wilbur: 22:05

I'm not. I wasn't affiliated, I wasn't particularly religious at that time and even I knew what those letters meant. So I came home and I don't even know how it happened, but again, it must have been Hashgaha Precious. But there was a store in Los Gatos called Al-Fat Judaica and I went there and I was talking to I believe her name was Narit the woman who ran the store, and kind of telling her my experience and she said you should read this book. It's called the nine questions people ask about Judaism, by Rabbi Joseph Tlushkin and Dennis Prager, and I read that book and it changed my life. So they have this phrase in that book that they're constantly saying um, not yet. So do you keep kosher? Not yet. You know, do you wrap to fill in? If you're a man? Not yet. It's not saying no, it's not this hard, no, it's giving the possibility for this in your future, but at the time you're not doing it.

Alicia Wilbur: 23:02

So after I read that book I actually started keeping kosher to the best of my abilities. And I just want to say I didn't get religious through a rabbi or a movement, I just I read a lot of books on my own and was constantly you know, the flame of your neshama is like seeking that greater connection. So I just read a lot of books and, um, it's actually funny because I think maybe the year after we moved to uh Oak park and I joined um the win winery, rabbi Telushkin came to our Chabad like house, our Chabad area, to the actually it was the Four Seasons in Westlake and he gave a lecture and I brought my book, the nine questions people you know ask about Judaism. And here I am and I'm like I'm wearing like a gorgeous dress with like the collar up to here and, you know, like my everything's covered in a minishetel, gorgeous dress with like the collar up to here, and you know, like my everything's covered in a minute shaitel.

Alicia Wilbur: 23:52

And it was like just such this 180 degree change from where I was when I read the book to handing him this book and saying will you please sign it for me? And this whole, you know, changed my life. So I don't know, it was just always my neshama was seeking more. And it's very important to me and raising my children this way and you know, naming my first daughter Chaya, even though we didn't live in like a community where anybody was named Chaya. And then when we moved to California to a community where she was one of eight Chayas in her class, you know it's fun, it's really fun.

Solomon Simon Jacob: 24:24

Very cool. How would did that impact you from a winemaking perspective? I mean being kosher, being in winemaking Did you feel that that was a limitation, pardon, I guess did you feel that that was a limitation, being kosher and winemaking being?

Alicia Wilbur: 24:48

kosher and winemaking? No, because, like I said, it's the only winemaking that I ever knew, you know I mean okay. So, yes, I've worked for Chris Loxton and I did end up working for BR Cohen. For BR Cohen, I was working in the tasting room and for Chris, I was working in the cellar. Um, but when I tell you, I didn't even understand what the pH scale meant. You know, when I was working for Chris, I was very, very green Um, and he was a pretty non-interventionist winemaker to begin with.

Alicia Wilbur: 25:15

So it's not like and I would say at Fresno state, it's not like they're teaching you um, they're teaching you the fundamentals of winemaking. So it's not like they're teaching you to use all of these extras for additives. You know so what? There's yeast and there's acidulation and there's enzymes and stuff, and so when I was starting to make wine in a kosher way, it wasn't a limitation. It was, it was an extra step to take, but it wasn't. I never saw it as a limitation.

Alicia Wilbur: 25:44

I will say, when I talk to people who make wine in a non-kosher way, like in a, in just a regular commercial winery like they're astonished by the limitations that we have, by the calendar, first of all, you know, like I said earlier, the the Hageem happened in harvest and, like I'm pretty sure that was Hashem's way of saying like I know this is really tough but it's really going to work out for you better ultimately, because you can rest and you don't have to work.

Alicia Wilbur: 26:08

You know, seven days a week, 18 hours a day, for three months out of the year, you're you're forced to take a break and step away. Obviously, that has logistical um, its own set of logistical nightmares, and, as a winemaker and you're walking away, for sometimes it's five days at a time, like it depends on how the holidays fall, you know. But if, like you have Arab Shabbos and then say arab yontif is on a sunday, you can conceivably be out for five days because we're in america. So remember, we have the extra, the extra days like you um and you have to trust in your.

