Wine Pairing featuring Jay Buchsbaum, Executive Vice President of Marketing at Royal Wine Corp.

one of the questions would always be jay how is it that you can tell the difference between all these wines how is that possible and then as a good jewish person i am i would ask them rhetorically how many people here know the difference between coca-cola and shoprite cola and everybody's hand you know half the place [Music] well without further ado tonight's very special guest and of course no coincidence it's right before the holidays so um jay buxbaum executive vice president of marketing and wine education director at royal wine corporation jay is a wine sommelier i don't think i got that right i jay i whine no close enough sommelier i'm getting there getting closer and has been at royal wine for over three decades jay has worked with leading wineries worldwide and has been quoted in the new york times wall street journal among many other media outlets jay works with wine retailers and consumer groups to conduct wine seminars and tastings throughout the world special shout out to gabriel geller thank you for also helping coordinate and tonight's show we're going to talk about a variety of topics wine pairing just in time for the holidays the wine industry as it was affected by the pandemic and changes in the restaurant industry will it affect the wine industry with that intro a very warm welcome jay book spam thank you for joining me here on mind your business all right thank you very much for inviting me and shout out especially to michal your producer who has done a great job in getting all this together thank you very kind i second that yes now i i i first of all i thank you for carving out of your time it's before the holidays i have to imagine this is the i don't say craziest time of year but probably the most challenging in terms of time the pressure that's on you these days you had it right the first time it's the craziest time you know one thing that we all love about jay he says like challenging the most brought with you know with tension and uh it's just you know it is what it is yeah exactly now uh you know tell us about yourself you're now you're doing this for many decades you don't look it but you are doing it for many decades you know how did the journey start were you were you drinking in high school i mean i i'm not putting you on the spot okay when i started in the wine business i my favorite wine was grape juice so you don't get fired you know a lot of people are listening to the show and and no and um i actually just to give you a maybe a hint of how old i really am okay uh if anybody remembers when the new york city was going out of business they were firing everybody but they hired me because i had just graduated with a focus on accounting and a beam in those days wanted to find out where all the money was so i was hired as a fiscal records analyst which is a just a fancy term to say an auditor and of course i hated it and after about a year and a half someone offered me a job in the wine business as a salesman and i said what i have to do because i don't know anything about wine so well you have to travel i said well you know i don't i can't afford to travel oh no no we'll pay for that and i said that's it you had me at hello and ever since then i haven't looked back um so even though my my original background was an accounting and finance uh i've been selling it you know my my family and my friends said you've been selling since i was a kid so i've been selling ever since and it's been a great journey i've i've tasted and um you know eaten uh drink and tasted food and wines with the best finest wine makers throughout the world france and and italy and israel especially in california and so it's been i don't consider my job a vocation i consider it an avocation so so beautiful you know what i love the a quick takeaway already at this early stage in the interview is that there are many uh aspiring aspiring entrepreneurs small business owners people out there and so not everyone is is really enjoying what they're doing listen take it from jay now he's you know hashem at the top of the world in his position he didn't start off like this he wasn't even taking training for this it's like the knock on the door and then a new world opened up to you absolutely um don't don't you know i see every experience as an opportunity so not a challenge but as an opportunity and i think good business people and you know it's more than just being a good business person it's fun it makes life fun instead of making life always a challenge you know it's it makes like always an opportunity to do something new and different and exciting and listen it's not always peaches and cream but that's the perspective you should go with most royal wine company which has been around for many many decades actually has a fascinating backstory perhaps you could share it with the audience yes the the family started making wine in 1848 in czechoslovakia they were the winemakers to the to rockets who was the uh i guess the king or i forget what his title was but he you know ruled the area and um um when in 1948 uh after the war and they've been hidden away before the war or you know when the nazis started coming in by their own employees and so after the war they emigrated with you know next to nothing to the lower east side of new york where most immigrants emigrated to whether you're irish or italian or jewish especially the jews in those days um and review started working for a small wine company called royal wine uh they couldn't pay him so they gave him shares in the company uh and eventually the things were so bad at that whiner at that wine company that he ended up owning it just instead of getting paid and he brought all his kids in uh some as young as i don't even want to say because right now they're very senior but as a result he turned it around and today royal wine corp is the largest