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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 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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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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Another round of QPR (Quality to Price Ratio) Hits and Misses, Twelve QPR WINNERS – Dec 2023
First off, this is not the largest roundup I have written – there is a larger one from October 2021. Sadly, that one only had 6 QPR WINNERs. My last QPR post had a lot of wines as well, and it had 19 QPR WINNERs!
Also, we have a shockingly high number/percentage of EVEN QPR score wines, 26 to be exact. Either the price or the quality pushed them to this level. So, without further ado, the 50 wines I tasted over the past few months.
QPR (Quality to Price Ratio) Wines
It has been seven months since my last QPR (Quality to Price Ratio) post and many people have been emailing me about some unique wines I have tasted and some lovely wines that are worth writing about.
Thankfully, no matter how much garbage and pain I subject myself to, we are still blessed with several wonderful QPR wines out there. This post differs though, as we are back to having a large number of POOR/BAD/N.A. QPR wines. We have 12 QPR WINNER scores and 14 GOOD/GREAT scores. The rest, 24 out of the 50 wines tasted here fall into the EVEN/POOR/BAD/N.A. categories, which is unfortunate.
We have a SOLID list of QPR WINNERS:
- 2019 Chateau Teyssier, Saint-Emilion Grand Cru – Stunning wine especially for the price some of us paid, not yet available
- 2019 Tenuta Monchiero Barolo, Barolo _ lovely wine!
- 2021 Castellare di Castellina Chianti Classico
- 2021 Chateau Montviel, Pomerol – One of the two best mid-range Bordeaux
- 2022 ESSA Cabernet Franc, Hemel-en-Aarde Ridge
- 2023 Baron Edmond de Rothschild Rimapere, Marlborough
- 2022 ESSA Altira, Cape South Coast
- 2021 Chateau Royaumont (M) – One of the two best mid-range Bordeaux
- 2021 Capcanes La Flor Del Flor De Primavera, Montsant (M)
- 2001 Chateau Bel Air Gallier, Graves
- 2021 Lovatelli Barbera d’Asti
- 2021 Hans Wirsching Silvaner, Iphofer
There were also a few wines that were a slight step behind with a GREAT or GOOD QPR score:
- 2021 Chateau Moulin Riche, Saint-Julien
- 2022 Chateau Les Riganes Cabernet Franc, Bordeaux (M)
- 2022 Chateau Les Riganes Cabernet Sauvignon, Bordeaux (M)
- 2020 Binah Chambourcin, Reserve, Pennsylvania
- 2021 Chateau de Parsac, Montagne Saint-Emilion (M)
- 2021 Le Nardian, Bordeaux – lovely wine, but at 110 it is a GOOD
- 2020 Capcanes La Flor Del Flor De Primavera, Montsant
- 2021 Pavillon de Leoville Poyferre, Saint-Julien (M)
- 2020 Ramon Cardova Garnacha, Rioja (M)
- 2022 ESSA Malbec, Stellenbosch
- 2022 ESSA Cabernet Sauvignon, Franschhoek
- 2021 Pescaja Barbara D’asti (M)
- 2022 Chateau Les Riganes Merlot, Bordeaux (M)
- 2021 Binah Gruner Veltliner, Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania
With a heavy heart – we must try to push on…
In my last post, I was clear that Israeli wine is the best option for us to support Israel. In many ways that is still the case, as it supports our brothers and sisters who are in desperate need of support in Israel. With only one airline flying to Israel, and hundreds of thousands of men and women on the front lines or in supporting roles, the economy of Israel is suffering. The families of those brave protectors are bearing the brunt of the load to support and manage their own lives. The entire country seems to be both at a standstill and also thriving to keep their country moving. It feels from afar like a story of two lives. Those in the war or near it and those who know people in the war. Companies are trying to stay afloat with their employees on the front or supporting them. My brother was there and the stories are gut-wrenching.
From afar, we see the stories of the war, we see the terror and the suffering, we see the strength and resilience. What we continue to see is a story of the Jewish people, sadness and strength, happiness and sadness. One of my dearest friends lost his father half a world away just a day after his grandson was born in Israel. How does a person even come to grips with that? How does a family get their heads around such a tragedy and such happiness? Getting a ticket into Israel last minute is not as easy as it used to be and yet the airport is practically empty. The pictures of Lod Airport are both depressing and yet exhilarating as those who come are always bringing more and more support to those who are suffering.
