Exporting Brand Israel w/ Josh Greenstein, IWPA

Hey listeners, I want to tell you a little bit about Offset, a proudly independent commerce platform and brand studio based in wine country. I've personally used their e-commerce platform OffsetCommerce for over a decade, and I've found it to be one of the most intuitive and functional platforms on the market. Don't just take my word for it, establish luxury brands and leading independent producers and merchants like Brian Estate, Bedrock Wine Company, Arno Roberts and Acby Fine Wines, use OffsetCommerce and love it. Go to OffsetCommerce.com to learn more. That's OFF-SET-Commerce.com to learn more. Welcome to X-Shet-O, the podcast that navigates the business of wine with unique perspectives and insights with your host Robert Vernick and Peter Young. Welcome to this episode of X-Shet-O. Today we're discovering the potential of Israeli wine with Josh Greenstein, director of the Israeli Wine Producers Association. Josh, welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Could you give me a brief overview of your background? Sure. I come from the wine industry. I'm fifth generation wine business. I've been doing this since 2003 when I graduated college, but before that I was working in liquor stores upstate New York and Albany my whole life. Some of my earliest memories of the wine business were walking in with my dad and my grandfather and then handing me a pack of rebates that I would go put on the bottles of vodka. I put them over the bottles and when it was time to leave the store and say thank you and my dad was doing everything I'll get paid in lollipops. All the liquor stores back in the day have lollipops there. I knew somehow that I'd probably end up in this industry and where I am today with Israeli wines is an amazing place. Wow. Fifth, so what did your, is it great, great grandfather do? At a curiosity, what year was that? So I work with Wenti Veneers, which is also in their fifth generation and start in 1883. So I'm just like curious. I'll pull up exactly. I have an uncle that went to and went through everything. So I have every where everyone came, but it was Lithuania was where we came from originally. We were in the like restaurant business then we know wine bar business. Then when we came here during prohibition, my family bought a piece of Avon cosmetic company. And it got us into the pharmacies like through the, through the legal channels, right? And obviously once prohibition was over, my family decided to give them to the liquor industry. And we bought a distributor upstate New York. We sold it. It became, you know, it worked its way down to be where it is today. My dad just retired two years ago. He had the same territory that my grandfather used to have. It was like the old school territory passed down. So my wine background comes with a lot of history and old school style to it, which I like to bring to the table as well. That's very cool. Very cool. I'm going to try to shorten Israeli wine producers association to IWPA because otherwise that'll be half the episode. But so what is the IWPA and why was it founded? So the IWPA is an organization that represents close to 40 different wineries from Israel. When I started it was only 20 wineries at the time. We've grown in the past, you know, almost 15 years. And what it is is it's an organization to promote brand Israel to show the amazing to show the good to show the fun things coming out of Israel. You know, so many other countries do it through their food and their wine scene in marketing and PR and Israel never really had somebody running around promoting their stories through wine. So I worked with the the Herzog family and just created this organization to promote brand Israel through wine. So there's 40 in the organization today. How many wineries are there in Israel? So Israel has close to 450 wineries. Oh wow. Very very small space. But you know, in today's world, a lot of them are this garage E-Star, this small style boutique wineries. There's really 50 to 100 big ones that are really promoting all the stuff. But for the most part, there's these that's the beauty of the wine industry there. I think it's showing that people are trying to things. It's the artist side of them coming out and producing it and wanting to try something new. That's very cool. It sounds like almost like the size of Napa. But so you only have like 10% I guess of the wineries or so. How is the IWPA funded? Is it like in America, we have like trade marketing associations that have members that pay dues based on case production or things like that? Is that similar? Yes, similar style of working with the wineries and the the importer here in the US to create this organization and have everybody fund it to help tell the stories individually of each winery. But also to tell the overall story of brand Israel because it really is something that many people are still not aware of or looking to learn more about. And the stories of the individual wineries is what really builds the industry there. And