producer purveyor of wines and kosher foods in the world uh with god's help and um it's been it's just been a great great journey and a lot of fun now the royal wine corporation includes three sister companies there's the ketum winery herzog wine cellars and keiko what are perhaps you could explain each division okay so so royal wine corp is the is the umbrella the owners uh but uh ketam wine company is the winery that makes all the new york state great juices and sacramental concord type wines herzog wine cellars was established beginning in 1985 but um you know was built they built a brand new winery in oxnard some years later and now it's the it's one of the premier wineries in california and certainly a premier california kosher winery uh where we make all of our california wines and um caico and by the way ketamine and royal also imports wines from 17 countries around the world and caico started because we were selling grape juice and in america because of the nuanced and some would say archaic laws governing wine you can't sell wine and food to the same distributor the food distributor is separate from the wine so since we made grape juice we had to sell to food distributors well while we were selling grape juice why not sell i don't know crackers or tuna fish or whatever else so a over time you filter fish if you will matzah so over time we developed a food company and today they are the largest purveyors of kosher foods produces purveyors and distributors of kosher foods in the world so there's a great business lesson yeah i mean there's a great business lesson right here also that when they when they had the challenge because of distributing grape juice which would seem to be like hello you're selling wine you can't sell grape juice but they they turned that challenge into an amazing opportunity correct always opportunities and you know it's also a business from a business perspective if you're going to expand your business the best places to expand it is into the areas that you're familiar with so if i'm in the food business don't go into the diamond business and don't go into the pajamas yeah you know uh you know tv business uh or production business you know i would say that would be my suggestion uh and that way you can expand over time jay thank you for uh stealing some time to join us here on 710 wr my pleasure now before the break we had touched on the three divisions ketum winery were uh the herzog wine cellars and caico herzog wine cellars out in uh oxnard california i mean a few years ago unfortunately there were terrible forest fires and my understanding is that it it it it really uh it it presented a extreme threat to the to the survival of that business and you have not only survived it but have thrived since then perhaps you could share that story well you know um besides the fact that some vineyards were burnt uh there was also something called smoke taint which means that even if the vineyards did not see fire themselves the smoke that went into the vineyards would taint you know would uh negatively affect the grapes that come out of it so you know there used to be a philosophy of our company not to buy i'm sorry not to own vineyards and the reason for that was from a business point of view was that you could always buy the best grapes there were and you could probably get them at a better price as the vintage rolled on but because of this the smoke taint vineyards became increasingly difficult to get grapes from and so as again you know i've said this in the beginning in my opening and i'll say it again instead of we seeing this as a challenge we saw this as an opportunity uh the herzog family began to acquire vineyards all over california in the north especially in the north and you know in the middle part of the state and as a result we now not only have ensured and better you know access to grapes but even a higher quality group of them because now we control the uh growing of them literally from the ground until it gets into the bottle so that that became an opportunity now uh pesach is actually going to begin a week from this sunday night um perhaps we could talk about wine pairing i'm sure you have many suggestions for those that love dry semi and and of course trying to keep it within red the floor is yours what's what's your suggestions okay so there's there's a few things first of all i just want to point this out because this is this is called variations four and the variations four also has a wine called b-leaf b-e-a-d-e-l-e-a-f which is completely organic with no sulfites added and in fact uh michal and others have asked me you know sometimes they're they get headaches and stuff from the sulfur that are added well there's an example of a wine that is both completely organic and also no sulfites added now there is naturally occurring sulfites in the ground so that that ends up in the wine but you know that would be in any fruit or vegetable or you know any fruit but in any event so my suggestion for uh pairing especially for the seder for all of us who participate in the seder is to begin the seder with a lighter wine so either a rose which according to most opinions um you know comply with the idea of red because it is made from red wine and it is red or a pinot noir now pinot noir have very thin skins and because they have very thin skins that that's where the color and the and kind of the tannins come from and so the pinot noir becomes a lighter grape uh uh what do you call lineage pinot noir there is there's a baron herzog reserved pinot noir there's a pinot noir from israel called bar khan classic pinot noir so pinot noirs are a really good wine to start with but in general and and for those people who really don't like heavy wines all together and want to stick with grape juice but you want a little alcohol there's a wine called concord cowl which is made from the concord grapes but it's only three and a half percent alcohol so you