[Sca-cooks] Tonight on the Food Network - Biblical Foods

[AEllin Olafs dotter]

According to my college roommate, it was a stylistic choice. They were 
sweet and, I think she implied, slightly fortified for keeping qualities.

Her parents weren't wine drinkers. To them, it was a waste to open a 
bottle of good wine every Friday night - but, her father needed to have 
the wine for the blessing. So they bought a bottle of Manischewitz 
Concord, he poured out about a teaspoon (OK, maybe a tablespoon) for 
ritual purposes, capped the bottle, and put it away. Lasted for 
months...  They would get a new bottle for Passover, it would go a 
while, they'd need one, possibly two  more that year. She said that was 
common among the people she knew, growing up.

By the time I knew her, they were buying decent wine for the seder, and 
for Shabbos if she and her sisters were home, as they did like it. The 
time I visited, they certainly had a nice one, but I think she got it.  
But she'd grown up watching the other, and they still had the bottle for 
when the girls were away.

My wine shop has signs all over the place, especially at this time of 
year, proclaiming the wide variety of Good Kosher Wines. Yes, it is 
perfectly possible! (I live in walking distance of Yeshiva University.   
This is definitely part of the market in my neighborhood. The wine shop 
is next door to the Glatt Kosher butcher...)

AEllin

Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius wrote:

> Also sprach Yehoshua ben Haym:
>
>> The reason that kosher wines tend to be very sweet is that the grapes 
>> were
>> being grown in New York.
>
>
> Uh, I think we need a little more information on this. I'm kind of 
> assuming you're speaking of Concorde grape wines, which are almost 
> invariably sweet, and which are made from grapes frequently grown in 
> New York, but it's perfectly possible (at least in theory) to make a 
> dry wine from Concorde grapes. Certainly yeast strains exist that can 
> handle the sugar load.
>
> I always assumed this was a stylistic choice. Are Kosher wines in 
> Europe and elsewhere generally dry? I thought vintners like 
> Manischewitz are imitating European wines like Malaga and Muscatel. Is 
> it just that these styles are best suited to the Concorde grape? If 
> so, have Kosher wines made in California any different?
>
> Adamantius
> _______________________________________________
>