Royal success Bayonne distributor proves kosher wine not just for holidays.

Byline: Gabrielle Saulsbery

Bartenura, owned and distributed by Bayonne's Royal Wine Corp., is an Italian import and it's kosher.

Sure, Bartenura doesn't dispel the myth that all kosher wine is sweet, but it does put to rest any notion that kosher wine isn't as good as a non-kosher variety. Royal Wine estimates only 5 percent of its customer base is kosher.

"The biggest issue is perception. That's something that I deal with. It's not technical, it's in some ways emotional, social, [and] incorrectly informed. It's just perception," said Jay Buchsbaum, Royal Wine's executive vice president of marketing and director of wine education.

"No one picks up a bottle of Heinz and says, 'You know, I don't want this kosher ketchup,'" he added. "But when they pick up a bottle of wine, if they see a kosher certification, they [scoff]. Even if it's cabernet, which is delicious ... they go 'I don't want this kosher cabernet.' They don't have the same perspective. That's a big challenge for us from an education and a marketing point of view."The assumption that all kosher wine is sweet can be traced back to its roots in America, when a good number of Jewish people lived in the New York metropolitan area. Its beginnings relied on Concord grapes out of necessity. That was what was available in the region.

"We use wine every Friday night and every holiday except for Yom Kippur. We use wine every time someone gets married, every time someone has a circumcision, every time there's a bar or bat mitzvah," Buchsbaum said. "We needed wine, and everybody lived here in the Northeast. The only grapes that were available were the Concord varietal. In order for them to be palatable you think they're sweet, but they're so dry at harvest they had to add sugar.""Passover season is our Super Bowl. More than 40 percent of our sales are done in the three-month period." Sheldon Ginsburg, Royal Wine Corp. CFOUnsweet kosher wines were introduced in the U.S. in the 1970s when the Herzog family, owners of Royal Wine, brought three Bordeaux to market. At the time, their sweet Concord kosher wines were going for $2 to $3 per bottle, and these Bordeaux were $6. They were unsure if consumers would be willing to pay that price, but when New York Times writer Frank Prial wrote about kosher wine in his Wednesday wine column, Buchsbaum said, the container sold out in days.

"[The real transition] began about 25 years ago when kosher wine producers like ourselves started making wonderful dry...