Unconventional launch for unorthodox wines

Own correspondent

It was fitting that the launch of the wine took place on the doorstep of Doornfontein and Bertrams, suburbs which many Jews first called home when they arrived in this country many years ago and before the demographic northward shift started.

Zandwijk was the first and remains the only fulltime kosher wine-making estate in South Africa. It released its new 2014 Merlot Cabernet Sauvignon blend and a 2016 Sauvignon Blanc. The name seemed strange for a Mevushal Kosher Wine. 

“We value our kosher identity as something different – wine with a twist perhaps,” said Oren Kaplan, whose family owns Zandwijk wine estate. “We have therefore added our bold twist too. A new perspective on age-old traditions. We trust you will find the new range to be out of the ordinary, refreshing and relevant, familiar but clearly different.”

Winemaker Jean van Rooyen describes how the red wine blend was made. The Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon were made separately, grapes picked at optimum ripeness to make a full bodied wine. The Merlot spent seven months in both American and French oak and the Cabernet Sauvignon seven months in French oak. The wine was blended just prior to bottling.

A closer inspection of the label allows one to see irreverent Jewish images, from a ram playing the trumpet, to a kosher hot dog stand, to a yeshiva bocher sitting at a shtender under a pomegranate tree with a boom box at his feet.

 As Wayne Sussman, manager of Unorthodox Wines, says: “Each image personifies the label. Each image celebrates what we want to achieve with this wine.”