you mentioned brand Israel. I'm sure many of our listeners have no clue that Israel even makes wine or good wine. I've had several that are very good wines. Can you give us an overview of the history and the scope of Israeli wine? Sure. It's a bad joke but I'm a dad now so I'm allowed to make some every once in a while. I say Israel has been making wine for close to 5,000 years. They just got recognized for being good at it. It took them a long time to get recognized. But if you think about it back in the ancient times they were selling wine. They were exporting wine to the Romans. The quality of the wine even back in the day was of value enough to even be sold throughout the world and/or consumed because water would kill you. So we needed the wine. But it was the quality has come so far and so long and the attention. The food scene really has helped as well. A lot of these major chefs coming out of Israel are really growing the scene as well. So people want to pair the Mediterranean style wine with the Mediterranean style food. So that's really helped. I think it's just the stories. I think people wanting to try new stuff in today's world with all the tech at your fingertips. It's almost cool to try new things and to tell your friends that you just tried something that they didn't try yet. So I think Israel really offers that unique something now. And how much wine do these 450 wineries make? What are the main grapes in Israel? What's the terroir like? Most countries around the world cab is still king. It's still one of the more popular grape varieties is the cab and the shards which they do grow in Israel. And if you trace some of the roots back in Israel, the Rothschild family came there in the late 1800s and brought some of their wines from the French. So that's why some of those styles and wines are found there. But you also see a lot of these wine makers opening up and going back to their roots also to coming back and seeing these ancient grapes and these ancient styles. And I make jokes with the wine makers a lot there. Do you guys realize it's hot there? Do you guys realize that you guys need something? And I think that it's the stylistic of the wines are also changing there. I think it's one of the oldest growing wine regions. But it's really still trying to find itself. It's still trying to find unique styles. It's also the consumer, I think, in the wine world is trying to find themselves as well as, hey, I love Cabernet because everyone else does. But if I want to drink an argomon, which is a grape I never heard of, but I like it. Can I tell people I like it? Or can I find it somewhere else? What else is it like? So I think it's our job to educate through history and through new regions. And you mentioned that it's hot there. I've actually never been to Israel. What is the temperature? What's that? Terror or a like in terms of climate, soil types, aspect, etc. So Israel has microclimates beyond microclimates. You could walk five feet and you know need to switch your entire outfit. Which is awesome for the grapes that grapes love all these different microclimates, soil types. We got volcanic, we got terrorosa, we got limestone. There's really everything in this tiny little country. And from a growing perspective, hot days, cool nights, lots of stress, everything that the grapes love is there. And something also unique about Israel is it is such a land of green and farming that when you go to some of these wine regions within Israel, there's definitely little pockets throughout the country. There's a lot of farming going on in those regions. So you could have rose grapes, olive oils, avocados, strawberries, bananas. And you're just looking at this vineyard going, wow, this is just a fruit salad. Like in front of me and you know it's a lot of these farmers managing multiple vineyards and multiple types and the wineries get involved. So it's a lot of embracing the land and it's the land. It's such a fruitful land. Really, the technology also is something that they've embraced heavily in Israel in allowing the hot days, the cool nights, everything to be controlled. So when you embrace somewhat of decent, perfect weather with technology, it definitely helps. And I'm guessing it's a Mediterranean climate, right? Cause Israel is like on the Mediterranean. So like rains in the winter and not so much in the summer during the growing season. You know also if you go all the way up north to the Golan Heights, you can get snow in the winter up there. Some of the Judean hills, even somewhat into parts of the nega into the desert, get some snow, little bits, but a little bit just to show you how extreme the weather can be. And you know in the summer, it can be extremely hot and go down to the you know the fifties at night and some of these Indian Jerusalem and some of these things. So there's just so many mountain ranges and so many different pockets that control the terroir and control the temperature is that it's what everybody wants. In Israel, at least when you look on a map looks