Category Archives: Kosher French Wine
The best/top kosher wines for Passover 2024 in all price ranges
As I have stated many times in the past, this list started from folks asking me to come up with a cumulative list. This year there have been many such events, I went to three of them, back-to-back-to-back. After that, there were a few smaller ones as well, all in the NY/NJ area, and one in Miami.
A few caveats first, this is MY list! This is not a list that will make many happy. These wines are the wines that make me happy. No wines here would be considered overripe, over-sweet, or all over the place. The wines here are listed in the order of cost. That said, the top-line wines – what I call Top-Flight wines, are not defined by cost at all. In that list, you can find a 2018 Elvi Wines Herenza Rioja, Reserva. At the same time, the list includes some of the best high-end kosher wines I have ever tasted. In the end, price does not define your place on the Top-Flight Wines, nor does QPR (Quality to Price Ratio), only pure quality gets you on this list. The list of Top-Flight wines is ALL wines that I would buy without hesitation, no matter the cost (if I can afford it of course).
Passover is a time of year when Jews buy the most wine, along with Rosh Hashanah, and the American New Year. That is why all the kosher wine events, normally, happen a month or two before the Passover festival. It gives the wineries and distributors a chance to showcase all their wines that each appeal to different market segments. So, no there are no sweet or semi-sweet baseline wines here. There are many very good 25 or lower-dollar bottles of wine, that can be bought at Skyview Wines, Gotham Wines, Suhag Wine, Liquid Kosher, onlinekosherwine.com, kosherwine.com, and now Elk is live with his website, for those of you who live in the Miami area or are going there for Passover, or any other time of the year! Of course, those and others exist, support your local merchants! I have no real options, so I use the ones to the right of this blog, when viewed on the web (as always I NEVER make money from them and I never know or care what people buy, the list is whom I buy wines from and so I can recommend them to others).
Also, the amount of money you spend does not define the value or quality of the wine. Take for example the 16-dollar 2020/2021 Elvi Herenza Rioja, the 2022 Chateau Les Riganes, Blanc, and some others. These are nice wines and the great price is only an added benefit. However, many low-priced wines are not on this list, as they lack the quality required, IMHO.
Seeing the list and checking it twice (could not help myself), I am sure there will be a question – what defines a wine as a Top-Flight wine, and why are there wines that are not on it? The Top-Flight wines are wines that impressed me when tasting them. That does not mean that the 2020 Chateau Clement-Pichon, as nice as it may or may not be, can compare to another wine on the Top-Flight Wine list. What it does mean was that when I tasted one of these Top-Flight wines, I was wowed, and I said this is a wine that everyone should get – no matter the price. In the end, the Top-Flight Wines is my way to whittle down the list of wines that I enjoyed from a set of thousands of kosher wines available here in America. In hindsight, I am sure I will have missed some wines. If you do not see a wine you love and it scored a 91 or higher on this blog somewhere, then I can assure you that it was probably an oversight on my part.
Also, this is a PSA – please do not buy 2021 or 2022 rose wines! PLEASE! They are muted and a waste of your hard-earned money. Thankfully, there are a lot of 2023 roses out there.
Arba Kosot (The Four cups of Passover)
Finally, it is the Jewish custom to drink four cups of wine on Passover, but to gulp down these wines is far too hard for me (the concept here is to drink the base quantity of wine to fulfill your requirement – which is a Revi’it, within a certain period). In the past, I was drinking red, Israeli wines that were simple to drink, not complex or impressive. However, with time, I found a better option, drink the majority of a small cup that fulfills the Revi’it quantity of wine. This way, I can drink an Israeli, not Mevushal, red wine – like a Netofa wine. This is explained more below. As has been my approach over these past many years, I think I will go with Yarden Rose Brut Sparkling wine, again. It is Israeli, not Mevushal, “red”, a lovely wine, and an acid BOMB!
For the main course, I am happy to open a Top-Flight wine and enjoy that at a calm and enjoyable pace. Another option is to get some of these great glasses from Stolzle, that fulfill the official four-cup requirements in terms of volume and respect, according to most Rabbis. The glasses hold 3.5 fluid ounces of wine, which according to almost every source fulfills the concept of Revi’it.
It does not fulfill Chazon Ish’s requirements of 5.1 ounces, but if you wish to meet that requirement use these glasses by Libby’s. Also, remember that you should drink the entirety of the cups, which is why I recommend the smaller cups. If you cannot, some allow the idea of drinking the majority of the cup, but that is not the best approach. Finally, the LAST CUP, should be drunk in totality, as that is the ONLY cup upon which you say an “After Bracha (Blessing)”, and as such you must have drunk at least 3.3 ounces to say the last blessing.
NOTE: Again, I make nothing from these Amazon links, they do not have sponsor links or whatever. I do not have that and never will. These are just suggestions – buy what you want. They are only there for ideas.
Four Cup Options
Like much of what I do on this blog, I was recently asked to come up with some 4 cup options for people. I am not big on pounding good wines for the 4 cups. My Rabbi mixes wine and grape juice and pounds that. No rabbi says you must use the best wines for the 4 cups. I know that sounds horrible, but honestly, the point of the 4 cups is to drink wine in their Halachic format, not to drink great wines slowly, in their non-Halachic format. The priority is drinking red wine quickly and according to the proper shiur (assigned minimum liquid intake). Still, while I will be doing my 4 cups on the Yarden Rose Brut, I have a list of other options here. ALL OF THESE wines are available here in the USA and are at/below 13.7% ABV (VERY HARD By the way!!!):
All White wines (non-Top-Flight Wines) – Sauvignon Blanc:
- 2021 O’Dwyers Creek Sauvignon Blanc
- 2023 Covenant Sauvignon Blanc, Red C
- 2022 Domaine J. de Villebois Pouilly-Fume
- 2021 Jean-Pierre Bailly Pouilly Fume
All White Wines (non-Top-Flight Wines) – Various:
- 2022 Shirah Marsanne
- 2021 Philippe Le Hardi Mercurey Blanc
- 2021/2022 Pescaja Solei’ Arneis
- 2022 Hajdu Pinot Blanc
A Quick stop in London on my way to Israel – Honest Grapes Domaine Montille and some extras!
It had been almost 5 years since I had stepped foot in Israel. I tried to rectify that issue last year but the war and the lack of planes put a large crimp in that plan. So, once I saw Lufthansa was flying planes again to Israel, in January 2024, I booked a flight and was all ready to go to Israel on a clean and simple one-stop flight in each direction. SFO-MUC-TLV and TLV-FRA-SFO. Either way, the flights forced me to stay overnight in Frankfurt, but that was life.
The flights were booked and I was planning my trip, my hotels and all, when I got this strange email from Ruth Morrell, a new name for me in regards to Honest Grapes, it read: Private Tasting of Domaine de Montille 2022 Kosher Cuvees – January 22nd. I must say that I rarely feel the need to run to such events but I was already going in that direction a day before. So after a few changed flights, itinerary, and a crazy couple of phone calls, my tickets were set to fly through London for a day.
None of this could have happened without the insane kindness, hospitality, and openness of Richard and his wife Hannah! They opened their home for me, shared their brand new wines with me and so many others, and threw the entire event in the evening so that we could all taste some wines together. A total mensch and a truly kind and wonderful person. I cannot forget the kids for putting up with me arriving early as well, an all-around very kind and overly hospitable experience! My sincere thanks!
The event was being hosted by Richard and Hannah in their home in London, later that evening, and I asked if I could arrive early and taste the wines that came just that day. The number of kindnesses by Richard and family was met by the kindness of Nathan Hill, the Bond warehouse, and two separate delivery people, all needed to play a very fine hand to meet the needs of the many, including myself!
