Passover starts next week and with the holiday come memories of children searching for Matzoh, grandparents carefully setting a place for Elijah and adults of all ages choking down four ceremonial glasses of semi-sweet kosher red.
Over the last decade, the quality of kosher wine has drastically improved. Great Kosher wines are being made all over the world, which gives the observant wine drinker something to look forward to this Passover.
“There are many myths about what makes a wine kosher,” explains Kobi Zarkan of Royal Wine Merchants, the country’s leading importer of kosher wines. “The winemaking process of kosher wine is no different from that of non-kosher wine. The only real difference is the fact that from the moment the grapes are crushed to the moment the wine is bottled, it is only handled by Sabbath observant Jews.”
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Some Orthodox Jews take this a step further, believing that kosher wine can’t even be handled or served by non-Jews, even after it is bottled. This extremely observant group generally drinks “Mevushal” wine. Literally meaning “cooked,” these wines were once boiled but are now simply flash-pasteurized, a process that is much less harmful to the final product. Zarkan points out, there are non-kosher wineries that flash pasteurize as well. Tomas Perrin of Chateau Beaucastel, one of the top estates in France, flash pasteurizes his wines, which are not kosher, because he believes it helps extract delicate aromas from his reds.
Most quality kosher wines, and all of those distributed by Royal Wine Merchants, qualify as “Kosher for Passover.” This simply means that no yeast raised on bread can be used in the fermentation process and certain preservatives are strictly forbidden.
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One myth that must be dispelled is that kosher wines are inferior to non-kosher wines. It is true that for most of its history, kosher wine tended to be a little lighter in color and body than its non-kosher counterparts. A fermenting wine must be worked daily, especially early in the process when body and color are extracted. By definition, the observant Jews that make kosher wine are not allowed to work on it during the Sabbath and, if left unattended, the quality of the final product will suffer.
However, technology has improved kosher wine because many important winemaking activities, once ignored on the Sabbath, can be mechanized and set on timers before the sun sets on Friday night. The inactivity of kosher winemakers during the Sabbath now has little to no effect on their wines.
Another myth that has hurt the reputation of kosher wines is that they are all sweet. As American wine drinkers become more sophisticated, they are shying away from sweet wines like Manischewitz that have traditionally dominated Passover Seders. "There's no injunction in the Talmud (the ancient text that defines kosher living) that says kosher wine has to be sweet," explains wine writer Tony Aspler. As demand grows, dry Kosher wines are becoming easier and easier to find in high quality wine stores - including Amanti Vino in Montclair.
Here are my picks for some great kosher wines that will enhance any Seder:
Weinstock California Chardonnay 2009, $9.99
Barkan Merlot/Argaman Blend 2009, $12.99
Baron Herzog California Zinfandel 2009, $14.99
Red “C” Napa Valley Cabernet 2007, $47.99
Will Sugerman is the General Manager of Amanti Vino located at 30 Church St. in Montclair and a certified educator with the Wine & Spirits Education Trust, the world’s leading wine education provider.
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