kind of small, it has a country geographically. How does its wine production compare to you know like I mean obviously France and Italy are the biggest, but is it like an Argentina or Australia or something like that in terms of wine production or even much smaller. Wine is a big part of the culture also in Israel. You know many people are consuming wines for religious purposes every week. So the wine consumption in Israel is only continuing to grow. It's only getting bigger. It's only getting more serious and more in depth with the people that you know we're going from that. Hey, I need to get that bottle of wine from the soup from the supermarket before the weekend to now. Hey, they're hanging out in the wine shop talking to the wine guy for a half hour every Thursday because they know that's when his picks come in. So I think that that's happening a lot in Israel currently. Their market is growing and doing very, very strong. Also they're investing a lot in back into the wineries, which is important. They're encouraging. There's not many places in Israel that you can visit and you can just hop in your car and drive to. It's not that kind of country. If you're going anywhere else within Israel you got to hop on a plane and fly there. So they've created a lot of this tourism within the country for locals also. And I think that's educated them about the wines. The wineries were taking the money for the past 10, 15 years and reinvesting in the winery building visitor centers and educational tools and all this kind of stuff. So I think that. Once they grew in Israel themselves, they realized that their quality has gotten so much better and their image and all that stuff has allowed them to puff up their chest a little bit and come to the US market and create a marketing company and create these stories and go on. Tell everybody what they've been doing. When you talked a lot about brand Israel and your mind, what is brand Israel? What's sort of like the value prop of Israeli wine in the global flying context? I think that each country as far as itself is known for some varietals or some grapes or something. Oh, if I'm thinking of California, the first things that pops up my house is a napkin, or everyone has their thing. But I also think it's come so far that the wine industry today that the rules have kind of gone out the window a little bit, right? It's like, what are you known for? Well, who's the wine maker? Where did he study? What is his style? If you go to some of the bigger wineries for the most part, they're staying in their box where they have to stay, which is great because you're getting from a consistent level. But some of these wineries that are starting to open and these winemakers I went and studied in Bordeaux or went and studied in Australia, you can tell how they're drinking. So I think it's more of the stylistic of the winemakers making what they prefer and having so many options within this country, the size of New Jersey, it allows each person to get the style that they want. And I think that's very true when you talk about a specific winery. It gets harder than as you expand to a whole region or country or something like that. And I think a lot of that depends on like, is your market domestic or international or export? Because when you're exporting, you have all these layers of people you need to talk to. So it's almost like simpler to think New Zealand's Savion Block. Right? Or like, you know, Rome, GSM, or, you know, Sonoma, Pino, right, in Chardonnay and Apacabraenae, that sort of thing. Right? But like, and granted, when you're in Sonoma, you want to try like the Sincere or the Shedding Block or what it write, like you try all these different things. When I go visit the winery, is there house white that they get you when you walk in the door with? Like, that's my favorite. Like, I love that. Like, you can't even buy that. Like, give me the, give me the, that yumminess, you know? That's what I like. Yeah. But that story gets really hard to tell when you are exporting, right? And you're going through all these layers of people that aren't going to know all the nuance and have a specific thing they need it simplified to be like, you know, here's the thing I'm good at. And what do you think Israel is going to have something like that? Yeah. I think Israel has something like that from the perspective of stories and something different. I think it's like, well, like, it's almost not the shock value, but almost like the wow value. The interesting value that it brings to the table. It's just something like, I participate every year in a lot of wine events throughout the country. But one that's just sticking in my mind right now because I'm in New York and it's called and I'm South Beach Food and Wine is right around the corner. And I go to South Beach every year for many years now. And we have a booth in the mean tent there. And one of the main tents. And my table on the top says, I WPA is really wine produces association. And I have my map there and I have my wine there. And