Welcome to Wine Soundtrack USA. Listen to the passion with which producers narrate their
winery and their worlds. In thirty answers discover their stories, personalities, and
passions. Hello, friends and listeners of Wine Soundtrack. This is Alison Levine
and today I am with Jeff Morgan, owner and winemaker of Covenant Wines.
Jeff, Welcome to Wine Soundtrack and tell us about Covenant Well, Alison,
thank you for having me on your podcast. Covenant is actually a winery,
so we call it Covenant Winery, even though officially our name is Covenant Wines
because we make some twenty four different wines. We also make wine in Israel,
we only make four or five over there. But Covenant Winery is an
urban winery in Berkeley, California. My wife Jody and I are co founders
and co owners with a partner whose name is Jeff Ahwager who lives in Israel.
But we founded it and we started it twenty years ago. This is
our twentieth anniversary with the late Great Leslie Rudd, who was a famous NAPA
vintner and a very close friend and without whom I never would have had this
idea to start Covenant Winery. So you said you make twenty four wines and
plus the ones in Israel. Where are you sourcing your fruit from? Is
it all over California or beyond? Do you own any vineyards? No,
when Leslie was alive, and he was alive for eighteen or sixteen of the
twenty years that we've been in business, we sourced some of our fruit from
Leslie's vineyards, So technically we owned vineyards in Napa Valley at that time.
But no, I don't own any vineyards of my own. I saw scrapes
from about twenty different vineyards starting down in near Santa Barbara, working my way
up the coast into now up A Valley, Sonoma Lake County and Lodi,
Wow, all over the place. And what's your total case production? We're
in about eight thousand cases right now. And where are your wines available?
Are they across the country, across the world or direct to consumer combination?
Yes, so obviously we have a direct consumer business, and we also are
I think we're in about twenty four twenty five states across the nation. We're
also in Canada, we are in Tokyo, Taiwan, London, Paris,
Israel. Of course, Central America, Mexico, South America, Brazil.
You really are all over the world. Yeah, we have. I mean
we are very small production. I mean with the twenty or twenty four different
wines that we make, you know, typically production will range from three hundred
to five hundred cases, get up to a thousand cases on a few of
our more popular wines, like the Red Sea Red, which is a Roan
blend from Snoma Valley, Snoma County, actually not Snowba Valley, but um,
yeah, I mean we have a surprisingly wide range of availability considering how
small we are. So I'm curious, what is your first memory relevant to
wine. That's a good question, which is what we say when we're trying
to think of the answer. I could tell you my wine epiphany. It's
yeah, it's it's it's it's very solidly in my mind. So it wasn't
the Lancers when I was fifteen, nor was it the Boone's farm when I
was seventeen eighteen. So in getting to your epiphany moment, I'm curious about
this. Your first introduction to wine was kind of the Lancers and Boons?
Would you say that was when you first your first memory kind of of wine?
Or as a child. Was it when I first started drinking really to
get drunk. I was in high school Lancers. I remember that fifteen year
old Lancers. Well, it was amazing. But people will tell you what
else happened. But and you know in those days, this was in the
sixties and early seventies. You know, there was a lot of marijuana with
those wines. So it's very interesting time with rock and roll and other stuff
like that. But the aha moment, the aha moment happened when I was
nineteen and I had moved to France to study. I was a musician and
I had been accepted at the French National Conservatory as if classical flutist in Nice,
and I went my first day in school. I didn't speak very good
French at the time, and I didn't really know anything about where I was.
But there was a student cafeteria and I went in with my little tray.
They gave me the tray that's in French the word portrays a game.
I had a little game and you're you got to choose different dishes that you
could have for lunch. This was lunch. It costs two francs, which
was about fifty cents at the time it was government subsidized lunch. And I
saw all these little salads, niece, they really eat well, okay,
all these little There was celery ramula, there was there was the betav.
I don't know what there was, all this stuff. I'd never seen anything
like it. I took the I remember very clearly. I took the celery
ramula, the celery root salad. And then it was a Friday. And
then back in those days, the year was nineteen seventy three. Okay,
so back in those days, by decree, the student restaurants only served fish
because it was fish on Friday for the non Jews and the Jews alike and
so so so. But it wasn't like the fish sticks I grew up with.
It was like the whole fish. It was like the head and the
tail and everything is there, with these little potatoes and a little bit of
green parson on the top. And wow, I didn't know how to eat
it, but I took it. That was the only option. The next
station was your little wedge of Camelbert. The next station they had a little
dessert of some sort. And then at the next station they said, monsieur,
would you like white or red, and I said, who's the monsieur,
Oh, that must be me, monsieur white or red? What?
And then I realized they were holding little splits of white and red wine.