Honest Grapes
I have written about Domaine de Montille before when I first tasted them, long after I had bought them En Primeur. However, I never had the time to talk about Honest Grapes, that was until I wrote my post on M&M Impoters, a partner of Honest Grapes and the importer of their wines in the USA.
Tom Harrow and Nathan Hill built quite the company and we have all been the beneficiaries of more kosher wines, because of Mr. Hill. Mr. Hill was very kind in the email exchanges we had along with the newly hired Ruth Morrell. They assured me that the event was on and it was going to be an opportunity to taste the following 2022 wines, though these were all barrel/tank samples.
Honest Grapes have just launched these stunning wines as en primeur in the UK. All the cuvees are exclusive to Honest Grapes and are funded entirely by us as in previous years. We are immensely proud of these wines and they follow the sold-out 2021’s from last year though production is higher, the quality is excellent and we are very confident in high critical appraise once again.
The tasting will be at the private home of one of our club members in Hendon on Monday January 22nd from 18:30-20:00 . We will enjoy a selection of canapes catered by Chef David Scott and his team that will accompany the wines. We are asking for a £40 contribution towards the canapes and waitressing staff to be paid directly to our host on the evening. We are limited to a certain number of guests so please may I ask that you RSVP as soon as you can. Address to follow.
We will be tasting the following 6 Domaine de Montille cuvees:
| 2022 | Beaune Premier Cru ‘Les Perrières’ | Domaine de Montille | Red |
| 2022 | Monthelie Premier Cru ‘Les Duresses’ | Domaine de Montille | White |
| 2022 | Nuits-Saint-Georges Premier Cru ‘Aux Thorey’ | Domaine de Montille | Red |
| 2022 | Pommard Premier Cru ‘Les Grands Epenots’ | Domaine de Montille | Red |
| 2022 | Puligny-Montrachet Premier Cru ‘Les Chalumeaux’ | Domaine de Montille | White |
| 2022 | Volnay Premier Cru ‘Les Brouillards’ | Domaine de Montille | Red |
The very cool part was that while these were what the tasting (what Nathan called the NON-RCC Tasting) was about, because of Richard’s kindness it also included the 2021 Domaine Montille wines as well!
You see the day I landed in London was the same day the 2021 Domaine Montille wines arrived, from Bond to Richard’s home! Through Richard and Hannah’s kindness, they shared the wines with us all and allowed us to taste them all in one night.
NOTE: There are EIGHT Kosher Burgundy wines in 2022, there are also two Bourgogne wines a white and a red, sadly they were not at the tasting.
The Tasting
As stated previously, I had asked Richard if I could arrive earlier and taste his 2021 wines quietly, without the noise and smells of cooking food, which would be the case later that evening.
As you read the evening would have some lovely small bites and that food was cooked in the house. So, the faster I could taste the wines the better I could feel about my notes. I arrived a bit before the chef arrived and an hour or so before Mr. Hill and Ruth did. This gave me ample time to taste the five 2021 wines that Richard had bought. I did not taste the 2021 Domaine de Montille Beaune, 1er Cru, Les Perrieres, Beaune, 1er Cru.
Overall, I found the 2021 Domaine de Montille wines to be right between the JP Marchand Burgundies and the Aegerter. Avi and I tasted the JP Marchand 2021 Burgundies in Paris in late Nov 2022 and I tasted them again in Jan 2023. The Aegerter wines I tasted in May 2023 (and again in Nov 2023) with Avi as well.
From the six times or more that I have now tasted kosher 2021 Burgundies, I can say that while they do not reach the 2020s or earlier, they are not the disaster that describes the 2021 Bordeaux vintage.
Read the rest of this entry
The Top and Best 28 QPR Kosher Wine WINNERS of 2023
In May 2020 I wanted to drive home the need for QPR (Quality to Price Ratio) wines. So I set out to create what I thought a QPR metric should be! Gone were arbitrary price ranges and such. Instead, I let the market define what the QPR price range should be. I did this by grouping the wines by their type (white, red, rose, sparkling, and dessert) and then further refined the grouping by age-ability within the white and red wines. This gave me the following groups:
- Drink “soon” White Wine (Simple whites)
- Rose Wine (always drink soon)
- Drink “soon” Red Wine (Simple reds)
- Mid-range aging Reds (4 to 11 years)
- High-end Red wines (11 and more years)
- High-end White wines (7 and more years)
- Sparkling Wine (No need here for extra differentiation)
- Dessert Wine
I then made the mistake of trying to create an Orange wine range/group – that was a HUGE mistake. Again, the wines themselves were not the issue, the issue revolved around trying to group such a small sample set into its group. They will go into their respective white wine category, next year.
Throughout the year, I posted many QPR posts, for almost all of the main categories. I will continue down this road until I find a better way to categorize and track wines that are QPR WINNERS. Talk about WINNERS, that secondary QPR score was a 2.1 revision to my QPR scoring, and that is explained in this post. All the wines listed here are QPR WINNERS from my tastings in 2023.
Let us discuss the approach
I have heard from a few of you. I do not understand your QPR (Quality to Price Ratio) scoring. So, let us take another shot at this! Every time a customer comes into a shop or goes online to buy kosher wine they have a choice of a few thousand wines, online, or many hundreds in a store. The question is how does a buyer differentiate one wine from the next?
If they like Terra di Seta wines, as I do, and it costs 30 dollars then he/she will compare other wines to that wine, in regards to the wine and the price. That is the same for any wine they like and any wine they are looking at buying. Price matters! Now, the real question is how can you compare two wines to each other. Any two wines in the world of kosher wines? What characteristics can you use to compare them?
Let us say they like the 2018 Elvi Wines Clos Mesorah, the 2022 wine of the year (AKA best-priced QPR wine). It is a red wine from Montsant, Spain. OK, what other wine can you compare with it? You can compare other Montsant kosher wines, like the Cellar Capcanes wines. However, the Cellar Capcanes wines have an issue – they have been poor for many years! As the ratio states it is QUALITY to price! Quality is primary; once you have a good wine, you can attempt to compare it with similarly good wines.
OK, so we need equal or comparably equal quality and that is it??? So, let us say there exists a rose from Montsant that scores the same quality score as Clos Mesorah are they comparable? What about a white wine – same? Can/should compare them? I will tell you that no one would act in such a manner. People will compare similar items. OK, so are we then forced to compare Montsant wines with Montsant wines – again I will tell you no! People will compare like-scored red wines with like-scored red wines. Further, there are literally SIX Monstant Kosher red wines on the market. How can one compare six wines to each other? It has no value.
OK, but what is “like” – that is the body of work that my QPR approach works to answer. If you agree that people will attempt to compare items that are similar in nature but not locale, region, or price, what is that characteristic that they will use to compare two arbitrary kosher wines? Price IS NOT the answer.
So, let us recap – we have two similarly scored wines (AKA quality) but they are very different in many ways. Let us look at three of the wines below, two of which are from the greater Medoc region:
- 2020 Chateau Clarke, Baron Edmond de Rothschild, Listrac-Medoc – Score: 92.5 (QPR: WINNER)
Drink from 2025 until 2032. - 2020 Chateau Fourcas Dupre, Listrac – Medoc – Score: 92.5 (QPR: WINNER)
Drink from 2024 until 2035. - 2019 Chateau Royaumont, Lalande de Pomerol – Score: 92.5 (QPR: WINNER)
Drink from 2024 until 2032.
These wines priced were between 38 dollars to 55 dollars. The question you need to ask is are they comparable? I would state they are and I would further state that wine buyers compare them every time they read my lists and other lists that like these wines. Again, the primary requirement is quality – and these all scored the same quality score.
So, next, would you at least compare two Listrac-Medoc wines to each other? The Chateau Fourcas Dupre and the Chateau Clarke? I would say yes for sure. Well, why is the Royaumont any different? They are very different wines, of course, but in the end, what do oenophiles buy such wines for?? To store them and share them at a later date, meaning that wine buyers classify wines by regions but ultimately they classify them by their ability to age gracefully or not! This means some wines age beautifully and many are good to enjoy in the coming years.