Alicia Wilbur: 26:42

You have to trust in your seller, you have to trust in the way that you've trained your winemaking team, your seller guys, that everybody is managing seller health well and everybody's really conscientious of best practices and precision winemaking and French techniques. And you have to ultimately trust your people and, more than that, you have to trust in God. You have to trust that Hashem is ultimately in charge of all of the processes and it's going to work out. We're not, I don't know like. We're not. I don't know we're not doing brain surgery. We're not. You know we're not making curing cancer. We're. We're allowing people to make smachot and simchas and and and kiddish and that kind of thing, which is very important and very holy, but it's, you know, at the end of the day it's not like life or death, thank god yeah, no.

Solomon Simon Jacob: 27:28

Well, you're allowing people to make brachot, which is very cool.

Alicia Wilbur: 27:32

Very cool which is really cool. Actually I wanted to touch when we met it's funny because I was thinking about that and that was at like a sushi restaurant, I believe.

Solomon Simon Jacob: 27:41

Yeah, it had sushi, but yes, it did.

Alicia Wilbur: 27:44

Oh, it had. Okay, my apologies.

Solomon Simon Jacob: 27:46

No, no, it was a broader menu, but it did have. It was sushi too.

Alicia Wilbur: 27:52

It was a beautiful restaurant and it was a really lovely dinner and a really lovely experience, and I met the Gellers at that time.

Solomon Simon Jacob: 28:00

Yep Gabriel and Yael.

Alicia Wilbur: 28:02

Yeah, and Yael, and it's so funny because I've thought about that moment many times. Like, yael met me and I think she was excited because you know I'm a woman and wine and we could like chat about these things. And she hands me a glass and she's like tell me what you think. And, um, you know, I got the glass and I was swirling and I put my nose in it and I was like, oh you like Burgundy and Pinot Noir, and it floored her because she didn't tell me what it was, you know. But it happened to be a burgundian pinot.

Alicia Wilbur: 28:29

Um, but like it's a pretty distinct, like if it's made in a certain way, it's a pretty distinct um, nose and aroma and everything. So it was just a fun moment because it was like a lot of people think that stuff is parlor tricks, but it's really not. Like it's, it's what I do as a job. I'm a professional winemaker, you know, so I have to be able to taste and discern and smell things. So it it's not a parlor trick, I promise you. It's just that we practice, we do it every day. But it was a fun moment.

Solomon Simon Jacob: 28:56

It's really experience. You know it's interesting. Yael is a very special person and because Gabe Geller has such incredible skills, she's kind of like people look at Yael and say, oh, she's Gabe's wife, but to be honest, she is an incredible. She has an incredible palate and she's an incredible wine person herself, and she was that long before she met Gabe. I mean, she'll tell you about her secret closet where she hid all of these bottles of wine away from everybody else's you know ability to grab them. So she's a really, really special person. While you're bringing that up, I mean, you know there are very few women in the winemaking business and you're one of the most prominent. There are some, but you're one of the most prominent.

Alicia Wilbur: 29:51

How has the journey influenced you and well, I would hope that, um, you know externally that people when they come in the winery, um, and they see me, and they see me, you know, like just just this morning, um, I was downstairs on the floor in the cellar and you know, I'm in my skirt and I'm in my chateau and I've got my my high-vis jacket on and I'm like popping bungs off barrels. I'm sticking my face in the you know the bung, because we were blending and I need to make sure that all the barrels are sound that we can use them for what we're doing. So there's like hundreds of barrels laid out on the floor and I'm just down there like sticking my nose, sticking my face in barrels, and you know, you've been to the winery it's like a fishbowl. People can't come onto the floor because we're kosher, but there's all these windows so they can see down into what we're doing. And like, my greatest hope is that when I'm doing something like that, that's kind of bordering ridiculous but really kind of cool, like if you don't know exactly what it is that I'm doing. I hope that there are women watching. I hope that there are girls. You know they're with their families and they're having lunch and they decide to take the tour and they see me down there or they they walk by and they see me in the lab and they see me prepping some kind of, you know, scientific assay or whatever it is.

