I was struck today (again) by the fact that none of us fully understands all that goes into creating a bottle of wine and then getting it from (in my case ) Israel onto your kitchen counter or into a restaurant.

This morning, I learned the details of the actual vessel that will be transporting my wine order of 500 cases of wine from Israel into the US leaving Haifa in a couple weeks. That’s her above! (not sure when we started referring to boats as “her” but I like it!)

I just did a simple Google Image search of the vessel name and found all sorts of fun images and videos.

Seeing her makes this all feel more REAL, don’t you think?

I have a re-confirmed sense of all the hard work (and room for nightmare) that goes into importing these wines for you.

Or bringing to market any goods like this, really. I mean, none of us have even a clue as to what it takes to get food to market!

So much can go wrong but somehow (thank God) mostly doesn’t.

And I work hard to ensure it doesn’t as best I can. I ONLY ship wines, for instance, in temperature-controlled containers from winery to warehouse. We call these “reefers” and shipping this way adds THOUSANDS of dollars of expense for me to each order but it’s the only way I can protect the wine from the elements. That’s important to me since I literally have my name on the back of these bottles now. And I want that to mean something.

I’m sure the carbon foot print of all this can’t be good. But “green” is not the only criteria some of us have for running our businesses.

Anyway, I wanted you to see this. And now maybe you’ll have a little more insight into what it takes to get you this juice.

A lot of people I will never meet, who probably don’t even realize (or care) they are carrying the best Israeli wine work together to make this all happen.

The ship should arrive in Oakland (it passes through the Panama Canal!) about 40 days after it leaves Haifa. Let’s all pray for calm seas and a safe ride for the wine and (more importantly) for the crew of the Alkin Kalkavan.

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