it's awesome every year to see people calling me Israel makes wine. What? No way. And like, I have all these videos of people that like, I love to tell me what your respect and taste. And my favorite one I ever had was, hi, I'm here in South Beach Food and Wine. What are we doing? She goes, well, tasting wines from Israel. What did you think you were going to taste beforehand? She goes, no offense, bathtub wine. I go, she goes, but it's unbelievable. She goes, I didn't even know like, I didn't, and like, that to me is the wow factor. It's the fact of like, hey, you're showing them something that they never saw before. Obviously, if I'm even talking to the person at that point, obviously, there's somewhere in the wine industry and involved and want to know more and want to learn more and want to taste more. So it's like, when you get those people into it, someone at South Beach Food and Wine that spent a couple hundred bucks to come to an event and it never had wine from Israel and I would just wow them. They're going back and telling their friends. And I am seeing some actions on that as well and seeing people tell the story. So I think it's, it's the interesting factor about it. The quality is superb that I have any given point in my portfolio. 90 points from the top dogs that have 20 to 25 skews at any given time. They've got 90 points from anybody, you know, the big guys. So it allows me to be more comfortable to go around and tell these stories knowing that the wines are good. And this is good. The labels and the price and everything. They're all there. It's just like you said, it's the challenge of going out and actually getting the people to listen because there are so many layers here on the US side of things. I got to go through so many people before that person puts the wine to their lips. Yeah. And there's even more obstacles in our way. And globally, right? But it's obviously, you know, if you go to the winery and you're there and you're visiting, it got me. I'm there. I'm there. But I just want to get your attention other ways. And saying that I have wines from Israel is a good way to get someone's attention because it definitely perks through yourself. So it's more right now. It's more this element of like discovery. Have something completely unknown. Whereas like I would say, you know, like a Portugal or a Greece or something like that is that like indigenous variety, right? Like those weird varieties you can't name, right? Like a Zedomabro or whatever or Trega and things like that. And so but Israel's not quite big. Israel's more about discovery. I have my argomon, my debuki, my Rewawi, my dishgubam. I have all these funky grapes. Like I have a whole list of them. And the the wine makers that play with these have fun and these are becoming more successful. Like argomon. I'll give you the quick snaps on argomon. Argamon was a genetically created grape. Okay. At a science lab in Israel. And they were deciding they were trying to figure out a grape to make that would add more color. So when you read the Bible, great book, if you haven't read it yet, I highly recommend it. In the Bible, they talk about grapes and wine so much throughout the Bible. Like it's mentioned so many times. Productive Catholic schools. Right. And you remember they talk about that crimson color, right? That's very important is that crimson color that that color. And when these scientists were doing it, they decided that this crimson color was the grape they're trying to create from the Bible. So what they did was they created this grape called argomon. Okay. Argamon is a blend of caronion and suzo, not a blend, but a genetically infused caronion and suzo to create a grape called argomon. Argamon is only found in Israel. There's a handful of vineyards, probably less than a dozen vineyards in the whole country that actually grow this grape. And there's probably less than a dozen wine maker he's using it in a blender this. But it's different. It's something unique. It's something in its own special way. And the wine makers that are using it, it tells a different story. It tells a story of the scientist. It tells the story of utilizing technology and embracing it and drip irrigation found in Israel. It's embracing it. So it's a whole another group of people also that want to try that interesting thing. It's there for them as well. Interesting. And so you mentioned that Israel is real Israelis and people in Israel consume a lot of wine themselves. How much of the wine produces consumed domestically versus exported? So domestically majority of the wine is definitely kept in Israel. The US is being the largest consumer outside of Israel. And then worldwide they're consumed in many countries throughout the world. But the production is, I mean, the export amounts are small. US being by far number one. So US by far number one, what are the second third four? Some of the European countries Canada we do well with South America. There's some booming countries going on there. And then pretty much the US. From