This past weekend we enjoyed a few great wines, including another wine from the Herzog Winery! The set of wines included another tasting of the 2010 Vignobles David Reserve, which is tasting lovely – but starting to show signs that it is coming around. The tannins are still very mouth drying and draping, and really need a fair amount of time to integrate. The next wine was the newly released 2011 Herzog Chardonnay Prince Vineyard, a new single vineyard Chardonnay from their newly acquired Prince Vineyard, the first vineyard that the Herzog winery bought.

Finally, we had a hand carried bottle from Israel that shocked me in a good way. When I recently tasted the newly released 2010 Carmel Cabernet Sauvignon, Single Vineyard, Sumaka Vineyard at the KFWE in Miami this past month, I was far from impressed. However, I had just come back from Israel and I was carrying with me a bottle of the very same wine. When I came home I opened the bottle, that I bought in Jerusalem, and was shocked by how VASTLY different the two wines were. Taste them blind side by side and you too would be really shocked. The US version is really not that great, B to B+ wine at the best. The very same wine, with an Israeli label, was rich and layered, but controlled, and lacked the over the top cooked and ripe fruit.

This is not a one time thing, when I returned to Israel and I tasted the 2009 wines from Carmel, I was once again shocked to find that I loved them. A very vast difference from when I tasted them with an US label. Whatever the issue is, it really needs to be fixed.

The wine notes follow below:

2010 Vignobles David Côtes du Rhône Reserve – Score: A- (and more)
This wine blend is composed of 40% Syrah, and 60% Grenache, also known by the folks in the know, as GS, an acronym stemming from the first letter of the 2 varietals used in this blend.

When I opened this lately, the wine needed a few hours of air to truly open and show its potential. Please open and have patience to allow it to show its true joy.

This bright purple colored wine steps up and slaps you across the head with a crazy rich and heady nose of blackcurrant, bramble, rich oak, roasted meat, freshly brewed espresso, spice, raspberry, blackberry, and tar. This wine shows a super rich, full-bodied, yet bright mouth with an insane mouth draping and coating tannin, rich extraction, along with focused concentration of fruit, all coming together into a truly earthy, fruity, meaty mouth. The finish is richly spiced with layers of more coating tannin, soft leather, tar, black fruit, rich minerality, espresso and oak, with a hint of date on the background. Quite a lovely wine that is not another big and black Syrah, rather this is a lovely balanced GS that shows its richly spiced and terroir driven roots in more ways than one.

2011 Herzog Chardonnay, Prince Vineyard – Score: B+
This is a mevushal Chardonnay from the newly acquired Prince Vineyard in California Clarksburg ACA. The noise on this light gold colored wine is rich and ripe with honeyed notes, toasty oak, spice, and vanilla. The mouth on this medium bodied wine is viscous and lovely with good sweet fruit, apricot, guava, baked apple pie, along with layers of butterscotch, creme brulee, and hints of oak tannin. The finish is medium long and missing a bit of an acid bite, spicy with good bakers spices, white tea, and good mineral background, slate and lemon peel.

2010 Carmel Cabernet Sauvignon, Sumaka Vineyard (Israeli Label ONLY) – Score: A-
I must be very clear here – this is the 2010 Carmel Cabernet, Sumaka Vineyard, from Israel, not what is sold here in the US. I make that clear, as the wine sold here, with the US label, is not very good, overly ripe and clearly changed by the transport process from Israel to the US. I shipped/transported this bottle by hand from Israel to my home and then enjoyed it.

This wine is a single vineyard wine, just like the 2009 Kayoumi Cabernet was a single vineyard wine. This wine replaces that wine while the Kayoumi vineyard single vineyard wine. The nose on this black colored wine starts off with a lovely and deeply mineral rooted nose, with blackberry, cassis, plum, earthy notes, and blackcurrant. The mouth on this medium to full bodied wine is layered with good fruit concentration, that is a bit uniform, with good extraction, along with good sweet tannin, and lovely spicy oak. The finish is long and spicy with black fruit, chocolate, leafy tobacco, and more great graphite/charcoal lingering long with cloves, spice, and a nice sweet note background.

This goes to prove that there is a serious issue at play here. I tasted some 4 wines in Israel that I have had a few times here in the states. The wines in Israel tasted some 4 years younger and more enjoyable than their US counterparts – keep an eye out, and I will be documenting which label/locale the wine came from going forward.