Wow, so what do I know? I took the white and I sat
down to my table with my fifty cent French meal. Actually it was an
extra franc for the wine, so I splurged seventy five cent meal. I
sat down and I took a taste of the celery ramlade. Somebody showed me
how to eat the fish, how to take it off the bone, and
then I took a sip of my white wine. Now you know the story
about Don Perignon when he finally figured out how to make champagne and it worked,
and he was he said, I saw stars, you know, And
well I saw at that moment, and I realized, A. I had
been eating and drinking badly all my life growing up in New York. And
B I wasn't sure if I was going to learn how to be a good
musician, but I was definitely going to learn how to eat and drink better.
And so I stayed for five years. And so you've learned, obviously,
to eat and drink better. You lived by your words, So I'm
curious, is there one wine? I mean, I'm sure there are many
great wines you have drunk in your life. Nineteen sixty six white in the
cellar with the chav family, about ten years ago with Dave Ramy, we
were there. Yeah, one of those memorable wines that leave an impression.
Yet. Yeah, And of course white wines, when they're made right,
they age beautifully. So if we were to come to your home today,
what would we find in your home? What's what's in your cellar, your
refrigerator, the cupboards, Like, what do you and your wife drink?
Well, we drink a lot of really good wine, not just our wine,
of course, in fact, not a whole lot of our wine,
because we have to sell our wine, and plus you get bored drinking your
own wine. I really love. I drink a lot of white wine because
I feel white wine is more versatile than red, at least than most reds.
So we drink you know Austrian you know, grinners. We drink a
little bit of the German reesling. I do like Burgundy. I don't have
enough of it, but I drink red and white burgundy. Actually I drink
more red Burgundy than Burgundy. Um. I don't drink much Bordeaux because the
Bordeaus that I really like are too expensive, same with the Burgundies. But
I am and I just got a really good Burgundy wholesale for like less than
thirty bucks red. It was fantastic. So um so, and then of
course I drink I like higher acid, I like more structure. I don't.
I really don't like fat, flabby wines. Maybe because I lived in
France for not only those first five years, but then I went back later
and I was a musician in France. I got used to hire acidity,
and I like that. I don't like harsh tannins. But I like structure
in my wines. Um and so um. I love Chebarney Fronc. I
love Schino, Okay, I really do. UM. I do like um
some of the wines coming out of the southern California, Sante Nez Valley or
Santa Rita Hills actually making some terrific pianos and Chebarney, Fronc and Sira.
So you really you're an equal opportunit. So I've never met a good wine
I didn't like. So is there a particular wine that you've drunk recently,
something from your home or something that you opened up that drink really well,
well, it's funny you should ask that. So I went to a restaurant
called Acre in Oakland just I was there Saturday night with some friends, and
you know, I was thinking, as look at the list, and oh,
you know, Jody didn't want to drink much. My other friend didn't
want to drink much that her husband likes beer. But I'm thinking, what
are we gonna have? Yea, and I wanted the lamb, but I
didn't really like the selections of reds. And then I saw Bruno Jukoza,
you know, twenty twenty one ars for sixty seven dollars on the list or
sixty four dollars on the list. I went for that and it delivered.
It delivered because it tasted great. It was elegant, beautiful, flavorful.
It wasn't outrageously priced. And I think, when I can find a really
great tasting wine at a price I can afford it, I love it.
So you said that you are more of a wine white wine drinker, or
you love white wines. But if you had to choose one word, red,
white or rose that's a loaded question, and you know it. Well,
you probably know it. I do know it. So if you go
out for dinner and everybody's eating, you know, one person's having the lamb,
the others having the fish, the others having the vega the vegan course,
and the others having whatever you're gonna buy. I mean, and you
only have you know the option of drinking one wine while it's going to be
a good rose or sparkling bubbly. No, bubbly, I love bubbly.
We'll just do the bubbly, you know, before we start eating. Well,
let me let me ask you on that note, how do you approach
food and wine pairing? I mean, you're obviously very thoughtful when you're with
friends having different meals. Do you think there are rules to follow? Do
you follow rules? Do you have tips you can give people about what to
look for? Well, obviously, Alison, you have never read any of
the ten books I've written on this subject. Oh, but this is giving
you the opportunity to talk about your your expertise. Well, I don't know
about the expertise, but I did write the book. I actually wrote ten
of them on food and wine pairing, and they're all cookbooks and every recipe
and every one of our cookbooks except Working Parents, which is about how to
eat well despite your children. But Diana de Luca Food and Wine, Plump
Jack Cookbook, it's all about food and wine. Demand Shandon, It's all
about food and wine. The Covenant Kitchen Food and Wine for the New Jewish
tab But what else do We wrote Cooper's Hawk for the Chicago Winery and Restaurant
Group that's all about food and wine. But they're all about it's all about
what is it about that you're looking for when you make the suggestions of pairings.
Well, so all the pairings and all of my books are generic.
They're really about style, and it's really quite simple. I don't know why
Americans are so like hung up about what they're gonna what they're gonna have with
a particular dish. First of all, the rules are simple, and this
is what I write now. I've plagiarized myself in all ten books because it's
so simple and I can't reinvent it. You know, um natural city and
a wine balances the natural fats and oils and whatever is on your plate.
