Passover

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Passover is just around the corner — well, I assume that's why you're reading this — and of all the chores for Passover, buying wine ought to be the most fun. After all, you don't have to worry about buying too much wine: unlike just about everything else you purchase during the pre-Passover rush, most wine can be stored for months or years — so why worry if you get an extra bottle or two? It won't go to waste. The real anxiety seems to arrive when people start to decide which wines to buy: what wines they and their guests will enjoy. This year's Passover guide provides recommendations to help select wines for a wide variety of tastes. Of course, you might want to read the rest of The Kosher Wine Review for insight into other choices.

But before we get to the recommendations, I will describe my Seder Strategy. There's an art and science to choosing the right wines for the right people for the right time during the seder. I'm going to recommend some light, sweet wines for people who prefer those; a set of dry red wines; and some non-traditional choices for the adventurous.

First, a few notes about Passover traditions. Red wine is preferred for the seder, although white wine is acceptable. Current Orthodox practice calls for a wine glass that holds at least 3.3 ounces, and that at least half of the glass should be drunk for each of the four "cups." It's perfectly acceptable to drink additional wine with the food served during the seder's meal.

The first cup is drunk at the beginning of the seder, and the next cup just before the meal. Almost no food is consumed after until after the second cup. In many households the time between these two cups can be an hour or longer as the family reads the Haggadah and discusses the holiday. This means that two glasses of wine will be consumed on an empty stomach.

Three Strategies for the Four Cups

Strategy One: Buy Wine Your Guests Will Enjoy

The finest wine in the world is wasted if the people at the seder won't drink it. Many Jews in the United States were raised on syrupy, sugary wines; give them a bottle of Vasness Romanee and you might as well pour the wine down the sink instead. So while it's simple enough to find excellent wines and perhaps worry about whether your guests prefer a Syrah over a Merlot, the biggest problem I've found when buying wine for the seder is how to accommodate guests who will only drink sweet wines.

Fortunately, in recent years we've seen some good sweet wines available (check the listings of wine by dryness to find them). In addition, Beaujolais Villages wines are sufficiently light and fruity for many people who prefer sweet wines. I do recommend that you avoid the temptation to just purchase anything at all that's sweet — I think it's always good policy to purchase sweet wines that you can tolerate drinking. After all, if you can educate your guests to appreciate good wine, perhaps next year you may be able to avoid sweet wines altogether.

Strategy Two: Open Early!

Don't forget to open your wine early enough to let it breath! A simple task, but one that's easy to overlook during the bustle of preparing for the seder. Either open it immediately as you return from the synagogue, or perhaps open it before your departure. The usual rule of thumb is that wine should be open 15 minutes for every year of its age; but that's only a rule of thumb, and every wine is different.

Strategy Three: Start Out Light

How dry should the wine be for the first two cups, which you drink before you've had any food? I've debated this with my friends, and opinion is split. I recommend that the wine for the first two cups be medium dry and medium body; others believe that the dryer the wine the better. I do not recommend sweet wine for the first cups as I believe they would be too cloying; a sweet wine for either of the two cups after the meal would be entirely appropriate. I tend to drink only dry wines for the entire meal.

As for the alcohol content, there's actually not much of a difference between most fine wines, especially since we drink only a few ounces of wine at a time. Most fine wines run from 12.5% to 14%, and as such there's little to choose on this basis. I've also included a list of lighter, sweeter wines that are both low in alcohol (some as low as 3.5%) and light on sugar.

For your guests who enjoy sweet wines, I recommend light sweet wines rather than heavy wines. A good dose of heavy sweet wine will put anyone to sleep.

Strategy Four: How Much Wine?

The wine we drink at the Passover seder is for a ritual, not to consume with a meal (although consuming wine with the meal is acceptable). In my experience, Passover wine cups are about 6 to 8 ounces at most; my largest cup holds about 4 ounces, about 100 ml (which works out to 7.5 cups in every bottle of wine). In short, the expect that each bottle of wine will provide between 4 to 8 cups of wine depending on how much the guests drink (the entire cup each time? Or do they simply refill?) and how large their glasses are.

If I'm opening a different bottle of wine for each Cup, I allow about one bottle for every five guests.