Opinion | The Fifth Question This Passover: Where Is the Natural Wine?

But at Passover, it’s wine you need, and at my mother’s table it needs to be kosher. That’s why last year I tried to make my own: traditional, authentic, kosher and natural.

This was a deeply personal project. That is, I understood that not that many other people are in the market for natural kosher wine, yet. After all, how can you know what you’re missing if it doesn’t exist? “No one cares and no one knows what they want because they don’t have the exposure,” David Raccah, who writes the blog Kosher Wine Musings and drinks only kosher, told me.

It was also an expensive and logistically difficult endeavor. Kosher certification can cost up to $10,000 a year.

I set out to make my wine in the country of Georgia, since I have written about winemaking there and I knew I could get affordable grapes and work space. I had a religious friend of a friend lined up to handle the wine for me and take my instruction. All I had to do was figure out how to pay for the kosher certification and deal with the bureaucracy.

It wasn’t easy to reach the rabbi in Tbilisi. He was in constant demand, always rushing out to Kutaisi for a bris or to Bagdati for a wedding.

Finally, I got him over Skype. After a long treatise on the religious laws and why I, a now-secular Jewish natural wine lover, would never be able to make my wine, we were disconnected. I called back. Friends in Tbilisi tried to reach him. The harvest of 2018 came and went. His dismissiveness just made me want to do it even more.

Making wine is risky. You need the right soil blessed with the right climate. You need talent. And without additives, you need knowledge and a little luck. I have a plan in place and another rabbi lined up for this year. I’m determined to make something that Ethel and her friends can enjoy.

Do we ever outgrow our desire for a parent’s understanding? Even if there was another decade left, my mother will never quite understand or accept my rejection of religious life. But if she understands why I devoted decades of my life to writing about this magical, enduring symbol of life, culture and humanity, that would suit me even better. But to do that, she needs to be able to drink it.

Alice Feiring is the author of “The Dirty Guide to Wine: Following Flavor From Ground to Glass” and the forthcoming “Natural Wine for the People: What It Is, Where to Find It, How to Love It.”

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