Hot Topic - Cool Springs Wines & Spirits

Hot Topic: Kosher Wines

By David Margelin, bostonphoenix.com
Updated March 8, 2010

A good kosher table is not complete without a good wine. It's good for your health and good for your peace of mind.

Kosher wine does not end with Manischewitz. Nowadays, owing to improved technique and increased demand, there are lots of good -- and sometimes better than good -- kosher wines being made...

What, you may wonder, makes wine kosher? Well, it "boils down" -- as you'll see below, that's a pun -- to three laws, easy to explain but rather expensive for winemakers to follow. (These rules are quoted from the Web site of the Royal Wine Corporation, www.kedemwines.com, which makes or imports a number of high-end kosher wines: Baron Herzog in the US, Alfasi from Chile, and Teal Lake from Australia.)

The laws:
1. Equipment used to make the wine must be used exclusively for the production of kosher products.
2. The grapes and wine must be handled, from grape crushing to consumption, only by Sabbath-observing Jews, unless the wine is mevushal (pasteurized).
3. Only certified kosher products (yeast, filtering agents, etc.) can be used.

You can see why these rules are hard for most winemakers to follow. It's costly to have equipment used only for kosher wines -- and to have a rabbi around to certify that the equipment is not used for anything else. (Note: good rabbis do not come cheap.)

But rule two is where things really get juicy. One way for winemakers to make everyday kosher wine is for them essentially to boil it, resulting in the wine known as mevushal. This pasteurization makes it impossible for the wine to lose its kosher status, even if it is touched by non-Jewish hands. Ironically, the practice evolved from an ancient pagan belief that boiled wine was unfit for pagan ceremonies. Jews would therefore boil the wine they produced for their own ceremonies, in order to keep it out of the hands of "idol worshippers."

Pasteurization as a rule isn''t good for wine -- extremes of temperature tend to ruin its flavor -- but, of late, techniques have improved. Some think it is almost impossible to tell the difference between mevushal and non-mevushal wine from the same manufacturer. (For example, Royal Wine's basic red in magnum bottles is non-mevushal, but in 750 ml bottles it is mevushal.)

But mevushal wine is unfit for use in the more observant Jewish temples -- going back to the temple in ancient Jerusalem -- and thus strict Jews want non-mevushal kosher wine to use for Passover and other rituals. So the high road to being kosher, it turns out, is to make wine touched only by Jews, from the vine all the way to the glass. Winemakers who make non-mevushal kosher wines must assemble a Sabbath-keeping Jewish work force to harvest the grapes and make the wine.

As a final twist, "everyday kosher" and "kosher for Passover" are two different things. To be kosher for Passover, wine -- like any food product -- must be free of certain additives, including legumes and corn syrup. This is a problem for the makers of Manischewitz, most of which is sweetened with corn syrup, and also for wineries that use other non-kosher products in their wines. Manischewitz has to make a special kosher-for-Passover wine using a different sweetener. Almost all kosher wines that are not so sweet, however, will be kosher for Passover.

Kosher wines are now being made all over the world, but the selection tends to be limited: hybrids, cabernets, merlots, and Rhône varietals for reds; and chardonnay and some rieslings, along with hybrids, for whites.

You can also find great kosher wine from the Médoc and, of course, Israel. Baron Herzog wines made here in the US have been uniformly good the past few vintages, both the regular and the reserve. You can even find some excellent Italian kosher wines.

As quality increases, kosher wines are not going to be just for Seders and the Sabbath. Many of the wines would be excellent on any occasion -- and you can impress friends by explaining to them what makes a wine kosher. We've come a long way from Manischewitz, baby.

The following Kosher wines are currently in stock at Cool Springs Wines & Spirits.

Teal Lake Shiraz, Australia - 750ml
$15.99

Alfasi Chardonnay, Chile - 750ml
$10.99

Yarden Cabernet, Israel - 750ml
$32.99

Yarden Merlot, Israel - 750ml
$28.99

Yarden Chardonnay, Israel - 750ml
$19.99

Yarden Sauvignon Blanc, Israel - 750ml
$16.99

Golan Moscato, Israel - 750ml
$14.99

Galil Mountain Cabernet, Israel - 750ml
$17.99

Rashi Joyvin Red, Italy - 750ml
$8.99

Cool Springs Wines & Spirits

Hot Topic Archives