After the tasting and the Herzog KFWE LA VIP Experience, I drove down to San Diego. When GG drives down it is easy to sit in the passenger seat, but doing the driving myself, with all that traffic, UGH! Still, once I was down in San Diego I made my way to Parisien Gourmandises, where I picked up a great lunch sandwich, some lovely Croissant, and a nice pear tarte. I enjoyed the Croissant with some Starbucks coffee (I hear you sneering Elk, be quiet, I have no time for your foo-foo coffee predilections). With all that said, if you are in the San Diego area, I would happily recommend Parisien Gourmandises. After my coffee fuel, I made my way to the home of Kosher Liquids, Andrew Breskin in sunny San Diego! Andrew and Shauna Breskin are the best hosts out there and I always feel at home in their surroundings. Mind you that is Dr. Shauna Breskin, or very soon, to be a Doctor, when at that point she will start taking over universities in desperate need of management and a conscience.

After a quick look around and a chance to enjoy my lunch sandwich, it was time to get to work, tasting through all the new wines.

Wines in the tasting

I continue to question the validity of the love and hype being heaped upon the 2022 Bordeaux vintage, at least among the kosher options, so far. Of what I have tasted it has not reached anywhere near 2019, 2016, or 2014, and even 2015. So, time will tell. At this tasting, we had a couple of 2022 Bordeaux from Taeib Wines, but the stars of the show and the stars of any wines I have tasted so far this year were the 2018 releases from Domaine Roses Camille. Still, there were some very nice 2022 options from Bordeaux.

My last post regarding the incredible Domaine Roses Camille highlighted some of the wines I tasted at this event, which, again, can be found here, those were the 2020 Chateau Les Graves de Lavaud, Lalande de Pomerol, and the 2020 Clos Lavaud, Lalande de Pomerol. These two wines continue to show the power of Pomerol, the right bank, and how we can get great wines for a reasonable price.

Next was the best QPR (Quality to Price Ratio) wine I have tasted so far this year, the 2018 Echo de Roses Camille, WOW, that is a wine that would have been the best wine of the year in 2022, when things were a bit slow. The 2019 Echo de Roses Camille was too closed for me to get a real sense of the wine and sadly, I could not return to taste it again, in the morning because of circumstances beyond my control. I hope to taste it again soon, so the score below is a temporary one and is not official. Andrew threw in a 2012 Echo, a wine I have not had in some time and that wine is in the window, for sure, but has loads of gas in the tank, no rush on that one!

The best wine of the evening was the 2018 Domaine Roses Louise, the grapes for which are sourced from a different vineyard than those for the Camille. This wine is not new, it has been produced and sold non-Kosher for many years. This is the first vintage of a kosher Domaine de Roses Louise. We also tasted the 2017 Domaine Roses Camille, and while that wine was nice, it showed far riper than when we had it in January 2023. Still, it is a nice wine, though, at this point, from this tasting, I wonder about its longevity.

Next came the Taieb wines, and a couple of them I had already tasted in Paris, you can see those notes here and they tasted the same, which makes sense as it has only been a few months since late May. Those would be the two new wines from Chateau Tour Perey, the 2022 Chateau Tour Perey, and the 2022 Chateau La Fleur Perey. By the way, they are two QPR WINNER, so yeah, enjoy!!

After those two, we enjoyed four wines from the 2022 vintage, three of them are well-known producers from the Taieb wine portfolio and one is a new winery. The new wine is the 2022 Chateau de Come, a very nice wine indeed, and another option from Saint-Estephe, a region that has not been hitting it on all cylinders, in regards to Kosher wine production, but this one will help! The other three are the 2022 Chateau Castelbruck, the 2022 Chateau Haut-Breton Larigaudiere, and the 2022 Château Roquettes. These wines showed control and pop and are a good sign for the rest of the 2022 kosher wines from Bordeaux that are yet to be released.

After tasting the wines, the kids arrived from school, and then Elk and Alex Rubin made their entrance. It was fun tasting with Alex at Herzog Winery and it was interesting tasting with him again that night. Everyone has the things they like in wine but Alex has a very different approach to wine tasting and I enjoy tasting with him.

The evening continued with the appearance of the queen of the house, Doctor-to-be Shauna, and then Andrew cooked dinner. It was a truly enjoyable evening. After that more folks swung by and we moved outside. It was a lovely evening and a lovely day for all.

My thanks to Andrew and Shauna Breskin for hosting the tasting and for putting up with me and everyone else who crashed their home for an entire day! The notes speak for themselves.

