The Deep Well of Kosher Wines w/ Gabe Geller, Royal Wine

With over 1,000 kosher wines from across all major winegrowing regions, Royal Wine is the largest importer (and producer and distributor) of kosher wine in the world. Gabe Geller, Director of PR & Wine Education, discusses the market for kosher wine, how and where it is made, and how Orthodox Jews hear about them.

Detailed Show Notes: 

Gabe’s background, at Royal Wine >9 years, wine industry for 16 years (retail, consulting, marketing)

Royal Wine - world’s leading importer, producer, distributor of kosher wine

• In US, carries >1,000 kosher wines from every major wine producing region
• Owns Kedem, Herzog, and other brands

Can’t taste kosher wine, similar to other wines

• Produced only by Sabbath observant Jews
• No non-kosher ingredients or processing agents (e.g. - fining agents)
• Has kosher certification on the bottle
• Mevushal (“boiled”) - for some kosher wines, uses flash pasteurization which is also used by some non-kosher wineries; tend to taste more approachable initially, but ages longer

Israel #1 producer of kosher wine (~5M cases), USA (~350k cases; mostly Herzog), France (~350k cases across many wineries)

Kosher wine market

• Observant Jews drink kosher wine year-round
• Jews use wine in almost every religious ceremony, considered the “holy beverage”
• Passover 1st night dinner (Seder), every adult is required to drink 4 cups of wine (can by any kosher wine or grape juice), each cup symbolizes 1 way God saved Jews from slavery
• Jews who don’t do kosher normally will for Seder
• 40% of kosher wine in the US is purchased for Passover (used to be 60%, declining as more quality kosher wines available, so more is being bought year-round)
• Top markets - Israel, US (NY/NJ #1, FL, CA - CA Jews drink less wine than East Coast Jews), France

In top kosher markets, large retailers (e.g. - Total Wine) will have a kosher selection, some kosher wine stores, and online retailers (e.g. - Wine.com) also carry kosher

Of the 15.7M Jewish people (2023), only a small portion keep kosher

Some kosher wines sold to the general market (e.g. - Bartenura Moscato #1 imported Moscato the past 15 years, most don’t know it’s kosher; Jeunesse semi-dry wines have a distinct consumer appeal)

Israeli politics / Gaza war have lead to people buying more to support Israel

Marketing to the Orthodox community

• Identify sects with stricter mevushal rules (e.g. - 101F vs 105F) and promote specific brands that meet those
• Print advertising big (English, Yiddish), many do not use as much internet, none on Sabbath, take in news via print
• Whatsapp #1 social media for Orthodox Jews (or Telegram)

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