Morris Herzog is not a household name, but he and his extended family have revolutionised the kosher wine market.
"Wine is in my DNA," jokes Herzog, who was born and bred in America, where his family own and run kosher wine giant, the Royal Wine Corporation - he is responsible for Royal Wine Europe and Kedem Europe. "In our family we have a joke that if we had to have a blood test, wine would come out of our veins." The Herzogs' wine pedigree goes back hundreds of years. Morris Herzog's great grandfather, Baron Philip Herzog, made wine for Emperor Franz-Joseph's Austro-Hungarian court. The Emperor was such a fan, that Herzog was made a baron. At the same time, Herzog was making kosher versions of those wines for his fellow Jews.
The Herzog family continued making wine in eastern Europe for the next 100 years, surviving World War Two by using smuggled profits from the wine-making business to pay families to hide them. After the war they reclaimed the winery, but eventually fled the Communists.
"In 1948, his son, my grandfather, Eugene, brought his entire family to the United States," explains Herzog. With him, Eugene took his wife, Sidonia, and eight children; six of his own and two war orphans. They had only enough money to rent a two-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn.
"He was an older man by then and found it hard to start from scratch, finding work making sweet wine for the newly formed Royal Wine company," explains Herzog. In the afternoons, he drove the delivery truck. The company could not afford to pay him for the extra driving, so gave him shares. Within 10 years, all the other shareholders had sold out, unconvinced the company would make it and Eugene took over the business.
Eugene and his son Ernest (Morris's father) decided the business had potential, and invested all of his money: "My father even included a dowry from his in-laws. He had four sons and in the early 1950s, he brought them all into the business - they had a tremendous work ethic, putting in long hours."
The family started building wineries in New York state in 1954. All Eugene's sons worked in the plant, bottling, labelling, putting caps on the bottles.
"In 1959, Kedem started making its first kosher grape juice, which gave the company the funds to invest, and in the 1960s the family started making wines from grapes grown in NY state. Once they realised that the Jews had a more sophisticated palate, they started importing European wines." A decade later they opened their first kosher winery - in California - and also started producing higher-end wines in France: "In 1986 we produced the first Baron Edmund de Rothschild - a high-end Medoc."
Herzog's own love affair with wine began young. "My father, Ernest, died in 1990 at 56 years old when I was only 12. My siblings were at least 10 years older than me and I had spent a lot of time with my father visiting our wineries in upstate New York and whenever I could I'd go up and visit."
After his barmitzvah he attended yeshivah in Lucerne until he was 19 and for a further three years in Israel, part-time. "I was at yeshivah in Israel part-time and the rest of the time I learnt about the different styles of wine. The 1990s was the start of the Israeli wine revolution. After three or four years there, I married my wife, Suzanne, and we moved to New York, so that I could start in the company."
There were no free rides for family, and he had to learn the ropes. "I spent a year travelling between New York and California - 10 days at a time in California then flying back to see my wife. Then a position came up in the UK, and as my wife was English, I took it." The travelling didn't stop as there were 30 wineries across France producing kosher wine - from low-end table wine, up to top-class fine wines.
"France has the biggest Jewish community, and the French drink more than the English, so it is our biggest market. I was working on production as well as growing sales."
All the Herzog family are devout, praying three times a day: "In the winter, we have mincha prayer sessions at our Stamford Hill warehouse, as the days are too short for staff to go to pray and come back again," he explains. The passion he and his family have for their product is evident: "I absolutely love my job. Most enjoyable are the challenges, which in wine are constant - like getting production right. A premium wine takes three to four years to produce, so you need to predict and plan ahead, so you don't run out. If you do run out of a wine, it diminishes the value."
French premium wines are, according to Herzog, having a bit of a comeback. "We saw that coming in 2010/11 so we have plenty," he smiles. "French wines age best - many can take 20 to 25 years to reach their best, and only in the past couple of years are some of the premium wines at their best."
Educating the Jewish public in good wine is a major part of what Herzog and his family have seen as their role. "We do tastings in solicitors and accountancy firms and in kosher wine shops so people can appreciate that we have great wines that happen to be kosher."
Eleven years ago, Herzog co-founded, with kosher caterer Arieh Wagner, the Kedem Food and Wine Experience - a wine tasting, Jewish style, with full buffet - to showcase his wines and spirits. In its first year in a hotel boardroom, 50 people attended. It now attracts around 800 and fills the hotel's ballroom.
The Herzogs recognise that the kosher market is niche. "We're looking at crossover wines - that happen to be kosher but are not just targeting the kosher consumer. Bartenura Moscato for instance, is an Italian low-alcohol sweet wine generally drunk by younger drinkers and women; or our Goose Bay brand, which is a premium New Zealand wine. They both sell in their thousands to non-kosher consumers."
The proud Herzog family traditions are set to continue for generations to come. "We want to make sure Jewish people have wines to celebrate Shabbat. When we celebrate God creating the world in six days, we take pride in their doing it with a cup of our wine."
Tickets for the Kosher Food and Wine Experience on February 16 at the Sheraton Park Lane Hotel, can be purchased from www.kfwelondon.com
