Category Archives: Kosher Sparkling Wine
Three wines that have sadly lost their luster
So, in my last post, I posted about good simple white wines and two of them were the 2018 Les Marronniers Chablis wines. Sadly, they have taken a step back over the past year, since when I had them last. I knew I should have tasted them before reposting my old score and notes.
In related news, the 2007 Yarden Blanc de Blanc, Brut, Late Disgorged, is in the throes of dying, as I was 100% worried it would be, in this earlier post. As explained in the post, it is like that because Yarden decided to make the Late Disgorged Brut in the style of Brut Nature, more on that here.
This is just an update and essentially all three of these wines have similar notes to where they were a year ago, except for the fact that those notes and enjoyment end after a few hours. In the case of the Yarden, maybe 15 minutes after opening.
So, IMHO, I would drink what you had now and I will not be buying any more of these, sadly.
If you look back at my earlier post – a month or more ago, you will see my wine notes for the newly released Drappier Brut Nature – I loved it, but it too is very short for this earth. DOUBLE check the disgorgement dates and make sure you keep it within 8 months max from the disgorgement date.
The wine note follows below – the explanation of my “scores” can be found here and the explanation for QPR scores can be found here:
2018 Les Marronniers Chablis (M) – Score: 90
Sadly, as I continue to watch this wine evolve I feel it is not a wine that I will stock up on. This and the 1er Cru, sadly. The reason is that the wine keeps losing acidity as it ages. We opened the wine on Friday afternoon and by Shabbat morning the acidity was far removed from where it was on Friday and that feels further removed from my notes and memories of a year ago.
This wine is made with native yeasts and as little manipulation as possible. The nose on this wine is beautiful with orange blossom, yellow apple, and rosehip, with lemon curd, and yeasty and creamy notes. The mouth is still lovely, but the last three times, 2018 is not as good as when I had it in France. The mouth on this medium-bodied wine is fun, the acidity is not nearly as intense as in the past year, showing nice saline, with lovely layers of sweet Meyer lemon, grapefruit, with quince, and pie crust, with Anjou pear, and nice peach. The finish is long, crazy long, almost oily, with baked pear and apple, cinnamon, nutmeg, and loads of mineral, with slate, rock, and saline. Sadly, as I state above the acidity dies in a few hours, so while I love the wine to start, it is not for long holding. Drink until 2022.
2018 Les Marronniers Chablis, Premier Cru, Cote de Jouan – Score: 90+
Sadly, as I continue to watch this wine evolve I feel it is not a wine that I will stock up on. This and the 1er Cru, sadly. The reason is that the wine keeps losing acidity as it ages. We opened the wine on Friday afternoon and by Shabbat morning the acidity was far removed from where it was on Friday and that feels further removed from my notes and memories of a year ago.
The nose on this lovely wine has finally opened and now it is showing well. The nose on this wine showing lovely notes of mad floral notes, starting with rosehip and yellow flowers, followed by nice minerals, slate, blossom water, and loads of citrus, with apple, and smoke. The mouth on this medium-bodied wine is rich, layered, and impressive, with a rich oily mouthfeel, showing a lovely weight, with yellow apple, tart citrus, Asian Pear, nice peach/apricot, with beautiful acidity that is well integrated with a strong mineral core, showing Orange pith, with tart citrus and slate and yellow plum, with saline, and more earth and hints of nectarines and orange. Sadly, as I state above the acidity dies in a few hours, so while I love the wine to start, it is not for long holding. Drink until 2022.
2007 Yarden Blanc de Blancs, Brut, Late-Disgorged – Score: 88
Drink UP! I was dead on with this wine, my concerns were 100% warrantied, very sad! This wine was made in the style of Brut-Nature and while it is cool at the start it dies quickly.
The nose on this wine starts nicely but within minutes, even less now, the nose gets oxidized and becomes applesauce. Same with the mouth, of course, the acidity and lovely mousse is off the charts, but this is a wine that needs to be drunk NOW!
The 2020 Kosher rose season is open and once again I am underwhelmed – part 1
It is not yet summer but here in NorCal, it feels more like summer than spring, and the weather is making shipments really hard at this time of year. Normally, I would have been in Israel by now, one way or the other, and I would have at least had two tastings with the gang. Sadly, with the times we live in now, neither of those wonderful ideas is possible. Sad and strange days we live in. Also, this is round 1, there will be another 15 roses I will get through over the next week or so.