Just about everything on your plate's got fats and oils. Now there's tannin and
red wines tannins ten two. As we all know, they glom onto protein,
and so protein and tannin kind of soften each other. And so that's
why red wine can go very well with steak. Then there's body, which
would be you know, the alcoholic content of your of your wine. Essentially,
usually a full bodied wine or more reds that are full body but not
necessarily only will go better with a full bodied dish, and a lighter bodied
wine will go better with a light bodied dish. But I'm not quite done,
Allison. Here's the thing. There is complimentary pairing, and there is
contrasting pairings. Most most pairings that work well are complimentary similarly styled wines going
with a similarly styled dish. So a rich wine going with a rich dish.
But sometimes you really want that bright acidity such as what you would find
in champagne with your FOI grow or you know, to cut through, cut
through it and refresh your palette. So there are no rules, only guidelines.
And all of my books are still on Amazon, but most are out
of print now. But if you really you know, I can I summarize
each chapter on food wine pairing is no more than one or two pages.
No, that's great. I mean that's much more information than most people will
give in food. Mary. So I'm curious. You said you make twenty
four different wines. What are the different groups you're working with? Variety wise?
Actually, I make nineteen or twenty here in California, and we make
four or five over in Israel. But um, well, I started with
Kaberney Salvignon and twenty years ago in Napa Valley, when Leslie Rudd and I
tasted a really good wine from Israel that we thought was kosher, but it
wasn't kosher, and we just thought it's from Israel, it's got to be
kosher. So we were just complete idiots and we thought, you, let's
try to make a kosher, great kosher Nappa Kabnet. So that was the
beginning of Covenant, And I started with five hundred cases of really terrific great
wine made from it was lark meat. Actually, lark meat fruit was the
first vineyard I worked with because less wouldn't let me use it sound great,
trust me. Eventually it all I took five years. But now, but
I you know, I mean, I don't drink a lot of Kabernet.
I drank a lot more Sarah. I drink a lot of Kaberney front when
I can find it, I drink more pinots. So we make a pino
noir from Francis Mahony's vineyard in uh In Carnaros. We've been doing that for
about eleven years. Um. I make sira from three different vineyards, one
down in the Santa Rita Hills, also be a Acito, which is in
Santa Marita. And then um we have the Movini vineyard is up in on
Snowma Mountain, Bennett Valley. Those are my three Sarah sources at the moment
um. But I'm really proud of our chardonnay from the Scopus vineyard. Um,
I just got ninety four points and some magazine that will not be named
for it. I do have a question about that. We're coming and but
I wrote to the guy who gave me the ninety four and I said,
you know, dude, thank you for that, because I usually get ninety
ninety one. And you know, it's like, this is not a nine
one one. This is like an awesome vineo and an awesome wine. And
I like to say that, you know, it's really Dave Raymy, you
know, interpreted by Jeff Morgan. So, Dave Raymy, my dear friend,
is one of the greatest winemakers in California. Was basically taught me how
to make one. And so if I'm making good wine, it's thanks to
Dave. And Dave had me over for dinner a little while back, and
he had this glass of wine on the table, white wine. And he
said, and I said, what's that. He said, you have to
guess? And I said, oh shit, I have to guess. I
hate doing this, and so but he said that he can't have dinner until
you guess what this is. So I put my nose in the glass and
it smelled like aged white wine. I assumed it was kind of like an
age chardonay. Really nice, smells more tasted than that. I was thinking,
Gee, this tastes like rainy Chardonay'm here, I'm with David. Ramy
tastes like age. So I said, gee, it tastes like, you
know, maybe a ten year old Ramy chardonay. And he started laughing,
and I said, what are you laughing about? He said, and he
took the bag off. It was my own chardoney. It was a two
thousand and nine Covin and chardonnay, and I thought, well, and we
both we both agreed that I guess I learned my lesson. Well, that's
amazing thing. So um, just really quickly, are you working with any
other white grapes. Yeah, I'm very proud of my Roussan from Lodi.
It's awesome. My Viognier from the Galilei is awesome, and my viognier from
Lowda is awesome because a lot of people aren't doing this. All of my
wines, by the way, or native yeast ferments, um, most of
them are barrel fermented, but in neutral oak. Um. I make a
really good Sevinion blanc from Lake County that doesn't see any oak. And I
also make a super over the top beautiful Sevinion blanc from um ben A Valley.
Same vine'er gonna get my seraf from from ben At Valley and and it's
um it's made more like um like Bordeaux white Bordeaux. In fact, I
want it so bad to be Obrion blanc that I have the Obrion Blanc U
shaped bottles and recall it in the house. Fabri are so I'm curious,
working with all these different grapes, do you think there's a such thing as
a perfect variety? Yeah? Whatever one you're drinking. And then you made
a comment to me before about getting a ninety four and what a kind of
like relief in a way after getting nineties and ninety one. So I'm curious,
what's your opinions on wine critics and scores? What do these numbers?
