Let me start by with the obligatory apologies for the lateness of this post. My work schedule unfortunately has not let up – and is forecasted to continue this way until at least November – so I am constantly playing catch up. This year, due to work, I was unable to do the full KFWE circuit. I did get a chance to hit KFWE in NY – but decided against writing it up as there were very few of Royal’s European wines that I hadn’t already tasted and written up. Also, for whatever reason, Royal decided to omit the press section of that event. This made it impossible to really taste through anything in a serious way when there are mob scenes all over the place and people wearing obscene amounts of perfume and cologne. On the other hand, as a social event, it was great – as all of the KFWE’s are hanging out with friends and casually drinking some of Royal’s excellent offering. Also, some of the food was quite good in the main hall, which really added to the fun atmosphere. (Whereas in the VIP section, the food was managed REALLY poorly – I’m not sure what went on there. The wines were excellent though! Special kudos to the 2020 Covenant Cabernet Sauvignon, which is excellent this year, and to the 2019 Carmel Tel Macphea Late Harvest Gewürztraminer. I had missed it on release, and it was nice to taste it – even so far from home.

Having skipped KFWE-LA, the next KFWE up was Tel Aviv. Zur, Royal’s distributor in Israel is responsible for this event. As they distribute only a small subset of the Israeli wines that Royal distributes in the US, the TA event is naturally smaller – and more focused on the non-Israeli wines. On top of that, Zur DID have a press event prior to the main show, and this allowed for a much deeper dive on a couple of the new wines and, quite frankly, was really nice. It was a guided tasting of a selection of one wine per winery with representatives from each winery presenting their respective wines, making this a really nice event indeed. I will say that some of the wine selections were puzzling – for instance Ella Valley, which is now being distributed by Zur, chose to pour Estate Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve. I don’t have anything nice to say about that wine. I guess the color was OK. Herzog chose to pour their 2020 Baron Herzog Chardonnay – an underwhelming choice when they have so many excellent wines to choose from. Chateau Roubine chose to pour their Hippy Rose rather than pretty much any other wine they make, which would have been better. But rather than focus on those choices, let’s talk about the wines that impressed.