While rose wine in the non-kosher market is exploding – especially Rose wine from Provence; a wine region of France, the kosher market this year will be more subdued. In the past, distributors brought in as much as 60+ kosher rose wines, this year with the issues I brought up in my previous post – there is less of an appetite for all those wines.
QPR and Price
I have been having more discussions around my QPR score with a few people and their contention, which is fair, in that they see wine at a certain price, and they are not going to go above that. So, instead of having a true methodology behind their ideas, they go with what can only be described as a gut feeling. The approaches are either a wine punches above its weight class so it deserves a good QPR score. Or, this other wine has a good score and is less than 40 dollars so that makes it a good QPR wine.
While I appreciate those ideals, they do not work for everyone and they do NOT work for all wine categories. It does NOT work for roses. Look, rose prices are 100% ABSURD – PERIOD! The median rose price has gone up this year and it is around 22 bucks – that is NUTS! Worse, is that the prices are for online places like kosherwine.com or onlinekosherwine.com, with free or good shipping options and great pricing, definitely not retail pricing.
As you will see in the scores below, QPR is all over the place and there will be good QPR scores for wines I would not buy while there are POOR to BAD QPR scores for wines I would think about buying, based upon the scores, but in reality, I would never buy another bottle because the pricing is ABSURDLY high.
Also, remember that the QPR methodology is based upon the 4 quintiles! Meaning, that there is a Median, but there are also quintiles above and below that median. So a wine that is at the top price point is by definition in the upper quintile. The same goes for scores. Each step above and below the median is a point in the system. So a wine that is in the most expensive quintile but is also the best wine of the group gets an EVEN. Remember folks math wins!
Still, many of the wines have a QPR of great and I would not buy them, why? Well, again, QPR is based NOT on quality primarily, it is based upon price. The quality is secondary to the price. So, wines that are drinkable with an 88 or 89 score, though wines that I would not buy, have a low enough price to get a GOOD or GREAT score. Does that mean that I would buy them because they have a GREAT QPR? No, I would not! However, for those that really want roses, then those are solid options.
Please remember, a wine score and the notes are the primary reason why I would buy a wine – PERIOD. The QPR score is there to mediate, secondarily, which of those wines that I wish to buy, are a better value. ONLY, the qualitative score can live on its own, in regards to what I buy. The QPR score defines, within the wine category, which of its peers are better or worse than the wine in question.
Finally, I can, and I have, cut and paste the rest of this post from last year’s rose post and it plays 100% the same as it did last year. Why? Because rose again is horrible. There is almost no Israeli rose, that I have tasted so far, that I would buy – no way! Now, I have not tasted the wines that many think are good in Israel, the Netofa, Vitkin, and Recanati roses. Yes, there is ONE rose I would “buy” by my qualitative scoring approach, which is why I used the word almost above. That wine would be the 2019 Bat Shlomo Rose, but at some 28 or more dollars a bottle, it is highway robbery for that score. Read the rest of this entry
The best/top kosher wines for Passover 2020 in all price ranges
I understand that these are incredibly trying times, however, people ask me for this list so I am putting it out there. My hope is that it brings happiness to someone. Even if it does not, as I always say, this blog is for me, and I mean no disrespect in posting this here and at this time. My hope is that it finds the value to some. My sincere best wishes for health, success, and safety to all!
As many have read on these pages, a few wine events have come and gone, – with the last couple being canceled given the world we live in today. As I walked around KFWE this year – I was asked again for a list of my top kosher wines for Passover, so here it goes! This is my list of great and reasonably priced kosher wines.
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 2011 Yarden Blanc de Blanc or the 2013 Yarden Brut Rose, both are great sparkling wines. At the same time, the list includes some of the best high-end kosher wines I have ever tasted that go for $100 or so a bottle. 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 happened 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 15 or so dollar bottles of wine, that can be bought at Skyview Wines, Gotham Wines, Suhag Wine, and of course onlinekosherwine.com, kosherwine.com and Gary’s store, along with the other wine stores I have listed on the right-hand side of this blog (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 less than 10 dollars 2018 Chateau Riganes Bordeaux, white or red, or the slightly more expensive Herenza Crianza, and many others. These are great wines and the price is only an added benefit. However, there are many low priced wines that 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, is a list of wines that personally was wowed when tasting them. That does not mean that the 2018 Chateau Riganes Bordeaux, as nice as it is may or may not be, can compare to another wine on the 50 dollars and above list – that would not be fair. 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, this is not about which is better than the rest it is a way to whittle down the list of wines that I enjoyed from a massive set of thousands of kosher wines available here in America. That is why I made the list. In hindsight, I am sure I will have missed some wines. If you do not see a wine you love and it scored a 90 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 2018 rose wines! PLEASE! They are muted and a waste of your hard-earned money. Sadly, the 2019 roses I have tasted so far are a WASTE of time. The best of them are still in France and not here in the USA yet.
