‘Let’s Tell the Truth about Kosher Wine’ Gabriel Geller visits to reveal his favorite wines for Passover
‘Let’s Tell the Truth about Kosher Wine’ Gabriel Geller visits to reveal his favorite wines for Passover.
Passover is almost here, starting on April 5. Today we are talking with wine reviewer and Kosher.com expert Gabriel Geller about the truth of Kosher wine.
And well… A lot of people are mis-informed. We have Gabriel to make it all easier.
Passover is coming up. So what is wine’s role in Passover?
Wow! So of course you know, it really depends who you are talking to.
If you talk to the more Orthodox Jews, they’re gonna say they want wine that comes from Israel. Something that’s affordable, and that’s easy to drink, and that’s red.
The rest of us have the custom that, specifically, for Passover there’s the 4 cups of wine at night.
They want a red wine and they want something that’s easy to drink, because there are 4 cups that you have to drink during that meal. They want something that they can drink easily and quickly. So something that’s not too tannic or acidic, something that’s really not too expensive, because they need a lot of it. They’re gonna have a lot of friends.
Then we can talk to people who are not as strictly observant.
They’re just looking for good wine. They know that they need to have 4 cups of wine for the seder, so some will say “let’s try 4 different wines, any type.” Others will say “Well, maybe let’s have a wine that will pair well with what I’m going to serve as the meal.”
And so you’re gonna have a really wide variety of requests from different people. So I usually try to address every segment of the market.
Let’s talk about Kosher wine. What’s difference between Kosher wine and other wines?
Okay. So for that I’m going to pick up this bottle [he holds a Drappier Champagne]. This is a very nice bottle of champagne. If you look at the front label and at the back label. Now you go into a wine store that you know sells a pretty good champagne, whether you’re looking for the kosher version of it or not.
You’re not going to see any difference between the two [bottles], except for this little symbol here, which means orthodox.
You need the name of the Kosher agency that certifies that.
That’s why this is kosher.
There’s the kosher version and non-kosher version. The difference between the two [bottles], besides the symbol on the label is the fact that from the moment the grapes are crushed coming from the vineyard, to when the wine is sealed, and all that it’s set up to serve, and Jews who handle the hands on the process.
Everything else is exactly the same.
The fermentation, the acidity, the secondary fermentation; and that goes for every single kosher wine. The only difference in terms of process and ingredients. The process itself has to be done by observant jews and that’s that’s pretty much it.
Of course the ingredients should be kosher, but that’s usually the case. You know there’s some fining agents that sometimes can be non-kosher. That’s very rare. I would say that 95%, maybe even more, of all wine produced in the world do not have any non kosher ingredients. It’s really about who handles the process.
Gabriel’s choice: Carmel Volcano Merlot 2020
Shop more of Gabriel Geller’s wine advice here.
