Due to the crazy circumstances this year, all trips were cancelled and therefore it was impossible to taste what was not local. While Royal made an effort to reach out to consumers with a Virtual KFWE, those of us in Israel were out of luck. Some of my colleagues have received samples from Royal – in Israel the situation I think is a bit more complicated. Most of the wines that Royal distributes in the US have different local distribution in Israel. For California wines, only a small subset are sold in Israel and usually we are (at least) one vintage back. For French, Spanish, and Italian Royal wines, Israel and the US are not at all in sync. Sometimes we are VERY behind, sometimes we are ahead. But now we are talking about a very small subset indeed. So it’s been a tough year. So I thought about trying to schedule something at Royal as soon as I booked a flight. As it happens, Raccah was also planning a trip to NY but a week later. I thought things simply wouldn’t work out, but he rescheduled his trip to coincide with mine – and for that I say thanks, buddy! It made the tasting that much more fun. But Raccah had tasted through Cali and France – and I had tasted through most of the Israeli stuff he wanted to taste (though I am way behind on writing that stuff up!)  – so GG set up a little bit of a combo, and we tasted through a fair amount on each side. I am not going to bother writing up the Israeli wines here, this post is super long as it is, and I plan on putting together an overview of the current Israeli releases sometime soon with my friend Alexander Kassel   – but that is for a later series of posts. I will highlight two Israeli standouts though – both were white. In terms of the rest, it’s a mixed bag. 2020 Rosés even from France are really not up to par. So far the 2020 French whites are also – “meh” at best. 2018 French reds are really interesting. They all show very ripe. A few perhaps to the point where they are overripe. But, I am betting on most of these calming down with enough structure to give these wines the time they need to get where they have to without falling apart. Where this tasting went right were the Cali reds. There were some excellent, excellent bottles here, which is so nice to see after the 2017 vintage. I mean some of the very best expressions of Cali CS and even a truly excellent Cali PN. Herzog for the win. Throw in an excellent Elvi Clos Mesorah and the crazy 2018 Cantenac Brown – and we had a wonderful time indeed. My thanks to my friend Gabriel Geller and  Royal wines for hosting this and letting me taste though some wonderful wines -and my thanks to David Raccah of Kosherwinemusings.com who helped set this up and of course makes these tastings that much more interesting.

Note: There were a few Royal French wines that didn’t make it into the tasting that I had tasted prior or immediately after this trip – I included them here as well and noted that they were tasted in Israel.