So, now you see the logic to the categories I use to compare wines – this is the list once again:
- Drink “soon” White Wine (Simple whites)
- Rose Wine (always drink soon)
- Drink “soon” Red Wine (Simple reds)
- Mid-range aging Reds (4 to 11 years)
- High-end Red wines (11 and more years)
- High-end White wines (7 and more years)
- Sparkling Wine (No need here for extra differentiation)
- Dessert Wine
Essentially, ignoring sparkling, rose, and dessert wines, there is white wine and red wine. Each of those two major categories is broken into their age-ability. Red wines have three age ranges while white wine has two. Then there are the other three aforementioned groups, rose, sparkling, and dessert wines.
Once you have scored a wine – IRRELEVANT to the price – this is KEY you are then required to place that wine into one of the 8 categories listed above. Once you have done that any wine in that category is available for comparison. Using the median approach wines are stacked and ranked by their price, within that category, and some rise above others, by having an equal or better quality for a lower or equal price. Please read more about this here and here.
The Summary
Before we get to the list of the best QPR wines for this past year – I wanted to give some raw stats. I tasted more than 1200 wines this past year. In actuality, it is probably far more, I just did NOT care to write notes on hundreds more because all it would have said was NO. I made sure to taste all the Israeli wines at three KFWE and almost none of them were worthy of a wine note. The pain was all I remember. In the end, of the actual number of wines I noted, 155 of them were scored with a QPR score of WINNER.
I have stated it over and over again now, there is no way we can buy all the good wines out there unless you have a local warehouse to store them and you drink two or more bottles a day. That is the great news about Kosher Wine today! I hope we have not yet hit peak QPR Winner. Remember, this INCLUDES the 2021 Bordeaux season which was a total failure on all accounts.
This year, the list came to a total of 28 names, and none had to dip below 93 in the scores, which is a large number and better scores overall than last year, but again, the pool from where they are culled continues to grow, and the diamonds in the rough are getting harder and harder to find. There are 28 or so QPR WINNER who scored 93 this year but not in a single area.
The 4 regions that encompass the 28 WINNERS are in order of size, France (11), USA (9), Italy (5), and Spain (3). Within France, it is not all Bordeaux! You have 6 from Bordeaux, Sancerre, Alcase, Burgundy, Languedoc, and Chateauneuf du Pape.
Of the 28 WINNER, 5 of them are white and 23 are red. However, at the lower price and quality QPR WINNERS (think 20 dollars 91 scoring wines), you will find that white wines are the majority!
This year there are no cross-WINNER scores. Meaning, a WINNER in Europe but not the USA. Many of the wines that are WINNER are not available in Europe, but I do not denote that.
Sadly, there were no new Sparkling or Rose wines to make it to the score of 93 and to meet its counterpart pricing. To me this is a HUGE issue in the kosher wine market! The kosher wine market has lifted up one of the previous sad wine categories, white wine! Which is HUGE! Sadly, we have not moved from there. We have a dominating red and white kosher wine scene. What is lacking sorely, is quality, sparkling wines! The rose wines will never reach the upper echelons, at least in the Kosher wine markets! But Sparkling wines – there is real demand there and sadly the products being sold are pathetic!
Maybe, Avi Davidowitz, from Kosher Wine Unfiltered, can create a list like that for Israel, this year, a bunch of wines became available there, and a proper QPR list would be worthwhile!
The wines on the list this year are all available here in the USA, and in Europe, and a few can be found in Israel, as well. The wine notes follow below – the explanation of my “scores” can be found here and the explanation for QPR scores can be found here:
2018 Elvi Wines Herenza Rioja, Reserva, Rioja – Score: 94+ (QPR: WINNER)
I crave this in wine – balance, complexity, elegance, and all bottled for a price that makes it a WINNER! The nose of this wine is beautiful, balanced, and complex, showing a drop hotter than in 2017, but still bold, rich, and expressive, with soy sauce, umami, rich mushroom, loam, spices, blue and red fruit, and sweet star anise, lovely!
The mouth on this medium-plus-bodied wine is lovely, balanced, juicy, elegant, herbal, smoky, and dirty, with intense acidity, juicy and ripe boysenberry, plum, spiced raspberry, and sweet spices that give way to a mouth-draping tannin structure, plush, nicely extracted, elegant, with soy sauce, sweet nutmeg, and cinnamon, beautiful. The finish is long, and balanced, with leather, root beer, sweet baking spices, cloves, cinnamon, sweet cedar, milk chocolate, soy sauce, and lovely acidity that brings this wine all together. Bravo!! Another smash! Drink from 2025 until 2032. (tasted May 2023) (in Paris, France) (ABV = 14.5.%)
2021 Herzog Cabernet Sauvignon, Special Reserve, Alexander Valley, Alexander Valley, CA (M) – Score: 94 (QPR: WINNER)
This may well be one of the best Alexander Valley wines in the past 10 years, better than 2014, just impressive. The 2021 vintage has been a blessing for California. The nose of this wine is ripe, it is even riper after a few hours as well, showing notes of ripe and juicy boysenberry, squid ink, black fruit, anise, white pepper, cocoa liqueur, sweet oak, milk chocolate, smoke, and nice minerality. The mouth of this ripe but balanced full-bodied wine has nice acidity, blackberry, ripe and juicy boysenberry, plush, rich, concentrated, extracted, and elegant, all at the same time, with nice tension, sweet oak, milk chocolate, elegant and draping tannin, and a plushness that helps to balance the extraction, with salinity and lovely minerality. The finish is long, ripe, extracted, balanced, and earthy, with nice loam, and smoke but the finish shines with its ribbons of graphite, saline, and tense tannin that lingers long. Bravo!! Drink until 2034. (tasted December 2023) (in San Jose, CA) (ABV = 14.5%)
2021 Chateau Olivier Blanc, Grand Cru Classe, Pessac-Leognan – Score: 94 (QPR: WINNER)
The nose of this wine is stunning, captivating, redolent, and elegant, with rich fruit, grapefruit, minerality, saline, dry grass, gooseberry, and passion fruit, a beautiful wine that hits the mark! BRAVO! The mouth of this medium-plus-bodied wine is stunning, layered, complex, plush, and concentrated with rich acidity, minerality, slate, flint, and saline wrapping the gooseberry, grapefruit, peach, orange peel, and passion fruit, showing an impressive complexity. The finish is long, mineral-driven, dense, weighty, and plush, with rich salinity, flint, wet rock, and slate, and extremely refreshing and mouthwatering. BRAVO!!! Drink by 2027. (tasted November 2023) (in Paris, France) (ABV = 13.5%)
The Best and Top 12 Kosher Mevushal wines of 2023
If you ever wondered what Kosher wine or the Mevushal process is, well I made a post these many years ago and nothing has changed about those facts, because kosher wine is kosher wine! The Mevushal process has evolved a bit over the years but the premise is still the same and the best craftsman in this space are Hagafen Cellars and Herzog Wine Cellars.
Royal Wine Europe does a good job as well, though from time to time, the white wines do not show as well after they go through the Mevushal process. The red wines are indeed done very well as I saw this past November 2023.
The whole premise for Mevushal wine is really a U.S. concept. Europe and much of Israel do not care for or need the wine to be Mevushal to serve at restaurants or events. The USA Rabbinic leaders think that there are too many issues and potential concerns at events and restaurants – given the vast number of servers being non-Jewish. As such, they demand Mevushal wines be served at the events. I have been to events where the pourers were all Shomer Shabbat Jews and that is what they do in Europe and Israel, but those are far and few between, here in the USA.