Arba Kosot (The Four cups of Passover)
Finally, it the Jewish custom to drink four cups of wine on Passover, but to power down these wines are far too hard for me (the concept there is to drink the base quantity of wine to fulfill your requirement – which is a Revi’it, within a certain time 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. This year, I think I will go with Yarden Rose Brut Sparkling wine. It is Israeli, not mevushal, “red”, and lovely wine, and an acid BOMB! Read the rest of this entry
Guter Wein (Shlomo Corcos) Wine Tasting
The day after the Bokobsa tasting I sat down with Shlomo Corcos (Guter Wein) and Yoel Kassabi from YayinKosher to taste some of the recent wines from Corcos. 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 7-year-old rose along with a newly bottled Champagne. The French wines were made at Michel Gonet, including the lovely Champagne and 4 Bordeaux wines. I was joined by a few of the French forum members, including Ari Cohen, Ben Sitruk, and Elie Dayan.
My many thanks to Mr. Corcos and to Yoel Kassabi for setting up the meeting, sharing his wines with us, and for taking time out of his incredibly busy schedule to meet with us. The wine notes follow below – the explanation of my “scores” can be found here:
2016 Champagne Michel Gonet, Les 2 Terroirs – Score: 91
Lovely nose of baked apple, yeast, with loads of mineral, pear, and pepper, and asparagus. The mouth on this medium-bodied wine is nice, well made, crazy acidity, with lovely yeast, baked and almost buttery ripe apple pie, with great minerality, lemon curd, with crazy grapefruit, rich salinity, and piercing focus, Bravo! The finish is super long, green, with crazy citrus, saline, lemongrass, and crazy tart clementine, lovely! Drink until 2026. Read the rest of this entry
2020 Bokobsa Sieva Wine tasting just outside of Paris
Well, I am one post in and I have another 5 to go. As I stated in the first of my 6 posts on my trip to wine tastings in London, Paris, NYC, and L.A., I am truly thankful that my trips ended well for everyone, the news keeps getting uglier.
As I stated the kosher wine tasting season was upon us, and the first of my posts about the ones I attended was my London post. After a quick train ride to Paris, and a stop at the hotel, it was time for another tasting, the Bokobsa Sieva tasting.
The Bokobsa Tasting, is presented by the company known in France as Sieva, and it happened in Paris (well not exactly Paris, more on the very outskirts of Paris to be exact) on Tuesday, on the stunning grounds of the Pavillon des Princes in the 16th district. I arrived early and after taking a bunch of pictures I just relaxed and waited for the event to start. One of the issues from the tasting in past years was the older vintages of wines poured, along with the food that was cold and quite simple. This year, the food was nicer, they had warm food, and some very well put together dishes. Sadly, the vintages on the Royal wines were still strange, some new 2017 vintages while some wines were 2014 and 2015. However, the Bokobsa wines were all the latest, other than the 2018 Chablis which was not being poured.
One wine two Hecsher/Kosher Supervisions means two labels
One of the biggest shocks I had at the event was the realization that France is in a far worse place, in regards to kosher supervision than Israel and the USA. I have seen many times, where Badatz Edah HaChareidis and the OU would both be on the same bottle of wine, like Or Haganuz wines and others. However, in France, that seemingly is not an option! Understand that there are NOT multiple mashgichim (kosher supervisors) when there are multiple supervisions on a single bottle. Rather, the ONE/Two mashgichim all do the stringencies of one or both of the kosher supervisions. However, in France, this cannot work – I am not kidding! Clarisse showed me two bottles of the same Champagne made by Bokobsa Sieva. The difference between them, was not the overall supervision, as that was one the same, nor was it in any way a different vintage or winery, nope! They were EXACTLY the same wine – EXACTLY! The only difference was the name of the supervision on the back of the bottle! One had the kosher supervision of Paris Beit Din and the other had the kosher supervision of Rabbi Rottenberg.
