I have said this before and I will say it again: Israeli doesn’t equal kosher and kosher doesn’t equal Israeli. That is to say a very simple thing – not all Israeli wines are kosher and not all kosher wines are Israeli.

 Why am I saying this AGAIN (and will keep on saying it)??? Two simple reasons: 

1. This clearly isn’t known for many of my readers. For example, just the other day several visitors found this site via a search for “Flam Kosher Wines.” But the wonderful wines from the Israeli Flam Winery isn’t certified kosher. So why are they searching for Flam + kosher? Why not Flam + Israeli? Totally not the same thing and the result of a SERIOUS misconception. This happens with tons of other wineries too.
2. On the flip side, I’ve also gotten searches for “kosher” “Herzog kosher” (whose high end stuff is nice, but it’s from California!) or other “kosher” but NOT Israeli wine. There is great (and not-so-great) kosher wine from California, Italy, Argentina, Chile, France, and many more places as well as Israeli (although due to the mevushal process, I would suggest that those Israeli producers making kosher wines are better because – among other reasons – far less Israeli kosher wines are mevushal than from other countries).

What makes a wine kosher:

1. Handling only by observant Jews. This has NO impact on the production process and is the main difference between kosher and non-kosher wines around the world. This is also the primary (but not only reason) that many Israeli wines are NOT certified kosher, as the winemakers are not Sabbath-observant and so they don’t want to hire others to handle the wine for them.
2. No non-kosher ingredients. For example, some French wines were (I don’t know if this is the case anymore) fined using ingredients like ox blood. This is NOT OK and would make a wine NOT KOSHER. This is primary an issue of animal-based and some dairy products, some of which are used in fining (non-kosher) wines.

In Israel there are additional requirements relating to agricultural laws that only apply to the Land of Israel. These requirements do not exist for non-Israeli kosher wines. This is another reason that not all Israeli wines are kosher, although I think the first issue is the bigger reason.

3. A symbolic portion of the production must be poured out as truma and ma’aser, remembrance of agricultural production that had to be given to priests at the time of the First and Second Holy Temple in Jerusalem.
4. Shnat Shmita ­– the Sabbatical year – Every 7 years the land of Israel has to lie fallow. However, there are legal loopholes which almost every winery uses, including a symbolic selling of the land for the year, so while this needs to be done, in practice, most wineries utilize the loophole and continue as usual.

In order to be kosher for Passover (which most, if not all, kosher wines are), none of the five grains (wheat, barley, spelt, rye, and oats) can be utilized in the process. Apparently, this can be an issue with oak barrels, and I was told at Castel that they now orders custom barrels that are sealed with a synthetic sealer instead of a grain derivative.

So, now I expect to see you search for “Israeli” and not “kosher.” But, as you can also see with the above, none of the process harms the wine or would hinder the quality or be any different in terms of the actual wine making process than any non-kosher wine. Kosher doesn’t mean sweet or made from Concord grapes!!!!! The only difference is that some kosher wines are also called mevushal, which means they are flash pasteurized. This is controversial but very few Israeli wines and no high end kosher wines (except HaGafen, but somehow it’s done in a way that doesn’t damage the wine) are mevushal.

L’chaim!