I remember an episode of Frasier, where he is trying to pass himself off as Jewish and one part of the plan is to serve his guests Jewish wine. As he does not have Jewish wine, Niles just adds a few spoonfuls of sugar to the wine, and voilá, Jewish wine.
Could somebody please explain this to me? Is Jewish wine always very sweet or only used as dessert wine or does it have something to do with it being kosher?
Thanks!
Most American Jews experience of kosher wine is wine made from Concord grapes - such as Mogen David or Manischewitz, usually at Passover. That stuff is way sweet, lots of sugar added, I think originally to cover up the poor quality of the grapes.
Yeah, it’s based on the relative sweetness of Manischewitz, which is the stereotypical kosher wine served at most Sabbath or holiday meals. It’s pretty awful, but these days there are many better options available. Still, Manischewitz Concord Grape is probably the best selling kosher wine in the US.
Many Jewish rituals, including the blessing that observant Jews make at home every Friday night, require that a small amount of wine be sipped. Traditionally, Jews usually used sweetened wine made from Concord grapes, for a variety of reasons:
Sweetened wine can last a very long time after the bottle is opened - a month or two, easily. That means you don’t have to buy a new bottle of wine each week, which is helpful if you’re poor and don’t drink much.
It’s also much cheaper than “real” wine.
Since the children of the family are also expected to sip a bit, sweet line is a bit more palatable (Concord is basically alcoholic grape juice). This also helps with adults who are not oenophiles.
Just my WAG - the wine is traditionally drunk out of metal goblets, and to me at least, regular dry wine tastes wrong when not drunk out of glass. That just might be habit speaking, though.
Thanks, all!
I always thought a Jewish wine was what you got when you bought your wife the second from the top model of any product instead of the top of the line model.
My wife has wined at me for weeks at a time because she wasn’t satisfied with the car I bought her. It wasn’t ritzy enough I think. Well, I don’t succumb to pressure like that. I am not ruled by fear.
Oops. My wife just called for me. Gotta run.
I agree with the above. After I stopped practicing the religion, I used to hold a Seder occasionally because friends of mine wanted to know what Passover was about. I was happy to find a more…mainstream wine that was appropriate. Although some may say my guests missed out that way. 
Did you try putting some sugar in the cup holder?
Sorry if I didn’t make myself clear. I was just trying to make a little joke.
However, I must admit that it wasn’t a very good joke.
When I was growing up in the Northeast, a Jewish wine was “I want to go to MI-AMI”.
Then, like now, in poor taste.
When I was growing up in the East Side Cleveland suburbs, in a Jewish majority community, and hanging around with Jews, the preferred kosher wine among actual Jews was from the Carmel Winery’s Rishon le-Tzion vineyards in Israel. (N.B.: The name of Mount Carmel means ‘the vineyard of God’—not a confection made of browned sugar.) So that was the first thing that sprung to mind regarding the OP.
P.S. Carmel Winery’s products tended toward the dry side, IIRC. Mediterranean style.
When I was in college someone gave me a bottle of Mogen David, which I promptly stuck in my father’s liquor cabinet. Some indeterminate (but long) time later, I retrieved it only to find the sugar had actually crystalized in the bottom of the bottle. Not sediment, mind you, but sugar.
Everything I’ve read says that Manischevitz and similar wines were developed for Sabbath and holiday use. Would it typically be drunk at other times? What would observant Jews in America typically drink with dinner during the 20th century? (Nowadays, I know good European-style dry kosher wine is available.) What about European Jews? They presumably wouldn’t drink wine made from American Concord grapes. Was their wine sweet like Manischevitz?
As everybody else has already noted, the traditional Jewish wine used for ceremonies was and still is very,very sweet.
But over the past 25 years, in Israel ,a sophisticated wine industry has developed, making high-quality kosher wines that win international awards. Israeli oenologists rate the wines with all the usual terms used by the industry, and give them ratings based on (I think) 1 to 5 stars.
Except for the traditional “Jewish” ceremonial wine-----which is simply rated as “undrinkable”.
There is also a religious prohibition against being drunk on the Sabbath, so it doesn’t hurt to use a wine that is good in small doses, but unbearable in amounts that someone would drink normal wine (ie a full glass).
Someone, said this lazy poster, should briefly cover what kosher wine is and is not,–perhaps the larger question for OP, now that we know it’s not sweetness (unless it’s in a sharp satire on poseur snobs)-- and why some kosher wines just live with the goyische wines and others get their own ghetto.
Why’re you looking at me?
Ps: this is the one with the Jewish girlfriend during Christmas (when they realize they can’t do the 0-60-0 Emotion thing), right? Not the Klingon bar mitzvah speech.
Any other Jewish plot points or jokes from other episodes show I’m missing?
Grapes made from native American Labrusca grapes, such as Concord, Niagara, Catawba, etc. is seen as sweeter than wine made from European vinifera grapes. Often it is. One Civil War account mentions finding a Confederate cache of wine “but it was only Catawba”.
There’s also the “foxiness” of labrusca wines, the distinctive flavor of grapes deriving from the native American “fox” grape. It’s the quality that makes, for instance, Welch’s grape juice or jelly taste unlike California table grapes.
I, for one, like Labrusca grapes and products made from them, but I also have to say that they are not necessarily overly sweet. A number of wineries specialize in New York State wines that use local grapes and aren’t too sweet. Bully Hill vinyards is one. The problem is, they’re hard to get out of state.
I’ve had Manishevity and Mogen David wines. They ARE sweet, admittedly They do indeed appear to have added sugar. But kosher wine needn’t be overly sweet. As the Wikipedia page on Manishevitz says:
By the way, Jewish religious wine isn’t the only offender against somellier sensibilities. The Barry Winery (run by Cribari) in New York made Catholic sacramental wine for years. It, too, is too – blessed – sweet.
Oh, yes. Altar wine. There is no Catholic doctrine or dogma that requires altar wine to be terrible. It just has to be wine, made from grapes. You can’t substitute grape juice, or apple wine, or anything like that. Nonetheless, altar wine is horrible.
Maybe it’s made that way to appeal to the altar boys who would sneak sips of the (unconsecrated, of course) wine in the sacristy before mass.
I have too much respect for the OP to change the question to cover what kosher wine is, but I’d be very interested in the answer, as well!
As you said, the episode is S06E10 Merry Christmas Mrs Moskowitz, not the Klingon bar mitzvah.
Kosher wine - there are a few rules for making wine Kosher, but the main one is that the entire process, from picking the grapes to bottling, has to be performed by Jews. This is based on the belief that drinking wine used for non-Jewish religious ceremonies is idolatry, and by removing all non-Jews from the process prevents the risk of the whole batch being “contaminated”. I won’t comment on the logic or fairness of the belief.
Just to add, Orthodox Jews won’t even drink kosher wine from a bottle opened by a gentile. Really, the WHOLE process must be done by Jews, although there is nothing wrong with serving gentiles at the table.