So, I then asked the head of the supervising Rabbis, who was at the tasting, if the Paris Beit Din accepted to be on the same label with Rabbi Rottenberg, would Rabbi Rottenberg agree? He said no! OMG! I was speechless. ME! What question would you followup to that answer? I asked why? He said because they have different requirements. I said they are the same Mashgichim, so why would you care? In the end, he said that is how it is in France. Sadly, that is the state of affairs and I moved on.
Another fascinating difference between the labels is that the Paris Beit Din version of the wine has a different Cuvee name than the Rabbi Rottenberg version. That, I was told, was just for marketing, so that people would not be as shocked as I am now! Finally, there is also a pregnant lady with a slash through it, denoting that alcohol and pregnancy is not a good idea, the normal disclaimer wines have on their labels. On the Rabbi Rottenberg label, it was all in text, no images of a lady. Read the rest of this entry
2019 kosher wine year in review, Taxes, Tariffs, and more
Well, it is another Gregorian year and though there have been many new things going on in the world of the kosher wine world, with European Wine Tariffs maybe being the biggest of them. Still, maybe even bigger, is that for ONCE we have finally had some movement on my yearly and unchanged list of issues in the kosher wine industry. Maybe someone is listening.
First, let us do a quick recap of last year’s issues and the state of them, and then a few new things to think about as well!
Economics
We have too much wine out there for the official kosher wine buying populace. How do I know this? Because the amount of wine being dumped on the non-kosher market for a pittance in countries that no one visits is absurd! Wine is being dumped all over the place, and it is not going to get better anytime soon. Why? Because wineries are still popping up all over the place, and they are making really average wine at best!
Which brings me to the same issue, but in more detail. We have lots of horrible wine out there. Yes, I know I am a broken record, get over it. The kosher wine market in Israel and California needs to get better at making wines for a decent price. But I would be happy with just good wine – for a not decent price.
Again, besides the price, the overall quality of the wines is just not acceptable. The good news is we have lots of wine, but sadly the quality is not there. We need to raise the quality and then work on lowering the price.
State after 2019 of the Economics of kosher wine
Nothing has changed here. Israel is even worse than it was in 2017. Red wines from Israel were undrinkable last year, (with maybe one exception), and the white wines were boring for the vast majority, including roses. Truly, the 2018 vintage for Israel was a major bust, other than the few good wineries.
I will say that Herzog has stepped up its game. While 2015 Herzog Cabernets were boring, 2016 Herzogs were really nice. Four Gates is always the same – mostly great wines with a mix of a few misses. Shirah Winery and Hajdu Winery have both moved to the darker side, with riper and more fruit-forward wines that are not as unique as they used to be, making them less interesting to me. Thankfully, Shirah made some great white wines last year that was nice! Hagafen Winery continues to make the lovely Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc, and sparkling wines, but all the red wines are a waste of time. Covenant Winery has been making Cabernet Sauvignon for 17 years now, and Chardonnay for 12 years and they are consistently on my list of top best wines for Passover, the hits keep coming! Still, overall even within California, there is a lot of work to be done in regard to improving the quality and the prices.
Personally, California is backsliding, mostly because Shirah and Hajdu have not been making the same level of red wines as they have in the past. Throw in Hagafen’s total disregard for anything red and well all you have left is a few nice Herzog Cabernets, Four Gates, and Covenant Cabernets as well. Though, Kos Yeshuos is helping.
Europe is mostly a push. There are tons of bad wines coming from France, Italy, Spain, and elsewhere. In the past few years, I have been saying France needs no help, but that is not true! France is pumping out loads of useless garbage, we are just blessed with having the famous French wines that are really nice. Look at the disastrous tasting I had with Nathan Grandjean and Avi Davidowitz last year, and you can see that France is also not doing great, and those were handpicked wines!