like the brand Israel generically, how is it like positioned in the global why market in terms of like its price? Is it like a lower price wines, mid price higher price and you know, quality you mentioned 90 points? Is it good quality or is it trying to be like, you know, best in the world kind of thing? Like how's it trying to position itself on that almost like price quality matrix? I think the QPR is there. I think that they deliver for what they're producing and the climate and everything that they're getting. I think the wine delivers for what it is. I don't think that they're necessarily going after any given category. I think they're just trying to make their presence. I think if you drink Italian wines, there's a large community of Italians that drink Italian wines and go to Italian dinners and do this and the wine is tied to the person. I think with this really wine, there's a lot of people that have a tie to Israel in some which way not even necessary religion or anything else. I just think everyone has or not one religion. Many religions are tied to that country, I should say. And I think that that when you think of Israel, I'll give you an example. We have a holiday coming up called Easter, right? And Easter is all about Israel, like all about Israel. And Easter is one of the largest drinking wine holidays of the year. There's a good amount of consumption of wine. And if you think about it, that makes perfect sense to drink and consume wine from Israel for Easter. So it's the story that's told of Israeli wines can really grab onto and be part of so many parts of society. It's just how it gets there. You know, like the angelic calls in Texas. There's a huge group of people that are, you know, Israel strong and going to visit Israel all year to go to the church trips and stuff like that. There's a huge connection to Israel. So I think that wine allows people to connect to their country in some which way. If you want to go to France for the day, you go buy a bottle of good pino, right? You want to go to upstate New York one day, you can go get a recently from the finger lakes. Like you can travel and only have to go to your liquor store. It's a beautiful thing. So I think that the travel aspect to it also is an interesting way of consuming wine. On that argamon, like Bible Thai, interesting, right? Like for Easter or things of that nature, right? To kind of represent this is what, you know, suspension in the Bible or interpretation of that. So you mentioned that the US is by far the biggest wine market for Israel. Are there specific states or area regions that are more important and why is it? Well, the whole country is definitely important, but definitely the majority of the sales are in the northeast, come out of the northeast market. But we're in all 50 states. You'll find Israeli wine in all 50 states across the United States. Most websites and most people have them listed as Israeli wines now. Total wine, it happens to be a great customer of ours, has, you know, close to 300 stores across the country. And it pretty much every store, there's a section in the store that says Israel. Like, literally the word Israel. There's a section that says kosher, there's a section that says Israel. But all the wines that I have are under that Israeli section labeled Israeli wine. And to me, that's huge because it's really branding them. And especially when a store like that that's become such a massive store in the industry can get behind it and showcase. It's ability to promote brand Israel. It's amazing and they do a great job with it. - That's cool. Why the Northeast being particularly big? What do you think drives that? - I think each wine sector, I think there's a lot of people here that maybe the biggest, where Israel holds the most importance to them or there's a big connection to Israel in some which way in this region of the world. - So I would have thought like LA might be big too. There's a lot of-- - LA is big. So if I had to say the top five would be New York, New Jersey, Miami, LA, Chicago and Texas. And Miami growing more than ever. - Interesting. - More than ever. That's the biggest growing population that's coming out of Florida. - Oh wow. Sitting here in early 2026, we've got all sorts of global trade issues. I guess you could call them all of them. How does that impact the pathway for exports for Israeli wines? - Makes it way tougher, right? I mean, you see the way that all the stuff is happening in our industry anyway. And for myself coming from my history of the industry, I've seen so many things happen in the industry. We're in an interesting place right now. And I think from me, the perspective of interesting, I'm selling something interesting. So I think if anything, it makes it more fun and more for me because people are looking for something different and unique and not that normal thing anymore. So I think that Israel offers that unique story, that unique approach for people. But the wine industry today is a wide open place for the whole world with so many options. So