Overall, the 12 Mevushal wines scored higher than my previous post of 2021 options These scored higher without a single 91 or 91+ in the bunch! Of course, the 2021 California harvest has the majority of these wines (7 of the 12). You can find a single 2019 Rouge Bordeaux, a 2022 Blanc Loire Valley, and a 2023 White New Zealand Wine. The rest are still from the USA but from other vintages than 2021. To be clear, California makes up 9 of the 12 top-scoring Mevushal wines.
The new kid on the block is the 2021 Covenant Cabernet Sauvignon, Black Label. It is a lovely expression of Napa Valley.
Mevushal – done incorrectly absolutely does cause damage to wine, and I have had many a “cooked” Mevushal wine. However, Herzog and Hagafen do not have these issues. Royal Europe, does a good job, but not as good as the previously mentioned wineries. The new Covenant Mevushal Napa Cabernet Sauvignon, not their first entry into the Mevushal market, seems like a success, but we will need more examples to be sure.
Also, we do not have examples of Mevushal wines that scored 95 points, again, this is not a cause and effect but rather the issue that people do not yet have Mevushal Pontet-Canet! Mind you, as I stated before, it is not from a lack of desire, on behalf of Royal Wines, they would boil anything to be able to sell more Mevushal wines. Still, so far, of the top wines that I have scored, the highest-scored Mevushal wine is now the 2021 Herzog Cabernet Sauvignon, Alexander Valley, Special Reserve.
More and more wines are Mevushal to meet the needs of restaurants and caterers that want high-end Mevushal wines for their venues and events. The theme of the wines here is mostly Hagafen or Herzog with some smattering of European names as well.
Here is my list of the top 12 Mevushal wines that are available here in the USA. They are listed by score and after that in no particular order. The wine notes follow below – the explanation of my “scores” can be found here and the explanation for QPR scores can be found here:
2021 Herzog Cabernet Sauvignon, Special Reserve, Alexander Valley, Alexander Valley, CA (M) – Score: 94 (QPR: WINNER)
This may well be one of the best Alexander Valley wines in the past 10 years, better than 2014, and truly impressive. The 2021 vintage has been a blessing for California. The nose of this wine is ripe, it is even riper after a few hours as well, showing notes of ripe and juicy boysenberry, squid ink, black fruit, anise, white pepper, cocoa liqueur, sweet oak, milk chocolate, smoke, and nice minerality. The mouth of this ripe but balanced full-bodied wine has nice acidity, blackberry, ripe and juicy boysenberry, plush, rich, concentrated, extracted, and elegant, all at the same time, with nice tension, sweet oak, milk chocolate, elegant and draping tannin, and a plushness that helps to balance the extraction, with salinity and lovely minerality. The finish is long, ripe, extracted, balanced, and earthy, with nice loam, and smoke but the finish shines with its ribbons of graphite, saline, and tense tannin that lingers long. Bravo!! Drink until 2034. (tasted December 2023) (in San Jose, CA) (ABV = 14.5%)
The Best and Top 25 Kosher Wines of 2023, including the Wine of the Year, Winery of the Year, the Best Wine of the Year, and the Best Mevushal wines of the year awards
Like last year, I wanted to make this post short and sweet – so the criteria are simple. I could care less about price, color, or where it was made. All that matters is that it is/was available this year sometime to the public at large that I tasted it in a reliable environment, not just at a tasting, and that it scored a 93+ or higher.
We are returning with the “Wine of the Year”, “Best Wine of the Year” “Winery of the Year”, and “Best White Wine of the Year”, along with a last year’s new addition the – “Best Mevushal Wine of the Year”. Wine of the Year goes to a wine that distinguished itself in ways that are beyond the normal. It needs to be a wine that is easily available, incredible in style and flavor, and it needs to be reasonable in price. It may be the QPR wine of the year or sometimes it will be a wine that so distinguished itself for other reasons. The wines of the year are a type of wine that is severely unappreciated, though ones that have had a crazy renaissance, over the past two years. The Best Wine of the Year goes to a wine well worthy of the title.
The Mevushal wine of the year is something I dread. I understand the need for a wine that can be enjoyed at restaurants and events, but when we start seeing Château Gazin Rocquencourt and Chevalier de Lascombes go Mevushal – we know we have a problem. As I have stated in the past, if this is what needs to happen, then please sell both options as many do with Peraj Petita/Capcanes, Psagot wines, and many others. Still, it is a wine and as such, it needs a best-of-the-year moniker, so we do it once again!
This past year, I tasted more wines than I have ever, in the past. Now to be clear here, I did not taste many Israeli wines as they have proven to me over and over again, even with the much-ballyhooed 2018 vintage that they are not worth my spending my money on. Still, I did taste a large number of Israeli wines both in my home and at KFWE events. I spent a fair amount of time tasting all the French and European wines I could get my hands on and I feel that is where I added the most value, IMHO. For those who like the Israeli wine style – other writers/bloggers can point you in some direction. This past year, was a return to below-average because of the massive failure in Bordeaux and all over Europe in the 2021 vintage.
We were spoiled with the 2019 wines from Bordeaux and all over Europe, even the 2020 vintage had OK options. This year, there are FOUR wines from Royal Wine’s portfolio (really three) they are the 2017 and 2018 Elvi Herenza, Reserva, the 2021 Domaine Raymond Usseglio & Fils Chateauneuf du Pape, and the 2021 Herzog Cabernet Sauvignon, Alexander Valley. Overall, 2021 from California is what I am buying from the 2021 vintage, worldwide, outside of a few wines, for vertical interests, and the CDP.
The vast majority of wines on this list are from M&M Importers and a couple from Andrew Breskin’s Liquid Kosher portfolio. This is a FIRST for me and these lists and I am truly happy to see Italy and other regions rising to the top of the lists. There are a couple of Four Gates wines as well.
There are also interesting wines below the wines of the year, think of them as runner-up wines of the year. There will be no rose wines on the list this year, none were close to this star-studded group. This year we had a crazy large number of WINNER wines, 152 in total, but the top-shelf wines were smaller with fewer.
Now, separately, I love red wines, but white wines – done correctly, are a whole other story! Sadly, in regards to whites, we still had no new wines from Germany, still. Thankfully, we have some awesome entries, from the incredible 2021 Gustave Lorentz Riesling, Grand Cru, 2020 Domaine de Chevalier, Blanc, 2020 Domaine de Montille Puligny Montrachet 1er Cru Les Chalumeaux, 2021 Chateau Olivier Blanc, Grand Cru Classe, and the 2021 Domaine Vacheron Sancerre, Grand Champs. This will be the largest number of white wines in the top wine list for any given year – I hope we have NOT hit peak White Wine! We need more options. Thankfully, there are also many good lower-priced white wine options as well in the kosher market a large shift is underway!
The wines on the list this year are all available here in the USA, and in Europe, and a few can be found in Israel, as well. The wine notes follow below – the explanation of my “scores” can be found here and the explanation for QPR scores can be found here:
The 2023 Kosher Winery of the Year
This award continues to get harder and harder each year. The sad cold, hard truth is that there are too few great kosher wineries. When I started this award, some 4 years ago I thought it would only get easier. Sadly, there are a few truths that limit my ability to give out this award.
First, as much as we have been blessed with great Kosher European wines, in the past 6 years, most of those blessings come under the auspices of single-run kosher wines. Chateau Leoville Poyferre, Château Smith Haut Lafitte, you name it, are all based upon kosher runs. What we have in Europe, kosher-winery-wise, is Terra di Seta, Cantina Giuliano, and Elvi Wines (including Clos Mesorah). Along with this year’s winner, Domaine Roses Camille. Officially, Domaine Roses Camille only became 100% kosher in 2020, but for all intent and purpose, they have been producing the vast majority of their wines in kosher, since 2011.