The wine notes follow below in the order that they were tasted. The explanation of my “scores” can be found here and the explanation for QPR scores can be found here:

2020 Clos Lavaud, Lalnde de Pomerol – Score: 92 (QPR: WINNER)
The nose of this wine is crazy closed but lovely with rich cherry, raspberry, loam, dense violet, rich clay, rock, and gravel, lovely! The mouth of this full-bodied wine is dense, rich, layered, scraping, and refreshing but so astringent at this point that it is inhuman to taste, with rich loam, dirt, clay, minerality, intense acidity, black and red fruit, black plum, raspberry, cherry, and scraping graphite. The finish is long, dark, brooding, smoky, and earthy, with minerality, acidity, and fruit interplaying at all times. Fun! Drink from 2025 until 2030. (tasted September 2024) (in San Diego, CA) (ABV = 14%)

2020 Chateau Les Graves de Lavaud, Lalande de Pomerol – Score: 92 (QPR: WINNER)
The nose of this wine is deeply floral, with rosehip, violet, dense minerality, dense clay, rich gravel, and tart red fruit, really lovely. The mouth of this medium-plus bodied wine is lovely, tart, precise, floral, deeply acidic, fresh, and refreshing, with vibrant sour red cherry, raspberry, and rhubarb, with intense minerality, rich dense tannin, intense clay, gravel, and rich rock, lovely! The finish is long, tart, refreshing, grippy, gripping tannin, slate, rock, and graphite, Fun! Drink from 2025 to 2029. (tasted September 2024) (in San Diego, CA) (ABV = 14%)

2018 Echo de Roses Camille, Pomerol – Score: 94 (QPR: WINNER)
The nose of this wine is lovely, with a classic Echo nose of wax, lanolin, and yellow flowers, some espresso chocolate, sweet oak, garrigue, loam, minerality, and roasted herbs. The mouth of this full-bodied wine has my attention, with intense acidity, gripping tannins, rich fruit, layers upon layers of concentrated and complex fruit, rich raspberry, plum, dark cherry, and strawberry, all wrapped in elegance, power, intense minerality, verve, and garrigue, wow! The minerality, tannin, acidity, and complex red fruit all work together to build a bombastic wine that is just impressive! So impressive to be doing with just red fruit. The finish is long, tannin, bold, big, and rich, with more coffee chocolate, graphite, pencil shavings, iron shavings, lovely salinity, green olives, and rich smoke. Drink from 2030 until 2040. (tasted September 2024) (in San Diego, CA) (ABV = 14.5%)

2012 Echo de Roses Camille, Pomerol – Score: 93 (QPR: WINNER)
The nose of this wine is ripe, and beautiful, with waxy notes, ripe red fruit, rich lanolin, and yellow flower, with loam, funk, barnyard, mushroom, and lovely smoke that is integrated.
The mouth of this medium-plus-bodied wine is in the zone, with integrated sweet oak, incredible acidity, and sweet fruit focus of raspberry jam, black plum, and currants, but backed by rich minerality, earth, and rich tannin core, that gives way to mouth draping tannin and lovely garrigue.
The finish is long and tannic with earth, sweet notes, raspberry liqueur, and rich earth and leather. Drink until 2030. (tasted September 2024) (in San Diego, CA) (ABV = 13.5%)

2019 Echo de Roses Camille, Pomerol – Score: 92+ (QPR: WINNER)
The nose of this wine is closed, showing rosehip, yellow flowers, red fruit, smoke, earth, loam, more red fruit and flowers than mineral and lanolin, but nice. The mouth of this medium-plus-bodied wine shows more lanolin and flowers on the mouth, with raspberry, cranberry, and rhubarb, with sweet oak just starting to work its way into the wine, with great acidity, mouth-draping and elegant tannin, sweet garrigue, and loam. The finish is long, tart, tannic, and lovely, with more red fruit, vanilla, dill, rich smoke, roasted herbs, and hints of tobacco. Drink from 2032 until 2038. (tasted September 2024) (in San Diego, CA) (ABV = 13.5%)

2017 Domaine Roses Camille, Pomerol – Score: 93 (QPR: GREAT)
The nose of this wine is ripe, showing far riper than when I had it in 2023, with rosehip, floral notes, lanolin, rich salinity, smoke, blue and red fruit, roasted animal, tar, and earth.
The mouth of this full-bodied wine is ripe, but floral, with lovely red fruit, raspberry, currants, cherry, boysenberry, rich mouth-draping tannin, rich saline, elegant, smokey, dirty, earthy, and graphite.
The finish is long, floral, and dirty, with smoke, rosehip, earth, and scraping minerality, truly elegant, red fruit, menthol, smoke, roasted meat, and dirt linger long. Drink from 2027 until 2035. (tasted September 2024) (in San Diego, CA) (ABV = 14%)

