A ROYAL REPUTATION

QUALITY, PURITY AND DIVERSITY DEFINE THE FAMILY-OWNED MAKER EIGHTH-GENERATION, OF PREMIUM KOSHER WINES AND BEVERAGES

- SUSAN BLOOM

Celebrity chef José Andrés once famously said that “every time I open a bottle of wine, it’s an amazing trip somewhere” — and nothing could be truer of Bayonne-based Royal Wine Corp., the world’s leading purveyor of kosher wines and beverages. One hundred and seventy-five years after its original founding by the Herzog family and sporting royal European roots, the company remains dedicated to quality and purity and takes pride in bringing consumers the finest wines, spirits and liqueurs from around the globe.

Founded in 1848 in what was then Czechoslovakia, the Herzog family winery was renowned as the royal wine supplier to Emperor Franz Joseph of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. After the winery was seized by the Nazis during World War II, however, patriarch Eugene Herzog moved the family to New York City, where he began working for Royal Wine Corp. in 1948 and purchased the company a decade later in an effort to re-establish the splendor of the Herzog family name and its longstanding association with premier wine.

The family ultimately turned Royal Wine Corp. into the largest purveyor, producer and distributor of kosher wines worldwide, said Jay Buchsbaum, executive vice president of marketing and director of wine education at Royal Wine Corp. “Today, we have offices in Paris, London, Tel Aviv and Oxnard, Calif. (the site of our own winery, Herzog Cellars); own and operate the Kedem Winery in Marlboro, N.Y.; and have been headquartered in Bayonne for over 20 years.”