This past weekend we were laying low, so we went for our old and simple but highly enjoyable standby; my wife’s patented Lemon Rosemary Pepper Flake Roasted Chicken. We paired the chicken with some lovely brown Basmati Rice, and some fresh green salad. To pair with the chicken and rice I opened a bottle of 2007 Goose Bay Sauvignon Blanc.

The chicken was great, the rice was cooked well, and the salad was, as always, very enjoyable, but the wine was basically alive for 10 minutes. It was very much like the bottle of 2007 Ben Ami Chardonnay, that died very quickly, right after opening. This is very much in line with the thread on Rogov’s forum on the subject of mevushal wines. The cooking/boiling/Pasteurization process that many wineries do to some of their wines, causes red wines to taste cooked or stewed after 6 months to a year, while white wines just go belly up much faster than they should. The clear exceptions to this very unfortunate “rule” are the Herzog and Hagafen wineries, which besides making good quality wines; also boil/pasteurize their juice as early as possible. We spoke about the mevushal process before in a previous posting about the Hagafen winery, which we visited this time last year. Hagafen does a wonderful job of creating wines that are mevushal and very good as well. Goose Bay is a winery that makes fine kosher wines as well, but they do not do the mevushal process well. They are distributed and imported by Royal Wines, but they do not use the same mevushal process that is clear. While I like the Goose Bay wines, this one lasted too long in my cellar.

The wine note follows below:

2007 Goose Bay Sauvignon Blanc – Score: B- to B
This wine is past its peak. Like many mevushal white wines, this one tastes dead. The nose on this light gold colored wine initially shows lovely notes of grapefruit, lychee, green apple, melon, and petrol, and honey. However, soon the lovely notes make like a leaf and fall away, leaving more core notes of oak, green apple, and lemon peel. The mouth and finish follow the nose, and this medium bodied wine is no fun – no more. Drink up or use as cooking wine.