I am not posting this to be depressing, my purpose is to show that while I am reeling from the suffering and sadness, I am also living a world away. The readers, mostly, are also a world away. While I still feel that posting anything would seem like a slight to those who are suffering, we can bifurcate our lives as Jews. We can feel the suffering and we can also feel the happiness that one gets from friends and family. So, with a heavy heart, I will start to catch up on the hundreds of notes that people have been asking for. I am not proud of myself at this moment, I still feel I am letting people down, but I also feel that I am helping others. With that, let’s try to put some words together about the wines.
I am months behind on posting
At this point, I am 6 to 7 months behind – which is a world away from where I want to be. Most of that is still on me and the last two months. I wish I could try to give some of these wines a bit more background but I am also very cognizant of the number of posts I need to do to get anywhere near where I want to be. So, to be blunt, these next few posts will essentially be without a theme. I will throw in a couple of Winery-themed posts, here and there. They will essentially be wine note dumps, in order of the tasting dates. There are many great wines in each of these upcoming dumps but they will still be just that. I will order them as always, in regards to their scores, the QPR scores will not be an ordering mechanism.
The sad part, aside from the world within which we live at this moment, is that I never got to do a Rose post this year. Rose wines will be posted over these next posts. My overall take on the 2022 roses is that they improved from the past vintages but the overall appetite for them from the public is waning, it feels like 2021 was the peak Rose and we are now on the downhill, the end of fad. Time will tell.
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A tasting of M&M Importers’ latest imports – Feb 2023
It has been almost a year since my last “A tasting of M&M Importers’ latest imports – release post” and a week or so from the post about the three gorgeous Burgundies from Honest Grapes and M&M Importers. So, I was really excited to write this post about even more wonderful wines from Ralph Madeb, president and CEO of M&M Importers. These are almost all the Italian options; some can be found in Europe from Honest Grapes while all of them are here in the USA from some stores in and around NY and NJ. Sadly, I missed the new 2016 Brunello Riserva and the other 2 Sicilian wines. I hope to get a chance to taste those soon. There is also a Chianti Classico Riserva but that is still not here in the USA yet.
Just take a quick look at the wine notes below and you will find 6 QPR (Quality to Price Ratio) WINNER scores. That is incredible for such a small number of wines. Six out of ten WINNERS is just an incredible value-based lineup. Still, the prices are on the upper end of the QPR scale but the wines themselves are quite impressive.
Pescaja Wines
I had tasted the Barbera before last year and the Mevushal Arneis in January of this year. Both of these wines were solid though I really want to taste the non-mevushal version of the 2021 Pescaja Solei’ Arneis. A QPR score of WINNER and a GOOD is impressive.
The Barbera is a fun, refreshing, and enjoyable wine that will probably not become something more than it is right now but one never knows!
Toscana Wines
The biggest name on this list and the most expensive was the 2017 Tassi Brunello di Montalcino, Bettina Cuvee, Brunello di Montalcino. I was ready for an over-the-top, bombastic beast of a wine, a trait that seems to be the calling card of the 2017 Brunello vintage. I was shocked when I opened the wine, first, the color threw me, and then the nose. The color of the wine, a characteristic I rarely talk about, was already bricking, but that seems to be par for the course with Brunello wines. Next, the nose was shocking, it smelled like a flower shop, filled with violets, geraniums, and very floral. Over the next two weeks I let this wine talk to me, yes, I wrote two weeks! The wine never went over the hill, it was rock solid, and it improved all the way to the finish line. Even two weeks later, the wine was not running out of steam, this is a wine that is built to go for a decade-plus, easily. Over time, the wine lost some of the floral notes and became more of what I expect from a Brunello, though it never went too ripe and never lost its precision, the only real issue I had was it felt more like a very nice Chianti than a Brunello. The tannin structure told you this was no Chianti, but the weight was clearly affected by whatever the winemaker did to counteract the screaming hot 2017 climate.
The star of these four wines, to me, is the stunning 2018 Tassi Aqua Bona, Bettina Cuvee, Montalcino. The wine went up in price but it still is on the upper edge of WINNER, by a hair, and while the price is high the wine is incredible! It has this umami and cedar notes that just blow you away! The wine’s complexity, and structure. control and elegance show well and the wine is equally built to last.
I had the Super Tuscan, the 2019 Rocca di Frassinello Le Sughere di Frassinello, Maremma Toscana twice and it showed far better this time. From the time of opening till it was done some 5 days later the wine never lost a step and shined throughout. The Sangiovese fruit shows more at the start while the Merlot makes its presence felt more later in the glass. I found the wine overall to be very nice and balanced with good acidity but overall lacked a step on the Aqua Bona.
Finally, the Pinot Noir was nice enough, it showed varietally correct, but there was not enough there to interest me.