2018 Domaine Roses Louise, Pomerol – Score: 95+ (QPR: GREAT)
The nose of this wine is dense, ripe, and bold, but perfectly balanced, with dark chocolate, toasted wood, smoke, roasted herbs, lanolin, red flowers, and garrigue, very intoxicating and elegant.
The mouth of this full-bodied wine is a more elegant take on the 2018 Echo de Roses Camille, with screaming acidity, rich fruit focus, intense mouth-draping, and extracted tannin, showing blackberry, raspberry, dark plum, dense, extracted, rich, layered, and impressively elegant, quite a feat.
The finish is long and dark, and the wooly/plush mouthfeel lingers forever, it is a feat of magic indeed, with dark chocolate, leather, green notes, roasted herbs, tar, lanolin, rich minerality, a tour de force!
The wines show power through the perfect balance of fruit, oak, minerality, and acidity, all working together to make a wine far greater than the sum of its parts. Drink from 2030 until 2044. (tasted September 2024) (in San Diego, CA) (ABV = 14.5%)

2022 Chateau Castelbruck, Margaux – Score: 89 (QPR: GREAT)
This wine is a blend of 55% Cabernet Sauvignon & 45% Merlot. The nose of this wine is simple, it is fruity but shows nicely still with black and red fruit, rich smoke, green notes, earth, and loam.
The mouth of this medium-plus-bodied wine is nice, it has good acidity, with chunky tannins, blackberry, raspberry, nice tannin, sweet oak, with some minerality and toast.
The finish is long, and fruity, with enough minerality, a bit green, but nice. Drink until 2028. (tasted September 2024) (in San Diego, CA) (ABV = 13%)

2022 Chateau Haut-Breton Larigaudiere, Margaux – Score: 92+ (QPR: WINNER)
The nose of this wine is slutty and done correctly, with rich red and black fruit, salinity, smoke, floral and ripe, showing a fruity but controlled profile.
The mouth of this full-bodied wine is approachable, fruity, slutty, with great acidity, milk chocolate, dense and fruity, with mouth-draping tannin, juicy blackberry, plum, raspberry, and rich smoke, with green notes and garrigue that brings it all together.
The finish is long, ripe, fruity, and fully accessible, with floral notes of rose, violet, milk chocolate, ripe fruit, nice tannin, minerality, and smoke, nice! Drink until 2032. (tasted September 2024) (in San Diego, CA) (ABV = 13%)

2022 Chateau de Come, Saint-Estephe – Score: 92+ (QPR: WINNER)
The nose of this wine is fruity, and professionally made, with dark fruit, red and black fruit, enough minerality and tart notes, with some green notes, herbs, tar, and smoke.
The mouth of this medium-plus-bodied wine is nice, it shows good acidity, and it has a serious tone, but is also ripe and fruity, with blackberry, plum, rich minerality, dense tannin structure, scraping and gripping, with a fruit focus and nice attack.
The finish is long, tannic, structured, and fruity, a wine you could enjoy now if you give it time in a decanter but otherwise, enjoy in 5 years. Drink from 2030 until 2036. (tasted September 2024) (in San Diego, CA) (ABV = 14%)

2022 Château Roquettes, Saint-Emilion Grand Cru – Score: 90+ (QPR: EVEN)
This wine is closed at this point so put this to the side and let it open or age it a bit. The nose of this wine is simple, with loads of floral notes, red fruit, some herbs, and smoke.
The mouth of this medium-bodied wine is nice, with good acidity, rosehip, yellow flowers, nice tannin, raspberry, plum, rhubarb, dirt, loam, nice tannin, green notes, graphite, and loam.
The finish is long, tannic, green, and herbal, with flowers and smoke. Drink from 2026 until 2031. (tasted September 2024) (in San Diego, CA) (ABV = 13%)

2022 Chateau Tour Perey, Puisseguin Saint-Emilion, Grand Cru – Score: 92 (QPR: WINNER)
This wine is a blend of 70% Merlot, 20% Cabernet Sauvignon, and 10% Cabernet Franc. The nose of this wine is ripe, with blue and red fruit, smoke, earth, garrigue, and sweet roasted herbs. The mouth of this wine is well balanced with solid acidity, nice mouth-draping and drying tannin, sweet smoke, sweet cedar, boysenberry, plum, currants, dark chocolate, and solid fruit focus. The finish is long, dirty, ripe, and layered with blue and red fruit, sweet tobacco, and milk chocolate. Drink from 2026 until 2032. (tasted Sept & May 2024) (in San Diego, and Paris, France) (ABV = 14%)

2022 Chateau La Fleur Perey, Puisseguin Saint-Emilion, Grand Cru – Score: 91 (QPR: WINNER)
The nose of this wine is ripe, with blue and red fruit, smoke, earth, garrigue, and sweet roasted herbs. The mouth of this wine is balanced with okay acidity, nice mouth-draping and drying tannin, sweet smoke, sweet cedar, boysenberry, plum, and sweet spices. The finish is long, dirty, ripe, and layered with blue and red fruit, sweet tobacco, and milk chocolate. Drink until 2026. (tasted Sept & May 2024) (in San Diego, and Paris, France) (ABV = 14%)