Matzo Balls Meet Their Match

Last week, I made my annual spring pilgrimage to an unlikely Mecca in a remote corner of the city: Skyview Wine & Spirits, hidden away in a dreary shopping strip just south of where the northwest Bronx melds into Yonkers. Offering more than 450 kosher for Passover selections from a dozen countries, this is, perhaps, the country’s most complete kosher wine shop. Skyview is also an epicenter of early Passover energy. In the month before the holiday, owner Gary Wartels told me, his shop will send out more than 5,000 cases of Passover-friendly wine to customers in every state where mail orders are legal.In the wake of Mr. Wartels’s purchase of Skyview from former owner Jeff Saunders last year, I noticed two changes: a newly bright orange sign outside, and, on the selling floor, less exposure for kosher French wines, which have been shunted off to the side from a center aisle. And that’s fine, even for a Francophile like me. The days are long gone when the only way to put top-quality wine on the Passover table was to make it French. In fact, my answer to the ancient question, “Why is this night different from all other nights?” is that it’s the only night of the year that French wine is unwelcome at my house. That goes even for such fine bottles I spotted at Skyview as Château Malartic-Lagravière 2003, a stylish Graves ($60). (The nonkosher version is $28 at Zachys.)I might think differently about the French factor were it not for the ever-rising quality and variety of Israeli wines. From the Golan Heights in the north, where it all started in the mid-1980s with cutting-edge Yarden, to the Judean Hills and even the Negev desert in the south, Israeli winemakers are showing the right stuff. And often, along with pleasure in the glass, comes a dose of unique history that enriches the Passover experience. This year, for example, I’ll be drinking a vintage 2004 merlot from a new winery in the Judean Hills called Psagot (well priced at $19.95). Psagot, which means “peak” in Hebrew, has been around only since 2002, but there’s evidence that its wine-aging cave was first used for that same purpose about 2,000 years ago, when Jerusalem’s Second Temple was still intact and fewer than 20 miles away.Psagot merlot, a lean yet vibrant wine with a kick of spice, should match well to the traditional chicken soup with matzo balls that begins the Passover feast. Another Judean Hills red that will also be respectful of the delicacy of chicken soup is the mellow Yatir, a cabernet sauvignon-merlot blend from 7-year-old vineyards hidden away in Israel’s largest planted forest at the edge of the Negev. Yatir is a satellite of the giant Carmel, still the largest Israeli winery, whose strenuous efforts to upgrade its wines include giving autonomy to ambitious young winemakers like Eran Goldwasser, whose name is on Yatir.Should you prefer a white wine with your soup course, you might want to spring for what is arguably Israel’s finest chardonnay: Blanc du Castel 2005 ($40). It comes from yet another Judean Hills winery, Domaine du Castel, born as the hobby of Eli Ben-Zaken, a Jerusalem restaurateur whose boyhood was spent in Alexandria, Egypt. But after getting raves for his first red wine from Serena Sutcliffe, London-based head of Sotheby’s wine department, Mr. Ben-Zaken focused entirely on building Castel. Blanc du Castel can segue smoothly to the gefilte fish course, which is really a classic French quenelle by another name.With a slow-roasted brisket of beef or leg of lamb, a full, even funky, red is called for. My first choice is Yarden’s 2004 Syrah ($24) — a wine that tastes like it hails from the Rhône Valley even though it calls the Golan Heights home.Left out of this wine-matching discussion, you may have noticed, is a bedrock feature of the Passover meal: the mélange of chopped apples, nuts, and honey, moistened by sweet wine, called haroset. Happily, this is a course that allows Gewürztraminer, a wine that is infamous for its inability to play well with food, to behave perfectly. The slightly off-dry Yarden 2004 Gewürztraminer ($13) hangs in handsomely with classic Ashkenazic haroset, providing a lingering whisper of bitterness. To find harmony with a sweeter Sephardic style of haroset, try Carmel’s elixir-like Sha’al Late Harvest Gewüzrtraminer ($20 for a half bottle). Its ripe apricot notes harmonize with the dried figs, dates, and other fruits of this more dessert-like haroset.Gewürztraminer, you’ve finally found your match in haroset. Too bad that you’ll only meet at the Passover table.Skyview Wine & Spirits (5681 Riverdale Ave. at West 258th Street, the Bronx, 888-SKYVINO, skyviewwine.com.)

Matzo Balls Meet Their Match

Matzo Balls Meet Their Match

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