KFWE has been around since 2007 in NYC, and it keeps evolving. The Los Angeles version was initially called the International Food and Wine Festival (IFWF). It started in 2008. Neither of the KFWE (NYC/NJ or LA) is the oldest kosher wine-tasting event, which would be the now-defunct  Gotham Kosher Wine Extravaganza. Sadly, they stopped hosting those tastings, such is life, their first one was in 2004, and it ran until 2014. In 2015, the first year that the IFWF became the West Coast KFWE, David Whittemore and the gang from Herzog Winery pulled out all the stops and created what I still think was the best KFWE, with the first-ever VIP session, which was copied in almost every KFWE version, and hey “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.” I was sad to see the L.A. KFWE move from the Petersen Automotive Museum, where it has been for three years, in 2016, 2017, and 2018. However, the 2019 and 2020 KFWE L.A. at the Palladium were freaking EPIC. Then we had COVID and no in-person events for 2021, though the innovative approach with those bottles, while flawed, was a hit. Today, Herzog is sending their club members a better version of those tiny bottles, which looks really cool! Followed by a KFWE – Jr in NJ, which I reviewed here. Then, the whole gamut of KFWE in 2023 is also reviewed here. The 2024 KFWE turned into a different beast; you can see my comments here.

As I have pounded on and on in these virtual pages, we need more wine education, and the wine education leader, IMHO, is also the kosher wine 800-pound guerilla, Royal Wines. Recently, I quickly checked my mind of the top kosher wineries or kosher wine runs worldwide, and Royal probably imports about 85% of them. Sure, there are tons of wineries they do not import, but they are also not wines I mainly buy and covet. It is just a fascinating fact, in my opinion. It is somewhat scary but also very telling. Here is a wine distributor and importer that gets what sells and what does not, has successfully found the better options out there, and keeps adding more.

Remember, once again, KFWE will be open to the wine trade ONLY in the USA. KFWE in London and Miami are the only ones open to the public. KWD will be returning again—links are down below. KFWE LA is returning again this year, only for the wine trade.

KFWE Miami 2024

The KFWE Miami, which happened last week or so on December 17th, 2024, was okay for me. I had tasted almost all the wines there, minus a few new 2022 French Bordeaux that arrived recently. The food options were once again a miss, either overcooked or tasteless. The only reasonable option, food-wise, was the sushi, and the long lines proved it.

Most of the wines were current, and the pouring was done well. There were a few misses, especially on the Israeli side. Regarding representation, Menahem Israelievitch was there to talk about French wines. Avi Feldstein was there for Feldstein and Barkan Wineries. Herzog Winery was represented by David Galzignato, and Covenant Winery was represented by Jeff and Jodie Morgan. If you were looking to be educated overall, I think they missed the opportunity, which was unfortunate, given this is the only KFWE in the USA open to the public! Again, KWD will act as the Public KFWE going forward, but that does not excuse this oversight. IMHO, Miami is the next NY/NJ in terms of sales and prospective buyers. LA continues to be a dream that Royal refuses to give up on, and while I appreciate that, the only value for KFWE LA is maybe a few caterers and restaurants and ONLY Mevushal wines. Which, for all intent and purpose, is the definition of Herzog wines. A winery that produces good to great Meuvshal Cabernet wines.

A few years ago, Jay Buchsbaum, the executive vice president of marketing and director of consumer education at Royal Wine, asked me to choose three wines I liked from the KFWE Miami event. Since that year, I have taken it upon myself to find good, new Israeli options, and once again, I was successful! As usual, I did so minus my usual crutches, like French and Italian wines from the usual suspects, and stuck to new to less-known wines. This was no easy task!

Also, I tasted every single Israeli wine they had at the event. One side was totally Israeli wine and the other side was everything else, including French, Italian, USA, and everywhere else.

So, for all intent and purpose, I tasted every wine at the event and these are the three I chose:

1. 2021 Odem Mountain Volcanic Merlot
2. 2021 Vitkin Old Vine Carignan
3. 2023 Baron Rothschild Flechas De Los Andes Gran Malbec

So, there you go, Jay. It was great seeing you and hanging out for a bit, both at KFWE and the event the night before. Thanks for your continued work!

My disclaimer
To be clear, there were some lovely new 2022 French wines—a few winners. Four new Burgundies were also released, including the return of a Clos Vougeot! The 2022 wines showed well enough. There were a few misses and some nice QPR WINNERs as well.

However, as stated, I did not want to use French and Italian wines—those are too obvious a choice. Covenant continues to impress. They were my 2023 Kosher Winery of the Year, and they continue to excel. Their wines were all wonderful. Herzog also had a few solid QPR WINNERs, but I had already tasted them and posted them here. ESSA Winery also showed well and had a large selection to choose from. Elvi Winery was also a Winery of the Year winner in 2021, and they had their full lineup for tasting, minus the EL26, for reasons no one knows!