Italy could use better options outside of Terra de Seta! Sadly, Capcanes has gone to the dark side as well. There is a new winemaker, and so far the wines are clearly riper, and less balanced than previous vintages. 2015, 2016. 2017, and 2018 vintages all show a wine style that is in your face and so foreign to what Capcanes was until 2015. A truly huge loss for the kosher wine market, IMHO. Thankfully, we have Elvi Wines, which is showing far more control and I am waiting to taste the new wines. Personally, Terra Di Seta may well be the best winery out of Europe. They have consistently delivered quality wines, at incredibly reasonable prices. Bravo guys!!!! Read the rest of this entry
The last round of winners and some more losers for 2019
So, I tasted a bunch of these at the KFWE in Miami and I spent my entire time there tasting through wines that made me cry. I mean they were so painful, all I could write was NO. Some I wrote nice and some I wrote good stuff. Overall, the Israeli wines were undrinkable and so painful that I had to go back to the French table just to clean my palate. It continues to make me sad to see such potential thrown out to meet the absolute lowest common denominator – fruity, loud, and brash wines.
Sadly, Cellar Capcanes continues its downward spiral. The 2018 Capcanes Peraj Petita is not very good at all. Far better than 2017 or 2016, but that is not saying much. So sad, to see such a storied franchise being thrown away for what I can only guess is the need for a new winemaker to make her mark.
Domaine Netofa continues to crush it and thank goodness it is selling well here in the USA, so that means I can stop schlepping Netofa from Israel! The 2015 Chateau Tour Seran was also lovely while the Chateau Rollan de By was OK, while the 2015 Chateau Haut Condissas showed far better than it did in France. The 2018 Pacifica Riesling, Evan’s Collection was nice but it was less of a WOW than the 2017 vintage, at least so far anyway.
At the tasting, the 2017 whites and 2018 roses were all dead, please stop buying them. Heck, even many of the simpler 2018 whites were painful.
So, here are my last notes before the year-end roundup and best of posts that I will hopefully post soon! These wines are a mix of wines I tasted at the KFWE Miami and other wines I tasted over the past month or so since my return from France. I wanted to keep this simple, so the wine notes follow below – the explanation of my “scores” can be found here:
2018 Capcanes Peraj Petita – Score: 87
This wine is a blend of 50% Grenache, 20% Tempranillo, 15% Merlot, and 15% Syrah. This wine is ripe really ripe, with dark blackberry, with loads of dark brooding fruit, floral notes, and herb, and heather. The mouth on this medium-bodied wine is sweet, ripe, and date-like, with dark cherry, sweet candied raspberry, smoke, candied black fruit, and sweet notes galore. The toast, earth, sweet fruit, and smoke finish long. Move on.
2018 Capcanes Peraj Petita – Score: 89 (Mevushal)
This wine is a blend of 50% Grenache, 20% Tempranillo, 15% Merlot, and 15% Syrah. This wine is far better than the not-Mevushal version. This wine is actually showing less ripe, with dark blackberry, with loads of red fruit, floral notes, and herb, and oak. The mouth on this medium-bodied wine is much less sweet, with dark cherry, sweet raspberry, smoke, candied black fruit, with nice tannin, and good acidity. The finish is long, slightly green, smoky, and herbal, with toast and red fruit. Very interesting how the mevushal is less ripe, go figure. Drink now.
2018 Domaine Netofa Latour, White – Score: 92+ (Super QPR)
Wow, what a lovely wine, this wine is 100% Chenin Blanc aged 10 months in oak barrels. The nose on this wine is pure heaven, but it is slow to open, once it does, the wine is lovely with loads of floral notes, yellow flowers, orange blossom, rosehip, and lovely white fruit, pear, peach, and smoke/toast. The mouth on this medium-bodied wine is lovely, with great acidity, clear and present, with layers of sweet and dry fruit, with candied and toasted almonds, hazelnuts, with hay and straw, followed by floral notes, tart melon, lemongrass, citrus galore, yellow apple, quince, baked apple, and dry grass and earth, lovely! The finish is long, dry, tart, and butterscotch-laden, with toast, smoke, ginger, and marzipan, Bravo!! Drink from 2021 until 2025.
