Kosher Wines

Traditional
kosher wine in the United States has been most often based
upon Concord grapes grown in New York State, sweetened after
fermentation (now often with less expensive corn syrup most
of the year, but with cane sugar for Passover wines, because
grains are not considered kosher for Passover by most
observant Jews in America). Grape concentrate may be used in
addition to or instead of fresh grapes. Because it is so
special, almost holy, wine is subject to stricter rules than
other food and drink. Unless “mevushal” (literally,
“cooked”), it may not be handled by other than observant
Jews from the time the grape skins are breached. Once
“cooked” or “boiled”, the must and wine may be handled by
anyone. In modern practice, the “mevushal” process is flash
pasteurization to between 168 and 19O degrees F, depending
upon the certifying authority. This requirement goes back to
avoidance of wine that might be used as sacrifice in idol
worship: if already cooked or burnt, the wine would have
thereby become disqualified to be a burnt offering. There
are also a few restrictions of which materials may be added,
for example, which fining agents are allowed in kosher
wines.

Only in the Holy
Land must, according to some, the vineyards be allowed to
lie fallow one in seven years, perhaps analogous to resting
on the Sabbath.

Most producers
make a number of wines. The traditional ones are generally
more or less sweet, usually red, although there are all
sorts of variations. Once, home and neighborhood winemakers
predominated, with lesser or greater success. The plentitude
of commercial producers (I recall, for example, Mother
Goldstein wines) that followed has contracted to a few. Some
have been acquired by large conglomerates. The wines are
inexpensive, and occupy a small special niche, which has
been subject to some derision, in part because of foxiness
and sweetness. Careful tasting, however, reveals that many
of the wines are worthy possessors of fruit purity and
satisfying vinosity. If one is not enchanted by the style,
so be it. For modern tastes, there is now available a wide
array of kosher wines indistinguishable from standard types
– from California and elsewhere in the US, Canada, France,
including Bordeaux, Burgundy and Champagne, Spain, Portugal,
Italy, Hungary, Republic of Georgia, Israel, South Africa,
Australia, Argentina, Chile, and no doubt beyond. Kosher
Sake is brewed in Berkeley.

Shapiros’ House
of Kosher Wine was founded in 1899 by Sam Schapiro, an
immigrant from Polish Galicia, as an adjunct to his little
restaurant on Attorney Street, on the lower east side of
Manhattan. The wine was a success, the food was not, so in
19O3 Schapiro abandoned the eatery and established a winery
nearby on Rivington Street, where it thrived for much of the
last century. The winery, which moved to Monticello, New
York in 2OO2, maintains long-term contracts with growers
near Marlboro, New York, in the Hudson Valley. Schapiro’s
has always used fresh grapes exclusively – Concord, Catawba,
Niagara, Ives – for the 22 wines made. Armon is the division
suitable for the ultraorthodox. The firm has an impeccable
reputation for quality and kashrut (kosherness). Norman
Schapiro, Sam’s grandson, now runs the company, which,
despite tries at both importing and exporting wines, seems
less vigorous than it had been. He continues to promote his
wines in a retail stall at the Essex Street Market, around
the corner from the Rivington Street site, perhaps now out
of place amidst predominantly Hispanic colleagues and
customers. Norman had hoped that one or more of his three
sons would follow him in the wine trade, but each pursues
another profession. He still has hopes for a successor from
among his grandchildren. The Schapiros have conceived
slogans that remain etched in memory: “Passover comes but
once a year. Schapiro’s goes on forever”, a twinkly-eyed
rabbinical-type enthuses, “Such a wine!”; “Imported from
Rivington Street, New York City”, “C’est bon”, “C’est
kosher” and most famously, “So thick, you can almost cut it
with a knife.”

The well-known
Mogen David Wine Company was founded in Chicago in 1933, as
Prohibition ended, by the Cohen and Marcus families. It was
acquired during the 196Os by a private entrepreneur, who
soon sold out to Coca Cola of New York, part of that
company’s ill-fated venture into the wine trade. (A trade
tale, which I could not trace, has it that one of the first
two sales of the Mogen David Company followed a family
squabble over an advertisement suggesting the pairing of the
wine with Easter ham.) In 1981, the Coca Cola wine
appendages, including Mogen David, split off and grew into
what is now known as The Wine Group, a very large, closely
held, private California company that keeps its own counsel.
The Mogen David winery in Westfield, New York, on the shore
of Lake Erie, produces Concord, blackberry and cherry wines.
Grapes are supplied from vineyards near the lake in New York
and Pennsylvania. The wines are distributed throughout the
world.

The Manischewitz
Wine Company was never operated by the Manischewitz family.
In 1935, Leo Starr and Meyer Robinson, both former employees
of the pre-Prohibition wine company Gafen Industries (of New
York City), now only of misty memory, made a deal with the
respected Manischewitz Matzo Company to use the brand name
for the startup kosher wine enterprise, the Monarch Wine
Company. They were a great success, with a large winery at
the Bush Terminal in Brooklyn. Constellation, the huge
drinks conglomerate that evolved from the Canandaigua Wine
Company, bought Manischewitz in 1986. The winery was moved
to Naples, New York, near Canandaigua Lake, one of the
Finger Lakes, also the source of Manischewitz’s grapes.
Manischewitz’s array of wines, having attracted a large
following, is widely distributed. It may be the most
recognized of those herein discussed. Still remembered is
the advertising slogan, “Man-o-Manischewitz. What a
wine!”

