{"id":556694,"date":"2026-03-24T04:02:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T04:02:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/556694\/"},"modified":"2026-03-24T04:02:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T04:02:12","slug":"as-americans-drink-much-less-wine-kosher-demand-stays-strong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/556694\/","title":{"rendered":"As Americans drink much less wine, kosher demand stays strong"},"content":{"rendered":"

OXNARD, California \u2014 On Friday nights, in Jewish homes around the world, a familiar ritual unfolds: a blessing over wine, poured into a cup and passed around the table.<\/p>\n

That ritual, multiplied during Passover, may help explain why kosher wine is holding steady even as the broader wine industry struggles.<\/p>\n

Across the United States and globally, wine consumption is declining. Baby boomers, long the industry\u2019s most reliable customers, are aging out of peak drinking years. Younger consumers are drinking less alcohol overall and are more likely to reach for craft beer, spirits or ready-to-drink cocktails when they do. In California, wineries have begun laying off workers, cutting production and, in some cases, shutting down altogether<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But in the kosher wine market the downturn looks more like a slowdown.<\/p>\n

Royal Wine, the largest distributor of kosher wine in the United States, is used to seeing year-over-year growth in the double digits, according to Jay Buchsbaum, a vice president at the New Jersey-based company.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy that standard, we did not have a great year,\u201d he said in an interview. \u201cBut we did have an increase, whereas the industry has declined by as much as 12% so we\u2019re bucking the trend.\u201d<\/p>\n

At Herzog Wine Cellars in Oxnard, California, that resilience is apparent on the production floor.<\/p>\n

In the weeks before Passover, the busiest season of the year for kosher wine, a forklift is moving pallets across the warehouse and bottling lines are running steadily, workers are preparing shipments destined for holiday tables.<\/p>\n

\u201cPassover for us is what October, November and December are for the rest of the industry,\u201d said Herzog\u2019s winemaker David Galzignato, describing a seasonal surge that mirrors the year-end rush in most wineries.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

David Galzignato, an Italian Catholic, is director of winemaking and operations at Herzog Wine Cellars, a major kosher winery. (Asaf Elia-Shalev)<\/p>\n

Herzog is the flagship American winery of Royal Wine, which is owned by the Herzog family, an Orthodox family originally from Slovakia that has been in the business for nine generations and today dominates the kosher wine market in the United States. The scale is unusual for kosher production: Bottles range from $13 table wines to $300 Napa Valley releases, sourced from top vineyards across California.<\/p>\n

Galzignato, an Italian Catholic who joined the winery in 2021, was brought in with a specific mandate: to elevate the quality of kosher wine.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey wanted me to take kosher wine quality \u2026 to the same level, or better, than the non-kosher quality,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

But despite overseeing every step of production, Galzignato cannot physically move the wine he makes.<\/p>\n

Under kosher law, from the moment grape juice is released until the wine is bottled, only Shabbat-observant Jews may handle it \u2014 a requirement that shapes everything from staffing to workflow.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just takes a little bit more planning,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Even with those constraints, the winery has continued investing in its operations in recent years, upgrading equipment at a cost of more than $2 million and expanding production capacity at a time when many wineries are scaling back.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen there\u2019s a downturn companies typically pull back on investments,\u201d Galzignato said. \u201cBut here the commitment to presenting the best kosher wine remains 100%.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

A view of the one the many vineyards supplying Herzog Wine Cellars, the flagship winery of the Royal Wine, largest distributor of kosher wines in the United States. (Courtesy)<\/p>\n

Stability amid the wider downturn is not limited to industry giants like Royal. At Covenant, a boutique kosher winery in Berkeley, California, the trend looks similar.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re actually about 5% up this year,\u201d said Jeff Morgan, the Covenant\u2019s founding winemaker.<\/p>\n

Covenant helped popularize high-end kosher wine in recent decades, but Morgan credits a much older force for the staying power of his product.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe American interest in wine is in what I would call a correction phase,\u201d he said, describing the broader downturn as the fading of a decades-long boom driven largely by baby boomers.<\/p>\n

In his view, wine never became fully embedded in American life.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmericans don\u2019t have what we would call a wine culture,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are a nation that follows fads.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jewish life, by contrast, has long been structured around wine \u2014 not as a lifestyle choice, but as a ritual obligation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe Jews have a culture of wine,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are pretty much obliged to drink wine.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Covenant\u2019s founding winemaker, Jeff Morgan. (Courtesy)<\/p>\n

That obligation creates a built-in baseline of demand that persists regardless of broader trends.<\/p>\n

