How can you truly get to know the measure of hundreds of wines in a few hours? The short answer is, you can’t. But it’s possible to try.
At New York’s annual Kosher Food and Wine Experience, an event now held at this time of year in half a dozen cities, including Paris, Miami and Los Angeles, Royal Wine brings together representatives from the wineries they distribute, with their products to sample, for the trade and media in the midday, and the event opens to the public, via ticket sales, in the evening. For Purim recommendations, please be sure to check out Gabriel Geller’s article about his KFWE-seudah picks on page 108.
In recent years, our editorial approach to KFWE has been to focus on new additions to the market, and to extend the knowledge of wineries we know to more in their line, while also experimenting with new names and trying to establish an understanding of current trends. The show is also an excellent opportunity to meet the winemakers who are on hand, getting to know their approach and how their wines differ. Comparing wines, at similar price points or composition, adds to our wine education and palate. It’s also important to try to avoid wine fatigue by not tasting wines with which we are already familiar, and focusing on only tasting items unavailable elsewhere.
For fun, and to set the bar extra high, one of the first wines we sampled was the Barons de Rothschild Brut Cuvee (Elizabeth had enjoyed this wine the previous evening at the Herzog Rothschild 30th anniversary celebration). It has a retail price of over $100. Almost as good, and significantly more affordable, was the Covenant Blanc de Blanc bubbly.
The biggest news in the wine world for us was that Jonathan Hadju, one of Covenant’s celebrated winemakers, is coming out with two Royal-distributed wines under the Hadju label in March, a grenache and a petite sirah, for around $50. Both were excellent—complex, interesting and with a full experience from the nose on down to the finish—but the grenache had a special appeal for Bracha, whose favorite wines are smooth, balanced and fruity. Bracha also sampled the popular Covenant Red C and made a note to add this one to her Shabbos and Yom Tov list.
New to us was the Goose Bay/Pacifica Two Hemisphere Selection, which is a joint project between these two co-owned wineries in New Zealand and Oregon. Winemaker Spencer Jones explained that his family owns both these wineries, and 40% of their offerings operate under kosher supervision. Enjoyed by all was a true now-industry standard, Goose Bay’s sauvignon blanc, which has that fun New Zealand citrus snap-back twist at its finish.
A highlight of KFWE for Elizabeth was meeting and speaking with Pierre Miodownick, a true kosher winemaking legend who brought every French kosher wine to the U.S. market from 1986 to 2015. After his aliyah, he’s now making distinctively high-quality Rhone-style wines at Netofa.
Elizabeth also tasted Spain’s Elvi wines, and met David Cohen, who will be leading a curated tasting of seven Elvi wines in Teaneck, including Clos Mesorah, just before our deadline. There will be more on that in the coming weeks.
It’s always a pleasure for Elizabeth to see Etti Edri, from Carmel and Yatir, and Josh London, a wine writer and friend for more years than either care to remember.
An increasingly large share of the nighttime public portion of the event is the collection of restaurants and caterers displaying gorgeous and tasty samples of their cuisine. There were only a few on hand for the daytime trade/media event, but more than enough for us. We tasted samples from Great Falls Bistro, Weiss Brothers Caterers, and even United Airlines, who was there promoting their new kosher meals on flights to Tel Aviv. We were intrigued by Great Falls Bistro’s beet sliders, with a meaty taste and vibrant purple color. Weiss Brothers Caterers made a delicious smoked and carved bright red whole chicken that was a feast for the eyes and palate. We also enjoyed their lamb bites topped with pickled cabbage.
By Bracha Schwartz and Elizabeth Kratz