The requirements to receive this award are simple, the winery must be kosher, not a kosher-run, the quality must be consistent, and the wines must be readily available. The last requirement is the main reason why Four Gates Winery has yet to win the award, but at this point, it is only a matter of time, as kosher wine availability is becoming less of an issue overall, given the sheer number of cult-like kosher wineries that exist today.
This year the award goes to Covenant Winery. I have been pounding the table about the good wines coming out of there over the past two years. Yes, there are a couple of wines I do not love, but given the vast swath of wines they make, the vast majority scored a 91 or higher.
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Latest releases from Andrew Breskin and Liquid Kosher
I just came back from Israel, that is a whole other post, including two stopovers, one before the trip to Israel and one on the way home. The stopover on the way to Israel was to taste Honest Grapes wines, yes, that is another post as well! The final stopover before returning home was to see my friend Andrew in San Diego. The airport is an absolute mess, but the new Terminal 1 is starting to take shape, still, please beware before going there!
Mr. Breskin is the founder of Liquid Kosher a wine curator and importer of a wide array of kosher wines, from French wines (like the famous Domaine Rose Camille to Israeli favorites). My trip this time was more of a mad dash than a proper visit and thankfully Andrew kept it simple. It was great to hang with Andrew, which I normally get to do only once a year at KFWE Los Angeles. Sadly, with no KFWE this year, this will be my only time with Andrew, unless I can find my way down there again, later this year!
Andrew has been the go-to guy for access to French wines that are not imported into the United States by Royal or the other larger kosher wine importers. Andrew has brought us Burdungdies like Domaine Chantal Lescure, and Domaine d’Ardhuy, along with the famous Domaine Roses Camille, which have been top scorers for many years now. These are all wines that Taieb has made for many years now. Sadly, 2017 was the last vintage of the Lescure, and Domaine d’Ardhuy ended in 2015.
The wines I tasted included a few JP Marchand Burgundies from the new 2022 vintage along with a few Taieb wines as well. Sadly, Taieb only made 4 red wines in 2022, no white wines. There were a couple of other wines, including the Domaine Roses Camille 2020 Chateau Les Graves de Lavaud. It is a lovely wine but I already posted the notes on that one.
Next, there were new Taieb wines that I had not tasted in Paris. First, it was a very simple but good Mevushal option called 2022 Prince George 1er Choix de Cuvee, IGP Coteaux de Narbonne. I had never heard of the region called IGP Coteaux de Narbonne. It is a region in the Rhone, but not a very well-known one for Kosher wine.
Next came the 2021 Chateau Castelbruck and the 2021 Chateau Haut-Breton Larigaudiere. The Castelbruck broke out of the failed 2021 Bordeaux mold. It showed well for such a failed vintage. The 2021 Chateau Haut-Breton Larigaudiere sadly did not follow and it too succumbed to the 2021 Bordeaux malaise. The pictures include a few other wines that I already posted, like the 2022 Chateau Tournebrise, the 2021 Jean-Philippe Marchand Bourgogne Hautes-Cotes de Beaune, and the 2022 Chateau Meilhan. The Tournebrise is a refreshing wine and one that I almost drank, during the tasting, very refreshing. The 2021 Jean-Philippe Marchand Bourgogne, Hautes-Cotes de Beaune showed beautifully, as during the tasting in Jan of 2023. Finally, the 2022 Chateau Meilhan is OK, one of the less impressive 2022 showings. We also tasted the 2019 Lahat Syrah, it is so Israeli, but not evil, I did not write notes. The 2022 Gehring Riesling and the 2018 Rieslings were all very nice.
After that, we tasted a few wines that are tangentially related to Andrew and his business. The Corcos wines from 2016, including the 2016 Chateau D’eck, the 2016 Chateau Haut-Bacalan, and the 2016 Verdeto. I was on point with my concern with the 2016 Verdeto, when I tasted it in June of 2021. The ripeness could never find balance and tasting it that night was not painful but not enjoyable – drink up! The 2016 Chateau Haut-Bacalan did not show well, it felt closed and nowhere, I hope it is just asleep, I will check in on it in a year, God-Willing. Finally, the 2016 Chateau D’eck was also, uninspiring, much like I felt back in 2020.
The newly released 2020 Elk Cabernet Sauvignon, Mount Veeder was quite nice. A classic Napa Cabernet. I always wish for more verve and acidity, but it is quite nice still.
Finally, I was graced with two other wines that evening, both of which I wish I could eviscerate from my memories. They are the 2019 Viniferia, Castel Luciano, Super Tuscan, and another wine I will retaste. The 2019 Viniferia Castel Luciano, Super Tuscan, is nice enough, not super, and maybe it is Tuscan, but not for me! The 2017 vintage of this wine did not score much better when I tasted it back in 2022.
My many thanks to Andrew Breskin and his wife for hosting me and for sharing his time, home, and wines with me. The wine notes follow below, in order of quality and grouping – the explanation of my “scores” can be found here and the explanation for QPR scores can be found here:
2022 Jean-Philippe Marchand Burgundies
2022 Jean-Philippe Marchand Bourgogne, Hautes-Cotes de Nuits, Hautes-Cotes de Nuits – Score: 91 (QPR: GOOD)
The nose of this wine opens to show pomegranate, sour Bing cherry, intense rosehip, cinnamon, English lavender, and funk, with loads of dirt, earth, mineral, rich smoke, and roasted meat. The mouth on this medium-bodied wine is lovely, intensely acidic, layered, and earthy, with loads of floral notes, lavender, rosehip, smoked meat, and classic dark cherry. What stands out is the sweet oak influence of cedar, mouth-draping tannin, tart cherry/lavender, and minerality. The finish is floral, and very feminine, with herbs, graphite, toast, mushroom, and forest floor. Nice! Drink until 2030. (tasted January 2024) (in San Jose, CA) (ABV = 12.5%)
A tasting of M&M Importers’ current wines – February 2024
I did it again, too much time has passed from my previous post on M&M imports, and this follow-up post is some 9 months apart! This post is meant to not only catch up with the wines that I missed in my last post but also to show ALL the current wines available from M & M Importers.
It is always a pleasure to taste the wines from Ralph Madeb, president and CEO of M&M Importers. The BIG news is that now some of his wines are available on kosherwine.com! I really hope this helps to spread the good word about the work that Ralph and his team do! More info on M & M Importers can be found here.
Where can you find the wines?
Let us get the obvious out of the way first, it is very hard to track what M&M imports and where they are for sale. As stated above kosherwine.com is selling some of them and IDrinkKosher.com also sells them. Neither is the best option because KW has a limited number of the total portfolio, more of that in a moment and IDK is solid, both in pricing and in what they buy. However, knowing what is ACTUALLY available is almost impossible unless you show up at the store. I have been at the store a few times and they have great prices and good storage – again the issue lies in knowing what is actually for sale, as the website is never updated. Calling in does not help much either, but this post is here to shed more light on the matter. I know Ralph is working very hard on this matter and I hope we get more news on this soon.
UPDATE: You can now buy many of the SKUs from elkwine.com! Elchonon Hellinger is a dear friend and as always, I make NOTHING from your purchases, but if you live or are visiting the Miami area, please look him up! If you do not find what you need on the site, text him on Whatsapp: 17867501019, he is adding more SKUs as fast as he can!
Portfolio
If anyone wants to get a bird’s eye view of Ralph Madeb they should listen to the great podcast series from Simon Jacobs – The Kosher Terroir. The episode that focuses on Dr. Ralph Madeb and M&M Importers is this one.
From a Fifty Thousand Mile view, Ralph started his adventure as a mixture of importing IDS wines while also creating his own. Even when he was bringing in some IDS wines, it was not all of them, and access to them was almost impossible.
Since then, things have grown, by leaps and bounds and now they produce or import more than 70 wines.
Again, aside from the accessibility to/of these wines, for the average guy, not living in/near/around NYC, let us talk about what they are and where they come from.
