First, I must start this by saying I am sorry for this being two months late. The late tasting of the 2023 wines in Paris pushed all the dates forward. On top of that, this massive job of bringing up an entirely new platform was a crazy and arduous task that, Barush Hashem, we are both past! It was worth tasting those wines in their correct place. As stated below, I love KFWE, but it is not a place to taste wines for a serious tasting platform, like this. It is a place to taste wine and know if I should taste it in the correct setting. It is an excellent filter to help fine-tune the wines to sit down with.

As with last year, I wanted to keep this post short and sweet – so the criteria are simple. I couldn’t care less about price, color, or where it was made. All that matters is that it is/was available this year to the public at large, that I tasted it in a reliable setting, not just at a tasting, and that it scored 94 or higher. PLEASE NOTE the improved quality of the top wines this year! This is the best year that I have posted about regarding scoring. All 25 wines are 94 or above. An almost exact copy of the number of wines from last year that hit 94 and above (except for the Best QPR Wine of the Year and the Best Mevushal Wine of the Year).

We are returning with the “Wine of the Year,” “Best Wine of the Year,” “Winery of the Year,” “Best White Wine of the Year,” “Best QPR Wine of the Year”, and “Best Mevushal Wine of the Year.” Wine of the Year goes to a wine that distinguished itself in ways that are beyond the normal. It needs to be a readily available wine, incredible in style and flavor, and reasonably priced. It may be the QPR wine of the year, or sometimes it will be a wine that has distinguished itself for other reasons. The wines of the year are a type of wine that is severely underappreciated, though they have had a crazy renaissance over the past two years. The Best Wine of the Year goes to a wine well worthy of the title.

Disclaimer and note! The 2025 Best QPR Wine of the Year may be a hard pull for me, but I am betting on it anyway. The issue here is that the 2022 Chateau Rocher Gardat is not yet here in the USA. That said, I have been promised it will make it, and if it never does get here or gets priced in some insane manner, I have a backup as well. End of my Disclaimer and note.

The Mevushal wine of the year is something I dread. I understand the need for a wine that can be enjoyed at restaurants and events. Still, when we start seeing Château Gazin Rocquencourt and Chevalier de Lascombes go Mevushal – we know we have a problem. As I have stated in the past, if this is what needs to happen, then please sell both options as many do with Peraj Petita/Capcanes, Psagot wines, and many others. Still, it is a wine; as such, it needs a best-of-the-year moniker, so we do it again! The good news is that the process is getting better, so there is that!

This past year, like many of the past few years, I kept tasting more and more wines than ever. Now, to be clear, I tasted thousands of Israeli (and other) wines but did not write notes on them. At this point, I refuse to post notes that demean the Israeli wine situation. I understand that goes against my long-term stance, but the situation there also goes against any logical or even human stance. As such, if the wine is good, I post it. Otherwise, I am not adding value. I still think, long-term, Israel needs to change its winemaking style. However, as long as folks buy the wines, they will stay as they are. Enough said.