KOSHER WINERY

Jewish dietary laws require that wine be produced in a particular way which gives it its kosher status. For many thousands of years now, Israel has grown wine and there is mention of the wine harvest of Israel in the bible too. The modern Israeli kosher winery and wine industry was formed by the Baron de Rothschild.

The 1800s saw the setting up of the first kosher winery of Israel called the Carmel Mizrahi and by the turn of the century the first wine to win a medal was produced by Carmel. This also brought about the Golan Heights kosher winery which was responsible for bringing in state-of the art technology in winemaking to Israel.

The Torah is very strict about drinking wines that are mainly used for idolatry purposes and there are also strict rabbinical restrictions where drinking unsupervised grape wine is not permitted. So a kosher winery had to ensure that its wine production met all kosher supervision standards and even today, the production of kosher wine at any kosher winery is a tedious, sensitive and a fairly difficult process.

At the kosher winery every step of the wine making requires supervision by observant Jews. From the crushing of the grapes to the fermentation process and the standardization followed by a tasting sample for quality control, every step is required to be supervised by Jews only. This is the primary reason why a kosher winery must have a qualified Mashgichim crew while crushing is in progress and another crew to ensure the standardization process is done as per regulations.

To avoid Hamshacah problems (Hamshacah involves the separation of the grape’s juice from the skin of the grape), most wines are pasteurized at an initial stage of production. Cooked wines don’t ferment naturally so externally sourced wine enzymes need to be introduced and these wine enzymes must be from kosher wines only.

Most kosher wineries in the US use this method of fermentation and at the kosher winery in California for red wines the pasteurizations is done after fermentation and clarification. At the Kosher wineries in New York, all the workers are Jewish so the wines are fermented naturally. Post fermentation, the wine is matured in storage casks to allow the flavor and fragrance to develop.

Some of the best kosher wines come from the kosher winery called Dalton winery. This is located in Israel in the Upper Galilee. Some of the wines coming out of this kosher winery are the Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Merlot and the Sauvignon Blanc.

Israel is not known for its wines but in the Judean hills lies one of Israel’s best kept secrets i.e. the world class kosher winery of Domaine du Castel. This kosher winery was founded in 1988 by Eli Ben-Zaken. This is small business run by the family and it is known for some of the best kosher wines in the world. The kosher winery produces wine in the same hills where in biblical times wine was produced.

Today there are over 150 kosher wineries where excellent quality wine is produced in Israel itself.