Chianti Classico
I regret not getting the 2019 Castellare di Castellina Chianti Classico when it was out and available. That wine is lovely, and ethereal while being so Chianti, in all the right ways! The 2020 vintage is no slouch and it shows beautifully! A clear WINNER!
The pricing of this wine is higher than a Chianti Classico from Terra di Seta, but it is distinctly different! TDS is a wine that is sinuous, ripe, rich, and layered. The two Castellare di Castellina Chianti Classico, both 2019 and 2020, is more ethereal. They are clearly built to last and while I gave them a drinking window of 9 years or so, I am sure they can last longer, but I do not yet have enough history with the wine to go farther.
I was not expecting a lot after having tasted some other 2020 Chianti wines but this wine shined beautifully! This is a wine to lie down for a bit but if you must enjoy one now, I would decant this two hours in advance. Bravo!
Montepulciano d’Abruzzo
There are two Montepulciano d’Abruzzo wines and I liked one of them and it scored a QPR score of WINNER while the other’s style was not my cup of tea.
The 2018 Valle Reale San Calisto, Montepulciano D’Abruzzo, Montepulciano D’Abruzzo is a beautiful wine and for the price, it is an obvious QPR WINNER. The balance, elegance, and structure all hit me while the acidity brings all that fruit and mouthfeel to bear. It is one of those wines that is uniquely Italian. The fruit, tertiary notes, leather, and smoke, were all unique in a single bottle but the telling characteristic was the bracing acidity, cherry notes, and ripeness. The bottle just screams Italian and is one that can be enjoyed now but only with a few hours of decanting. This would benefit a few years of bottle aging before diving in.
The 2018 Valle Reale Vigneto Sant’Eusanio, Montepulciano d’Abruzzo was a wine that was just too ripe for me. Eventually, the ripeness did calm but there was nothing there to find at that point. This is a wine that the new-world crowd would like and one that can maybe be a gateway wine to helping them appreciate old-world wines.
Sicilian Wine
Finally, I tasted the kosher Sicilian Merlot. This was a lovely wine that does start a bit ripe but with time it really shows its colors and shows balance with bold fruit and lovely minerality and acidity. This is a wine that you cannot judge at the opening! If you MUST open this now, I would say to decant this for some 5 hours and then pour it back into the bottle. Double decanting and 5 hours of air may shake the true colors loose but I am not promising anything. Time will let this wine be free!
Closing notes
This tasting was not done in a day or a week, it took over three weeks to taste through the lineup and throughout it all, I kept to the same approach. Write the initial notes at the opening, then a few hours later write any changes, and then finally over the days I would add thoughts. The wines did evolve, other than a few, and when/if they did, the notes reflect those thoughts and concerns.
My sincerest thanks to Ralph and his partner at M&M Importers for sharing their wonderful wines with us all! 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 Tassi Aqua Bona, Bettina Cuvee, Montalcino – Score: 93+ (QPR: WINNER)
The nose of this wine is lovely, bright, tart, and very expressive, with notes of bramble, dirt, loam, graphite, bright red sour cherry, dark red berry, rosehip, rose petals, rich and very expressive toasted cedar, sandalwood, mushroom, and more minerality. Lovely!! The nose is so expressive from the opening and only gets better with time, impressive! The umami-centric nose is incredible with soy sauce, mushroom, and cedar notes that really take your breath away.
The mouth of this medium-plus-bodied wine is lovely, dirty, earthy, smoky, and precise, with good fruit focus, nice dark cherry, raspberry, tart plum, scraping minerality, loam, dirt, rose petals, and lovely mushroom. With time it opens to a rich toasted cedar expression and it overtakes the mouth with beautiful fruit, intense mushroom, forest floor, plush body, and intense dirt and minerality. Lovely! With even more time the lovely cedar calms down and the ripe fruit, intense acidity, mushroom, and smoke linger long on this full-bodied wine.
The finish is long, tart, bright, and layered, with rich minerality, intense graphite, lovely soy sauce, umami notes, loam, lovely truffle, and mushroom, loam, and dirt linger long. BRAVO! Drink from 2025 until 2033. (tasted February 2023) (in San Jose, CA) (ABV = 13.5%)
2017 Tassi Brunello di Montalcino, Bettina Cuvee, Brunello di Montalcino – Score: 93 (QPR: EVEN)
I rarely talk about color but this wine is brick red. The nose of this wine is a flower pot, with screaming and intense violets, rosehip, dirt, loam, tar, mint, and underbrush, with little to no red fruit on the nose, crazy! With time, the nose evolves to show lovely French oak, rich loam, dark red cherry, licorice, roasted herb, mint, garrigue, and sweet spice, lovely!
