Pasteurized Wine for Kiddush

The Aish Rabbi Replies

Cooking wine lowers its quality. This impacts on Jewish law in two different ways. According to a minority opinion, cooked wine may not be used for Kiddush (or for a libation offering on the Temple’s altar) because of its inferior taste. (There is even an opinion, not accepted in halacha, that we no longer recite the special blessing of “borei p’ri ha’gefen” on cooked wine.) The majority opinion is that cooked wine is kosher for Kiddush. Ideally, however, if all else is equal and the cooked wine is not of higher quality, it is preferable to use uncooked wine over cooked.

There is a second ramification to cooking wine in Jewish law. In Talmudic times, there was a real concern that non-Jewish idolaters might handle Jewish wine and consecrate it to their deity. Today too, there is a general prohibition against drinking wine (not in a sealed bottle) which might have be handled by non-Jews. However, the Talmud (Avodah Zarah 30a) rules that this prohibition does not apply to cooked wine. Some understand that this is because there is no concern an idolater would offer cooked wine to his idol since it’s of inferior quality. Thus, despite the slight disadvantage of cooked wine vis-à-vis uncooked wine in terms of wine quality, cooked wine has the advantage that the entire prohibition of non-Jewish contact no longer applies to it. In many situations (people who have a non-Jewish maid working for them, a kosher hotel with non-Jewish workers, etc.), this consideration is much more significant.

In practice, most wines are pasteurized during their processing – briefly at about 180° F. There is a debate among contemporary authorities if that actually lowers the wine quality in the same manner as actual cooking. In the United States, rabbinical authorities are generally lenient, while in Israel many authorities are more stringent. This again carries an advantage and a disadvantage. If pasteurization is tantamount to cooking, then pasteurized wine does not have to be guarded from non-Jewish contact – but then it is not considered as preferred as “raw” wine for Kiddush. Conversely, if pasteurization is not the equivalent of cooking, then even pasteurized wine must be guarded from non-Jewish contact, whereas it is still preferred for Kiddush.

Bottom line, apart from the issue of non-Jewish contact, since cooked wine is only slightly less preferred than non-cooked, and since pasteurizing wine might not even be the equivalent of cooking it, most people use pasteurized wine for Kiddush as readily as entirely uncooked wine. Even so, there are those, especially in Israel where the concern of non-Jewish contact is less prevalent, who prefer to purchase wine which was never even put through the pasteurization process.

(Sources: Rambam, Ma’achalot Asurot 11:9, Shabbat 29:14; Shulchan Aruch Y.D. 123:3; Shulchan Aruch O.C. 472:12, 272:8 with Rema; Mishna Berurah 472:39; Igros Moshe, YD 2:52, 3:31; Minchas Shlomo 1:25.)