IDS makes wines from all around France and you can find all my wine notes from November 2023, here. Between, Pinot Noirs from Burgundy, famous estates from Bordeaux, and now famous estates from Alsace, Provence, and Sancerre, IDS has expanded its portfolio over these past 10 years.
Names like Chateau Smith Haut Lafitte, Domaine de Chevalier, Chateau Lafon-Rochet, Chateau Marquis d’Alesme Becker, Virginie de Valandraud. Chateau Labegorce, Chateau la Tour de By, Chateau de Valois, Chateau Leydet-Valentin, Chateau Trianon, Chateau Sainte Marguerite, Domaine Aegerter Gevrey-Chambertin, Domaine Aegerter Nuits-Saint-Georges Premier Cru, Domaine Aegerter Nuits-Saint-Georges, Domaine Aegerter Beaune Premier Cru, Gustave Lorentz, Tokaj-Hetszolo, Domaine Vacheron Sancerre, Jean Luc et Paul Aegerter Pouilly Fuisse, Jean Luc et Paul Aegerter Meursault, Clos des Lunes Lune D’Argent.
These are wines made by and for IDS and M&M imports them and sells them locally here in the USA.
Mercier Wines
When you see names Chateau Cantenac Brown, Château Saint Martin Rouge and Rose, Domaine Lebrun Pouilly Fumé, Château Rayne Vigneau, Chateau Fayat, Chateau Olivier Red and White, Chateau Clement Pichon, Alphonse Mellot Sancerre, La Moussiere, Chateau Haut-Marbuzet, and Carillon d’Angelus, these are all made under the auspices of Maison Mercier.
Some of these wines are imported and sold by Royal Wines and some are imported and sold by M&M Imports.
They make many other wines and they import a large portfolio of Israeli wines into France as well. Most of the French wines are made under the watchful eye of Pierre Miodonick, whom I have written up on a few times.
These are really big names for Kosher, much like Royal makes with Pontet Canet, and IDS makes with Smith Haut Lafitte. Any time we can get kosher wines from Angelus and Pichon things are moving in the correct direction. Still, the prices are sky-high because of the added partners in the process.
Honest Grapes
Tom Harrow and Nathan Hill (a man I met for a few hours recently, more on that in a few posts) built an impressive wine club system. They are happy to sell you wine here and there, but their business is built on wine clubs and events. They have been in business since 2014 and they started a kosher line in 2017. Like much of their business and clubs, they run using a mix of crowd-sourcing and partnerships.
The 2017 and 2018 vintages were all sold out long ago as they were both crowd-sourced and sold to those who signed in to the En Primeur. The 2019 vintage was a change, they expanded and with that expansion came a bit more space for non-club access. They expanded a bit because of demand and also because of the appearance of M&M. That was a bit ahead of schedule, and there was no real extra access, at that time, mostly leaving the wines to be sold En Primeur.
The 2020 vintage was when the partnership helped Honest Grapes to expand and make more of the small winery plots kosher. Remember, it is not like they can go from 1000 bottles to 1100 or 1200 bottles. Everything is still barrel based. Either the barrel (25 cases of 12 bottles) is kosher or it is not! These plots are so small, for the most part, that it was not long before the plots were vinified 100% kosher.
The impressive wines in this portfolio are a mix of Bordeaux and Burgundy:
- Chateau Teyssier (QPR Homerun)
- Vieux Château Mazerat
- Le Dôme Kosher
- Pontet Labrie
- Domaine de Montille Pommard Premier Cru ‘Les Grands Epenots’
- Domaine de Montille Puligny-Montrachet Premier Cru, Les Chalumeaux
- Domaine de Montille Volnay Premier Cru ‘Les Brouillards’
- Domaine de Montille Nuits-Saint-Georges Premier Cru ‘Aux Thorey’
- Domaine de Montille Beaune Premier Cru ‘Les Perrières’
- Domaine de Montille Monthelie Premier Cru ‘Les Duresses’
- Domaine de Montille Bourgogne Blanc
- Domaine de Montille Bourgogne Rouge
Right now, M&M only has two wines for sale from Honest Grapes, the 2019 Chateau Teyssier (QPR Homerun), and the 2020 Domaine de Montille Volnay Premier Cru ‘Les Brouillards’.
The rest of the 2020 Bordeaux and the 2021 Burgundies are still in route and will be here soon enough.
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Final Tasting from my trip to Paris – November 2023
As stated in my previous post, I was in Paris in November, with Avi Davidowitz from Kosher Wine Unfiltered. The number of boxes in our room was not nearly as insane as last year. Last year, we had some 80 wines, this year we were at a measly 62. Of those 62, Avi did not get a chance to taste all of them, as he had to get back to Israel. It was a miracle he was even able to come in the first place and I really thank him and his family for him making it to Paris with all that was going on in Israel.
We were in Paris for a week and during that time Avi not only got to finally see some of Paris but we had three organized tastings and we had some Hotel time to taste other wines. Given the constraints, we sadly, did not have time to do these blind. I hope next year, we will make it a priority. Heck, at this point Avi has seen as much of Paris as I have, though he really does need to go to the Musée de l’Orangerie and some more of Musee d’Orsay. Heck, even a bit of the Centre Pompidou will not hurt him, but we have next time! B”H!!!
Like last time, I wanted to break up the normal approach, or taste wines from the distributor or wine producers and instead taste the wines in their respective groups. So the wines listed below are in the order we tasted them and in the groups, we tasted them.
Rhone & White Wines
Red Rhone wines were the first round of wines we tasted. I will take the blame here. I normally get rid of the white wines first, but I wanted to stick to regions and we did not have all the wines at the start, so yeah, the tasting order, at the start is a bit wonky.
Most of these wines were from Cedev, but a few also came from Yavine.fr. There were ten reds and three whites. The overall impression of the 13 wines was not impressive, though there were two nice wines from Yavine and Les Vins de Vienne and one from Domaine de Corps de Loup.
To start, the prices of some of these wines in France are outrageous and they are no better here in the USA (though some of these are only available in Europe). The others are barely OK wines and the price really is irrelevant. The best was the Yavine Les Vins de Vienne Crozes-Hermitage (white and red). The Domaine de Corps de Loup’s price was outrageous but it is a nice enough wine.
The Cedev wines rated OK to poor. The showing may be their best yet, but I have no need to buy any of them. They do have some interesting wines, like a Kosher red Vacqueyras, I just wish they tasted better.
In the end, the relationship between Yavine and Les Vins de Vienne continues to produce good wines.
Finally, if someone had asked me the day I came home, what was the best NEW wine I tasted on your trip – the answer would have been very simple – that is the 2021 Chateau Olivier Blanc. DONE. I would then have dropped the mic and walked away. It is an incredible wine! The 2020 vintage was nice enough, but the 2021 is shockingly incredible. It is clear that the 2021 vintage is really not good for Cabernet-based wines or even for some Merlot-based ones. It feels a bit like 2013 when the whites were incredible. We had no kosher white 2013 wines, but we had the 2013 Piada, yeah it is white, but it is sweet, and yeah, that was/is incredible!
2021 is a tough vintage for Bordeaux and 2022 is NOT what folks have hyped it – so far
This section is going to be tough. The 2021 vintage is a lost cause. Sadly, a large number of Bordeaux wines were made in 2021. There were no red wines made in 2021 from the wines we tasted in the hotel that were QPR WINNERs. There are four 2022 QPR WINNER wines but I continue to stress, that in the kosher world, for me, so far, 2022 is not the panacea or quality that the non-kosher world is hyping. Sure, we have not yet tasted the Chateau Pontet Canet. LOL! My real hope is that the 2020 Moulin Riche, Montviel, Royaumont, and so on, will NOT be like the 2018 vintage! NO! Please no! We want more of the 2014/016 vintage. Sadly, from what we have seen so far in the kosher wines, it is not what those on the outside are talking about. But, the final answer will be when we get to taste the big boys in November and Feb 2025. Yeah, 2025!!
