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What can you do?
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Klal Yisroel is suffering – is wine really that important??
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Israel, Israeli Wine, Kosher Red Wine, Kosher Sparkling Wine, Kosher White Wine, Kosher Wine, Wine, Wine Industry -
Final Tasting from my trip to Paris – May 2023
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Kosher French Wine, Kosher Red Wine, Kosher Rose Wine, Kosher Sparkling Wine, Kosher White Wine, QPR Post, Wine, Wine TastingAmicale, Blanc, Cantine Di Ora, Cava, Chateau Canon Chaigneau, Chateau Grand Cormier, Chateau Holden, Chateau Martin, Chateau Peyrat-Fourthon, Château Haut Philippon, Codorniu, Domaine Lebrun, Falset, Ha-Llel-Uya, L'enclos de Zeide, La Citadelle de Diamant, La Demoiselle D’Haut-Peyrat, Le Grand Castellan, Or dela Castinelle, Paris Hotel, Pouilly-Fume, Ribeauville, Riesling, Rosacker, Rose, Rosso, Rouge, Saint-Martin, Terra de Vinyaters -
Another awesome list of Elvi Wines
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Yavine Wines aplenty – May tasting 2023
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Alaric, Blanc, Charles Joguet, Chateau Vieux Taillefer, Chateauneuf du Pape, Château La Baronne, Chinon, Corbières, Grand Cru, La Crau de ma Mere, Les Charmes, Les Chemins, Les Lanes, Les Petites Roches, Les Varennes du Grand Cru, Les Vin de Vienne, Mourvedre de Las Vals, Pavillon de Taillefer, Piece de Roche, Rouge, Roussanne de Las Vals, Syrah, Vignobles Mayard, Vins de France -
My tasting of Bokobsa/Sieva wines – May 2023
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Kosher French Wine, Kosher Red Wine, Kosher Rose Wine, Kosher White Wine, Kosher Wine, Wine, Wine Tasting -
IDS tasting of current releases in Paris – May 2023
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Kosher French Wine, Kosher Red Wine, Kosher Rose Wine, Kosher Semi Sweet Wine, Kosher White Wine, Kosher Wine, Wine, Wine TastingBeaune, Blanc, Bourgogne, Chateau de Valois, Chateau la Tour de By, Chateau Labegorce, Chateau Larrivaux, Chateau Leydet-Valentin, Chateau Marquis d'Alesme Becker, Chateau Sainte Marguerite, Chateau Smith Haut Lafitte, Chateau-Lafon-Rochet, Clos des Lunes, Cuvee Cabernet Sauvignon, Cuvee Fantastique, Cuvee Heritage, Cuvee Symphonie, Domaine de Chevalier, Domaine Vacheron, Fonteny, Gevrey Chambertin, Gewurztraminer, Grand Champs, Grand Cru, Gustave Lorentz, Hautes-Cotes de Nuits, IDS, Jean Luc & Paul Aegerter, Les Petites Corvees, Les Vins IDS, Lune D’Argent, Nuits Saint Georges, Pouilly-Fuisse, Premier Cru, Riesling, Rose, Sancerre, Sarga Muskotaly, Tokaj-Hetszolo, Vers Cras, Virginie de Valandraud -
KFWE London 2023
To wrap up KFWE season, Royal Wines hosted its annual London event last week. As I have mentioned previously, the show in London is perhaps my favorite. It really has nothing to do with the wines – the vast majority of which I had tasted before. It more has to do with the Chevra. First of all, the wine drinking crowd in London are just super nice. Really – a higher caliber social group it would be hard to find. There is no posturing, no grandstanding. Just people who enjoy drinking wine and are happy to share in their experiences and hospitality. This is pretty much my experience each time I visit. On top of that, London allows me to spend time with friends from the US whom I get to see far too infrequently – and almost never at the same time. In general, whenever people visit Israel, they are usually coming with a number of obligations and have very little “hang” time. The same is often true when I am in the US – I have either work or familial obligations and rarely have chucks of time open for socializing. But, in London, if you are coming from the US or Israel (and were not originally from the UK) you have no obligations and so whenever KFWE London comes up, I get to spend some quality time with friends eating, out, touring, and just having a wonderful time hanging.
This year was no different. As has now become almost customary, the KFWE was proceeded by a festive dinner. Rather than hosting us at his house as we did in the old days, Andrew Krausz hosted us at his newly opened restaurant “The Fireplace by Blue Smoke”. The attention to detail in putting this spot together in what amounts to his backyard (next to the retired airplane) is incredible – as was the food (pictures of which are below). Having said that, I do miss the more intimate feeling of being at home. This was more of a formal setting and a guided tasting hosted by Royal and led by both Menahem Israelievitch and Joseph Herzog, which paired each dish with both French and Californian wines. As is always the case with food and wine – there were some hits and some misses – but none of that really matters. It was about the experience, which was fun. On the food side, believe it or not, my favorite dishes were the fish – both the gravlax and hake. Andrew just does them both exquisitely. On the wine side, for me France took the night handily with wonderful showings of the 2019 Gazin Rocquencort, 2020 Le Hardi Gevrey-Chambertin, 2016 Château Lascombes and the 2020 Château Léoville Poyferré. We also had a couple of unique tastings, including the never released first edition of the Generation VIII, which was a 2002 North Coast Cabernet Sauvignon, as well as a barrel sample of the 2021 Warnecke Vineyard CS. Interesting indeed. I have to spend a moment also on the dessert. The original dessert that Andrew planned did not set properly, and so he whipped up a substitute. While a brownie may seem mundane, this was one of the best I have ever tasted. I can’t say that it paired well with the 2018 Château Piada – but like I said, it was unplanned – and excellent.
