An Inside Tour Of Herzog Wine Cellars in California

The Jewish people have a special relationship to wine that predates even the Romans and Greeks. For the ancient Jews, whose temple in Jerusalem was renowned throughout the fledgling civilizations of the Middle East, wine played an important role in religious ritual. Today, thousands of years later, it continues to do so. Kiddush, the prayer over the wine, traditionally announces the beginning of the Sabbath on Friday night as well as other holidays.

And so it should come as no surprise that the Herzog family has been making wine for a long time. They trace their winemaking origins back to Philip Herzog, who made wine in Slovakia for the Austro-Hungarian court more than a century ago. Philip’s wines were so appreciated by Emperor Franz-Josef, that the emperor made Philip a baron. The Baron Herzog wines—a line of premium yet moderately priced California varietals—are named to commemorate the honor.

Eugene brought the family to America in 1948 after the Holocaust.  He arrived in New York City with his wife, Sidonia, six of his own children and two additional war orphans. They moved to the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn with only enough money to rent a two-bedroom tenement flat. With his winemaking skills, Eugene found a job at a small kosher winery tucked away into a storefront on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. For a paltry salary, he made sweet, Concord-grape wines in the cellar. (European grape varieties for dry wines were not easy to obtain in post World War II New York.) He also drove the wine delivery truck. But because the company was so poor, he was paid for his driving acumen in company shares, not cash.

For years the shares were worthless, but by 1958, all the other shareholders had given up their shares. They assumed the business was doomed to failure. Eugene and his sons, who all went to work at the winery, proved them wrong. They called their new venture Royal Wines, in deference to their grandfather, Philip.

In 1985, the Herzog family decided to expand their winemaking operations to California, where they make wine under two separate labels: Baron Herzog and Herzog Wine Cellars. After twenty years of renting space in various wineries, the family was finally able to build its own state-of-the-art winery just south of Santa Barbara, in the town of Oxnard. Here, under the supervision of head winemaker Joe Hurliman, Herzog Wine Cellars has created a center for high-end contemporary winemaking in a tradition that dates back nearly six centuries.

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