know there are so many choices but in general my my and again the message is the suggestion is to start off with something light because you're not going to be eating until after the second cup right and so start off with something light so it's easier on your stomach it's easier on your mind and you can really enjoy and also a lot of people have the custom to completely finish all the cups but certainly the first cup even more than the other three uh instead of drinking just you know most of it so that's my suggestion um just you know while we're on the topic and you know passover pesach is eight days uh what a what is your uh suggestion for you know during colombia with a you know with a can of macaroons or some pesach cake i'm sure you've been asked this question in the past so so there's there's really you know everybody can always go back to and and it's a big favorite of the kosher consumer as well as the general consumer and that is the barton or moscato yeah and now especially now during covert times etc it's now available in a 200 ml can which is about yeah oh i don't know six to seven ounces they're so cute they're so cute yeah so so you know um so that's one idea moscato is always a great wine especially if you're having it with macaroons something sweet even for those people or fine wine drinkers you know it's got enough acidity and enough liveliness so that it could still be quite quaffable uh even for fine wine drinkers but if you're a better wine drinker and you insist on not having something sweet there's a whole slew of wonderful roses and roses are great if you're going to florida or if even if you're hopefully the weather will be great here and you're kicking back in your backyard and you're having some fruit because you're staying away from the cake and the heavy you know carbs uh you know roses are absolutely wonderful there's a whole group of roses from france called rubin r-o-u-b-i-n-e lineage rose is is made from 100 pinot noir which both gives you that you know lightness but freshness and really elegance and uh even baron herzog has a rose that is inexpensive so it's quite accessible from a taste profile as well as from a pocket profile so there you go this is i i would suggest sticking to the roses the other area if you really want to go for your lungs here a little bit okay is there's always it's always a pleasure for me not alone but to drink something sparkling so there are great champagnes from rothschild and there are great champagnes from uh and these are both champagnes from droppier and then they're great sparkling wines momentous comes to mind from lineage and also uh great sparkling wine from uh uh uh uh where's oh yeah from barton ora barton or sparkling rose and the barton or prosecco which is completely dry and the bartender this is brand spanking new here's a combo that's great you can combine your uh sparkling wine with your rose bark bartender sparkling prosecco rose so you know there's a bunch of examples of wines to appreciate and by the way you know i've mentioned a bunch of brand names but this concept of roses or lighter wines for the first cup can be applied to whatever brand you'd like and and for people who are enjoying the spring which is what's going to be happening in the end of march or really in april uh it's applicable as well now you touched on this a few moments ago and that is the the price versus the versus the brand and i actually go back and i'm going to pull out my book i wrote a book on marketing and one of the chapters is called qpr i want to read verbatim i was listening to a local jewish radio show one morning and the host nacho siegel was interviewing two renowned wine experts mr mutti herzog and mr j book spam of kedam royal wine corporation while discussing the benefits of cabernet sauvignon merlot and chardonnay proved to be enlightening i personally found the discussion about kendam's qpr quality price ratio to be most fascinating could you could you take it from there it was amazing i sure can you know um if you if you look at costco or if you look at uh i don't know um amazon and so on and so forth they take their they have their fixed markup system okay but if you take a look at brand builders they don't have a fixed markup system they have what what they have what they call you know what what in part what will the market bear so yes while we do consider what the cost of a wine is if the you know and we have a markup system if the markup system is too high we won't we won't use the full markup system we'll do uh you know we'll price it so that it'll be accessible to the consumer and fair to the consumer on the other hand um if it's a rarer wine and an unusual one and we're able to and maybe this is the wrong thing to say but i i don't mind saying it and we're able to make a few extra points because you know it's rare and we were able to buy it better then we'll do that as well so it's really uh but but in each case and and that book is right in each case we feel a personal and familial responsibility to the to the consumer especially the kosher consumer which is our core which is where we started today an awful lot of our wines are sold to so many of the general consumers but still we've we've carried on that tradition of being sensitive to the consumer and giving them what we call a qpr which is a quite a quality price ratio that makes sense a reminder to follow us and to subscribe to our youtube channel you will automatically be notified when my when this interview tonight's interview that you're listening to with jbook spam goes up on youtube you will automatically be notified if you subscribe and turn on notifications uh jay uh yeah i mean let's let's uh unfortunately the last year has been most challenging during the during the pandemic that has affected so many really everyone in one way or another what type of changes or seismic shifts have you seen that regarding the wine industry during the