Kosher Food and Drink

Continuing my tasting through the Binah line, I tasted the latest Stella offering over Rosh Hashanah. Stella was the wine that introduced me to the Binah brand several years ago with the 2019 vintage. I have found the Stella to offer great value in the very difficult $20 and under category.

Kevin Danna is the dreamer, founder and winemaker at Binah Winery, and has realized his dream of making premium, handcrafted wine in his now-hometown of Allentown, Pa. We had the pleasure of interviewing Kevin at length on the Kosher Wine Podcast — well worth a listen.

You may not realize that premium wine — which happens to be kosher — is produced in the Lehigh Valley of southeastern Pennsylvania. And you may not think of the Keystone State when it comes to wine, but the Lehigh Valley’s region’s well-drained shale and limestone soil are similar to regions of France and well-suited for grapes.

What’s particularly unique here, at least for those of us from Maryland, is Stella’s named appellation of my home state of Maryland. Danna tells me “at least 75% of the Stella is Seyval Blanc grown in Sparks, Maryland,” just about 15 minutes north of me in Baltimore County. I can’t ever recall seeing a kosher-certified wine made with Maryland grapes (other than from homemade local hobbyists).

While Danna is a native of the Pomona Valley in southern California, his parents both grew up in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., and after his parents divorced, he moved with his mom back to the East Coast. He attended elementary and high school in northern Delaware, spending summers and vacation time with dad in California.

After attending Penn State University, where he studied architectural engineering and was a member of the Marching Blue Band (percussion) he starting a career in architectural lighting design in Alexandria, Va.

During college, Danna started to become more interested in Judaism and more traditional observance. It was the start of what he calls “a half-decade-long move toward Orthodox practice,” after a “more Conservative” Jewish upbringing.

During his time in Virginia, and with his growing Shabbat observance, Danna began drinking more wine. Danna grew up hearing tales of his Sicilian paternal great-grandfathers making their own wines and seeing their old wine barrels as a little boy.

Around 2013, a friend of a friend named Tuvia Natkin suggested that Danna get into winemaking. Danna and his wife Sarah would move to Allentown, Pa. later that year, and in spring 2014, he made his first wine in his basement from Chilean grapes purchased at a local homebrew store.

He soon enrolled in a two-year enology and viticulture college certificate program in Pennsylvania while taking a job at Pinnacle Ridge Winery in Kutztown, Pa., under winemaker Brad Knapp. Danna honed his skills as a sparkling winemaker while working for Knapp, a Lehigh Valley pioneer winemaker, who Danna calls a “master of sparkling wine production.”

After a few years at Pinnacle Ridge, Danna founded Binah Winery, leasing a five-acre vineyard in Easton, Pa., and farming the 2019 vintage almost entirely by himself with the help of some family and friends. He would then focus only on winemaking, not renewing his land lease, and moving the winery to his hometown of Allentown.

Binah’s mission is to “[offer] high quality-to-price ratio (QPR) wines, meaning that you get high quality wines at a great price, [offering] direct-to-consumer shipping from our winery, located centrally in the Northeast.” Additionally, Binah often offers incredible sales. It’s hard to beat the pricing for this quality of Binah’s latest releases. I have positively reviewed many, including the Merlot, 2022, Blanc de Blanc, 2022, and Chardonnay, 2022. Now we can add the Stella, Maryland, 2021 to my recommended list, along with the Pinot Noir, ’22 and Riesling, ’22 as well as others.

The Stella is a “lightly oaked” dry white wine blend of Seyval Blanc, Vidal Blanc, and Chardonnay, with about 15% of the blend aged six months in French oak with around a third having undergone malolactic fermentation.

“The Seyval was pretty ripe that year,” Danna told me, “not harvested until mid-September, on the later side for Seyval. [Seyval] is early ripening, typically harvested late August-early September. Vidal Blanc, on the other hand, is late-ripening, and was picked towards the end of October near Gettysburg.”

As for the Stella’s profile, Danna says, “Seyval Blanc has grassy ‘Chardonnay-like’ characteristics, Vidal Blanc is a child of Ugni Blanc, which they make Cognac out of [expressing citrus, apple/pear, and tropical fruit] and the Chardonnay was less than 5% of the blend.”

Tasting notes:

Binah, Stella, Maryland, 2021:

On the nose, fresh citrus, stone fruit, apple, pear, white flower, tropical, flint, vanilla, brioche. The palate offers medium weight, a creaminess and slight oiliness. Seyval Blanc does well with malolactic fermentation and light oak aging, providing a rounded profile and good depth. Very nice! My favorite Stella yet.

$20, 12% ABV, certified by the OU, non-mevushal

Available at kosherwine.com (KENNY5 for additional 5% off) and at binahwinery.com