Alicia Wilbur: 30:58

I think it's really important to be visible and really important to um, be proud and the fact that I'm obviously a Jewish woman like I. Just there's a lot of pride in that and in terms of you know, it doesn't really I don't really know anything else. This is my experience and it's the only experience that I have. So I can't compare what it's like to be a man in the winemaking world and I can't compare what it's like to be a non religious winemaker, because all I know is the life that I've lived. Um, you know, I wish there were more of us, I wish it wasn't so intimidating, but I think that wine in general intimidates people and it's like I said earlier.

Alicia Wilbur: 31:38

They think it's a parlor trick or they think that you have to have some special gift or ability, when really it's just practice. You know it's like anything like um, I forget who wrote the book, but it's, the book is your brain on music and his hypothesis, or his whole thesis, is that it's practice more than talent. That defines a good musician, and you can say the same, I think, for anything right. There's the 10,000 hours or whatever like. If you commit to doing something and you commit to doing it well, it doesn't matter if you were born with an innate palette or talent for dragging hoses or making a clean rack when you're transferring lines. All these skills can be learned. You know, um, and thankfully I've been in in, I've had the opportunity to learn those skills and practice those skills and and it's not something I take lightly Like, it's a really, it's really an honor to do what I do and to know that the product that I make is on people's table every week without fail.

Alicia Wilbur: 32:36

Maybe not all the products that I make, and maybe some people turn their nose up to some of the products that we make or they're not to their taste, and that's fine Because you know, thank God, at Herzog we make, we literally make something for everyone. I, except for me, my favorite things are like really weird Mediterranean whites and we don't, as of yet, make a Syrtico or Vermentino or anything like that. I keep, I keep lobbying for it, but so far I don't think I have much of a fan base in terms of weird Mediterranean whites.

Alicia Wilbur: 33:05

There's some really I think from bubbles to to dry reds, to big cabs, you know like there's something for everyone.

Solomon Simon Jacob: 33:11

There's some really great, incredible Mediterranean whites coming into the country in a kosher. Oh I know?

Alicia Wilbur: 33:18

Yeah, it's pretty amazing. Is the winemaker Ido or Ira from? Is it Barclay? He's the master of wine and he has that?

Solomon Simon Jacob: 33:31

Yes, Ido's the master of wine here.

Alicia Wilbur: 33:32

Yeah.

Solomon Simon Jacob: 33:33

And he's here Gorgeous, beautiful and also as far as female winemakers Elvie, who brings in a bunch of different wines from Spain, moses and his son, david are amazing running that winery, but actually they're the front men. The people who run the winery and make the wine are Moses' wife and David's sister. Moses' daughter are the production and you know the winemakers and actually the people who are putting that out and they're awesome people.

Alicia Wilbur: 34:15

Yeah, I have had the pleasure of meeting them at KFWE and hopefully someday when I take my trip to Spain and Priorat, I will go visit them.

Solomon Simon Jacob: 34:27

Yeah, I think that that would be an incredible thing because, though Moses speaks well and he's very involved with biodynamic wines and sustainability, his wife is really the key in that and it would be great for you to meet. I think her name is Anna. She's really amazing, an amazing person. I hope I remembered the name right and it would be great for you to meet. In fact, I don't know why they don't get winemakers cross-pollinating a little bit across. They've got such a global reach at Herzog that I don't know why they don't mix the winemakers up more and more. I know they mix the distribution people up the salespeople, but it would be cool to mix up the winemakers a little bit, because there's all sorts of techniques and things that you can learn from that.