pandemic so i'm going to give you both the um not so positive i don't like to call anything negative the not so positive and the very positive um restaurants have been hurt tremendously catering holes have been decimated uh caterers and catering halls programs hotels passover programs circus programs um and even you know family getaways uh you know that that went to the beaches or went to the resorts all of that has been decimated and as a result initially when when the pandemic first became apparent then everything was shut down tight uh sales of wines were literally off by 10 20 even 25 or 30 percent and it was really scary really really scary but so that was all the negative parts of it but what's happened in the wine business is is it it actually reversed itself in a very big way and that is that right after that people the biggest seismic shift was the uh switch to home use of wine consumption and people weren't going to restaurants but since they weren't going to restaurants they had 150 bucks to spend and they spent 30 of it on a really good bottle of wine which they ordinarily would have only spent 15 and um so there was a tremendous increase in the purchase of wine for home consumption and that took place in two areas initially it was almost all online because nobody was going into stores in fact you know i deal specifically and directly with the state of pennsylvania um and the pennsylvania stores were shut down for oh my gosh probably four to five months or four months for sure and as a result nobody can go shopping now they were delivering uh they did have an online portal they were living online but they were so not you know ready for it that it shut down so many times but still people wanted their partner people wanted their baron herzog people wanted their ketum how would they get that so they went online and they found purveyors online that sold wine throughout the country and so that became a big business as soon as the store started opening there was a massive massive rush to buy groceries and to buy wine and in states where wine was for sale in the groceries wine sales shot through the roof so even though in the first quarter or i should say the first third of the year our sales were off more than double digit probably more than 20 by the end of the year we were way ahead in total sales now our heart and our really our persons goes out to those restaurants and hotels and you know caterers etc that couldn't you know that still still are in very very bad situation but um but the wine business has grown substantially during the pandemic and it's not only for royal wine but it's for uh you know i've been reading the the the notes on this uh you know it's for all wine companies as a general rule it's been going up what's interesting though is that it's it's the biggest increase has been in wines that are well known so bartender has gone through the roof baron herzog is increasing substantially and it's been in the area of upscale wines so like i said to you the same person who was going to buy a 15 bottle of wine is now buying a 20 bottle of lineage and that the person who bought lineage before is now buying herzog reserves or sheila or you know they're just it's just a an increase in not only the amount of consumption at home but also in the quality of what they're consuming what's your i guess prediction perhaps is the right word um in terms of wine tastings the events which you have actually played such a prominent role in the world and you've you have traveled worldwide doing tastings when do you see that coming back i know even for yourself you're you're you know you're you're you you love those events it's so obvious when you participate in them that you know it's something it's it's a labor of love as you say when is that coming back well we've spent a fortune in time effort and people in zoom events and we've done them we had something called the kfwe which is the kosher food wine experience which you know with between the three locations is probably more than 10 000 people uh and now we we turned it into the kfwv kosher wine and food virtual yeah and we had over a thousand people uh signed up and watching and we believe that in those thousand homes they were probably not probably we know that there were multiple numbers in there so it could be as much as five six thousand people that were involved we sent out little bottles samples to everybody uh and so we spent a lot of time and effort on network all of my meetings you know we're doing a zoom here with you today uh are now all zoom almost entirely but the fact is there is no substitution for in-person meetings when necessary there's no substitution for it literally pressing the flesh as you would and my hope is is that with god's help we'll uh we'll see that come back uh as our president says hopefully starting july 4th um with family gatherings and onward and upward from there and i believe that we'll still we've learned as a as a nation and as a business community that we can do a lot more zooming and save a lot more money that way but in the end uh there's going to be hopefully a rush to get back to see the best customers the best consumers uh in person uh and hopefully within the next i don't know three to eight months for sure now royal wine manufactures wine high quality wines and distributes wines from from all over the world as you touched on before uh to name a few of course from including the united states israel chile france spain um perhaps i i guess i have two questions one is for this passover is it going to be more challenging to find great wines or any other takeaways because the world was affected by the pandemic so as far as traveling shipping are all the popular brands still available the popular brands are still available if you live within a jewish community there you know a wide variety is available more than ever a larger variety than ever before in your local retail outlets uh