As stated in my previous post, I was in Paris in June, and while it took forever to post these notes, I am happy to finally be getting to them at this point. I must start by thanking Shlomo Corcos (Guter Wein) and Yoel Kassabi from YayinKosher. They were so kind to host me and allow me to taste the lovely wines. I was also joined by Ari Cohen.

So, returning to the trip, as stated in my previous post, I kept to my hotel room for much of the trip. Even vaccinated, I was worried, and am still worried, as such I kept to myself, where possible. However, Messrs Corcos and Kassabi were super busy the entire week and the only time they had was a lovely Friday morning, so we met to taste through the wines then. Corcos has been the mashgiach behind many wines, including Falesco and some IDS wines, along with his own Guter Wein wines.

It was a short tasting, but there were some interesting and unique wines. Including a lovely and very unique 2013 Falesco Innocence, Blanco, a wine I would love to drink every day, sadly, it is not available here in the USA. All of the wines I tasted are available on Mr. Kassabi website YayinKosher. We also tasted the incredible QPR WINNER, for France, of 2012 Plaisir de Siaurac – which sells for 12 euros! Sure, it is a drink now wine, but how often can you get a lovely QPR WINNER, aged to perfection, ready to drink, and dirty/filthy as all-get-out! Just lovely and crazy great price!
There were also three very unique Bulgarian wines. Along with another lovely Italian Verdeto. Along with a few new Bordeaux wines that we did not get the chance to taste the last time we had a tasting with Messrs Corcos and Kassabi. The 2016 Chateau Saint Eugene Martillac, QPR WINNER 2016 Chateau Haut-Bacalan, and the lovely 2018 Chateau Kirwan Grand Cru Classe.

In regards to whether these wines will be available in the USA, I suppose that would matter on import and other such issues. For now, they are all in France/Europe.

My many thanks to Messrs Corcos and Kassabi for setting up the meeting, sharing the wines with us, and for taking time out of their incredibly busy schedule to meet with us. The wine notes follow below – the explanation of my “scores” can be found here and the explanation for QPR scores can be found here:

2013 Falesco Innocence, Blanco, Umbria – Score: 92 (QPR: WINNER)
This is a blend of 55% Chardonnay and 45% Semillon. The nose on this wine is lovely with sweet oak, crazy funk, rich straw, hay, and lovely smoke, with fresh bright apple, quince, and mineral, wow! The mouth of this medium-bodied wine is lovely, rich, layered, ripe, but acidic, with great fruit focus, showing funk, mineral, saline, earth, dirt, sweet melon, apple, quince, and crazy funk, wow! The finish is lovely, bright, tart, with lemon/lime, smoke, graphite, hay, and sweet spices. WOW!!! Drink until 2024. WOW! (tasted June 2021)

2013 Giallo Oro , Umbria – Score: 89 (QPR: GREAT)
This wine is a blend of 50% Verdicchio and 50% Vermentino. The nose on this wine is lovely but simple, not as complex as Innocence. The nose is a bit sweet, with balance and funk, but lacking complexity. The mouth on this medium-bodied wine has nice acidity to make it work, with good funk, melon, lime, grapefruit, and gooseberry, nice! The acid saves this well. The finish is long, green, sweet, tart with yellow plum, nice smoke, flint, rock, and lemongrass, nice! Drink until 2023. (tasted June 2021)

2018 Logodaj Havantino, Struma Valley – Score: 86 (QPR: EVEN)
This wine is a blend of Merlot and Syrah. The nose on this is ripe, sweet, with dark black fruit, blue notes, smoke, earth, clay, and tar. The mouth on this medium-bodied wine is nicer than the nose, but still ripe, with more black and blue fruit, ripe and rich, spicy, and layered, with tannin, blackberry, boysenberry, and loam. The finish is long, ripe, smoky, with a drop of green fruit, but too ripe for me, with nice acidity. Drink by 2023. (tasted June 2021)

2018 Logodaj Hypnose, Struma Valley – Score: 75 (QPR: NA)
This is 100% Merlot. The nose on this wine is super-ripe, almost Israeli, this sadly does not work for me, I see the work and it is well-made, but the style cannot work for me. Drink now. (tasted June 2021)

2018 Logodaj Antis, Struma Valley – Score: 88 (QPR: EVEN)
This wine is a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc. The nose on this wine is a bit more balanced than the Hypnose, with ripe fruit, but the Cabernet Franc balances out the Cab notes of blackberry, ripe dark plum, with green notes of asparagus, green pepper, and nice smoke, but what you get mostly still is ripe black fruit. The mouth on this full-bodied wine is better balanced but ripe, with good mouth-draping tannin, sweet notes of RS (Residual Sugar), and mineral. The finish is long, sweet, ripe, and green, very interesting, with sweet tobacco, sweet cedar, and more tannin. Drink until 2026. (tasted June 2021)

2012 Plaisir de Siaurac , Lalande de Pomerol – Score: 91.5 (QPR: WINNER (In France))
This wine is 100% Merlot. This is the fourth time I have had this wine, and I found it better than my previous tastings, but it was with the distributor and a well-preserved bottle. This wine is a mineral bomb, with great texture, weight, and incredible minerality, scraping graphite, and mushroom galore. A nice solid all-around wine, with great green fruit, rich green, red and black fruit, with nice earth, lovely tobacco, and rich menthol. The mouth on this medium-bodied wine is incredibly well balanced, showing lovely fruit, with nice mouth coating tannin, great mineral, lovely graphite, with rich saline, green notes, mushroom, and scrapping mineral, backed by lovely earth, and nice red fruit and currant. The finish is long and green, it shows ripe yet balanced with great graphite, dirt, and tobacco galore, black olives, cloves, herb, and leather – BRAVO!!. Drink by 2022. (tasted June 2021)