The Royal Wine
Corporation is a great American success story. The Herzog
family, winemakers in Czechoslovakia since 1848, had been
supplier to the Austro-Hungarian emperor, Franz Joseph, who
bestowed a baronage upon Phillip Herzog. After the Nazis
occupied Czechoslovakia and confiscated the winery, the
Herzogs survived World War II in hiding. They moved to the
United States after the Communist takeover in 1948. Eugene
Herzog went to work for the fledgling Royal Wine Corporation
that year, receiving part of his salary in company shares.
The company was at first a retail store in the Lower East
Side, with a tiny winery in the basement. By 1958, Eugene,
now majority stockholder, bought the company, and began
marketing its wines labeled Kedem (refers to the time of the
Garden of Eden). He remained active into the early 199Os.
The Herzog family continues as proprietor. Progressively
outgrowing successive quarters and jettisoning the retail
shop, Royal moved to the Bronx, Long Island City, the
Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, finally, in 2OO1, to its
headquarters-bottling plant-warehouses in Bayonne, New
Jersey. It has a winery in Marlboro, New York, supplied by
vineyards in the state, and facilities for other sorts of
wines in California. It produces and/or markets an amazing
profusion of strictly kosher wines (and grape juice) from
all over the world, including, among numbers of others, new
brands Rashi (after the eleventh-century sage and scholar)
and Kesser (means “crown”). These two lines are generally
light in body and alcohol (often 7 to 9 percent), and
perhaps restrained in their sweetness. Royal makes wines
that are acceptable to the most pious.

Also expansive
in purview, though on a smaller scale, the Abarbanel Wine
Company of Cedarhurst, New York, was established in 1992 by
Howard Abarbanel to produce and import kosher wine. Most,
from sites in both hemispheres, are dry wines of standard
types. Two traditional-style kosher wine brands are imported
from Israel: Streit’s, named for the celebrated matzo
producer, and Don Yitzhak Sacramental, named in honor of an
illustrious ancestor, Don Isaac Abarbanel, a leader of
Spanish Jewry prior to the expulsion of 1492. Most of the
wines in the Abarbanel portfolio are estate bottled and
estate grown.

In preparation
for this article, 27 wines were tasted, of which a few
representatives have been selected for description, as the
conclusion. Reds seem, in general, more successful than
whites or pinks. None is vintage dated. All but one are more
or less sweet. The highest “residual” sugar acknowledged is
17 percent. Surely many are less. Some may be higher. Don’t
forget that the plentiful acid of Concord tends to balance,
even mask, some of the sweetness. Alcohol levels vary
widely, from as low as four percent up to the usual
table-wine concentration of twelve or more. Some of the very
low alcohol wines lack body, are hollow.

A few
descriptive words or phrases appear on labels with some
frequency. These have no legal or technical definitions, but
may suggest stylistic variations. Most indicate generous
sweetness: “specially sweetened”, “yummy sweet”, “lusciously
sweet”, “extra heavy”. “Naturally sweet” may indicate a
lesser degree of sweetness, but likely means nothing
specific. “Malaga” usually means plenty of sugar and perhaps
more body and alcohol, almost certainly never the Spanish
fortified wine of that name. “Cream” may be a sign that the
wine is sweet and of smooth texture, without any harshness
of high alcohol or tannin or acid.

Shapiro’s Extra
Heavy Concord Nice Concord fruit. Very sweet.

Shapiro’s Blanc
de Blancs From Catawba and Niagara. Dry, almost, and tart,
clean, balanced, with long finish. The only wine that isn’t
sweet.

Mogen David
Concord Light in color and body. Has the Concord foxiness,
but not much fruit concentration or finish.

Manischewitz
Cream Red Concord Label asserts it’s “Specially sweetened,
cream-smooth, double blended,” for what those are worth.
Modest color. Forward Concord nose. Sweet and smooth; not
intense of fruit.

Manishewitz
Concord Grape, Specially Sweetened Nose more muted than the
preceding. Deeper fruit, with greater fruit: sugar ratio.
The most satisfying of these three Manischewitz
wines.

Manischewitz
Extra Heavy Malaga, Specially Sweetened Thick and
syrupy.

Kedem Concord,
Extra Heavy, Specially Sweetened Concord character, with
good body, acid balance, and finish.

Rashi Concord,
Extra Heavy Good structure and finish. Has backbone, unusual
among the sweeties.

Don Yitzhak
Sacramental Made in Israel from Carignan at the Noah Winery
in the Judean Hills near Hebron. Dark, sweet, grapy-fruity.
Finish OK. No foxiness. Streit’s Premium Israeli Kiddush
(ceremonial blessing) Wine From Carignan grown in the Judean
Hills. Made at the Jerusalem Winery, which dates to 1858.
Tawny hue. Very sweet and thick – dessert wine.

Sales of the
traditional kosher wines continue steadily at their now
modest level, with bumps before the High Holidays in the
fall and, especially, before Passover in the spring. As
consumption of increasingly available kosher wines of more
modern mien increases, the proportional share of the market
occupied by Concords and the like is decreasing.