there's more of a or less of a fear of buying wines online and there's a wide variety of wines available online so yeah i think if you don't live within the jewish community like i said you can try the online aspect but even in rural areas uh our wines are available at least in the types of numbers as they were before the pandemic and probably more so now jay you touched on this earlier and our hearts go out to all those in the restaurant industry what is their prediction of when that will come back and will it look the same as as it was in in late 2019 early 2020 what's your take on on on on on that great industry well i'll give you um uh i'll give you an anecdotal answer a couple of anecdotal answers i just had dinner a couple weeks ago in a place called oak and ember in florida okay wonderful guy seth forshaw is has now running four restaurants in that one little spot um and even though it was social distanced every social distance table was taken and that's same true for his restaurant in teaneck there are so many other restaurants every time i've gone wall street grilled um you know and i know i'm gonna get into trouble because i mentioned some and not others but those are the only ones i could be anecdotal about uh oh oh um no way due carne you know people are dying i wouldn't you know it's maybe a wrong term but they're really interested in getting back into the swing of things and enjoying a night out and um yeah i think i think you're gonna see it slowly get back to normal and when it does finally open up um it's gonna be great it's gonna be great my guest is none other than jay book spam executive vice president of marketing and wine education director at royal wine corporation thank you jay it's a week before pesach i don't know how you squeezed us in but thank you you're welcome my pleasure um here's an interesting one i i you know during the pandemic and the way industries shut down or froze or had has there been any new movement new products that have actually been able to come or has that all just you know got stuck because of the pandemic i think i think uh actually for us anyway and maybe we're the outlier i'm not sure but for us new products have been always been first of all consumers are always looking for something new especially wine consumers it's not like the coca-cola drinker or the or the um um uh orange juice uh where's the tropicana drinker he only wants his tropicana he only wants his coke he only wants his pepsi uh he only wants his i don't know whatever uh heinz ketchup so they're not experimenting with ketchups they're not experimenting with orange juice but wine drinkers are always experimenting and they're always walking into the retailer and saying what do you got new this year what else can you give me come on i tried that last year give me something fresh it was wonderful what do you got like that so you know we're always expanding and looking for new products we have some new uh pleos from italy is one example of sangiovese which is really wonderful from argentina we have the sephorno wines from a really beautiful little boutique winery that makes really great wine at a really good value we have all those cans from j folk which is from south africa and bartoneuro which is of course from italy cans which really weren't big a year ago and now now we had it it just started last passover but now we have a rose that wasn't available last passover scott or jose in a can we have a whole series of new roses talking about regular still bottled roses i'm gonna actually ah this is great by the way those that are watching this on youtube you get a treat nice rose nice chateau rubin grand cru uh crew crew clase so yes the answer is is that we're always new israeli boutiques you know so there's always there's always wines that we're looking for and that we're looking at we taste and go through on average every three weeks between 15 and 25 new wines and we turn down most of them and about three or four survive and we bring them in so yeah there's always new stuff going on so you're checking out over i mean many hundreds nearly 300 250 to 300 new new tastes a year yeah we're doing at least at least two to three hundred a year of new wines at least that not all of them make the cut but yes we taste them and and try to bring them and you know see the winning ones right what are um before we move on what are some other trends that you're noticing in the as a general question in the kosher wine industry we we've set a bunch of these things in the course of this interview but the two the two biggest trends the three biggest trends is number one everybody wants something new everybody wants something new all the time number two there's a much bigger move towards online buying and by the way online buying doesn't mean to some big mondo online portal it means even your local retailer your local kosher retailer whether it be in lakewood or bar park or flatbush or you know southern california you know la or you know chicago or detroit uh your local retailer now has the ability and does is is getting much better at you know shipping your wines locally so that's that's the second and that's a great point because that also then you could support your local local establishment and if i'm not mistaken that in some states the laws had to change because you weren't allowed to at some time ago and then they they had to naturally shift that during the pandemic right right yeah so so those those are two of the trends specifically there's an interest in uh ever expanding more wines from uh israel specifically mediterranean based varieties so not cabernet not even though they love the cabernets they love their chardonnays but they're looking for more like grenache and syrah and and you know mediterranean grape varieties that grow best there and there's also an interest in so much upscale wines especially from europe and especially from france so those are some of the trends now