Kosher Wine vs. Kosher Style Wine
Wine has a different kosher standard than all other food products. In order for wine to be kosher, the ingredients, machinery, processing, and the workers have to be in correlation with Jewish law. Gershon Bachus Vintners meets the first three standards.
In cooperation with Gershon Bachus Vintners, Rabbi Marc Rubenstein is bottling and helpint to produce kosher-style wine. The wine tastes fabulous, and no one would ever know the difference. The difference in this case is that the rabbi, workers and the owners are all non-observant non-Orthodox Jews. According to Jewish law, this makes the wine kosher-style and not kosher.
Moses would have drunk this wonderful wine, made by God and blessed by Rabbi Marc. In Bible days, only Biblical law existed and not rabbinical law. Most all wine is kosher by Biblical standards, but not according to Rabbinical Hewish Law, call Halacha.
The Jewish religion centers on separation and distinction-separating flax from the wool, meat from dairy, Shabbat from workdays-but first and foremost separating the Jews from the Gentiles: "the people shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations". (Numbers 23:9), a verse every observant Jew knows. For example, over the centuries the simple rule "Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk" (Exodus 23:19) turned into a complete separation of any meat product from any dairy product-including separate kitchen sinks, eating hours and utensils.
As for wine, the question of its kashrut ("kosherness") has also evoloved over the centuries. In the first chapter of Daniel, Daniel and his companions refused to drink "libation wine" usded for ancient idolatry practices. Today the custom of libation is extinct. Wine made and used by Christians is not "libation wine."
Never-the-less, over the years the tradition evolved until a non-Jew or a non-observant Jew touching a container of wine would make the wine lose it kashrut. Thus, a fourth standard-concerning which people have contact with the wine- is the only element missing from Gershon Bachus Vintner's kosher-style wine.
Gershon Bachus will bottle its first Kosher-style wines in January of 2016. These varietals are from the 2014 harvest where the grape crush was managed by GBV and produced on-site. This includes our Hesperus Grenache, Zephyrus Zinfandel, Erato Cabernet Franc, Aelous estate blend, Anteros estate blend, Lares Mouvedre, Astraea GSM. Also included in this bottling will be our 2013 Dae Dia Meritage and our 2016 Villa Vino Blanco Rousanne blend.