When I was a young lad, my favourite part of the Seder meal was — I am not kidding — the karpas. In our house it was crinkly parsley (flat-leaf hadn’t appeared on the gastronomic horizon then) and I can still remember swirling it around vigorously in the salt water.
Looking back, I realise that my enthusiasm came mostly from hunger — I knew it would be the last sustenance I’d see for a good long while. So I ate it with relish.
My tastes have progressed — I no longer dip parsley in salt water for the pleasure of eating. But I have one friend whose taste in wine has not moved on from the ultra-sweet kiddush wines of his youth. “Forget that French junk! Give me Manischewitz”, he declares. His taste buds have simply never developed a tolerance for anything drier than old-style kiddush wine.
On the whole I am not a great stickler for wine at a Seder. There’s so much else to do that the quality of the wine is almost a secondary consideration. That Covenant Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon I wrote about a few weeks ago? Great, but not necessary. For me, something lower down the price scale will do just fine. Especially if it’s cabernet sauvignon.
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