corporate gifting we know that a bottle of wine is like you can never go wrong with a bottle of wine i mean that's like just one of the uh just the the most popular gifts in the uh and for corporate gifting um are there any specific recommendations for people still that like oh man i still have to get my gift out pesach is around the corner uh or for this time of year what are your tips for corporate gifts well i mean you can never go wrong with uh it actually has been a a slow down it's still you're right it's still a big item but there's been a slowdown in that because of the concerns of alcohol you know et cetera et cetera giving out alcohol especially for those people who won't dr who don't or won't drink but if you want to be safe you can always go with a herzog wine from the lineage or reserve if you you know if you want to go a little bit higher in the reserves lineage is a little bit less baron herzog is even less than that uh but always and whether you have jewish employees or non-jewish employees barton or moscato is everybody's favorite everybody's so you can either give them the moscato itself or you can give them the sparkling rose which is a little bit more expensive but much more festive and comes in that you know champagne type of cork it's not a champagne because it comes from italy it doesn't come from france but you know those are those are some of my suggestions for safe and wonderful wine gifts and by the way they're also safe and wonderful wine gifts for if you're invited to a seder bring them to a seder and by the way and you know check with your local rabbi but i've been told that yes it is preferred to have red wine but if you don't like red wine or if you have issues with red wine and you prefer white wine that not only is it fine but it is preferred if that's what you know get brings more simcha more joy to your seder meal by the way you touched on this a few moments ago i'm wondering how many people confuse when you talk about and they'll refer to it as a champagne even though it comes from italy how many people trip up on that oh lots of people and everybody thinks that if it comes in a champagne bottle it must be champagne but champagne is actually and here's here's the simple way to remember this champagne is a place right it's a place in france it's called champagne france only wines that are that come from that place in france that are made with only three grapes uh pinot noir chardonnay and pinot monye can be called champagne has to come from that place it has to be made with that with those grapes and it has to be aged for a certain minimum period but anything else that's sparkling can be sparkling but it cannot be called champagne fascinating um you i mean at the beginning of the show you confess that you are just a grape juice drinker what's your advice for a new drinker someone who wants to develop a palette what's your advice how should they get started oh gosh you know you'll appreciate this kind of thing i go to i well in the days when you know i could do it in front of 100 people i would do 100 people tasting and i would say to people you know people would ask me the question i always at the end i would give people the opportunity to ask me a question and they would always say one of the questions would always be jay how is it that you can tell the difference we need into all these wines how is that possible and then as a good jewish person i am i would ask them rhetorically how many people here know the difference between coca-cola and shoprite cola and everybody's hand you know half the place or how many people here would know that between you know wall downs wall bounds uh wall bounce orange juice and tropicana and everybody would rate you know and i'd say why is that and they'd say because we drink a lot of tropicana we drink a lot of coca-cola so my advice to people who want to learn how to taste and enjoy wine experiment don't be afraid go out there you don't you don't like dry wines start with roses or start with semi-dries like barringers like chenin blanc or um or some of the roses that are off dry uh and you know and and i would just say keep tasting keep tasting keep tasting it's kind of like the first time as a kid you tasted mustard you went oh god that's terrible but over time right you learn to enjoy it so you acquire taste the only way to acquire that taste is by experimenting and continuing to experiment jay a lot of time flies but before i let you go uh perhaps you could share we since we joined on 710 wor one of the treats that we have for the audience is that we turn to each guest and we say either based on both of your initials or one of your initials i'm looking at your shirt there you have the jb right there by the pocket um perhaps you could share a tip either j b both um yes yeah i i you put me on the spot but you know what i've gotta i've gotta really i think especially in this time the letter j for me represents just keep going you know a lot of people during this pandemic or some might you know crawl up into a ball and you know retreat from life uh retreat from work retreat from business retreat from you know the people you love and the things that you love but we've learned fortunately through electronic media etc etc that you can just keep going and just keep going is my message that jay just keep going and let me tell you if you can just keep going during these times man when things open up man you'll be like a rocket so you know my wish to everybody there is to be healthy stay healthy be careful uh you know be sensitive to other people uh you know who's whose sensitivities are in in this area and just keep going however you can thank you for watching and make sure to subscribe to this channel and be notified every single time a new video goes live don't miss out on any of the weekly interviews that i have with top business leaders sometimes fortune 500 executives hit subscribe and turn on notifications