I went out with some colleagues tonight to an upscale kosher restaurant.  This restaurant is very well regarded.  Sadly, kosher restaurants (whose certifying organization holds to the highest standards) in the US only allow kosher “mevushal” wines.  Without getting into the whats, whys, and hows of “mevushal”, simply put – mevushal wines are those that are put through a flash pasteurization process which then allows them to be handled by everyone (rather than just observant jews).

(A quick aside, most Israeli wines, considered by some [myself included] to be the best kosher wines in the world, are NOT put through this process.)

In any event, this fancy restaurant and its kosher certification meant that if we were to order wine it would have to be a mevushal wine.  Although I would never choose a mevushal wine over wine that had not gone through the flash pasteurization, when not given a choice I’d rather have wine with my dinner.  Especially since this restaurant is known for their steaks and I wanted to order a steak.  Can you imagine, a steak without some nice red wine.  Seemed sacrilege to me, but that is exactly what happened.  My colleagues felt strongly about not ordering a wine that was mevushal.  And not wanting to be the only one at the table with wine, I too had my steak with…a glass of water.

“A meal without wine is like a day without sunshine”.  It was a dark dreary day today.

I’m off to kosherfest for the next two days.  I’ll be working in the wine area, but i will do my best to walk around a bit and see if there are some standout items worth reporting back about.

Happy steak and WINE tasting!

WTG