Wines to serve when Moshiach graces your table.
By Elizabeth Kratz
It was our pleasure to taste a very wide array of wines for the Jewish Link Wine Guide 2022, from the most affordable to the most aspirational. While some of the long-awaited tastings were for very high end wines, tasting very expensive wines without the options of giving them the benefit of airing time or any effort toward food pairing, made them more difficult to assess. So while we are recommending 10 wines below, which came in far above our “above $50” price point which we used for rankings, this year we chose not to rank those wines that retailed for over $100.
I also know there are some readers who will be surprised or shocked at the prices of the wines pictured. This is definitely not your father’s Manischewitz! However, bear with me when I share why I think it’s a good thing for the entire kosher marketplace for wines available at every price point.
The fact is, it used to be that you had to spend a lot to get a good bottle of wine. Spending a large amount was one of our only perceived “assurances” of enjoying the bottle. But the rise of wine education and the benefits of many more people tasting a wider variety of wines illustrates that cost is no longer the only way to assess quality. Also, the fact that wines still exist at the very high end even after this education, shows that our market has enthusiastic buyers who continue to purchase these wines year after year.
This illustrates to international wine sellers that the kosher-keeping community cares about quality and continues to be interested in improvement and new offerings. (And, as each person’s wine journey is unique, perhaps these wines will someday enter the consciousness of those who would never expect to pay even $50 a bottle!) Today, the fact that a palette of $23 Ramon Cordova Old Vines Rioja—one of the best wines I’ve ever encountered—sells out in a week is because our kosher wine community has now tasted enough wine to know quality when we see it.
With that said, I invite you to enjoy the following wines for the most special of occasions; that is, wines to serve in your home when Moshiach comes to town. May we greet him soon!
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