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Choosing the Best Kosher Wines

You Think Keeping Kosher Means You Have to Forgo Fine Wines? Think Again.

Did you know that kosher no longer means just heavy, sweet wines? Kosher wines have come a very long way. There's no reason anyone should feel left out of the world of fine wine because they keep kosher.

What Makes a Wine Kosher?

It's a complex subject.

It starts with special treatment and attention to cleanliness. Rabbi's or their assistants supervise the wine's production from crush to bottling. Experts say that wines labeled "kosher for Passover" are made with special enzymes and yeasts and fining agents - not animal byproducts, like gelatin, for example - that clarify the wine. Often their front labels will sport an "O" with a "U" inside with a "P" near it. This, is the stamp of approval of the largest kosher certification body in the world and basically means there's no need to read the label further to learn that the wine is kosher for Passover.

Some wines are both kosher for Passover and mevushal. Baron Herzog states that its wines and other kosher wines go through this added step. Sometimes it's listed on the label. "A mevushal wine," Herzog's representative said, "is one that can be handled by the general public, like a non-Jewish waiter, and still remain kosher." What that does not go through this mevushal process must be served by observant Jews to retain its kosher status.

Basically, Herzog told us, a mevushal wine is heated in seconds by flash pasteurization, with the temperature brought down quickly so as not to harm the wine. Some wineries do this to the unfermented white and blush juice; others do it with reds after fermentation. This added step, the Herzog people said, not only doesn't harm the wine, but "enhances its aromatics and complexities" while "stabilizing the color and tannins."

Also keep in mind that you can find just about any kind of kosher wine you're looking for - Italian whites, French reds, Israeli sparklers, California dessert wines.

Here's some advice: Have some fun with this. There are enough kosher wines out there to have a tasting of your own. Buy two or three wines of a certain type right now, put them in numbered paper bags and taste them. You'll know which you like best and that will be the wine for your Passover dinner. As always, the wine that tastes best to you will be the best wine.