it's just how it's being presented and how it's being talked about. And guys like yourself and your team that are telling these stories are so important for us because there's so many different ways and so many different stories to tell and so many different outlets that has to be done all these ways, a little bit of everything, right? Like I remember my grandfather when we were at a dessert place, you just say, you know what, just give me a little piece of everything. It's a little piece. I want to just try it. And I think that's kind of like the way that I like to live my life, just give me a little piece. I'll try everything. Don't worry if they're all from coming back. (laughing) - I'm gonna try to get someone that I like. - It's the way it's, yeah. - Why do you like that, too? If you had like six desserts in front of you, would you try a little bite of each? - Would you go for one? - No, I would try a little bite of each, for sure. Yeah, just from the production side, I would. (laughing) Hard for them, perhaps. And I know like a total, there's a kosher section and an Israeli section. I know kosher wine is really important for Jewish traditions. How much of the Israeli wine production is kosher? - So everything that I work with is a hundred percent kosher. Okay, but I tell people, I don't, we've been on the call talking that to over almost close to 25 minutes. I have, I maybe mentioned the K word once. I don't really talk about kosher too much in my day to day activities. Anyone that needs my wines to be kosher because they consume kosher wine only, they know it. Anyone that doesn't eat the wines to be kosher, they don't know it, they don't need to know it. - Yeah. - It's like, let me ask you, have you ever had a snapple before? - Snapple. - Not in a long time, but yes. - Have you ever had a bag of Lays potato chips? Have you ever had a Hershey bar? - Yeah. - Do you keep kosher? - No. - So why are you drinking snapple and eating Lays with eating Hershey? Those are all kosher products. So if you go away, if you went into your kitchen right now and you just started pulling stuff apart, more than half the stuff in your kitchen, non-parasable stuff would probably be having kosher. - Yeah, you see the little signs on the back and everything. Kosher is just an added bonus to people with what I tell them. It's just making sure everything is good. Making sure everybody is done the right thing. - Do you do three years, something. - Tortilla chips, which are always, also is gonna be gluten free. (laughs) - Exactly, no one mess with it. You know what your friends really want? - You know what I mean? - Well, I mean, but for people who do observe the Jewish traditions and religion, which I think have amazing cultural heritage around wine, right, like the Passover traditions of like the four cups with Passover, same thing. - You have to drink a bottle. - You have to drink a bottle of wine at dinner that night. - Yeah, right. But just for people who aren't that familiar with that, how important are those religious uses for the overall consumption of Israeli wine? Like maybe in Israel or even here? - It's huge, you know, every week there's a holiday at Shabbat, every Friday night there's a holiday. At the end of the holiday, going into the saturday, there's another time you're drinking wine. You have a baby, you're drinking wine, you have a wedding, you're drinking wine. Every holiday, every chance we get to consume wine and thank God for the great grapes that he's produced, we're there. So I think it's a beautiful tie to religion. - I wish more cultures adopted that. It would help the wine industry a lot, you know. - It would be a cooler place. This world, if everyone just, you know, sat back and just, you know, had more meals and you had to drink a bottle of wine at it would be, you know? Make it a three day weekend and make more people drink bottles of wine. I think that would be a cooler place. - Yeah, exactly. - More happy and more connected place to perhaps. I mean, that's the beauty of a bottle of wine is like, everybody drinking a bottle, maybe not, but like sharing a bottle, a bottle is perfect for sharing with multiple people. Although I can drink a bottle. (laughing) - No, we all have our strengths and weaknesses, you know? - Or we share two, you know, for two of us, we share two or three, but, you know, like, so what do you see as kind of future markets or as rarely, why don't we talk about US being so big by far? Are there other ones where like, you know, you really think there's a lot of potential there for whatever reason? - Yeah, I think the restaurant market, I think the on-premise scene, I think really showcasing the wine, you know, majority of my sales now come from the off-premise side of things. I really think starting to tap into the restaurant scene, the last couple trips, I've do, I usually do a few trips to Israel a year where I take some buyers and some Psalms and some media over there. And I think the on-premise guys are the people that are really wowed the most and