LINK’S INAUGURAL WINE GUIDE

Welcome to The Jewish Link Inaugural Wine Guide

By Elizabeth Kratz

When I was in my 20s, I lived in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Neighbors on Q Street happened to be two young men named Joshua London and Gamliel Kronemer. Josh had gone to grad school with my brother in Chicago, and I met Gamliel either at shul or a Shabbat meal. Josh was already writing a wine and spirits column for the weekend print section of The Washington Examiner, and Gamliel began writing about wine a few years later, adding spirits to his repertoire in special issues around Rosh Hashanah and Pesach. Both began writing regular columns for Jewish newspapers later on. I was working as a reporter, but didn’t start writing about food and wine until many years after we all met.

With “Josh and G,” I first tasted good-to-great kosher wines and attended my first blind wine tasting. Gamliel, I learned only recently, was the culprit in sneaking in a bottle of Manschewitz concord grape into that tasting, siphoning the syrupy-sweet (not that there’s anything wrong with that!) liquid into a “regular” 750 ml wine bottle.

It was with these two that I learned how to talk about wine and distinguish wine’s unique qualities. These were people to whom I could ask all my dumb questions, and there were many! My questions may have improved over the years, but I would not be the oenophile I am today without having access to their great caches of knowledge and willingness to chat, at virtually any time, about kosher wine.

Along the way, we built many shared memories and became great friends. I was proud to have both Josh and Gamliel serve as witnesses at my wedding, and it’s been my pleasure over the years to count Anna and Jessica, the guys’ better halves, as close friends as well.

Josh is currently living in England; Gamliel lives in Silver Spring, Maryland; and I live in New Jersey. However, when Gamliel suggested that we “get the band back together,” with me editing an inaugural edition of The Jewish Link Wine Guide and them writing many of the feature articles,

I jumped at a chance to work with these old friends, both consummate professionals. In my opinion, they are among the kosher wine industry’s most enthusiastic and impartial advocates. I am very fortunate to have Moshe Kinderleher as a publisher, who literally jumped at the opportunity to launch the magazine.

While the incisive features are certainly a point of pride for The Jewish Link Wine Guide, it was actually the tastings of wines for our rankings that were most complex. Running blind wine tastings during a pandemic, in the dead of a very cold East Coast winter, was no easy feat. It helped that we had five committed judges based in New Jersey: Yossie Horwitz, Jeff Katz, Greg Raykher, Daphna Roth and Yeruchum Rosenberg, who were willing to lend us their discerning palates whenever and however we arranged it. Yossie, who previously was a founding judge for The Jewish Week’s Wine Guide magazines, was an immeasurable resource in both designing the protocol for our blind tastings, and modeling impartial judging policies. Michal Rosenberg, our managing editor, was pivotal in organizing the tastings and tabulating the results; and we could not have done it without Eva Katz (Jeff’s better half), who assisted us greatly with logistics.

By the numbers, here’s how we ended up: Two extremely cold outdoor tastings, two quarantines, two socially-distanced indoor tastings, one (mild) case of COVID, one canceled wine tasting due to a blizzard, 267 wines, 63 whites, 204 reds, hundreds of WhatsApps and emails…well, you get the idea.

With that in mind, we are proud to present four Top 25 lists for your Passover shopping pleasure. To befit the season’s affinity for reds during the seder, and to be cost-conscious, we divided the lists into “Under $25 Reds,” “$25-$50 Reds,” “High-End Reds” and “White Wines.” These are augmented by Josh London’s Top 10 list of sweet wines, Gamliel Kronemer’s Top 10 of sparkling wines, Michal Rosenberg’s write up of The Jewish Link Wine Guide’s top five wineries of the year, my “special wines for the seder,” article, Yossie Horwitz's ode to Champagne and Dr. Kenneth Friedman’s feature preview on 2020 rosé wines. With our very best wishes, Chag Kasher V’Samayach!

Running blind wine tastings during a pandemic, in the dead of a very cold East Coast winter, was no easy feat.