Alicia Wilbur: 35:21

So that would be a cool idea to do. Yeah, I mean, the Royal portfolio is pretty incredible, with a lot of talented people. It's a really great family to be a part of.

Solomon Simon Jacob: 35:31

Great, crazy. Okay, so I believe you helped pioneer in Herzog the sustainability and biodynamic wines, especially with the Belief brand. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

Alicia Wilbur: 35:50

Certainly so. Belief or organic, doing an organic wine in general was, I believe, morty Herzog's idea and there was a lot of discussion for putting it in. Which brand are we going to put it under? Which placement is it going to get? And at that time, I was spearheading variations in Jeunesse and I argued, I lobbied very going to get. And at that time, you know, I was spearheading variations in Jeunesse and I argued, I lobbied very hard to get belief put into the variations line.

Alicia Wilbur: 36:16

Organic farming and organic practices and organic food, or something that's very important to me. It's the way I feed my family, it's the way I grow my garden. I think I may have mentioned to you in passing that when we lived in New York, we were part of this underground organic egg exchange, you know, getting eggs from Amish farmers in Pennsylvania. So it's always been something that's been really, really important to me and it's not just a buzz word, it's not just, it's not just trendy, you know, it's something that's really meaningful. So I lobbied hard to get it under the variations line and in 2019, we came out with it. And it is interesting because when we went through the certification process with CCOF, which is our certifier, we're not USDA certified, but we are CCOF certified, which is the California certification of organic farmers. And when they came in, and there's all this paperwork and there's all these hoops and there's all this scrutiny from the certifying agency, and it was like a breeze, because I'm already used to having Rebaeum, you know, have their Hexarim on our bottles and and we have a lot of scrutiny and a lot of paperwork and and you can't just add something to the line. You know you, you have to get approval, you have to, like, put it through this whole step. You know, even if it seems innocuous, you have to get it approved. And it was like that with with um the organic. So it was like, oh, okay, this is not, this is not so bad. So for me, doing that paperwork wasn't so difficult and making that jump um to being a certified organic or making wine with certified organic grapes, cause our facility is not certified organic.

Alicia Wilbur: 37:49

Obviously, we do commercial wine and organic wine, but it really, you know, it's been a fun process. It's been. It's something that means a lot to me. I'm still the winemaker for Belief, I'm still the face of that product and you know we've been doing it since 2019. And, obviously, with David Galzagnato coming on board. He's actually the one that pioneered biodynamics in Herzog and I've been able to take what I've learned with him with biodynamics and apply it to the Believe project. But you know, we don't claim we don't have Demeter certification, so we're not making any claims that we're biodynamic certified. It's just, it's a philosophy that informs a lot of our decision-making and, um, it's neat, cause it's trickled down, like into my garden. So I, I, I guarded by the biodynamic calendar as well. Um, so it's really come full circle for us.

Solomon Simon Jacob: 38:45

I was. I was going to say it's it. It impacts everything, especially your calendar, which, in winemaking, is the world. Everything is driven by a calendar. And you know, in today's world where we pick up a phone and order food and it gets delivered in 20 minutes, even in Jerusalem, it's kind of crazy. Now we have a thing called Walt, which is kind of like Uber Eats, and you just pick up a phone and I can get any kosher restaurant in Jerusalem, any restaurant in Jerusalem, for that matter and order food and it arrives on the doorstep in minutes. And that's what producing food is about here. And it's kind of crazy that this is something that you can't get. You have a calendar, a set calendar that you have to deal with and work through. Yeah, okay.

Alicia Wilbur: 39:41

It's the same with kosher.

Solomon Simon Jacob: 39:42

Yeah.

Alicia Wilbur: 39:43

It's immovable.

Solomon Simon Jacob: 39:45

You were involved with Jeunesse making really one of the largest kosher wines in the world. Wine is very subjective. People have different tastes and what have you. But what was that like? Going through and tasting and blending such, you know, such a quantity of wine and um, and having such a fan base is really kind of crazy. So you know what was that like.