Do they mean something to you? Do they mean more to the consumer?
Should they mean a lot? Well, before I answer that question, you
know, we have to come clean to whoever might be actually listening to this.
And you know, but a lot of people don't know that. I
was West Coast editor of Wine Spectator from nineteen ninety two to the end of
nineteen ninety nine, so I was giving these scores for eight years for Wine
Spectators. So how do you feel about your former self? I made a
lot of people rich and a few people not so rich, more of I
think more people. I've made a lot of money off some of the really
great scores that reviews. It wasn't just the scores. But this is America,
so Americans they don't read very well. They want the number listen,
I think, and they were blind. I mean, I didn't know what
I was tasting back in those days. I don't know what's going on now.
It's been twenty years since I spected, twenty two years, oh my
god, twenty three years since I left the Spectator, so I don't know
exactly what the processes anymore. But my time it was blind. I knew
what region I was tasting, but certain I didn't know the producers. And
I think the Spectator and Bob Parker, who by the way, did not
taste blind, really did a service for Americans in that they gave what I
would call the puerile culture free kill on a challenged, culinarily challenged consumer in
America, something that they could relate to, and that inspired them to explore
wine in a way that they hadn't before. Okay, the one hundred point
scale everybody got. This twenty point scale wasn't working for us because in France
they get twenty points. They have a twenty point scale on their school papers.
At least when I went to school in France, you get it was
out of twenty. But here it's one hundred points. Okay, And so
I think in my day the scores were and it was a it was a
real fledgling, still a fledgling American wine industry. Scores made stars got people
really excited. I know, before I became a wine writer, I was
just a consumer and I would, you know, religiously try to find the
wines that have the best reviews in the wine spectators. So it was a
good thing. Um, I think I don't think the scores are quite as
effective anymore as they were back then. I think there are a lot of
influencers and other people writing about wine. You don't need to have a publication.
You know, back in my day there was no Internet, so you
had to get published by an existing publication to get your whatever your opinions out
there. Now everybody's writing about wine, and nonetheless it so like I just
got a ninety six for one of my wines in uh In Decanter, and
it's probably one of the best wines I've ever made. One of a Cavernet
might not the Cavernet from U nineteen from twenty nineteen. I don't think it
made a big difference, but it felt good and it's something you know,
you can show off if you want. I mean, most summi yas don't
want to hear about your scores. I would never, you know, go
into a restaurant and try to sell them my one by saying, you know,
I got I got ninety nine points, I got nine nine points and
or whatever. It's just not going to happen. It's an insult, I
mean. And then I think retailers they still like to have scores that helps
them sell move wine off the shelf. So you've got good scores, you
can at least offer a retailer a shelf talker with a ninety three or a
ninety four or whatever. Ninety one under ninety doesn't seem to register with anybody.
And how accurate are the scores, Well, you know, it's about
as accurate as it can get on any day. Right. Let me just
say what I like better about not blind tasting is that you taste a lot
of wines. You know, if you're a professional, taste taste thirty to
fifty to one hundred a setting and you get palette fatigue. But if you
know what you're tasting, and you're educated about the producers and the region that
you're tasting, you have a context. Yeah, you know what you're looking
for as opposed to what you think you're looking for. I've always said that
if you think if you know what you're looking for, or no, if
you think you know what you're looking for, that's what you're going to find.
And that's not really fair to anybody, but it's the nature of the
beast. So yeah, I like writers who go to the trouble to understand
producers, the region, the ter war, cultural practices, and then make
up their own minds over a certain amount of time, as opposed to a
snap judgment that it gets translated to your eighty nine points or your ninety nine
points. So for somebody who hasn't had the pleasure to drink your wines yet
to taste Covenant wines, yet, what do you think they're missing out on?
That's another good question I don't have an answer for quickly. What are
they missing Ana? Well, you know, as I said, all our
winds are needed used to ferment it. Many of them are not filtered,
none of them are fined. So I think there are a reasonable a good
expression of the place they come from. We uh, we don't, you
know, we don't pick under ripe, We don't pick overwripe. We try
to pick in a place that will highlight whatever the vineyard has to offer.
Um, you know, our wines are typically quite elegant. They're not bruisers,
but you know, they taste, there's flavor there. You don't have
to explain it to somebody. And because I make so many different wines,
I kind of make a wine for um every occasion, so to speak.
So you're giving me a great segue to my next question. If space aliens
were to knock on your door, which of your wines would you want to
gift them? Um, that's a good question. Also, if space aliens
were coming, well, it depends what they were having for dinner. That's
what I asked them first. So if they were having um, you know,
burgers, I'd give them my lowd eyes infant out. It goes great
with ketchup, although really nothing does go well with ketchup, but my that
zin can stand up to it. If they were having fish, I would
give them Solomon Blanc. Unless it was fish with a like a very powerful
sauce that I might have them or if it was a maybe it was so
basically the aliens have to eat. Yeah, yeah, you don't, that's
you know, it's a good point. Um. I don't drink wine unless
I'm eating. I mean I almost never the bubbly. I might start a
meal with with no food, but I don't come home and have a glass
of chardonnay. And I discourage anybody from doing that because after work, because
then you're gonna be drunk before you even have dinner. I um, I
like to sip my wines or drink my wines with some kind of comestible.
