Kosher can taste great

KELLEY KORBIN

According to Israeli wine critic Jonathan Livny, Israeli wineries are trying to get away from their kosher image. That's because the idea of kosher wines usually conjures up an image of the extra sweet sacramental wine that may have graced your grandmother's table.

But, despite the fact that Jewish tradition encourages ritual drinking – think of the four cups you drank during the Passover seder – there is nothing in the laws of kashrut that says the wine has to be sweet, red or bad-tasting. In fact, being kosher does not affect the taste of the wine at all.

What exactly does make a wine kosher? It requires Sabbath-observant Jews to be responsible for all parts of the process – from picking the fruit to crushing the grapes to pouring the wine at the table. The practice comes from ancient times, when rabbis wanted to avoid having Jews inadvertently use wine that their pagan neighbors may have intended as offerings to their idols.

Grape vines must be at least four years old for their fruit to be used for kosher wine and the fields must be left fallow every seven years.

In the winery itself, all the equipment and tools must be kosher and, again, only Sabbath-observant Jews are allowed to use them. Of course, only certified kosher products can be used in the production process and no animal products may be used (some non-kosher wineries sometimes use gelatin or egg whites to clarify the wine). Furthermore, no artificial coloring or preservatives may be added.

Once the wine is ready, one per cent must be discarded as a symbolic gesture reflecting the 10 per cent tithe paid to the Temple in Jerusalem. Finally, the wine must be poured out of the bottle by a Sabbath-observant Jew to complete the process.

However, because it is not always practical to have an observant Jew serving wine, there is another category of kosher wine called mevushal wine, which can be served by a non-Jew. To be mevushal, wine must be brought to a very high temperature for a short period. Local wine importer Norman Gladstone said that modern flash pasteurizing methods make it fairly easy for producers to create mevushal wine without sacrificing quality. This process is sometimes even used by non-kosher wineries in their wine production because some experts believe it enhances the flavor and quality of wines. However, other experts disagree – citing the fact that the high temperature destroys the bacteria that is crucial to the proper aging of wine.

The sweet kosher wine we remember is created using acidic grapes that require a lot of sugar. Today, the range of grapes available to kosher wineries has expanded significantly to include most well-known varietals like cabernet sauvignon, merlot and sauvignon blanc grapes. Accordingly, the quality of the wines has improved vastly and vintners around the world are now producing excellent kosher wines.

In Israel, where many of the wines produced are not kosher, Livny said, "We are trying to get away from the notion that associates Israel with kosher wines, instead of associating Israel with quality wines.... Israeli wines might be kosher or might not be kosher, the issue is not whether they're kosher or not, the issue is that they are excellent wines, on par with the best wines in the world."

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