Alicia Wilbur: 40:18

Yeah. So, um, you know I'm the, I'm the production winemaker, so I haven't I haven't stepped away from the winemaking role. It's just that I'm focusing now on everything, as opposed to just, um, having a narrow focus. It's just that I'm focusing now on everything, as opposed to just having a narrow focus. It's focused on everything. So I'm still blending and tasting and going through all these things and making Jeunesse and my hands are still in that wine.

Alicia Wilbur: 40:43

Jeunesse, I have a soft spot for it. It's not even the kind of wine that I want to drink. You know I'm not into sweet wines, um, but I think for what it is, it's a varietally correct sweet Cabernet. I totally think that the Jeunesse Chard is a sleeper Chardonnay. Like it is, it's a wonderful Chardonnay, um, especially if you want to be a little bit above, like slightly, slightly sweet. Um, it's not as sweet as the Jeus cab in terms of its actual rs level, but I totally think it's just this sleeper wine that that everybody passes on, because baron is obviously so good, or if you're not going there, you're going to rush river right, which is a whole different animal in itself um but don't don't sleep on the genus shard guys.

Alicia Wilbur: 41:27

Like, check it out, it's really good. Um, actually, somebody recently sent an invitation to their wedding. That was the that was addressed to the jeunesse um winemaker, the jeunesse family at the jeunesse winery. You know it's my favorite wine. Um, I hope you'll come to the wedding and it was like it was so cool, because who invites like a wine brand to their wedding? That was just so sweet and touching and um, I really appreciate you, who you are, if you're listening to this and, um, hopefully something, something special is coming your way but yeah, it's got a big fan base and it's also, you know, I don't know if you're on Facebook at all.

Alicia Wilbur: 42:03

I think you are, and if you're, in the culture um Trader Joe's group.

Alicia Wilbur: 42:07

But man, sometimes those discussions about um you know Bartner, or Sarah B or you know Janess, like take it easy, guys. Like there's a person behind that, you know. Like it's not just something that appears on a shelf that has no personal involvement, like you're actual people making something that we're proud of. And it's not. It's not soda, you know, and even if it was Coca-Cola like, I'm sure the people who make coca-cola are proud of making coca-cola like. So just remember that there's people behind all of these things so the I want to clear up.

Solomon Simon Jacob: 42:39

I want to clear up, uh, um, and I think I believe, an error. People feel like you know, um, things like moscato and what have you are just simply some, you know, a little bit of grape juice and a lot of sugar and water that are mixed together to produce such things, and they don't even grasp that they're actually wine and that there's this consistency that you have to hit in producing this product every day. And it's just like is there any like in Jeunesse? Do you add any sweeteners to it, any sweet, any sugars or what have you?

Alicia Wilbur: 43:22

Jeunesse is a little bit of a different animal than, say, like doing Moscato by W or cause. We make a lot of Muscat, right, we make the Jeunesse pink right we make the genetic pink moscato, the black muscat um.

Alicia Wilbur: 43:34

A lot of mosquitoes are made by us um. The family makes bartonura um, and I think that people don't understand that there's this big difference between like. In italy, if you're buying a bottle of moscato, it's practically like the day after it finishes fermenting and is in a bottle, like. It's super fresh. It's just this really fresh, lively experience. And you know so we're maybe not as fresh as that because we have more time between when we bottle and when it gets to the market here in America, but it's. It's a fun, fresh, lively wine that has a lot of personality and you have to like those aromatics in order to like Moscato. But there's absolutely. You know it's not soda. It does have alcohol. It's not made in a way that is trying to dupe anybody. Like it's a.

Solomon Simon Jacob: 44:20

It's an honest, you know it's an honest wine yeah, it's a wine, and in Italy.

Alicia Wilbur: 44:26

You know it's a, it's a DOCG right, like there's Moscato d'Osti. Like it's a protected, legally protected wine, like it's not, it's not just like basement stuff.