I love that. So you've been making wine for twenty years now. I
started in nineteen eighty eight, so that was thirty four years ago. Years
I was making wine in Long Island. A lot of people don't know that,
but my first job was as a celer rat and a vineyard grunt in
a small vineyard and winery on the North Fork of Long Island called Christina Vineyards.
Well, so you have an even longer history, so I'm curious,
and especially because you've worked in New York. You make wine in Israel as
well as here, and every region is different in terms of climate. We
know vintages, Every vintage tells a different story, but in where you're making
wine or where you're getting your grapes, from Do you see huge variation from
year to year? Do you see more commonalities? What do you or do
some regions give you more difference than others give you more similarity? Well,
when we talk about regions, I mean in California, for example, there
are so many microclimates that the vineyard I sourced my sura from in the Santa
Ya Hills, It's only about fifteen miles from the vineyard I sourced my sura
from in Santa Maria. But it's like two different planets. I mean,
one of them comes in super ripe and way early, and the other one
is like, I'm struggling to get it ripe and it's the last vineyard to
come in during the season. And yet they're very close. So um again,
vintage to vintage, do you see more similarities within each individual vineyard or
do you see I used to say yes, but now I mean, we'll
just look at the last five years we've had. You know, in addition
to the smoke in twenty twenty, we we had like a lot of we
had the heat last year, like unbelievable heat, and then we've had we
had super amount of rain and down in Santa Y to hills at the end
of harvest that we had to deal with. I mean, so really every
vintage is a new nightmare, and and our job is to try to deal
with it. So are there any signs or predictors that you look for that
will tell you what a vintage will be? What after the vintage is over.
If it tastes good, it's going to be a good vintage. Nine
Sights twenty twenty. Yeah, I mean you can. I mean, if
you're having a lot of issues during the course of a vintage, well it's
going to be challenging. That doesn't mean it's going to be bad. You
know, my my, my twenty twenty Cabernet sevignon from Napa. I just
happened to pick most of it before the glass fire. The day before the
glass fire broke out. I had no idea, nobody knew it. I
lost one vineyard that I didn't pick, but I you know, seventy five
percent or seventy percent of my Cabernet came in pretty much smoked free, so
you know, you kind of know, well, okay, well, we
had these issues. I lost a certain amount of my selvinion block last year
in the two hundred and sixteen degree heat. That didn't you know? Because
because yeah, because because the grower I was working with, whom he didn't
listen to me, and he leaf plucked too much, too many leaves away
from the clusters because he was afraid of mildew. And I said, listen,
dude, like, I don't think you're gonna have this bat of an
issue, because if we get a heat spike somewhere down a lot, we're
gonna lose a lot of fruit. And shirt enough lost a lot of fruit.
So so it's you know, it's not boring. So have you established
any sort of rituals that you do at the start of harvest for yourself personally
or you and your team? Yeah, I stop the concert series that we
start in April because I can't deal with anymore after I start baking grapes.
So we started, we have our concert series starting April twenty third this year,
and we stopped August sixth, when it is just about when the first
grapes are starting to come in for me climbing. So you're a musician and
we're we have a fun game will play at the end with music. But
you're a musician and I'm curious. Do you ever play music to your wines
in barrel or do you talk to them to the wines? Do you encourage
them or is it just a musical connection? Absolutely? Music is very very
important in winemaking. For example, anyone who plays really bad rock and roll
to their their wine and barrel is sure to have a disgusting, disastrous production,
There's no way around it. Okay, if you're playing the right kind
of jazz, the right kind of jazz that would be jazz, I like,
you'll probably make excellent cabernet. But for your lighter, fresher wines,
you need to focus on maybe Brazilian bussa nova. Oh, you're well primed
for the game we play at the end. Wow. Okay, so you've
had quite an illustrious career when you were a little boy. What did you
want to be when you grew up? A track star? Track star?