2018 Pacifica Riesling, Evan’s Collection – Score: 90 (QPR)
This is a drier wine than the 2017 vintage but it lacks the petrol level and funk of 2017, still a nice wine.The nose on this wine is almost dry, with lovely notes of floral notes and loads of melon, sweet fruits, and stone fruit. The mouth on this medium-bodied wine is nice with lovely pith, hints of saline, with hints of petrol, dry flowers, with lovely peach, guava, and loads of citrus and mineral. The finish is long, dry, with hints of sweet notes, funk, and pith that is fun. Nice. Drink by 2022. Read the rest of this entry
Two more wines for the road, and some 2019 Beaujolais Nouveau
Well, after the trip to Taieb’s offices to taste the wines, I made my way back to Paris and then eventually home. Before I left Paris to return home I bought two wines I had not seen before. One was an IDS wine that started off slow but came around and another was what can only be called the absolute Poster Child for all that is wrong in the kosher wine world today. The IDS made 2016 Chateau la Tour de By is ripe to start but it came around nicely with time. The 2017 Maison Blanche, Medoc is what is wrong with Kosher wine today. I first thought this wine was not actually made at a Chateau or winery with any history or past wines. That is not true, the wine is made at Chateau Maison Blanche, but it does not use the Chateau moniker which makes me wonder. In the end, whether this is a run of fruit or a real wine, it was not good, flat, boring, no acid, no life, all that was good about that wine was on the outside (bottle and label), the inside was empty. If that was not bad enough, to add insult to injury, or salt to the wound, this wine sells for 40 euro in France! Like what! This just screams more about what I have a real issue within the world of kosher French wine, and overall in the kosher wine industry. The prices are out of control and most of the time, the wine does not live up to those prices. Sure, we have wonderful QPR options but P in QPR keeps going up to meet with the Q and there lies in the problem!
The day before I returned home, I was invited to a party hosted by ED from the French wine group on Facebook, thanks to EK for hooking me up. There was a tasting of some Falesco wines, and they were on par with what I have had before. Many thanks to ED for hosting! At the tasting, EK brought a bottle of 2005 late disgorged Yarden Blanc de Blanc and I was 100% SHOCKED at how flat and dead it was. Either something was VERY wrong with that bottle, or it is further proof that Brut Nature sparkling wines are not built to last. That wine was Late Disgorged two years or so and it was 100% flat. Read more about my discussion on Brut Nature wines and the issues with them. Also, my post on the LD 2007 Yarden Blanc de Blanc, Brut that I had earlier this year.
Finally, we tasted some of the 2019 Beaujolais Nouveau wines. There were two on the table, one was the 2019 Beaujolais Nouveau, Duc de Pagny and the other was the 2019 Taieb Beaujolais Nouveau rose or something like that. Anyway, the Duc de Pagny was 100% disgusting, it was bubble gum flavored banana juice, it was worse than Manischewitz. The Taieb Beaujolais Nouveau was not a wine I would buy but it was not nearly as offensive, which is a compliment in regards to Beaujolais Nouveau.
I brought the two bottles to the tasting and sadly they did not show well there, though the Tour de By did turn around the next day.
ED was the consummate host, he had a table full of food, sandwiches, and charcuterie, but I was so full from the food over Shabbat that I was not in the need of any more food. That said, there was this hunk of cote de boeuf and a crazy cake that I tasted a drop of each.
My many thanks to ED and EK and the entire group of French wine lovers. The wine notes follow below – the explanation of my “scores” can be found here:
2016 Chateau la Tour de By, Medoc – Score: 91
Wow, this wine is hot showing really ripe and bold with brooding black fruit, with loads of chocolate, oak, spice, and really ripe fruit, with hints of green notes and herb. With time the nose cools down showing fruit without all the crazy heat, with loads of them and black fruit, with spice, smoke, tar, and earth, lovely. The mouth on this full bodied wine is richly layered and black with hints of raspberry, loads of blackberry, smoke, rich and dense and plush mouthfeel with incredible extraction and earth galore, with a whole in the middle, that gets hidden over time with a lovely tannin structure. The finish on this wine is rich and layered and smoky with milk chocolate, leather, and loads of sweet spices, nutmeg, and cinnamon. Nice! Drink until 2026.
2017 Maison Blanche, Medoc – Score: NA
Flat and flabby wine. Showing nothing but fruit and no balance. Sad.
2005 Yarden Blanc de blanc, late disgorged, Brut Nature – Score: NA
Flat and dead barely any bubbles and the acidity was lost. I hope it was a bad bottle. I fear it could the issue with Brut nature wines. Yarden’s late disgorged wines are brut nature in implementation.
2019 Beaujolais Nouveau rose, Taieb – Score: Not bad
Not bad for a Beaujolais Nouveau but not a wine I buy.
2019 Beaujolais Nouveau, Duc de Pagny – Score: NA
Disgusting bubble gum and banana juice. Horrible.
