By COLlive reporter
Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Shmueli, an educator from Crown Heights, has had a passion for wine ever since he was a child. He has now turned that love for fine wine into a business, creating a delicious dry red wine with all the stringencies for Pesach, with no additives or sulfites.
One of his earliest memories, describes Shmueli, is his grandfather Reb Boruch Asher Shmueli, making wine in the basement of his home in Israel.
“I remember visiting him as a child and seeing all the different types of aged wines he had,” Shmueli says.
His maternal grandfather, Rabbi Gutman Baras, the Rebbe’s shliach in Long Island, bought his first property for his Chabad House with a beautiful vineyard growing wine grapes along the fence on the driveway. “I remember once my father cutting a bunch of grapes and bringing them home and making wine out of them,” describes Shmueli. “That was my first experience with hands-on homemade wine.”
“As a child I was more into the sweeter wines, however, when I went to mesivta in Montreal, Quebec, being an out-of-towner I would often go to the Gansburg family for Shabbos. There they were very into dry wines in general and homemade wine in particular. Rabbi Gansburg would make wine every year with the Rosenfelds, and that is where I developed a liking for dry wine,” he says.
After completing Yeshiva and Semicha Shmueli got involved in making wine together with a family friend from Toronto who would make his own wine. He offered him and Shmueli’s younger brother Moshe to partner with him in the wine-making process. The brothers would drive down to Toronto to see the process and help out. “That is where I really got to learn the ins and outs of making wine. We would then fill up the previous year’s wine in wine bags and bring them back home to Crown Heights,” he says.
After a few years, the Shmuelis felt it was too much to make the long trip, especially during the wine-making season which is Tishrei time, so it was then that Yisroel Dovid decided to start making his own wine. “It started out as a fun activity with one type of grape, Cabernet Sauvignon, and moved to a blend with Merlot,” he describes. “As I started getting more comfortable with the blends, I began trying different grapes to get the taste and color I very much wanted. This is how I got to the wine’s delicious taste and its beautiful color.”
Today, Shmueli has perfected his wine with a blend of 4 different types of grapes, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Alicante, and Zinfandel.
As this became a success and sought-after wine, Shmueli started selling it for Pesach, especially to those who were looking for a good tasting homemade wine with all the chumros, with no additives and particularly no sulfites to which some have an allergic reaction.
“As a full-time Rebbe of 7th grade, I took the opportunity throughout the years to take my talmidim to different wineries to see the process and get an understanding of what we as Yidden need to go through to have kosher wine for Shabbos and Yom Tov,” he says.
“One of the local wineries I took my talmidim to was one of our very own in Crown Heights, owned by my first cousin Rabbi Shmuel Lipsker. He was very accommodating and informative and would answer their questions very patiently.”
As the wine became more in demand, Shmueli looked to create a name and label.
“The name chosen was something that sounded authentic and had my initials,” he says. The name chosen was RYDASH, (R’ Yisroel DAvid SHmueli) pronounced REE-DASH.
He started off with a label made by his eighth-grade students in Oholei Torah who were eager to see its success. He then had a label created by his friend Yossi Kanner who works as a graphic designer.
“Today I have many customers who really enjoy the wine and I have gotten great feedback from those who have a good understanding of dry wines and those who simply enjoy its flavors and smoothness, especially on the Seder nights,” Shmueli says.
For more info and to purchase, email: [email protected] or call (516) 770-6989.
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