INAUGURAL EDITION

FOUNDING JUDGES

Growing up in a teetotaling household in Jerusalem, Yossie Horwitz didn’t have much early exposure to wine. That all changed one Passover night when he tasted his first quality dry red wine. A lifelong passion was stoked and by the time he was 30 and living in NYC, he was penning a weekly email blast to family and friends sharing his varied recommendations. Today, “Yossie’s Corkboard” goes out to more than 11,000 subscribers around the world and covers the ever-expanding world of kosher wine. Tasting more than 4,000 different kosher wines each year keeps this deal-making attorney-by day quite busy. Sign up at yossiescorkboard.com and follow on instagram at yossies_corkboard. Yeruchum Rosenberg is a wine enthusiast who spends his days in the world of technology and finance. He has been involved in the kosher wine scene for over 20 years. He loves family, friends, food and wine—preferably together. He enjoys cooking and frequenting Rosh Chodesh clubs. He lives in Teaneck with his wife, Michal, and their four kids.

Daphna Roth has been tasting and enjoying wine for over 30 years. She first introduced her husband, Greg, to wine with a gift of the Wine For Dummies book. They have been exploring exciting kosher wines together ever since. Little did she know that their wine journey would include being a judge for The Jewish Link. Daphna works as an adult neuropsychologist, specializing in evaluations, in private practice in Teaneck.

Greg Raykher has been interested in tasting, collecting and learning about wine for over 20 years. He met some of his closest friends through the old Daniel Rogov chat group. Greg loves following the Israeli wine industry, and still remembers how excited he was when Castel went kosher in 2002, Bazelet Hagolan in 2004, Flam and Tulip in 2010, and Pelter opened Matar in 2012. When not learning about wine, Greg works in finance, with a focus on zero-carbon renewable energy projects. He lives in Teaneck with his children, and shares his love of wine exploration with his wife Daphna, a fellow judge on The Jewish Link panel. Jeff Katz has been collecting, tasting and sharing alcohol with friends for 20 years. With an original interest in mixology and spirits, Jeff’s appreciation for wine evolved 10 years ago when his wife handed him a glass of Russian River Chardonnay. Since then, Jeff has become a member of multiple kosher wine clubs and has made good friends with many oenophiles.

OUR JUDGES IN ACTION

For more photos of the Wine Guide in process, visit our Instagram @Jewishlinkwinemag

CONTRIBUTORS

Joshua E. London has been drinking, writing, consulting and speaking professionally about kosher wines and spirits for more than 20 years. He is originally from Northern California, and his love affair with wine began in the late-1980s with a relatively short-lived kosher wine venture in Davis. For over a dozen years London wrote a popular weekly column on kosher wines and spirits that appeared in several Jewish publications, and his writing has appeared in a wide variety of both Jewish and nonJewish print and online media.

Gamliel Kronemer has been writing for more than 15 years about kosher wine, spirits, cocktails and food in a number of Jewish newspapers and magazines, including The Jewish Link. In 2005, when Gamliel started writing regularly on the subject, he recalled that “back then, most newspapers wrote about kosher wine at most twice a year, with headlines like ‘Kosher Wine: It’s Not Your Mama’s Manischewitz Anymore.’ Watching the kosher wine world blossom has been utterly amazing, and I feel fortunate to have had a front row seat.” Gamliel lives with his wife, Jessica, in Silver Spring, Maryland. Michal Rosenberg is associate editor at The Jewish Link and managing editor of The Jewish Link Wine Guide. Her husband Yeruchum first introduced her to wine 20 years ago and she’s joined him on his wine journey ever since.

Dr. Kenneth Friedman is a Baltimorebased kosher wine aficionado/ connoisseur. He produces and consults on unique food and wine tastings, utilizing his years of experience to create memorable, exciting events. He maintains a column on kosher wine, food and spirits, and leads educational wine tastings on Instagram @kosherwinetastings.

Elizabeth Kratz is associate publisher and editor of The Jewish Link, and founding editor of The Jewish Link Wine Guide. She also leads The Jewish Link’s Teaneck-based kosher winetasting group, from which most of our magazine’s judges were poached.