Overall, I think Florida needs more from Royal. The Wizo event is run by Wizo for the benefit of Wizo, and it is a worthy cause, indeed! However, I think Royal Wines needs to ensure that more winemakers represent the wineries at this event. Florida is becoming too large a buying public and only growing! Given this is the ONLY publicly accessible KFWE in the USA, the event can be improved. To start have a short trade event two hours earlier. This will allow for better winery representation, benefiting BOTH trade and the public. It needs better food options and a bit more marketing punch by Royal. Then, we are looking at a killer event and a winning opportunity for Royal Wines.

2025 KFWE – Kosher Food and Wine Experience (KFWE)

Last year, I initially had serious doubts about the changes surrounding the Kosher Food and Wine Event (KFWE). Gone was the public access to KFWE. Throw in that there was no European KFWE (London) in 2024, nor a Tel-Aviv option, and I thought this was a bad idea.

Fast-forward a few months into 2024, and I rewrote my thoughts regarding the 2024 Wine Tasting events. I still think the lack of a 2024 KFWE in Europe (London/Paris) or Tel Aviv was a mistake, and thankfully, that has been rectified this year, at least for London. As of this moment, London KFWE is on for the public, but we have no word yet on Tel Aviv.

When I first wrote this last year, I was worried about the lack of public access to wine education. Miami continues to excel, as it is open to the public, but at the same time, we have always had issues with the KFWE in the USA. The KFWE has always been very crowded, and the public was not allowed to appreciate the wines. As I wrote in my closing thoughts on wine tastings, this new approach may work well. It will depend on whether more events like KWD pick up the slack. For now, KWD is the only kosher wine tasting open to the public in 2025, and that was not the idea! Further, the wineries will not be well represented unless the winemakers come in extra early, which they should do to promote their wines in NYC/NJ.

I am torn by Royal’s action this year. They are bringing back the IFWF for trade, which has a few issues. First, it bifurcates winemakers’ and wine representatives’ time in NY/NJ. Royal will host KFWE in NJ again, for trade only, on Monday, February 10th. Two days later, on Wednesday, February 12th, they will have KFWE (the original IFWF) in Oxnard at the winery.

This eats up the entire week and leaves no place for events like KWD or the Jewish Link Kosher Wine Festival. The following week, on Tuesday, February 18th, 2025, in London, there is the KFWE Europe event. So, if you want to host a wine event and have Royal Wines represented by the respective winemakers, you have a big issue. There is no room during the week of KFWE, as Sunday night, February 9th, 2025, is the NFL LIX Super Bowl. Monday is KFWE NJ/NY. Tuesday is the fly to LA Day. Wednesday is the KFWE in Oxnard, CA. Then, the winemakers have decisions to make as they would be needed in London the following Tuesday for KFWE London. Essentially, Oxnard is eating up the entire week.

KWD is planned for Thursday, Feb 6th, 2025, the week before KFWE week. So, the real question is, who attends the KFWE in Oxnard? I posted this in the KFWE in Review write-up and my post about the KFWE LA VIP 2024 event. KFWE in Los Angeles seems less valuable to Royal than in the past. Fewer people are buying Royal’s wines in Los Angeles and California as a whole. Instead, they are buying more of Herzog’s wines.

When I look at the overall opportunity for wine education, I think there needs to be a place for KWD and KFWE. That was the central premise of the post-KFWE write-up. If all we get is KFWE, which is just for trade, we have a lose-lose proposition. Further, if the following week is in Europe, there is no place for KWD to exist. The hope is that the winemakers and representatives of the wineries will come the week before KFWE, and then they will be present at the KWD event, which means three weeks now. The week before, the week of KFWE, and the following week in Europe.

The idea of having all the winery representatives is for the public to interact with them. If the KFWE Oxnard, in my opinion, is mainly for Herzog wines, we are missing out on the opportunity for the public to interact with Royal’s other wines! Either move KFWE Oxnard to a week after KFWE NY/NJ or just leave the winemakers in NJ/NY and split them off from KFWE Oxnard. In either case, you are getting the best of both worlds. For the few caterers or restaurants that want/need to have that touchpoint with non-Herzog wines, go to the KFWE NY/NJ. The way it is now is a miss. Now, I will chalk this year up to bad timing with the Super Bow, but if this continues, I think it is a lousy approach and one that should be reconsidered.

Cross distributor tastings

From what I hear, the Jewish Link Grand Wine Tasting will not occur this year, which is a loss for everyone. This leaves us with just ONE Cross-distributor wine event: the aforementioned KWD. The good news is that the Jewish Link will return, God Willing, and it will be held in Teaneck or Manhattan next year.

My feeling is, great, let’s see if the lack of public access to KFWE spawns the return of good, basic, but also profitable wine events in 2024! It is about time that we get back to these cross-distributor wine events! As stated above, the OG wine event was Gotham Wine’s event, and you can look back over time (there we go again) and read how those events went. I am unsure if they were profitable for Gotham, but I know the events helped them sell wines.

The only cross-distributor event that I know of is Wine Night at KJC by KWD in Brooklyn, which will be held at the same place as last year. It will be held on Thursday night, Feb 6th, 2025, from 6:00 PM to 10:00 PM at the Kingsway Jewish Center in Brooklyn, NY. There will be an early access VIP ticket and a general admission ticket. The event is the brainchild of Isaac Gottesman, who started the KWD WhatsApp chat, and Aaron Hollander.

