My next post on France is basically written – just editing now – but before I post that, I figured I would quickly write up this month’s RCC. I don’t like to postpone those as I take shorthand notes during those tastings, and if I wait too long I have a hard time reconstructing what I meant! This month we were hosted by a Chef Josh Weisberg in his home. Josh has a very interesting background – but in this context he has cooked at the famous T’mol Shilshom restaurant in Jerusalem and hosts parties of 12-25 at his home in the Kiryat Moshe neighborhood. You can learn all about him here . He was willing to change the menu to our requirements as well as provide vegan options rather late in the game and was an all-around pleasure to work with. On top of that, he made some of the best pastrami I’ve ever had, and (to borrow from the Godfather) I’ve had pastrami all over the world! He cures it and smokes it himself (he uses a Traeger pellet smoker – pretty much guaranteeing a nice juicy result) It was really good. Another highlight was the lamb soup. Really excellent stuff. The only downside (for an RCC) is that obviously this makes sense to him financially only in quantity – so that means a larger number of people than we usually like to have at an RCC. We were 15 people and we had a total of 18 wines to taste through over dinner. As I have said before, that is too many – gives less time to enjoy each wine  – and because it is being divided among 15 instead of the optimal 10, less wine per person to potentially  taste. To counter that, at least in my own small way, I brought a magnum – but that is not something that everyone can do. So that was the only downside in our situation – logistics. The food though was great. The host was gracious. And – as always – the guests were a great group of people and a fun time was had by all. We even had a siyum on Masechet Moed Katan to start us off right, by our guest, Jerome Parness, who joined us with his wonderful wife Smadar, who are here visiting from the US.

But of course, this is a wine blog – so here we go. I have to say this was a mixed bag this month. There were an equal number of misses to hits. We actually tasted through a number of early aughts Barkan Superiur bottles – a Pinotage, Merlot, and Cabernet Sauvignon. The Merlot was dead, the Pinotage well past its prime, and Cabernet Sauvignon was in surprisingly good shape. Having said that – as is the case with many, many Israeli wines – even the best – there is VERY little development of tertiary flavors or aromas on these bottles – even in the best of circumstances. Israeli wines often seem to be in a state of arrested development. It’s not that they feel over the hill – but it’s not like they really went anywhere or developed either. The highlights of the night for me were the 2014 Four Gates Cabernet Sauvignon, the 2014 D’Arduhuy Cotes de Beaune, and the 2015 TdS Riserva. As I mentioned – there were a lot of wines and this was a bit sub-optimal for note taking, so my notes are somewhat abbreviated (especially with the earlier wines) this time around.