Yeah? And there you became a musician. Well, because I smoke so
much dope when I was in high school that my lung collapsed and then I
couldn't keep running, although I kept playing the saxophone. But whatever, um,
where were we again? Like you wanted to be when you were a
little boy, the fact that you got into you know, when I was
a little boy, I didn't know what I mean. I wanted. I
did want to be a track star. I wanted to be in the Olympics,
and that dream was shattered with my with my collapse along um. Then
I was really into oceanography and in biology, and I wanted to be an
oceanographer. And then in my first week of college, when they told me
I needed to take chemistry and biology at the same time, I realized this
is not going to work. And it just so happened. At the university
I was going to had a great music department, and so I became a
music major, and eventually I went to France because they didn't want to study
anything about music. And then I stayed in France a long time and fell
in love with wine. Well what happened was I had this gig in Monte
Carlo with a great band in nineteen eighty seven where I was the band league,
where I was the co band leader with a French piano player who's a
very famous jazz player, now Frank. All of a sudden and we were
in conservatory years earlier in France together, but we grew up and we got
this gig and the other saxophone player in the band, Tim Reese, he's
still with the Rolling Stones. I mean it was a great band, great
musicians. And every night after the gig, I would be like really excited
about what I was going to start drinking. And I eventually realized I was
more excited about what I was drinking than about what I was playing. And
so maybe I wanted to be a winemaker, which everybody told me I was
crazy to think, but I think you have to be a little crazy to
become a winemaker. And so we moved back to the States because nobody would
hire an American saxophone player in a French winery. And I got a job
in Long Island as a seller, rally or anything about wine except I like
to drink it. And I kept playing gigs in New York for another four
or five years until finally the Wine Spectator hired me to be the West Coast
editor and I was able to quit the music business and move to California and
work with them. That's amazing. So when you look back at your career,
what would you say is one of your proudest achievements to date, I've
been building the winery, building Covenant Winery is I don't I didn't think I
could ever do that. It's a bit daunting. You know, you never
have enough money, even if your partner's a billionaire, because the billionaires don't
give you the money. They just assure you that it's there and then it's
not, but they at least give you the misplaced confid is that you're gonna
go forward. And I'm very proud of the quality of the wines that we
make there. And we turned a nine thousand square foot former garage into a
really happening wine or even got a five thousand square foot crash pad. Writing
downtown Berkeley. Um and uh, you know as a wine writer, I
mean I had the privilege. I mean I've also written for the New York
Times, for the Enthusiast. I wrote for Wall Street Journal for ten years.
Most people don't know that I wrote all their wine advertorial and which was
quite lucrative actually. And I actually had a column for a while with a
Wall Street Journal in Japan, despite the fact that I don't speak Japan.
So um, so I think where I was going here is that um,
I had I've been blessed to taste a lot of great wine. I mean,
I've you know, I've gone in the cellars of Petrius, I've been
in the so Is, the Chaval Bloc, I've been in shop I've been.
I mean, I've I've been able to like meet with the greatest wine
makers in the world, David Rainey, and I know Michelle Roland, I
make it. I've been. I made a wine with Michelle for a couple
of years. People don't know that, but so I've really been blessed to
work with the greatest wine makers on planet Earth. And as a result,
I've been able to taste a lot of the greatest wines on planet Earth.
And I can tell you my goal is to make wine that tastes as good
as my favorite wines on planet Earth. And I think we're doing a pretty
good job. I like that. I like that. So when you um,
is there a piece of advice that somebody gave you along the way,
something as a child, or somewhere in work or in life, a parent,
a teacher, that something that is how you try to live your life
or has driven you in your life. Yeah, a number of people have
said what I'm about to say, to you, but I think Um,
the first person that said this to me was my wife in a dream map
that she made for me, Um, back when the kids were babies,
and the dream maps map said believe in your dreams and if you can do
it, that's the way to go. I love it. So, speaking
of your wife, if you were going to plan a romantic evening, what
sort of wines would be open to set the mood. I'm sorry I shouldn't
answer that because I know it's depending on what you're gonna eat. It's a
good good it's a good recovery, Alison. Um, Look, if we're
celebrating something I love to celebrate with champagne. Well, I forgot to tell
you the nineteen forty five um um uh Christian um, oh my gosh,
Christian pooge wine that I hadn't It was with Christian polog that I had nineteen
forty five disgorged in. I don't remember when I was no, no excuse
me, we have to re cut. Got my advantages. So I forgot
to mention with the shav sixty six, the nineteen fourteen pouroge in magnum I
had with Christian Polje and his wife, having break, having lunch with them
in their kitchen in Champagne was pretty damn good. It was disgorged in forty
five at the end of the war. We drank the whole magnum, the
three of us in nineteen fourteen. Yeah, and you're drinking in what year
it must have been. Let's see, I with the spectator, so it
must have been like, I don't know, mid nineties. That's pretty extraordinary.
It was good. And anyway, so back to your question, what
will we have with Joey? What would have happened? So I would we
start with the bubbly I love bubbly, and some little snacks to go along
with it, maybe a little parmesan cheese or whatever, or pete I love
pete um. And then um, you know, we eatn courses, so
you know, I don't just eat drink one wine with a really good meal.
I have three or four courses. Really looking forward to going to dinner
with you. Wow, And so you know, I'll have a white wine
or some kind to get started, because I hate starting with red wine.