Israel and elsewhere

Besides the royal wine events – AKA KFWE- there are events in Israel, namely the Sommelier, which is the only wine event in Israel that publicizes Israel’s diverse wine culture.

Israel wines may be going off the deep end, in terms of date juice and all, but Sommelier continues to do an excellent job of continuously focusing on Israel and its potential in the wine world. Bravo to them! The dates are February 4th and 5th, 2025, in Tel Aviv. Tickets or registration are available here.

Notwithstanding all the suffering occurring in Israel, it is incredible that the event has now happened for two years. We all pray that things should improve quickly for our brothers and sisters in Israel!

I hear the KFWE Tel Aviv will occur, but, as of now, there is no concrete date.

Europe

There is also the Bokobsa event in Paris, which I went to in 2020. It is NOT officially part of the KFWE family, but Royal wines are represented there, as are other wineries that Bokobsa imports into France. They had one in 2022, but I could not attend. Hopefully, they will have one this year after taking two years off.

Royal wine imports many Bokobsa wines into the USA. Still, Bokobsa itself makes kosher wines (like the fantastic 2007 and 2012 Sancerre Chavignol, the lovely 2017/2018/2019 Fume Blanc, the unimported 2017 Pascal Bouchard Chablis, Premier Cru, and the lovely L’Indiscrete Sancerre.

As stated, the KFWE London/Europe event is on; it will occur on Tuesday, February 18th, 2025. Tickets are available online.

I also just heard of another show in the UK, cross-distributors, called the Kosher Wine Show. I will add links below. It is being held at The Meridian Grand on Wednesday, February 26, 2025, a week after the KFWE London event.

The crazy Trip I know someone will take!

Given the dates and the locations that are currently set for the events listed below, their is a possible path to touch all of the events. Take a flight to Israel (good luck!) and attend Sommelier the 4th and maybe even the 5th, if you can find the correct flights and leave life to chance! Then fly to JFK and get a cab to KWD Thursday night, the 6th of February, 2025. Then enjoy a Shabbat and Super Bowl party with friends and family.

Next, roll into KFWE in NJ on Monday, February 10th, 2025. Get some sleep, and then catch your flight to LA! Take in a showand some dinner, and then arrive at KFWE LA at the Herzog Winery in Oxnard on February 12, 2025. Get a quick nap in the hotel, and then it is back to NYC, East Coast, for a restful Shabbat!

Finally, grab a plane to London to attend KFWE Europe on February 18th, 2025, at the Sheraton Grand London Park Lane.

Now, if you live in Israel, the entire process is far easier. So, depending on your place of domicile, this adventure, could be hair-raising or quite the ordinary. With many variations of this approach. Safe travels to all and enjoy!

Kosher wine-tasting events this season – in chronological order:

Name: KFWE Miami
When: December 17th, 2024
Time: 7:30 PM to 10 PM (6:30 PM VIP access)
Where: JW Marriott Miami Turnberry Resort & Spa
19999 W Country Club Dr, Aventura, FL 33180
Link to signup or for more information: http://www.kosherfoodandwinemiami.com/

Name: Sommelier
When: Feb 4th & 5th, 2025
Time: 11:30 AM to 5 PM Trade and 6:00 PM to 9:30 PM Public
Where: Heichal HaTarbut, Huberman St 1, Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel
Link to more information: http://www.sommelier.co.il/sommelier/

Name: KWD Wine Night
When: Thursday, February 6th, 2025
Time: VIP 5:00 PM, General Admission 6:00 PM – 10:00 PM EST 
Where: Kingsway Jewish Center (2810 Nostrand Ave., Brooklyn, NY 11229)
Link to signup: https://kwd.wine/wine
Coupon Code: None yet
Link for more information: https://kwd.wine/wine

Name: KFWE NYC
When: Monday, February 10th, 2025
Time: 4:30 PM – 8:30 PM EST (TRADE only)
Where: Hilton East Rutherford, NJ (Two Meadowlands Plaza, East Rutherford, NJ 07073)
Link to signup: 
Link for more information: https://kfwe.com

Name: KFWE LA (Oxnard)
When: Wednesday, February 12th, 2025
Time: 12:00pm – 4:00 PM & 5:00 – 8:00 PM
Where: Herzog Wine Cellars, 3201 Camino Del Sol, Oxnard, CA 93030
Link to signup: 
Link for more information: https://kfwe.com

Name: KFWE London
When: Tuesday, February 18th, 2025
Time: Trade/Early Access 2:30 to 5:30 PM, General Access 6:30 to 9:30 PM
Where: Sheraton Grand London Park Lane, London
Link to signup or for more information: https://www.kfwelondon.com/

Name: The Kosher Wine Show
When: Wednesday, February 26th, 2025
Time: 6:00 to 10:00 PM
Where: Meridian Grand, Advent Way, London N18 3AF, United Kingdom
Link to signup or for more information: https://thekosherwineshow.co.uk/

Name: KFWE Tel Aviv
When: TBA
Time: TBA
Where: TBA