NJ business is king of kosher wines. Passover is its 'Super Bowl'

BAYONNE — As forklifts whizzed around his company’s sprawling headquarters last month, Nathan Herzog sat at the head of a conference table and elaborated on his favorite topic: wine.

Passover is just a few weeks away, and the president of Royal Wine Co., one of the world’s leading importers, producers, and distributors of kosher wine and spirits, is excited.

Mr. Herzog, the eighth generation of a family of Jewish winemakers dating back to 19th-century Europe, extols the dizzying variety of kosher wines available today, including inexpensive, syrupy sweet wines. This is a revolution in wine, which has long had a fixed idea.

He was also preparing for the company’s most profitable and most exhausting season. royal wineThe company, which also makes Kedem grape juice, does 40% of its business around Passover, which begins at sunset on Monday this year. This business he produces wine in 17 countries and sells in 31 countries and throughout the United States.

“Passover is like our Super Bowl,” Jay Bucksbaum, Royal’s vice president of marketing, said during a recent visit as he zipped around the company’s cavernous warehouses and bottling operation. . He points to boxes of fine wine stacked floor to ceiling inside the bustling 200,000-square-foot factory.

Passover wine kosher is just the beginning

Passover used to account for an all-time high in sales, but “now a lot of our business comes from non-kosher and non-Jewish customers, so that’s diluted it,” he said. Told. Mr. Bucksbaum said Royal, a privately held company, has seen annual sales growth of 5% to 10% over the past 10 years.

“And every year more wines win awards from the industry,” he said.

The week-long Passover commemorates the Jewish people’s exodus from Egyptian slavery around 1,200 BC, as detailed in the Book of Exodus. The centerpiece is the Seder, a ceremonial feast where wine is the star. The meal includes symbolic food and prayers, and includes 4 hard servings per adult participant.

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Kosher wine options have exploded in recent years, with Royal selling 800 varieties from 39 countries, so connoisseurs aren’t the only ones looking to add more options to their Passover table. No, Herzog said.

“Why do I need to quench my thirst with the same four glasses of red wine?” he shrugged. “Put a dozen bottles on the table and turn it into a fun experience.”

Herzog recommends starting Seder with a low-alcohol rosé or sparkling wine, such as the company’s Lineage Rosé (from California), then moving on to Carmel Black Cabernet Sauvignon (from Israel) and then Pescaya Barbera d’Asti Solitaire (from Italy). I am proposing it. ). You can end the night with another California varietal, Herzog Special Reserve Napa Valley.

What makes wine kosher?

Kosher wine is made using the same fermentation process as traditional wine, but uses only kosher-certified ingredients. Manufacturing, “from crushing the grapes to sealing the bottle,” must be supervised and performed by Sabbath-observant Jews, Buxbaum said.

Otherwise, kosher and non-kosher alcohol will taste the same, he added. Long associated with sweet reds, kosher wine has catered to a more discerning customer over the past 20 years, and now comes in a wide variety of types, shades, and flavors.

“They don’t want sweet sacramental wine anymore,” Bucksbaum said, standing among thousands of boxes and pallets. “Now they want the good stuff.”

The origins of Royal’s “Good Things” grape date back to Rabbi Menachem Herzog, who founded a distillery in Vrbove, Slovakia in the early 1800s. This wine would eventually appear on the menu of the Austro-Hungarian court in Vienna. Menachem’s grandson, Philip Herzog, declared a baron By Emperor Franz Joseph.

The company flourished for decades, but was taken over by the Nazis during World War II. Philip’s grandson, Oisin Herzog, survived the Holocaust, but his parents were killed at Auschwitz. He fled to America, arriving in 1948 penniless and without the means to support his wife and six children.

“He needed to support his family, so he turned to our family’s tradition of winemaking,” said Nathan Herzog, 64, Eugene’s grandson.

Eugene found a job in sales and distribution for Royal Wines, a small winery then on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. His bosses could only afford to pay him in company stock, which ended up being a blessing to his family. In 1958, Eugene bought out his partners and became the sole owner of the business, the company’s official history states.

Then Herzogs opened Kedem Winery We produce five types of wine in the Hudson Valley hamlet of Marlboro, New York. “They were all very thick syrupy types,” Nathan recalls. He pointed to an oversized glass wine bottle from the late 1950s on the conference table.

The Kosher Evolution of Royal Wine Corporation

The company’s evolution began with a push from Eugene’s youngest son, David, who found work on Wall Street rather than in the family business. He was envious of the fine, non-kosher French wines that his colleagues could enjoy at fine restaurants. Why aren’t those wines kosher?, he asked his father in frustration.

This began a decades-long effort to expand the business by producing and importing kosher wine from around the world.

Today, Royal Wine ships bottles from nearly every wine-producing region in the world, including Merlot from Argentina, Pinot Noir from France, and Vodka from Ukraine. The company also produces private label wines for celebrities such as: mariah carey, vera wang and Amare Stoudemire. Meanwhile, Kedem is the second largest grape juice company in the United States after Welch’s.

The demand for kosher beverages has increased in recent years, encouraging several wineries to develop new varieties under kosher supervision.

Royal’s best seller is Baltenura Moscato Made in Italy, known for its iconic blue bottle. The company estimates that nearly 9 million of those bottles disappear from store shelves each year, and 70 percent of those go to non-kosher drinkers. “It’s the most popular Moscato in the country,” Buxbaum said.

The drink became popular in 2005 when stars like Lil’ Kim and Drake rapped about its sweet, bubbly taste. Bucksbaum saw potential in that moment. “We spent money promoting our product to hip-hop fans,” he said.

It was a great success.

Dina Yellin covers religion for NorthJersey.com. For unlimited access to her work covering how spirituality intersects with our daily lives, please visit Subscribe or activate your digital account now.

Email: hellin@northjersey.com

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