The next day was spent touring a bit in various art galleries and bookstores followed by a nice lunch at the Tony Page @ Island Grill near Hyde Park. In general, most of the kosher establishments in London don’t have a reputation for excellent food. I can say that everything we had at Tony Page was on point from the Risotto to the lamb to the sticky toffee putting we had for dessert – excellent all. To top it off, they have a very decent wine list!
But of course, the reason for being in London was KFWE. As in previous years, it was held at Sheraton Grand London Park Lane Hotel in Piccadilly. As I have mentioned previously – I am not a fan of the layout there – and the rooms are ridiculously overpriced. Having said that, this year’s event was run very well. Even though it was right in the middle of summer, there was adequate AC and for the most part, the room is big enough for the number of wines being poured. The only note I can give is that there were not enough spittoons set up. Often there was one spittoon for two tables to share and they were stationary, meaning if you were at the far end of the table and wanted to spit, it was bit of a nightmare. But that aside everything went smoothly. For the most part the food was nicely done – if not to my particular taste. However, at least for the press section, which ran from 2:30-5:30, there was plenty of canapés to go around, if you so wanted. One oddity, for the main event, which started at 6:30, they have canceled the VIP area. I understand that perhaps the food was not up to par the last couple of times – (even though it was trending better year over year), and so, I guess people didn’t feel it was “worth it.” But, this did have the unfortunate ripple effect of keeping everyone in the main room for the most part (yes there was a little food outside and on the floor above, but if you wanted to both taste wine and eat, that really didn’t work). So by 7:30pm the place was a zoo. Luckily for me, by then I really had to make my exit to catch a flight back to Israel. So I avoided this for the most part.
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2d Grand Cru Classe de Medoc en 1855, Cabernet Sauvignon, Chalk Hill, Chateau Leoville Poyferre, Chateau Piada, Château Lascombes, Dalton, Elvi Wines, Family Collection, Gazin Rocquencourt, Generation VIII, Grand Cru Classe en 1855, Herenza, Herzog, Margaux, Matzpen, Netofa, North Coast, Pessac-Leognan, Reserva, Rioja, Royal, Saint-Julien, Sauternes, Special Edition, Warnecke Vineyard -
RCC Israel # 45 – Tamuz 5783 at Mojo’s
During the summer it’s always hard to find people to cook and so we decided to go with a restaurant this month. The restaurant in question is Mojo’s, which is a new venture by the Maller family. Tzvi Maller has a number of restaurants under his belt – most recently Crave in Jerusalem and Nobo in Teaneck, but a number of others before that as well. Mojos though is the first time the Maller family has made it a true family affair without any other partners involved in the day-to-day operation. And the Mallers are involved in every area – both in the kitchen and front of house, augmented of course by a truly pleasant and professional staff. But the real star of the show is the food. As you can see from the menu, we sampled a wide variety of menu items. I cannot remember the last time where EVERY single items was a hit. Yes, there was a slight delay between the first 2 courses – but this is a brand new restaurant which received a glowing review the same day from the Times of Israel – and so was literally packed from the time we got there until shortly before closing. Other than that delay, the food came out like clockwork and, as mentioned, was very tasty. It is hard to even choose a favorite dish – really they were all good – from the opening Caesar salad through the appetizers like the spaetzelle (reminiscent of a similar dish I remember from Nobo in Teaneck) and the Wagyu slider through their signature meat pizzas. They were all incredible (REALLY!) and pictures can be found below. But as effusive as I am about our experience, this is a wine blog after all, and it was pretty much a hit there as well. Yes there were two wines that were misses as far as I am concerned – but everything else was really great – and that’s a VERY good percentage. The only real downer is that when we taste in restaurants, its often very difficult to get a read on the nose in a way accurate enough to write notes, as you are in close quarters with other diners, and, in this case, there were aromas of lamb bacon and sausage that were wafting through the restaurant. But other than that, all in all, a pretty exceptional night. On top of that, right across the street from the restaurant on one of the security grates we noticed graffiti with the word “RCC” in plain sight. We then saw it again on random street signs. Clearly a sign that that Mojo’s is certainly an RCC-worthy choice to dine.
Anyhow, here are my notes on the wines (minus the nose):
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KFWE 2023: NY & Tel Aviv
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.
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