It’s been quite a busy month wine-wise. I am in the middle of a number of articles, including my trip to France, which was a lot of fun with some truly excellent wines. At the same time, it has been very busy professionally and personally and so I am VERY behind on my writing. Luckily, I did have the time to squeeze in an RCC this month, and I hate holding off on those notes – so here we are. This month’s RCC, hosted by Simon Jacob, was really special. First, we had a visit from Yossie Horwitz of Yossie’s Corkboard. Besides being an excellent lawyer and one of the most knowledgeable people in the kosher wine world, his real claim to fame in this context is that he is the creator of the RCC concept! So if you are one of the hundreds of people who gets together each month to celebrate Rosh Chodesh over a festive dinner and some excellent wine, join me in raising a glass to Yossie! The concept has gotten so popular that even Herzog has borrowed it and is using it to sell monthly wine dinners at Tiera Sur (of course, it really isn’t the same – the whole point is for people to get to gather and share bottles that they have been saving, rather than having a winery determine which wines you will be drinking, but still I guess imitation is the sincerest form of flattery). In addition to having Yossie with us, which was truly a surprise based on the current Omicron closure situation, we also were lucky enough to have one of the originating RCC-Israel chefs, Bracha Arnold, come and cook for us. While I do love many of the chefs and restaurants that take care of us for RCC, Bracha’s dishes are always something special. There is always something inventive and unique – while being absolutely delicious. This month’s highlights for me were the mackerel sashimi over this wonderful kiwi gazpacho, as well as, surprisingly, the vegetarian dish, which was carrot mochi with pickled carrots and pistachio dukkah. If I had to describe what mochi are I would say rice flower gnocchi but with a fair amount of chew – really special. My favorite dish though was likely the desert, which this truly delicious salted honey pie with blueberry ginger lime sauce – absolutely outstanding. But as always, this blog is about the wine, so here it goes…..