Some Non-Jews Think Manischewitz Wine Tastes Good, Befuddling Jews
Long Nguyen, a Vietnamese immigrant living in Nashville, first tasted Manischewitz at Thanksgiving last year. A relative opened a bottle of the sweet, Concord grape wine to accompany the family dinner of roast duck, baguettes and noodles. Mr. Nguyen, a 45-year-old electrician, was delighted. “I asked her for another glass after we were done eating,” he says. Hooked, he bought bottles to give to his friends and relatives as Christmas gifts.
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Constellation last year produced over 900,000 cases of Manischewitz and says it is the top-selling kosher wine in the U.S. About 200,000 of those cases are exported to 20 countries, with the top markets in Latin America, the Caribbean and South Korea. Company executives say the drink—which also comes in flavors such as blackberry, cherry and “cream peach”—has broad appeal because it is sweet and fruity and has a lower alcohol content than most wines. The price, often around $5 for a 750ml bottle in the U.S., may also be a factor.
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Manischewitz sales peak around Passover, though many shops see demand for the product year-round. “I can never keep it on the shelf for long,” says John Cristal, who works at a Bronx liquor store that sells up to half its Manischewitz stock to Filipino, Latino and African-American customers. Those specifically seeking out kosher wines, he says, increasingly prefer imported kosher dry wines.
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At Shun Fat Supermarket in the San Gabriel Valley near Los Angeles, shoppers can pick up live crabs, red bean pancakes and $4.99 bottles of Manischewitz wine. The store sells hundreds of bottles of it each year to Chinese and Vietnamese customers. “I don’t see any Caucasians buying it,” says Huy Trieu, a store manager. He said Shun Fat started stocking the wine years ago after a wine salesman suggested “it would do great in this area.”
Whenever Ceda Xiong visits her parents in Columbia, S.C., Manischewitz is typically the only wine option at home, although they aren’t Jewish. “I tried to buy them a bottle of Pinot Noir once, and my dad said it was bitter and tasted too alcoholic,” says Ms. Xiong, a comedy writer in Los Angeles. Her father likes the “kosher for Passover” version, which is made with cane sugar, and typically drinks it with home-cooked dishes like steamed whole fish and Chinese roast chicken.
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Tony Chen, a customs broker who several years ago noticed Asian grocery stores in the Los Angeles area stocked Manischewitz, says the wine resembles a fermented drink consumed in Northern China. A nanny who was working for his family told him she used to make a similar wine by putting grapes in a jar with lots of sugar, mashing it into a mixture and leaving it to sit for weeks. “It was their own version of grape hooch,” Mr. Chen says.
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