Even though we started the bubbly. Um. Probably then I'd go to a
you know, a piano or a more moderate bodied red because unless I'm having
like some grilled steaks, I really don't want to have cabernet unless it's aged
cabernet, which then has mellowed and then that's better. Um, you know,
And then i'd have depending on you know, how how how much time
we have to eat and drink um, and have a second bottle of red
wine that's a little more full body than the first. Um. And then
there's dessert that I have a dessert wine. And maybe then I'll finish with
the brandy. Like you know, we make brandy, but you don't know
that the double edged sword is the Covenant brandy of Shannon Blocke and that's a
good way to finish the meal. And if you can smoke with the brandy
and nothing like a Cuban cigar with the brandy. So that's I guess I'm
getting hungry just talking. Well, I would ask you what you do in
your free time, but I think I know, practice my saxophone, your
saxophone, and eat and drink good good food and wine. Yeah yeah,
yeah, so complete the sentence. For me, A table without wine is
like breakfast. Although didn't you just say you had champagne for breakfast with pole
roget No, that was lunch. Oh okay, okay, okay, maybe
brunch. I'll have wine, but that's not breakfast. No, I need
espresso cappuccino. So you've had You've had the privilege to drink with, as
you said, so many luminaries in the wine industry, and are friends with
a lot of these people. And I'm curious, um, sitting at a
table in one of your wonderful meals, the Covenant Wines are on the table
and there's an empty seat. Who from any walk of life, living or
deceased? Would you want to share a bottle of Covenant wines with living or
deceased? Uh? Stop John that way. I think I'd like to bring
Leslie Red back for the twentieth anniversary. And yeah, um, well,
I think that we are almost to the end here. You've been a wealth
of information and great stories and I could keep going on. But I have
a little game that we play, and this is going to be right up
your alley because we you know, it's called Wine Soundtrack. We pair wine
with music. You know, I have a great story about this. Okay,
So after I told you what, you know, what you need to
play in your cellar to make the right wine. I was bullshitting, you
know. Although I do play my saxophone sometimes in the cellar because the acoustics
are good. Yeah, and you know, sometimes you know, I want
to do it like a video or something and it sounds good and it looks
good or the barrels there. But actually, when I was at wine Spectator,
I remember being invited up to I think it was a bubbly house in
Snoma Valley and they had arranged a tasting for me, and which that usually
where it worked at the Spectator. We must have written some big article about
them, and so they were already the wines are reviewed, but they wanted
to put on this taste. So I go up to the winery and um,
I walk into the tasting room and it's all set up very elegantly,
and they're playing and I know right away with they're playing. They're playing public
missals, playing buck cello suites, and these are extraordinary, this extraordinary music
played by an extraordinary musician. And he's dead now. But and I said
to the general manager and winemaker, I said, so it's incredible music.
So we have two options. We can taste wine or we can listen to
music, but we can't do them both. Well, We're going to try
to do them both in this sense that wine conjures up emotions, as does
listen to music. So we're going to put a music, a genre,
and artist a particular song to your wines. So you talked about your chardonay.
What in describing your chardonay, what would it be similar to? Music
wise? What would you pair it with? Since I just talked about Buck
Buck wrote seven sonatas for flute, and those or there Each one is gorgeous
in a different way, and I would suggest any of them played by one
of the many great flutists of our time. Most of them are French,
although Galway is Irish, I think, but Ram paul Or or Maxims Lauhier
Um, any of these guys would do my chardonnay justice. And what There's
a certain richness and elegance in the way the flute sounds played by the right
musician, So that would pair well with our chardonnay. Okay, what about
your um Cabernet franc Oh well, the Cabernet franc I mean that is definitely
Gavan. Do you know Gavan? He's the Brazilian guitarist and songwriter, and
the Cabernet franc definitely has a Brazilian edge to it. It's like they're like
I can see crocodiles and baranhas and you know, big sea animals and they
have an edge. And Cabernet Francie has that edge that you know right away
it's Cabernet Francie Smellett. It's not like Cabernet Salvinia. It's Cabernet franc the
edge. Javan his music has the edge. You should listen to Javan D
G A V A N. I will, I will for sure with a
glass of your Cabernet franc And what about your Sarah? Well, I make
three surahs, so let's talk about are the one that's getting the highest scores
right now? That would be our bienacito u sara from um just a small
parcel that um I'm allowed to take a small amount of fruit from and that's
just this big rich ripe, but also has that animal, you know,
the savage and so um. That would also been good with the animal rush
with the chambery front. But we already Javan got that so um. So
the I would suggest um, oh, this would be Oh. Then there's
also I there's another Sarami is my sura from the Civon Vineyard in the Galile
which is a biodynamic vineyard. That also, you can give me two saras
and two songs. Yeah, no, two saras, you get one song,
okay? And um yes. Shlomo Arzi do you know who Shlomo Arltzi
is in Israeli artist? He's he's one of the most famous Israeli pop singers.
He's old now, he's my age, so he's, you know,
not as famous as as some of the younger guys. But I love his
music and he just he he puts it all out there and he brings me
to tears a great regularity. All that you can see. I'm a cry
baby anyway. But but Shlomo Arltzi, Um, any of his ballads would
go well with our surah. I love it. You're very good at this.