seeing like, "Whoa, I didn't realize that." "Whoa, this would go great with this food." Or, "Wow, this guy really does know what he's talking about." So I think the on-premise is a market that I'm looking to, you know, really expand in. People will say, "Well, what restaurants can I find you?" And I say, "You know what? Let's not focus the restaurant you can find you in right now because let's focus on when you walk into the restaurant." And you say, "Hey, you know what? I just had this great is really wine. Can you just ask your manager whoever's doing the buy-in' just to see if he can bring something in?" That's what I'm looking to do. That's the word I'm looking to pass on. It's like, just ask the buyers and ask the people to taste it, 'cause, again, they probably haven't had something like this before. They haven't tasted something from this region. So it's more just building the awareness that it even exists to get people to try it. And do you think there are certain types of restaurants where it would work better? Obviously, there's some Israeli restaurants, but not a lot. It's not like Italian restaurants where there's like, you know, an easy place for Italian wine or Chinese, or not Chinese-chinese wine, but much wine. Although it does, actually, but not that important. But, or like Spanish restaurants and Spanish wine. Like, what sort of fits do you think it's really one should be in? I don't think necessarily holding a country to its style is the right way to do it. I think that food and chefs are so creative in their way that they both go so well together. So, yeah, Mediterranean food should have some Israeli wine there. Sure. The chefs from Israel, sure. But most of the places have a lot of French wine on the list also, or this style, or that style. You know, I don't think, let's see, if you go to a Italian restaurant, yeah, you might get that great near the Avila. You couldn't find in the American beach trail because you're at that place, but they usually have that other wines on their list. So, I think it's just, again, also something that isn't something that everyone's carrying, and some of these restaurants need to make money these days. So, you know, they're bringing in wines that not everyone's ever heard of, so they can, you know, educate and make a couple extra points on that part of business as well. So, you mentioned, like, total has, you know, an Israel section. In other places that don't have an Israel section, where do you often find Israeli wines positioned, and where do you think they should be? Is it like an Eastern European section, like, you know, a Georgia or Croatia or something like that, or where is it now, or where do you think it should be? So, now quite often, you will find it in the kosher section at many, many stores. If not, you know, I'm finding more stores starting to base the store in variety, which I'm a big fan as well, you know, like, you know, what style you're looking for, which, you know, I don't want to necessarily go to a country, I want to go to a grape. You know, that's kind of the way that I live it. I'd rather be, I'm going to buy the style versus the place. Also, I just try to give it a retail to buy 100 cases and stack them a floor. [laughs] I'm Joe, you know? Yeah. Obviously, that's what I'm looking for, but, oh, it's definitely one of the interesting more parts about it is where do you put it onto that retail level? And there are great sales people that we work with across the country that do the best to promote it and get tastings in the store also. And we're not coming in at the big boy. We're coming in and looking for our little piece and find our little sliver of the stores or shelves. Okay. And sort of similarly to the U.S. these days, Israel has somewhat mixed perceptions from a political global context, you know, and some people like their policy some don't. How do you think that plays in a demand for Israeli wine? I think that's always going to be the case when discussing Israel. Even if we had this conversation a thousand years ago, over our Zoom in the cave that mean you were in the cave having our Zoom, I think it would have been a similar conversation to tell you the truth. The challenge is that Israel has with everything that's in front of it is what makes it stronger and keeps them strong and producing some of the best quality stuff like a good grape. If you ask a wine maker what makes a great grape they're going to say stress. It makes a great strong, powerful grape. And that's what I'm going to tell you. Do you see a correlation with maybe countries or populations that support Israel and the more apt to buy Israeli wine or it doesn't not matter at all? It can go both ways. I think you could see politically people saying I'm not buying Israeli goods anymore. You see a ton of that. You see a lot of that sadly out there that people think I'm not buying Israeli goods and then they're on their iPhone tweeting that they're not buying Israeli goods. Meanwhile, their iPhone was created in Israel and it wouldn't work