Of this group, the standouts were the Taieb 20222 wines. No surprise here, Taieb continues to prove that great wine does not need to come from the Grand Cru names. Still, there were 2022 wines that were a ripe mess, but that happens with every vintage. My main issue here is that outside of these four wines we have found no other 2022 vintage that we liked enough to give it a QPR WINNER score. As stated, time will tell.
Other regions tasted with Avi
Literally, nothing here to talk about – next! So much pain!!
Elvi Wines
Elvi has another two QPR WINNER wines, while the 2020 Rioja Crizana (Mevushal and not) is not my cup of tea. The 2021 Clos Mesorah and the 2022 Herenza White are lovely wines. Sadly, because Royal can not sell the Herenza White (AKA Invita), the only place I get to taste the current vintage is in Paris or Europe. It is pathetic, that the USA cannot appreciate the joy and happiness of the Herenza white, but hey, that is OK! They sell out in Europe anyway, this is just the loss to those of us living in the USA!
The 2021 Clos Mesorah is another WINNER and yeah, lovely wine, ripe, bold, and concentrated, but with lots of soy sauce and umami. Great stuff and it shows the complexity that so many other wines we tasted lacked.
Other regions tasted without Avi
This is mostly a press release for the Terra di Seta wines I have yet to taste! JOKING, I do not do a press release wine posts, but yeah, the wines are nice. Look, something has changed at Terra di Seta since 2019, I do not know what it is. Sure, the 2019 Chainati Classico was not bad, it was a bit short, but ok. The 2020 vintage was OK as well, while the 2021 vintage was a real mess. The 2019 Riserva was a hard pass for me at the start. It took a couple of days and then I came around to like it enough but even there, the Riserva did not meet what I expected from TDS. Time will tell what is happening or if the Riserva or Assai are good in the later vintages. I have always felt that the Riserva wines were the real age-worthy wine. I have had my issues with the Assai. Still, something is amiss in the last three years. I am hoping that things will change back soon!
I tasted a bunch of wines in June of 2023. They were at a wine event and they were imported by BAM Imports. I wrote about them here. Well, it turns out I had them again, without Avi in Paris and they showed far better. This can always be an import issue, bottle variation, or who knows what. Still, the concern is clear and the wines were not evil in Paris, so who knows!
Finally, I had a couple of wines in the hotel after Avi left and the WINNER of those was a lovely Ribeauville Pinot Noir! I know the joke, Kosher Alsace Pinot Noir is too cheap to clean the car with. Still, this vintage was a SOLID QPR WINNER. Of course, import it to the USA, and goodbye QPR! Still, for those in Europe, ENJOY! This is a daily quaffer HOMERUN!
Where can you buy these wines?
So, the Cedev wines are in the USA, I have no idea what stores are selling their wines sorry. The Olivier and others from Mercier are imported by M&M (AKA Ralph) and sold by Kosher Wine Direct. The Taieb wines will make their way to the USA soon, and should be available by Liquid Kosher, and Elk (you can contact Elk, listed to the right on the desktop view of this page) has/should have them as well. Finally, the TDS and Elvi wines will get to the USA soon or are already here. The biggest issue I find, outside of Royal Wine produced wines, is distribution for the kosher wine buyer. It is almost impossible for the average Kosher wine-buying Joe, to know where to buy each and every SKU/wine, it is crazy!
Thoughts on this tasting
OK, so overall, this tasting was a disaster, much like most of our hotel wine tastings. Look, Kosher plonk exists in spades in all regions of the world! The USA may have the largest availability to them, but Paris is not far behind! That is the MAIN takeaway! Followed by that is the horrible 2021 vintage (other than white wines). Finally, 2022 is not all it has been cracked up to be. OK, that is a wrap for Paris 2023! Looking forward to my next trip over the pond!
Before I forget – Avi took all the pictures from this trip so if you dislike them, blame him. If you love them disregard the previous sentence! Thanks, buddy!! Finally, while most of these deliveries were to the hotel this time, my man Ari Cohen, AKA El-Presidente of Bakus Wines, still put up with our many deliveries. Thanks as always! These hotel tastings could never happen with you, my man!!!
The wine notes follow below – the explanation of my “scores” can be found here and the explanation for QPR scores can be found here:
—————————— Rhone & White Wines ———————————————-
2022 Domaine La Martinelle Cotes du Rhone Villages Visan, Cotes du Rhone – Score: 78 (QPR: POOR)
This wine is painful, it smells hot, it tastes hot, and it feels painful, literally. It also tastes like the wine came out of the wine vat early, AKA, hard pass! The wine has no acidity, loads of astringent, and uncontrolled tannin. Next! (tasted November 2023) (in Paris, France) (ABV = 14.5%)
2022 Vignobles Vuillemin de Valois Bonne Etoile, Cotes du Rhone Villages – Score: 87 (QPR: EVEN)
This wine is a blend of 70% Syrah, 15% Grenache, and 15% Carignan. This is a solid wine for a good price the wine has nice acidity, showing blue, red, and green notes, and earthy, smoky, dirty, and loads of graphite. The mouth of this medium-bodied wine is solid is nice, with good acidity, nice tannin, good fruit, herbs, nice blueberry, raspberry, roasted herbs, soft tannin, and graphite. The finish is nice, tannic, fruity, simple, and not asking for much. Drink now. (tasted November 2023) (in Paris, France) (ABV = 14%)
A Domaine Roses Camille (AKA DRC) tasting in Paris with Christophe Bardeau – November 2023
I continue my tastings on my trip to Paris in November and this post focuses on wines we enjoyed from Domaine Roses Camille. I have posted often about wines from DRC, including my most recent post on DRC wines. My post here, tells of the story of DRC and this one tells of a lovely gathering I was invited to with DRC wines.
As Avi posted in his first post about this trip to Paris, we wanted to get him to see a bit of Paris on this trip, it was time! So, after the tasting at IDS, we were going to get him to the Musée de l’Orangerie, to see the gorgeous Monet tableau of the lilies, but Ben, God bless him, had other plans when he opened the world to taste! God bless you Ben we will get Avi to see them soon, B”H!
Once we had tasted the wines at IDS, Avi Davidowitz, from the Kosher Wine Unfiltered blog, and I walked not too far to meet with Christophe Bardeau, the winemaker of Domaine Roses Camille, and Ben Sitruk, the DRC distributor in France, and the owner of the kosher wine website – WineSymphony.fr. A slight aside here, Wine Symphony is one of the best sites for kosher wine in France, but hey that is just my biased opinion. I really need to do a post, a rather quick one, regarding the best places to get wines in Paris and Europe, look for that one soon.
Avi and I arrived to a quiet street in Paris, turned left, and then it was the game of – which door is the address? It took us longer than it should have, I think, these office buildings in Paris are not easy to find! We got to the office in time and there was Christophe, the mad scientist behind the hugely successful Domaine Roses Camille wines. We spoke in English and that was fine with Ben and Christophe, as they are pretty fluent.
There was a lot of food and wine at this event. The food came from Chef Nerwin Guzman’s restaurant Etnikahn. The wine was brought in by Christophe, it included some barrel samples, which I will not be talking about. Mostly because they are just babies, but as I told Christophe at the tasting, they were quite enjoyable. I will just say this, look forward to some really special things, the rest will be revealed, I am sure in due time, by either Christophe, Ben, or Andrew of Liquid Kosher.
I will say that at this point, Domaine Roses Camille is a 100% Kosher winery. That does not mean that the earlier vintages of many of the wines are kosher. What it means is that from 2020 all wines from Domaine Roses Camille are kosher. The winery is still releasing older non-kosher wines, but that will soon come to an end. I think I will leave it at that.
