With the Jewish holiday Passover starting tonight, this past weekend was filled with questions about what wine to pick up for consumption during the traditional Seder. I’m sure I’ll get my fair share of these questions today as well, as people make their way to their local wine shops to pick up some selections before sundown. I don’t mind answering these queries; in fact, I love when people ask and I get the opportunity to geek out a bit. What I don’t like is how these questions, especially when it comes to kosher wine, are proposed.

What I mean by this is that when someone is asking for a general wine recommendation, it’s commonly proposed in this way: I really want to try a wine from [insert country or appellation], can you give me some good recommendations for [insert price cap] and under?

When a kosher wine is part of the equation, however, the tone often changes from expecting me to supply a worthy recommendation that they will thoroughly enjoy to feeling lucky to get one that’s merely passable. The query usually goes a bit more like this: I have to get a kosher wine for [insert holiday or event], and I know there’s no such thing as a good kosher wine but can you give me a decent recommendation for something I can actually drink a glass of?

Why the hate? I mean, I know that there was a time when kosher wine was little more than sweet, syrupy stuff that very few (I know of one person who LOVES the stuff) chose to drank on non-religious occasions. Especially in the US, where Concord-based kosher wines dominate the market. But that was then… haven’t we evolved past that? Is there really such a lack of understanding or interest in trying new things?

For the sake of education, let me make one thing clear: Kosher wine production is no different than regular wine production. The only distinction that makes a wine kosher versus nonkosher is that the staff involved in handling the wine (from harvesting the grapes through fermentation and bottling) must be observant Jews and that any ingredients used must be kosher. Most wine ingredients are already kosher; no gelatin or isinglass can be used for used for fining, but aside from that it’s pretty much standard across the board.

If a kosher wine has been handled by an idolater (read nonobservant Jew) then the wine will lose its kosher status. To avoid negating a wine’s kosher distinction, many restaurants or event venues frequently serve Mevushal kosher wine. Mevushal wine is a kosher wine that has been quickly cooked or boiled, making it eligible to keep its kosher status even if handled by a nonobservant Jew. But even for these “cooked” wines, the modern use of and recent innovations in flash-pasteurizing have greatly reduced the damage that the heating process traditionally inflicted on these wines, so forget about those raisiny, stewed fruit flavors that you remember experiencing as a child.

The time has come for people to discover that kosher wine can, in fact, be quite good. And very enjoyable.

To start you off on the right foot this Pesach, here’s a link to our online Buying Guide showing kosher wine reviews from the April 2011 issue. Of course, there are many more kosher wine reviews available in the Buying Guide, so feel free to check them all out with a new search while you’re there.

We should all try to stop treating kosher wine like one of the plagues, and start enjoying the rediscovery of just how good they can be.

So, what will you be serving tonight? I’d love to hear about your new kosher wine adventures.

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