without the Israeli technology. But they're doing it on their phone and not buying Israeli goods. But that's good for them, not to. So it's the challenge for sure. That is definitely one of the aspects of it, but that's just something that I roll with and something that I deal with. It could be good or bad, right? Like the ones who are supporting might be a great market to go do and then the ones that are more of a challenge. I just sometimes people might say it doesn't matter. It's a great wine. You know what I tell people? You can maybe quote me on this afterwards. I'm gonna say it for one second, but maybe not. Is that a rake? Can I say it? I tell people I'm not a great beast. I don't pick any great. You can just drink what you want to drink. We don't look at the country. I'm not just, let's just drink wine. I don't, and I just said that word, but it's a bauzy word to use obviously because it can go the wrong way. But I'm not. So please don't use that possibly. But I'm just saying it's so powerful. but now I'm back on talking, the challenge of this. Israel that I face daily is just the fact of just more educating people that Israel makes wine. I think that's the biggest factor that I do. I have got it both ways. Wow, we're loving Israel. We're supporting Israel. I have heard the other side. I'm not getting out of my store. I'm not buying your wine. I've heard that too. Get out of here. I don't want to talk to you. Get out and teach their own. You know, I'm not. So that's that. So looking forward, how do you see the market for Israeli wine changing over the next five to 10 years? Continuing to get stronger. I think it's been something that's been growing for the past couple thousand years. It's been continuing to grow. I think with technology and with the ability to embrace technology, with the temperature and the way that the world is changing so quickly, I think Israel has its finger on the pulse because many other countries are calling them up and saying, "Hey, what technology are you guys using?" Because our temperature has gone plus 10 degrees and we need to figure out a way to keep the vines cool and you guys are doing this in the negative. We want your technology. So people are embracing them and realizing that maybe there are a few steps ahead on the tech side, which is always a great place to be. Not saying they use only tech to grow their wines, but it's theirs and it's in their pocket if they need it. He's the tech and then they bring it in and step on it with their feet, right? Exactly. Exactly. By the way, on the real side of that, when you go to Israel and you check these vineyards out, next to most of the vineyards still today are ancient wine presses. Like thousands of years old, ancient wine presses, next to the vineyards that are still there today. I have vineyards that are producing 90-point parker wines and then next to it is this 28 hundred-year-old wine press that's like this and the whole with the vines and they would take the twigs from the harvest and create a filter. So all the grapes, so look, it's like-- Yeah, that match of history and modernity, which is interesting. So we like to wrap each episode on a personal note. What has been your most memorable winery visit and why? My most memorably winery visit is bringing people to Israel that have never been there before and seeing the reaction on people's faces for the first time that they go to Israel. When I take people there, it's not just a wine trip, it's a culture trip. It's a trip to see the land and to walk the cobblestone streets and to see the Mediterranean, see the Tel Aviv and to go up to the Golan Heights and see the mountains, to go all the way down south and flow in the Dead Sea. My favorite thing and my best experience I have is taking people like yourself that are in the industry and know so much, like you know so much about the industry and taking you a place that you've never been before because it probably can't happen that often. There's probably not many places that I can-- Wow, you anymore? Not wow, you. But like really like, you dive deep from a historical perspective and a new tech perspective. So the rich stories that Israel offers is really my favorite thing about it. My favorite winery is the stories. It's just the history. It's just how they all come together as one and unite brand Israel and show the positive things coming out of this great place. Amazing. Josh, thanks so much for sharing all the stories and the status of business of Israeli wine. So we really appreciate it. Thank you very much and hopefully you'll get over there soon and get to stop your own grapes. Well, looking forward to it. Hey listeners, if you love the show, support it by buying a show notes book. They not only compile two years of episodes but also organizes them into themes for better learning. They can be an inspiration to listen to or relisten to an episode or provide a quick reference of the key learnings from a show. Go to xchatto.com and click on the store page for easy links to buy. Thanks for listening.