The mouth of this medium-bodied wine is lovely, with more rose, violet, and green notes, dirt, loam, and smoke, the mouth is precise and velvety, with tart plum. The real fun is the tart red berry profile, and dark sour cherry, backed by intense acidity, mineral notes, and smoke. The texture, mouthfeel, and puckering tannin structure keep getting more and more complex with time, it is still not 2016, but it has the potential to still be quite lovely, however, this needs loads of time. With even more time, the floral notes move to the background, and the puckering acidity and tannin take over, the plushness of the mouthfeel emerges and this wine is lovely!
The finish is long, tart, green, and smokey, with more flowers, nice mouth-draping tannin, licorice, and lovely acidity. Drink from 2024 until 2032. (tasted February 2023) (in San Jose, CA) (ABV = 14%)
Another round of QPR (Quality to Price Ratio) Hits and Misses, Six WINNERS – October 2021
To start – I really must state something in advance. I am sorry that I missed the chance to properly remember the 10th Yahrzeit of Daniel Rogov’s passing, which occurred on September 7th, 2011 (it may have been the 6th but Israel time and all).
I wrote two of my posts about the man, you can read them here and as such, I will simply say that I miss him as do most of the kosher wine drinking public. So much has changed in the past 10 years, since his passing, and I wonder what kosher wine would be like today if he was still with us. So much of the world is open to the kosher wine world, which was not the case 10 years ago. I wonder if Rogov would have embraced the opening. I wonder if he would have liked or disliked the fact that Israel is producing and importing loads of kosher wine from France and Italy, specially made for the Israeli kosher wine buying community.
I think, in the end, he would have loved all that is changing and we are all worse off by his lack of presence in our lives today. So I raised a glass of 2011 Yarden Blanc de Blanc in his memory and may we all be blessed for having known such a man!
QPR (Quality to Price Ratio) Wines
It has been a few months since my last QPR (Quality to Price Ratio) post and many people have been emailing me about some unique wine I have tasted and some lovely wines that are worth writing about.
Thankfully, no matter how garbage and pain I subject myself to, we are still blessed with quite a few wonderful QPR wines out there. This post includes superstars like Herzog Wines’s new 2019 Herzog Eagle’ Landing Pinot Noir, and a few others. It goes to show that when wineries reasonably price superior wines, even 46 dollar wines can be a QPR winner! Sadly, the Eagle’s Landing Pinot Noir is the most superior wine on this list. There are other nice wines to come but for now – this QPR wine list, overall, was not as good as previous lists.
We have an OK list of QPR WINNERS:
- 2019 Herzog Eagle’ Landing Pinot Noir
- 2017 Netofa Dor
- 2019 Chateau Genlaire Grand Vin de Bordeaux
- 2019 Elvi Vina Encina Blanco
- 2019 Pacifica Riesling, Evan’s Collection
- 2020 Domaine Guillerault Fargette Sancerre
There were also a few wines that are a slight step behind with a GREAT or GOOD QPR score:
- 2020 Domaine Joost de Villebois Pouilly Fume
- 2019 Domaine du Castel Grand Vin
- 2019 Nana Chenin Blanc
- 2019 Nana Cassiopeia
- 2015 Mad Aleph Blaufrankisch
- 2019 Aura di Valerie Zaffiro Super Tuscan
- 2020 Vitkin Israeli Journey, Red
- 2020 Domaine du Castel La Vie Blanc de Castel
- 2019 Herzog Malbec, Lineage, Clarksburg – GREAT Value for a varietal I am not a huge fan of
- 2020 Herzog Variations Be-leaf
- 2018 Binyamina Sapphire, The Chosen
- 2020 Tabor Sauvignon Blanc
- 2020 Bodegas Faustino VI Rioja
- 2020 Yatir Darom Rose
- 2020 Recanati Marselan Rose
- 2020 Arroyo del Imperio Chardonnay
There are a few wines that got a QPR Score of EVEN – meaning expensive or average:
- 2020 Herzog Sauvignon Blanc, Acacia Barrel Series – very unique but expensive
- N.V. Herzog Methode Champenoise, Special Reserve – Nice but expensive
- 2020 Herzog Chardonnay, Chalk Hill, Special Edition – Nice but expensive
- 2019 Castellare di Castellina Chianti Classico – very unique but expensive
- 2020 Matar Chardonnay
