What Wine Pairs with Matzah? New & Notable Options for Passover
Think you’re a wine pairing expert? Step up for the Passover kosher wine challenge, where you have to pick a wine that can last in the glass through an hours-long event, stand up to a sinus-clearing blast of horseradish, and match deliciously with a multi-course festive meal. Thankfully, you’re not alone. We’ve got recommendations for all kinds of kosher wines worth buying, bringing, and enjoying as part of the eight days of Passover.
And you don’t have to pick just one. Although the first two nights of Passover are the most important—typically celebrated by a retelling of the exodus of enslaved Jews from Egypt through prayers, storytelling, and song, followed by an elaborate meal—this spring holiday continues on for six more nights, any of which could benefit from a great bottle of wine.
Passover Paring Strategies
Just as there are numerous ways to relate this exodus story (there are thousands of published versions, and many families adapt or write their own), there’s no one menu for a Passover Seder. (The name, meaning “order,” is used for both the ritual and the meal that follows.) Tradition for some might be chicken soup with matzoh balls followed by slow-cooked brisket and vegetable tsimmes; for others, it might be herb-laced salads, braised vegetables and a fragrant Moroccan tagine.
Because Jewish cultural and culinary traditions are drawn from all around the world, any wine chosen should be able to complement a wide range of flavors, both savory and sweet. In fact, choosing Passover wines is a little like picking wines for Thanksgiving: lots of dishes, not all of them wine-friendly, and especially after the Zoom Seders of the past two years, a welcome reunion of family and friends ready to share their opinions. As with Thanksgiving, you’re looking for enjoyable, food-friendly wines that don’t demand reverent attention, and have enough liveliness, structure, and/or acidity to keep guests coming back for another sip.
White Wine & Rosé
Culinary instructor Kim Kushner, author of The New Kosher and the upcoming The Modern Table: Kosher Recipes for Everyday Gatherings, calls Goose Bay Sauvignon Blanc her “go-to” wine for spring menu pairings, including Passover. (The screw cap makes it super easy for picnics and outdoor meals, she says.) “It comes from New Zealand—crisp, clean, always a great, well-priced bottle,” with New World notes of melon, citrus, and gooseberry with light minerality and well-balanced acidity. And as kosher rosés gain in popularity, she always likes to keep a bottle of Dalton Coral Rosé on hand. Made from an equal blend of grenache and pinot gris grapes grown in the Galilee wine region in northern Israel, it offers a juicy, bright blend of blood orange and watermelon. “It’s lighter and drier than most kosher rosés. I also love the gentle blush color.”
Holiday or not, your aunt loves her California chardonnay, and she’s the one bringing dessert, so keep her happy. Herzog Wine Cellars Chalk Hill Chardonnay gets its lush intensity from grapes grown in the renowned Chalk Hill AVA (American Viticultural Area) in northern Sonoma County, named for the chalky white volcanic soil deposited over millennia by nearby Mount St Helena in the Mayacamas mountains. With lower fertility and higher temperatures than the surrounding Russian River Valley, the vines get just the right kind of stress and ripeness to produce a rich, full-bodied, citrus-and-custard California chard, with just enough caramelly French oak.
For another fresh and zesty New Zealand sauvignon blanc, Gabriel Geller, public relations director for Royal Wine notes that the prestigious portfolio of kosher wine produced by the Rothschild family (Château Clarke, Château Malmaison, Flechas de Los Andes) has just released a beautiful Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc from its prized Rimapere Estate. It’s classic New Zealand style, with grapefruit, hints of kiwi and golden berries, grass and earthy minerals.
Mostly Red Wines
But what about twentysomethings at the table, the ones who swear by kombucha, hazy IPAs, and natural wines? Argentina’s Domaine Bousquet recently entered the kosher wine market with their organic Alavida Malbec. Leaning to the natural-wine side, with no added sulfites, the wine is made from one hundred percent Malbec grown in the high altitude Uco Valley, in the foothills of the Andes. Expect plenty of saturated color in the glass, with lots of deep red fruit, grippy tannins, and a well-rounded finish. The name comes from the Spanish phrase a la vida, a reference to the Hebrew toast l’chaim, to life.
As the San Diego-based author of Modern Kosher: Global Flavors, New Traditions, longtime food and travel writer and restaurant critic Michael Aaron Gardiner has given food and wine pairings a lot of thought. “Hands down, my favorite kosher California wines are those of Hagafen. Probably their best value wine is the Hagafen Napa Valley Cabernet Franc 2019. It’s great if you’re serving something like lamb, which I will be,” says Gardiner. After 20 months in French oak, this one will be tasty for a good many years yet, but it’s still approachable now, with plenty of bold, dark red fruit and chocolatey spice.
“There are also quite a few wonderful Israeli wines to pick from. The Gito Viognier 2020 is a great choice if you are serving something lighter or want to pair a wine with the matzoh ball soup. On the Israeli red scene, I rate the Shiloh Secret Reserve Shiraz 2018, which we tasted a few years back.” Interestingly, Gito’s Viognier is made from a double harvest of desert-grown grapes: early-picked fruit fermented in stainless steel tanks for crispness and acidity, blended after five months with higher-Brix grapes aged in oak to balance sweetness and fruit. Fruit for the Shiraz comes from the Judean hills, aged 20 months in French oak.
Ami Nahari, founder and CEO of kosher wine importer/distributor The River Wine is excited to offer their first kosher super Tuscan this year, Aura di Valerie Zaffiro Super Tuscan 2019. True to the international style of these modern Italian reds, this wine’s not shy: from first glass to last, you’ll get big, punchy fruit and plenty of tannic punch. Brisket? Spicy lamb shanks? Your wine snob brother-in-law? This one can stand up to all of them.
For Cab Lovers
Looking to open a particularly special bottle this year? Geller suggests Carmel Winery’s recently released Carmel Signature Special Reserve 40th Anniversary Edition Cabernet Sauvignon 2016. “This wine is a tribute to the legendary 1976 Carmel Special Reserve, Israel’s first modern high-quality red wine.” Carmel itself was founded 140 years ago by Chateau Lafite’s Baron Edmond de Rothschild, becoming a central part of Israeli’s modern wine industry. As you’d expect, this is a stately bottle that takes its time, full-bodied, grand, long on the finish, with red fruit, tobacco, and black pepper on the nose, with plum, cherry, and warm spice on the palate.
Whatever wine you choose, here’s to raising a glass together to freedom, to family, to sharing traditions together again. L’chaim!