We'll get to that in a minute. First, though, let's talk about what makes a wine kosher. It's a complex subject, and we did a lot of reporting last yer to make sure we got it right. Rabbi's or their assistants supervise the wine's production from crush to bottling. This, they said, is the stamp of approval of the largest kosher certification body in the world and basically means there's no need to read the label further to learn that the wine is kosher for Passover.
Some wines are both kosher for Passover and mevushal.
Baron Herzog told us that its wines and other kosher wines go through this added step. Sometimes it's listed on the label. What that does not go through this mevushal process must be served by observant Jews to retain its kosher status. Basically, Herzog told us, a mevushal wine is heated in seconds by flash pasteurization, with the temperature brought down quickly so as not to harm the wine. Keep in mind that we have to buy our wines a few weeks in advance, to give us time to collect the wines, taste them and write the column.