The same dynamic is visible to those who oversee kosher production.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have our regular Shabbos and our regular holidays and life cycle events,\u201d said Rabbi Nahum Rabinowitz, a senior rabbinical coordinator at the Orthodox Union who has worked on wine for more than two decades. \u201cThose activities continue as normal. \u2026 It hasn\u2019t really changed that much.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dovid Riven, who runs KosherWine.com<\/a>, the largest retailer in the United States selling only kosher wines, said he expects to bring in about as much this year as he did last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s definitely sluggishness \u2026 but not to the extent that the non-kosher industry is seeing,\u201d he said. Instead of abandoning wine, many customers are adjusting what they buy \u2014 opting for less expensive bottles or cutting back on collecting. He also noted the widespread perception in the wine industry that young people are replacing alcohol with cannabis.<\/p>\n

Still, he said, the ritual role of kosher wine sets a floor under demand. \u201cNobody\u2019s going to sit down for their seder and smoke four joints,\u201d he said. \u201cYou\u2019re going to need four cups.\u201d<\/p>\n

The goal of the industry should be to adapt with lighter, more accessible wines and new marketing strategies aimed at younger drinkers, said Ernie Weir, co-owner of Napa Valley\u2019s Hagafen Cellars, which was established in 1979.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not unaffected by the general trends so we must deal with them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Wine grapes ripen on the vine, almost ready for harvest. (Courtesy of Herzog Wine Cellars)<\/p>\n

The kosher wine business may have been spared some of the worst of the downturn in part because its consumers are still catching up to trends that reshaped the broader market years ago.<\/p>\n

For decades, kosher wine in the United States remained associated with sweet, low-end bottles even as the general market moved toward dry, higher-quality wines. That left room for growth as consumers began trading up.<\/p>\n

Buchsbaum argued that the kosher wine business has been spared some of the worst of the downturn in part because its consumers are \u201cbehind the general consumer\u201d \u2014 a lag that, in this case, has worked to the market\u2019s advantage.<\/p>\n

For decades kosher drinkers trailed broader trends, remaining associated with sweet wines long after the general market had shifted toward dry, higher-quality bottles.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the past, an Orthodox or kosher-observant person would only drink a bottle of wine at the table Friday night,\u201d Buchsbaum said. \u201cNow he\u2019s got two or three bottles at the table Friday night. Wow. He could have one or two during the week with his other meals. That consumer specifically has grown.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the same time another kind of kosher wine consumer has faded: the less observant American Jew who did not keep strictly kosher day to day but still bought kosher wine, hired kosher caterers and maintained certain communal norms around holidays and life-cycle events.<\/p>\n

Buchsbaum described a mid-20th-century American Jewish landscape in which nearly every community had kosher butchers and caterers because even many non-Orthodox families expected bar mitzvahs, weddings and other celebrations to be kosher. That world, he said, has sharply contracted.<\/p>\n

The result is a smaller but more engaged core market \u2014 one that is spending more per household even as casual participation declines.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe current kosher consumer \u2026 has picked up a lot of that slack,\u201d Buchsbaum said.<\/p>\n

The shift in who buys kosher wine reflects a broader change in American Jewish life. As assimilation and disaffiliation have transformed the community, more observant populations have taken on a larger role.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Left to right: Mordy, David, Morris, and Joseph Herzog. (Courtesy)<\/p>\n

Another broader trend is generating optimism among industry insiders: the growing demand for kosher wine outside the Jewish community.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the best example is Royal\u2019s Bartenura label, which is the best-selling premium Moscato, a sweet, aromatic white wine, in the United States, selling nearly 10 million bottles a year. Buchsbaum estimates that as little as 15% of Bartenura buyers are Jewish, with the blue-bottled wine developing a particular fan base among Black consumers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Buchsbaum also said Royal has increasingly found customers in Christian Zionists who are drawn to Israeli wines for religious and cultural reasons. In states like Texas, he said, that audience has become a meaningful and growing segment of the market.<\/p>\n

Royal sells to Total Wine, one of the largest wine chains in the country, which has expanded its Israeli wine offerings and actively promotes them to a broad, largely non-Jewish customer base.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have a tremendous Israeli wine section,\u201d Buchsbaum said, noting that stores feature maps of Israel\u2019s wine regions and host tastings to introduce the category to new consumers.<\/p>\n

It also helps that Israeli producers have been earning high scores and international awards, competing alongside established wine regions in Europe and California. That recognition has helped shift perceptions of kosher wine from a religious product to a quality-driven one.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve been making wine for over 5,000 years, and they just got recognized for being good at it,\u201d said Josh Greenstein, executive vice president of the Israeli Wine Producers Association.<\/p>\n

Reporting the stories that define our era. When history unfolds in real-time, the Jewish world turns to JTA. Your support ensures we can document the complexities of war and the resilience of Jewish communities with integrity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OXNARD, California \u2014 On Friday nights, in Jewish homes around the world, a familiar ritual unfolds: a blessing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":556695,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[49,48,84,395],"class_list":["post-556694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nutrition","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-health","tag-nutrition"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=556694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556694\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/556695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=556694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=556694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=556694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}