Dear Rabbi,
On a previous post you commented that white wine or red wine vinegar is not an issue. Could you please share with me the halachic rationale?
Jacob Levy
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Should balsamic vinegar or cognac vinegar be treated in the same manner? Do you distinguish between these vinegars as an ingredient versus buying them separately for home use?
They’re fine either way.
The concern with a non-Jew handling wine is a rabbinic enactment. Chazal prohibited wine that a non-Jew might have handled because, in earlier times, wine could have been used for idolatrous libations. Since it was impossible to know in each case, they made a general prohibition.
That concern simply does not exist with modern commercial wine vinegar production in Western countries. The wine is transferred through sealed tanks, pumps, hoses, and automated equipment. There is no practical opportunity for a worker to handle or pour the wine while it is still wine.
In addition, wine vinegar is usually only one ingredient in a finished food. It is uncommon for wine vinegar to make up more than one-sixth of the final product.
Finally, virtually all commercial wine vinegar is pasteurized (mevushal). Once wine is mevushal, the rabbinic prohibition on handling by a non-Jew no longer applies.
For those reasons, I permit ordinary commercial wine vinegar and products containing it without requiring a kosher certification.
Hello Rabbi,
What about red wine for drinking?
What I understood from your article is that commercial bottled red wine, particularly those that aren’t from artisanal wineries or home made, can be drinked if handled and served by Jews.
That remains the same.
Sorry, that means that all the drinking wine has to be Kosher or we can buy regular commercial red/white wine for home consuming since we are the ones handling it?
You can buy any wines. Unless you have personal information stating that the non-Jews are able to touch the wine or pour it in that particular winery.