So, in the process of turning the winery 100% kosher, one of the last plots to turn kosher was the Chateau Les Graves de Lavaud. It is in the Lalande de Pomerol and if the 2020 vintage is of any indication – that is one very nice vineyard!
We started with the 2020 Chateau Les Graves de Lavaud and then we went on to the 2019 & 2020 Clos Lavaud, the original QPR (Quality to Price Ratio) warrior!!
We then got to taste the 2016 vintage of Domaine Roses Camille Grand Vin de Bordeaux, Pomerol, which I tasted in January alongside many of its older brothers. The 2014 vintage was finally starting to open and in the vertical we had, in San Diego, it was the one I liked the most, at that moment, anyway. These wines are still babies, but hopefully, one day I will finally get a chance to pop one in their window! The 2011 was so deeply mineral that it was shocking, but you can read more about the wines there.
There was another wine poured at the tasting along with some rather uninteresting food items shared with us. The wine will appear in the next post, while for the food item, I will say this, my deep lack of happiness eating it/them, will probably revoke my Tunisian membership. I apologize to my ancestors, but seriously, what were you guys thinking??? I have no idea! Enough said! Thanks so much, Ben for caring and wanting to make me more Tunisian, but once again, I embarrass my family, that is my black spot to bear!
Domaine Roses Camille wines are available from Ben Sitruk’s site and other online sites throughout Europe, while the wines are available, or will be very soon, in the USA from Andrew Breskin and his site – Liquid Kosher. For those in Miami and its surrounds, Elchonon Hellinger, aka Elk, also has a stock of these wines and other Domaine Roses Camille wines, so reach out to him as well. His contact info, like Andrew’s, is to the right on this blog.
My many thanks to both Christophe Bardeau and Ben Sitruk for hosting us so beautifully and sharing their beautiful wines and food 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:
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 November 2023) (in Paris, France) (ABV = 14%)
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 November 2023) (in Paris, France) (ABV = 14%)
2019 Clos Lavaud, Lalande de Pomerol – Score: 93 (QPR: WINNER)
The nose of this wine is a beast showing pure minerality, dark fruit, smoke, and rich herbs. The nose of tar, mineral, graphite, rock, loam, and rich smoke, covers and wraps the rich fruit. Bravo!
The mouth of this full-bodied wine is intense, layered, rich, dense, and rich tannin, with incredible acidity, and crazy precision, showing blackberry, plum, dark cherry, rich smoke, and incredible extraction showing an expression that is just insane.
The finish is long, and extracted, with scraping graphite, rich loam, roasted herb, loam, clay, and rich green/black fruit. Wow, this cannot happen without a deep balance between the fruit, acidity, and minerality. Drink from 2025 until 2032. (tasted November 2023) (in Paris, France) (ABV = 14%)
IDS tasting of current releases in Paris – a second time – in Nov 2023
As stated in my previous post Avi Davidowitz, from the Kosher Wine Unfiltered blog, and I went to Paris and had three organized tastings. This was the second organized tasting of the trip and it was with IDS. IDS is officially called Les Vins IDS and IDS stands for International Distribution Service. On a lovely Wednesday afternoon, Avi and I jumped in an Uber and went to see Ben Uzan at IDS’s offices.
Le Vin IDS Wines
Many of the wines I tasted that day were wines I had tasted 6 months earlier in May 2023. There were two wines that I had not tasted earlier, the 2022 Chateau Sainte Marguerite Cuvee Fantastique Blanc. In May it was the 2021 vintage. The other new wine was the 2020 Chateau Trianon, Saint-Emilion Grand Cru. We got the chance to taste the 2018, 2019, and 2020 vintages side-by-side, which was very cool!
Ben was so kind to have aired out the office room before we came in, as the smell of tobacco ash is always insufferable. I understand France is one of the few advanced nations in the world where smoking is still a thing. I have never tolerated it, the smell makes me retch, so Ben is always so kind to air out the room before we begin tasting his wonderful wines.
Once that was done I took in the room and I realized this was going to be an awesome tasting. I was not expecting a full replay of the May tasting, it was a true treat, and my many thanks. The full outlay was not for me, this was a very kind gesture by Ben for Avi and Ben’s other guests/friends, I was just a lucky recipient. It also gave me the time to take in this tasting in a far less rushed approach, as the wines were mostly tasting the same as they were 6 months ago. However, and this is important, it did give me a chance to better appreciate some of the wines. So, you will see some scores and note changes from the previous tasting. I will note those by RESCORED at the start of the notes.
This tasting was beyond comprehensive, this tasting was essentially the entire current wine portfolio of IDS. If IDS sold the wine it was at the tasting. There will be new 2021 wines released soon, if not already, in France, but the wines in this tasting are all available in France unless they are sold out. For example, maybe the 2019 Chateau Smith Haut-Lafite, but again, I have no idea of IDS inventory stocks!
In regards to whether these wines are here in the USA, the vast majority of them are indeed imported by M&M Importers and should be available in the NYC area.
White and Roses
The first 8 wines we tasted were the current whites and roses from Les Vin IDS. One of them is a favorite of mine, the 2018 Clos des Lunes Lune D’Argent – a lovely white Bordeaux that started a bit slow for me in 2019 but it has blossomed recently and I love it!
We started with the lovely 2022 Chateau Sainte Marguerite Cuvee Fantastique Rose, Cotes de Provence, followed by the 2022 Chateau Sainte Marguerite Cuvee Fantastique Blanc, Cru Classe, Cotes de Provence. There is only one rose and white this year, the Cuvee Fantastique.
Then came the lovely 2018 Clos des Lunes Lune D’Argent, it continues to impress, improve, and show its age-ability. I have been so badly burned with poor aging white wines, even from France/Europe, that I pull back hard on my DW. I would rather enjoy than curse at my wines! This is one of the RESCORED notes.
Then came a wine, the lovely 2021 Gustave Lorentz Riesling, Grand Cru, Alsace, a baby of a wine from Alsace made in the way I love, dry, and screaming with acidity and minerality. The Petrol joy will come later!
Ben did not pour the Gewurtztraminer, as Avi had it earlier, it is a nice wine but the off-dry approach is one I have a hard time with. Still professionally made and a real wine that may come around for me in a few years.
Then came the 2021 Jean Luc et Paul Aegerter Pouilly Fuisse, Premier Cru, Vers Cras, Pouilly Fuisse. It is a wine we have not had in Kosher for a long time now. A lovely mineral bomb! I am not sure of the exact vintage of the last one, but it has been a while!
Then came a lovely Sancerre, the 2021 Domaine Vacheron Sancerre, Grand Champs. Lots of fun! This is one of the wines that I did do a RESCORED on. It has truly moved along since May.
Followed by the 2021 Tokaj-Hetszolo Sarga Muskotaly, Tokaji, a unique and fun wine.
Finally, there was the beautiful 2020 Domaine de Chevalier, Blanc, Pessac-Leognan. This is a famous white wine and it was a joy to taste. In the non-kosher market, the white Chevalier is more expensive than the red, as in this kosher production as well! This too, is one of the wines that I did do a RESCORED on.
Red Wines
The next 23 wines – yes TWENTY-THREE wines were all red. I had tasted them all before in May and other times before that, other than one, the 2020 Chateau Trianon.
We started with a run of Burgundy wines. I can hear it now, 2021 red Burgundies, they must have all been horrible! As I stated in May, I was not expecting much, even now after only 6 months, but they were exactly the same as they were 6 months earlier. They are all well-made, balanced, and enjoyable. In the end, nice wines indeed! There are three 1er Cru wines and 2 Village wines.
That was followed by the red Cotes de Provence, a blend of Grenache and Syrah, the 2021 Chateau Sainte Marguerite Cuvee Fantastique, Rouge, Cru Classe. A nice, tart, refreshing red wine.
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