2016 Verdeto , Umbria – Score: 91 (QPR: WINNER)
This wine is a blend of 65% Cabernet Sauvignon, 35% Merlot, and 5% Cabernet Franc. This is ripe, pushed, black, with hints of blue fruit, with crazy tannin, structure, and loads of spice, really big wine. With time, this crazy bold, aggressive wine calms down, thankfully. The nose on this wine, with 10 hours of an open bottle, shows a wine that I can handle, with notes of foliage (really!), ripe fruit of black and red, with loads of mushroom, earth, and lovely new world/old-world style leanings, which is incredible for a wine that started so ripe! The mouth on this medium-bodied wine is nice, layered, with good fruit focus, showing good concentration, ripe and brooding but balanced fruit, after lots of airing out, with lovely loam, dirt, mineral, forest floor, and smoke, that shows an overall plush and extracted mouthfeel, with graphite and flint in the background. The finish is long, dark, but balanced with nice acidity, still, the issue I have is that dark and brooding fruit is out there and when you finish the glass it lingers long. Nice, but for me, it is still a concern. Drink before 2025. (tasted June 2021)

2010 Perlwein , Bordeaux – Score: 86 (QPR: GREAT)
This wine is a blend of GRAPES: 70% Semillon 30% Sauvignon. This is a fun off-dry wine which is a white Bordeaux that was made in a sweet style. It is all gone, and the blue bottle throws you, LOL, but it is off-dry and fun. Drink now. (tasted June 2021)

2016 Chateau Saint Eugene Martillac, Pessac-Leognan – Score: 90 (QPR: EVEN)
This is a blend of 80% Merlot, and 20% Cabernet Sauvignon. The nose on this wine is deeply oaky, with solid minerality, dirt, graphite, blackberry, raspberry, green notes, and smoke. The mouth of this full-bodied wine is rich, layered, dense, and oaky to start, with rich milk chocolate, smoking sweet tobacco, with blackberry, cassis, raspberry, rich saline, graphite, and loam. The finish is long, green, oaky, smoky, tart, with scraping graphite, sweet oak, tar, licorice, and deep loam. Nice! Drink from 2024 until 2028. (tasted June 2021)

2016 Chateau Luchey-Halde S , Pessac-Leognan – Score: 91.5 (QPR: WINNER)
This wine is a blend of 70% Merlot and 30% Cabernet Sauvignon. This is the second time I have had this wine and it has evolved since the last time I had it. The nose on this wine is lovely with great balance, showing more minerals than before, rich graphite, saline, rock, nice tart red fruit, lovely green notes, herb, and smoke. The mouth on this medium-bodied wine is elegant with crazy acidity, loads of green notes, with raspberry, strawberry, hints of black fruit, loads of forest floor, herb galore, and the smoke and tannin lift it all and rounds out the acid-driven mouth. The finish is long, green, herbal, and graphite with red fruit that is so well balanced, with smoke, green notes galore, tobacco, and tart juicy fruit linger long. That said, this wine fell apart after a day. I do not see this wine lasting too long. I would stay with my previous score of 91, maybe 91+ and say to enjoy this now for the next 4 years. Drink until 2025. (tasted June 2021)

2016 Chateau Haut-Bacalan , Pessac – Score: 92.5 (QPR: WINNER)
This wine is a blend of 55% Cabernet Sauvignon, 35% Merlot, & 10% Petit Verdot. This wine is a real Pessac, but on the label, it writes both Pessac and Pessac-Leognan, because no one knows Pessac by itself. The nose on this wine starts with intense oak, with lovely red and black fruit, rich saline, mint, menthol, smoke, and rich dirt. The mouth on this full-bodied wine is crazy dense, rich, ripe, rich, layered, and concentrated, with rich saline, mineral, smoke, blackberry, plum, dark currant, with loads of oak, that will pass with time, sweet tobacco, sweet dill, and rich loam. The finish is long, green, ripe, and well-balanced, with lovely acidity, more tobacco, sweet oak, mouth-draping tannin, and rich graphite that scrapes and enriches the mouth. Bravo!!! Drink from 2025 until 2033. (tasted June 2021)

2018 Chateau Kirwan, Grand Cru Classe, Margaux – Score: 93 (QPR: EVEN)
The nose on this wine is incredible, it is blue, red, green, and hints of black, it is dense, ripe, yet well-controlled, not like other 2018 Margaux, this is incredible, with notes of dense and juicy blueberry, boysenberry, with rich dirt, smoke, mineral, and lovely green notes. The mouth on this full-bodied wine is incredible, with dense fruit, layers of earth, dirt, smoke, dense and concentrated fruit, perfectly balanced, rich scraping mineral, graphite, boysenberry, blackberry, dense plum, rich and screaming acidity, with an elegance of draping tannin that lasts forever, wow! The finish is incredible, long, dense, layered, and sweet but also balanced with acidity, graphite, iron, tar, sweet blue and black fruit, and lingering tobacco, WOW!!! Drink from 2026 until 2034. Bravo!!! (tasted June 2021)