Solomon Simon Jacob: 44:35

Right, no, no, well, I was actually in Osti, at the, at the factory where they make the blue bottles, yeah, and, and it, it's amazing isn't it. What.

Alicia Wilbur: 44:46

It's amazing that their plant is amazing.

Solomon Simon Jacob: 44:49

It's awesome, it's huge and it's just an awesome place. And what amazes me is that this is a natural product. You're picking grapes and you're producing this and the blending gets this consistency between over a period know, over a period of time. That's just wow. The amount of effort that goes into producing that and a consistent basis. That way is just crazy to me. It's, it's, it's a very big deal and people, people don't get it. They go ah it's, you know it's soda, but it is absolutely not. So okay, any winemaking challenges that you had in the past that were, you know, particular challenges that you encountered and you made your way through them.

Alicia Wilbur: 45:42

I mean, that's a big question, right? Every year, every harvest is like a whole universe unto itself. And every harvest, everyone's surprised by how hard harvest is like a whole universe unto itself. And every harvest, everyone's surprised by how hard harvest is, and it's like we've never done it before. You know like we haven't been doing it for a decade or two decades or three decades. But no matter who you are, no matter which winery you work in, no matter what function your role is at a winery, if you've been touched by harvest, you know what I'm talking about. And every harvest presents its own unique set of challenges. So we never know. And you think I have all this experience, I know what I'm getting into, I know I'm going to be working very late, I know I'm not going to see my family, I know I'm going to be working so hard and then it happens and you're just like, oh my gosh, I've never done this before in my life. It's like brand new every year.

Alicia Wilbur: 46:29

Last year harvest was really late, so, but break was late, the weather was weird, so I think I don't think we brought in wine until 23 days later than our average first pick date. So I'm coming in on. You know, I've been there over a decade and we almost always harvest and bring in our first load of Pinot Grigio on my birthday, which is in mid August, and last year we didn't bring wine in until September 11th. We didn't bring grapes in until September 11th, and that delay affected everything right. So there was one point I don't't know. I posted it on my facebook. It was like I was raking late harvest chen and blanc out of a bin and it was the same day we had brought in like one of our high-end um cabernets and like the day before, we had like chardonnay. So, like, in what world are you harvesting cabernet at the same time you're harvesting chardonnay? Like it's just, I've never had a harvest like that and there were some specific um challenges with the ratio of sugars that we were dealing with. So we had some, some fermentations that just needed a little extra help, a little extra um, a little extra hand holding and massaging to get through, because obviously every winemaker's nightmare is a stuck fermentation. So when you're doing it to something like a moscato or you're doing it to something like a late harvest I misspoke, by the way, that wasn't a late harvest shenan block that we were working on. It was something different.

Alicia Wilbur: 47:58

Um, but when you're doing a late harvest, oftentimes we stop those wines prematurely because we're going for specific alcohol level or rs level. But if the wine does that by itself and it's very expensive cab from Napa and it stops at, you know, two grams per liter or three grams or four grams per liter, you're kind of sitting there, you're like what do I do now, you know, but it's certainly not independent to my experience like this is a universal winemaker experience is the dreaded speck fermentation. And we managed to get through it. You know, we were very careful, paid a lot of attention, held a lot of grapes in our hands and we're like come on, guys, you can do it. And we got through it. We got through it. So who knows what it'll be like this year? But I hope I certainly hope it's not late, because late was a very distinct logistical challenge because late was a very distinct logistical challenge.

Solomon Simon Jacob: 48:53

Wow, what about climate change? Is that impacting the harvests? Does that impact biodynamics and all the other elements that are going on?

Alicia Wilbur: 49:06

Well, biodynamics seeks to work with harmony in nature, right? So whatever nature's throwing at you, biodynamics is going to be in harmony with that. So it's a little, it's a. It's a good tool to work in tandem with something like climate change. Um, here in california, obviously, we have fires to contend with. You know, whether or not that's climate driven because of drought and rising temperatures and all that kind of stuff. Um, whatever the cause is that we have fires, right, so we have. I was even evacuated.