- 2019 Capcanes Peraj Ha’abib, Flor de Primavera – Still too ripe for me
- 2019 Weinstock Cabernet Sauvignon, Cellar Select
- 2020 Psagot Sinai, White
- N.V. Drappier Rose de Saignee, Champagne
- 2018 Les Lauriers de Rothschild
- 2020 Pacifica Rattlesnake Hills Viognier
- N.V. Vera Wang Party Prosecco, Brut
- 2019 Or Haganuz Elima
- 2019 Binyamina Chardonnay, Moshava
The others are essentially either OK wines that are too expensive, duds, or total failures:
- 2018 Covenant Cabernet Sauvignon, Lot 70 – Lovely wine but expensive for the quality
- 2019 Hagafen Family Vineyard Red Blend – Lovely wine but expensive for the quality
- 2020 Binyamina Moshava Rose
- 2019 Yatir Creek White
- 2019 Domaine du Castel La Vie, Rouge du Castel
- 2017 Barons Edmond & Benjamin de Rothschild
- 2018 Domaine du Castel M du Castel
- 2020 Padre Bendicho Rose
- 2020 Carmel Private Collection Rose
- 2020 Yatir Darom White
- 2019 Nana Chardonnay
- 2019 Segal Marawi Native
- 2019 Mia Luce Blanc
- 2019 Nana Tethys
- 2018 Odem Mountain 1060 Cabernet Franc
- 2018 Odem Mountain 1060 Red Wine
- 2017 Odem Mountain Alfasi, Special Reserve
- 2019 Mia Luce Syrah and Stems
- 2019 Mia Luce C.S.M.
- 2017 Tabor Merlot, Adama
- 2017 Tabor Cabernet Sauvignon 1/11,000, Limited Edition
- 2019 Chateau de Parsac
- 2019 Gurra di Mare Tirsat
- 2017 Tulip Espero
- 2019 Psagot Merlot
- 2019 Psagot Cabernet Sauvignon
- 2018 Jezreel Icon
- 2019 Psagot Edom
- 2017 The Cave
- 2018 Carmel Mediterranean
- 2020 Yatir Mount Amasa Rose
- 2020 Flam Camellia
- 2020 Netofa Latour, White
Some things that made me stand up and take notice (AKA QPR WINNERS):
The real WINNER here, from the entire list, is the lovely 2019 Herzog Eagle’s Landing Pinot Noir, another STUNNING Pinot Noir from Herzog – BRAVO!
There were other high-scoring wines in this overall list, nice wines from Covenant and others, but the prices of those wines put them at a disadvantage in comparison to others in their wine categories, and as such, they have poor to bad QPR wine scores.
In the end, IMHO, the overall list has less quality than the previous QPR list but there are a few nice wines here indeed.
The other WINNERS were the incredible 2019 Elvi Vina Encina Blanco, a lovely Macabeo for 13 dollars! Just lovely! The 2019 Pacifica Riesling, Evan’s Collection, is not as good as previous vintages – but another solid wine that many will enjoy. Finally, we have a Sancerre that I can get up and cheer about and that is the 2020 Domaine Guillerault Fargette Sancerre. It is here in the USA and it is nice!
Other wines worth of note (AKA QPR GREAT or GOOD):
Of these GOOD to GREAT wines – the most interesting of the list, for me, is the 2020 Domaine Joost de Villebois Pouilly Fume. No, it is not as good as the lovely 2019 Jean Pierre Bailly Pouilly Fume, still, it is a Mevushal wine that is reasonably priced, so it gets a solid QPR score. The 2019 Nana Chenin Blanc is nice, but for the price, it is not worth it, and it is DRINK NOW!
The 2019 Domaine du Castel Grand Vin, is nice, yes, but it is too ripe for me and the price is too much for the quality it is, so yeah, nice wine for those that like this style. The 2019 Nana Cassiopeia, is a wine that I found I could taste and at a decent enough price, so yeah, good going.
The 2015 Mad Aleph Blaufrankisch has so many stories revolving around it, that all I can say is, drink it if you like the style. I found it OK, but I do not need to buy any more.
The 2019 Aura di Valerie Zaffiro Super Tuscan is nice enough, but really, why did you need to put those words on the bottle? A Super Tuscon is a term used to describe red wines from Tuscany that may include non-indigenous grapes, particularly Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Syrah. The creation of super Tuscan wines resulted from the frustration winemakers had towards a slow bureaucracy in changing Italy’s wine law during the 1970s (from WineFolly). Why would you place those words on a wine bottle??
The 2019 Herzog Malbec, Lineage is a solid example of what reasonably priced wine from California can taste like! Finally, the newly released 2020 Herzog Variations Be-leaf – handily beats all other no-added sulfite options!
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