Kosher wine explodes beyond the super-sweet

As if there's not enough to think about when planning a Passover celebration, there's the question of what to drink.

It has to be kosher.

It has to be good.

And it would be nice to stash a few bottles aside for drinking later in the year.

Until recently, this was a tall order for wine. "Before 1980, the only kosher wines were sweet, sacramental wines," says Aron Ritter, president of the Kosher Wine Society. "But there has been an explosion in the kosher wine world. Excellent kosher wine is being produced all over." And it's not just for Passover.

What was once the Concord-grape sinecure of Manischewitz and other, smaller American and Israeli winemakers has become one of the wine industry's fastest growing segments. Spain, France, Chile and Australia are in on the act, producing kosher wines using grapes from chardonnay to granache.

More and more wine shops carry a variety of kosher wines, often separating them into a special section. Online retailer Kosher Wine (kosherwine.com) has hundreds of bottles for sale, from nearly every major wine-growing region in the world.

What makes a wine kosher, in the strictest sense, is this: It must be produced, from beginning to end (from seed to sip, as it were) by Sabbath-observant Jews. If any other hands touch the product, it's no longer kosher.

There are limited workarounds. For example, heating the wine to 194 degrees makes it meshuval, or unfit for use by non-Jews, thereby maintaining its usability on the kosher table. This process (as with any kosher food production) must be overseen by a mashgiach, who keeps an eye on the process to ensure the rules are followed correctly. According to Ben Weinberg, editor of the Unfiltered and Unfined newsletter, the flavor of meshuval wine might suffer from the heat, depending on your taste buds. "Better or worse? In the eye of the beholder. (Some) would consider it a flaw."