Alicia Wilbur: 49:36

I talked to you about being 15 minutes from the beach, living on this road that I live on, and during the Woolsey fire in 2017, I believe, we got evacuated and like it was just a standstill because it's the only road to get out of our town leave. We got evacuated and like it was just a standstill because it's the only road to get out of our town, and the flames are like coming over the, over the car, and over the, the, the houses, and it was quite scary and we had fires for many years in a row and it even impacted what we released in 2020. I don't know if you were reading the news in 2020, but there were fires all up and down California, from Paso to Napa and you know, the winemakers and the insurance industry and and the labs, like everybody was, was hustling trying to figure out how do you deal with wines that's going to have smoke taint. And this brings my story back to Australia, because the Australian wine research Institute, ari, has done incredible research on smoke taint Cause you know, unfortunately, they've dealt with a lot of fires in their vineyards in the past decade or two, so they have a lot of protocols for dealing with smoke taint and for detecting it before it becomes such a terrible issue.

Alicia Wilbur: 50:42

But, you know, thank God, like, because we make a lot of things like Jeunesse and Rashi, because that is a big commercial product, it allows us to have a little leeway when we have smoke tape and something that might be a little higher end. You know we, the family, made the decision not to release certain wines in 2020 because they just weren't up to our quality standards and not everybody has that. Not everybody is at the level or size that they can do something like that Not release a wine in a year. Because, think about it, if your whole livelihood is tied to Mother Nature and you know Mother Nature's on fire, what are you going to sell?

Solomon Simon Jacob: 51:21

Right, I have an interesting question. This is a little bit of a curveball. If you were going back to your younger self with the experience and the knowledge you have now, what advice would you give yourself?

Alicia Wilbur: 51:36

Hold on tight.

Solomon Simon Jacob: 51:41

Yeah, that's, that's that's good advice. That's good advice, yeah, I mean, you know it's funny.

Alicia Wilbur: 51:47

I was, I was with a good friend and we were driving down to LA. We were, we were going shaggle shopping and um, we're in the car, we were chatting with each other and she's a very successful, very successful woman and you know, she, I said something and she said something. We both looked at each other and she was like could you imagine telling your 17 year old self like this is where you were going to end up, like driving down to go wig shopping on a Sunday, like on purpose, when you have your own? I don't know, it was just, it was a funny, a funny thing and like I, I'm just, I'm so thankful for it, I'm so, I'm so thankful for it.

Alicia Wilbur: 52:21

Um, I wouldn't change anything that I've been through and I wouldn't take away, you know, some of the more wild times of my life and I'm I'm very thankful that I had them and I'm thankful that I can give my children a different experience growing up. Um, but yeah, it's, it's just, you know, I guess I would tell myself that that it's going to be okay. It's going to be okay.

Solomon Simon Jacob: 52:45

Very cool, Very cool. Alicia, thank you very, very much for being on the Kosher Terroir. I don't know. Do you have Thank you for?

Alicia Wilbur: 52:54

having me.

Solomon Simon Jacob: 52:56

It's absolutely a pleasure, it's something that I. It's something I was trying to do for a while actually, and I couldn't figure out how to reach out to you properly to get a hold of you and ask, couldn't figure out how to reach out to you properly to get a hold of you and ask. But when you so kindly said, yeah, I'd like to do that, I said done.

Alicia Wilbur: 53:18

Awesome. Thank you so much.

Solomon Simon Jacob: 53:19

Pleasure.

Alicia Wilbur: 53:20

Have a great week.

Solomon Simon Jacob: 53:22

You too, be well. This is Simon Jacob, again your host of today's episode of the Kosher Terwa. 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 Terwa, please check out our many past episodes and thank you for listening to the Kosher Tale.