But what do you expect when someone's a musician and a winemaker. But
we have been talking for ages and we are coming to the end of this,
and I do have a two part final question for you. You have
traveled all over the world and drunk wine and wonderful places and probably been everywhere.
But is there any wine region in the world that's at the top of
your bucket list to go explore? I mean that I haven't been to already.
Yeah, or maybe you just need to get back there and explore it.
You know, I haven't spent any time in the War Valley. I'd
like to. It's beautiful. I've passed through it, but I need to
spend a little more time and cho for examples. I've spent a little time
there, but not enough. Sambre's a little village where they make so many
on blanc actually up it in Saxon, Burgundy, so m yeah, War.
I don't know the war very well. Um. They're making some really
interesting wines in China right now. I'd be very curious to see what's going
on over there. As a lot of French investment in China, and um
let's see. Um. Well, also, you know they're they're growing uh
grapes, making bubbly in in in uh in the UK also Sweden, now
yeah, so um and I love you know, raw fish, so let's
go to Sweden. Okay, Well, you know there's a whole there's a
whole budding wine industry in Japan. My my, my associate and dear friend
Ari Earl is consulting for a winery into near Tokyo. Right now, I
want to go there. Crazy. Well that's amazing. Now if somebody wanted
to taste your wines, can they do you have a taste room? Can
they come visit you? Where can they find you? Okay? So you
can find us in a lot of wine shops all over the world. Um.
And you know in regions where they sell wine. I mean in America,
you know the normal markets, um, New York, New Jersey,
Um. Um, you know Chicago or Florida, California. Um. But
um, you can also go to our website, you know, Covenant Wines
dot com. All of our wines are available uh on our on our website,
and we ship direct to most states in America legally. Um. And
then um, you can find my wines on the list of the French Laundry
next time you go there. We don't have as many wines in restaurants as
I would like. Um. I think did we mention that all of my
wines happen to be kosher? No, we didn't. We went to the
whole time without saying that well, because it's I think I said in the
beginning, we tasted to kosher wine and inspire us to to to make a
good kosher wine. But yeah, all the wines I make it both in
America can Israel. It happened to be kosher, which doesn't mean anything in
terms of the wine making, because there is no kosher wine making method.
It just has to do with It's a symbolic elements to who can touch the
juice or the wine, the grapes, anybody can touch. You have to
be Sabbath observant to be in my cellar doing you know, the hands on
work. But Sabbath observant. What does that mean when you only drink kosher
wine, you only need kosher food and you don't work on the Sabbath.
So that's the only requirement. And I think that a lot of people still
have this image of you know, Mogen David or Mani Chevits or just you
know, weirdness, and so they think, God, it's kosher. I
don't know if we want that. I've actually been in restaurants or showed my
wine to a certain sum many as who said, yeah, this wine is
delicious, but we don't need a kosher wine. And I've said to them,
able it doesn't even say kosher on the label. I mean, what
is the problem here? And then they have so I think we have a
perception problem going on and on premise in restaurants and you know we're working through
it, but we're not out of the woods yet. Well. Funny,
how earlier I asked you, for someone who hasn't tried your wines, what
are they missing out on? And I think that's a very valid point,
which is these are kosher wines, just as a side note, things that
people should know. They will for anyone who has a preconceived idea of kosher
wines, this will change their mind. And for everyone else who doesn't know,
it doesn't really matter. I'll give you that. I mean again,
it's if you really care, it's really good wine, how must be kosher.
If you don't care, it doesn't really matter. Well, Jeff,
we've been talking for ages and I want to thank you for joining us on
wine soundtrack. I know you don't have a tasting room because like you said,
oh you do have a taste room, Well you know you got No.
We have a beautiful private tasting room that we do tastings by appointment and
it's gorgeous, and that's inside the winery. And then we also and where
is that the wineries in Berkeley eleven o two sixth Street in Berkeley. And
we also have a concert series on our wine patio which is open on weekends
from the twelve to five and Saturdays and Sundays, and people can come in
and taste our wines on the wine patio with snacks. And the concert series,
as we know, runs April to August. It ends in time for
harvest exactly. It ends this year August sixth. Starts April twenty third,
Sunday afternoons, and about their fifteen concerts, about half of them are my
band, which is called Free Run, which is in homage to the best
wine out of the Tank First Run, and then we have some other fabulous
bands that are also going to come through and play concerts. I love that.
So by osmosis, the wines in barrel are hearing the music. Yeah,
except the music's outside the vibration. The vibration rations. Well, I
think that if you are heading up to the listeners to the San Francisco Bay
area and you head over the bridge, to Berkeley the East Bay. You
can go to an urban winery and have an incredible experience, listen to music,
drink wine, and have fun. So check out Covenant Wines and Jeff,
thank you so much for joining us on Wine Soundtrack. And Alison,
thank you so much for having me on your soundtrack, The Wine Soundtrack.
Yes, thanks for listening to a new episode of Wine Soundtrack USA. For
details and updates, visit our website, Wine soundtracks dot com.