Chicago Tribune April 1, 2009

Add Spanish flair this Passover 54x140

Bill Daley

P
assover is a time when Jews around the world remember the
deliverance of Israel from bondage in Egypt. A ritual dinner or symbolism. Passover represents freedom, redemption and survival.
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seder has for millennia been central to Pass-
over observances. Wine plays a major role in the
seder, with four cups of wine drunk at various points
in the meal.
Consider pouring a kosher-for-Passover wine from
Spain at your seder. Kosher wine is a fledging but
growing segment of the Spanish wine industry. Here
in the United States, consumer interest in Spanish
wine remains red-hot, thanks to the pleasant fact that
Another reason to pour a Spanish kosher wine at Passover is its
The Jewish community in Spain vividly embodies
all three of these elements. Jews were infamously
expelled from the kingdom in 1492. Scattered
across the Mediterranean, Europe and northern
Africa, these Spanish Jews and their descendants,
who became known as “Sephardim,” retained their
identity and their traditions. Those who remained
behind in Spain were forcibly converted or had to
IMPORTED BY:
worship in
ROYALsecret.
WINE CORPORATION, NEW YORK, NY

Spanish winemakers tend to produce great stuff and
sell it at affordable prices. There’s no reason to switch
away from Spanish wines at Passover, especially if that
means stepping back to the sweet Concord wines of old.
“With Spanish wines you can get something that's
interesting without paying $80 a bottle,” said Scott
Schumaker, wine manager of Hungarian Kosher Foods.
The store, based in Skokie, Ill., has the nation's largest
inventory of kosher wines, which also are sold online
at kosher.wine.com. “Sometimes you have to pay a lot
for something cool and off the beaten path,” he added.
“Spanish wines can give you something different but
reasonable.”
The question may be in finding the wine. There
are only a handful of kosher wine producers in Spain
producing a couple of thousand cases each year, said Aron Ritter,
president of the Kosher Wine Society in New York City. Yet, he said,
these wines are worth searching out because they deliver on qual-
ity. “There are some phenomenal Spanish kosher wines out there,”
Ritter said, noting the wines would work well with the foods tradi-
tionally served at a Passover seder.
More than 500 years later, the tragic story remains
fresh, as the Web site of Elvi Wines, a kosher wine
company, makes clear. “We are very proud to be one of
the very few families that since 1492 has had the privi-
lege of dedicating ourselves exclusively to viticulture
and the production of kosher wines,” the site reads.
“Our challenge has been and continues to be the mar-
riage of quality with one of the most venerated tradi-
tions ever documented in the Mediterranean.”
Consider also the story of Capcanes, described in
its winery literature as a “small Catholic village ...
hidden high up in the mountains.” The town’s wine
cooperative, founded in 1933, “gets emancipated” in
the mid-1990s from being a boring bulk wine and
grape producer by creating an excellent kosher wine
at the request of the Jewish community in Barcelona.
Making a kosher wine meant changes: new machinery, a focus on
higher-grade fruit. The resulting wine, branded as Flor de Prima-
vera, is considered among the finest in Spain. Kosher wine is only
2.5 percent of Capcanes’ production but it jump-started the brand
toward better quality. “It's a beautiful story,” Ritter said.

The tasting
2004 Elvi Wines Ness - From the Ribera del Jucar region in north central Spain, this international-style red is a mix of 50% Tempranillo, 20% Bobal, 20%
Syrah and 10% Cabernet Sauvignon. The nose is subtle: salt, hay, smoke, dried strawberries. A pleasing minerality and a tannic pucker on the finish balance the
dark fruits and earthy spices. 3 corkscrews
2005 Ramon Cardova Rioja - This wine comes from Rioja, the famed wine region near the Ebro River in northern Spain. Made entirely from Tempranillo
grapes, the red has a delicate aroma of prunes. The flavor offers up red fruit, wood and black pepper, and there's a satisfying smack of acidity to the finish. 2
corkscrews
2006 capçanes Peraji Petita Montsant – Montsant is a wine region in northeastern Spain to the west of Barcelona. This wine is a blend of Garnacha (also
known as grenache), Samso (a.k.a. carignan) and Ull de Llebre (“eye of the rabbit,” the Catalan name for tempranillo) grapes. Expect cherry on the nose and
palate, with touches of spice and violets. 2 corkscrews Ratings: 4 corkscrews: Excellent, 3 corkscrews: Very good, 2 corkscrews: Good, 1 corkscrew: Fair