Blog Archives
Hotel Wine tastings – the final tastings from my trip to Paris – May 2025
As stated in my previous post, I was in Paris in Late May, with Avi Davidowitz from Kosher Wine Unfiltered. This trip was not about numbers, but rather about sheer logistics. The number of boxes across the number of hotels was more than I wished for! Of course, this was totally self-inflicted, as Avi was coming in for business the week before, and I was juggling too much at home. In the end, it was a far more relaxing trip, as the sheer number of wines was more in the 40s than the usual 60 or 80 wines. A lot of that can be blamed on the number of 2024 or new 2023 wines on the market – there are just ZERO new wines out there. There are loads of old 2022 and 2023 roses in the stores in Paris, and the same can be said for older whites and reds. Wines are not moving, and as such, there was less new stuff to taste.
Two years ago, we had some 80 wines; this May, we were at 40+ wines. There were a few wines that Avi missed, and a few I wished he was able to see evolve, but that is the game as we know it!
The wines were tasted in classic region/style order: Rosés, whites, Wines from Spain and Italy, a single Burgundy, Bordeaux/Blend wines, and I think that is it.
Rose Wines
We had a total of 10 Roses, and there was just one 2024 Rose in the stores. The rest of the wines came from a combination of Mercier Wines, Capcanes Winery, Terra di Seta Winery, and Taieb wines. The hands-down best Rose I had so far this year is locked away in Paris, and that is the 2024 Château Sainte Roseline Lampe de Méduse – Cru Classé Rosé. This is the first time I have tasted this wine, and it was clean, controlled, and refreshing. That is a wine to BUY lots of for the summer.
I have often posted about Taieb wines, and if you want to read the whole background, read the first post I made here.
The 2024 Cave D’Esclans Whispering Angel and the 2024 Château Sainte Roseline Lampe de Méduse – Cru Classé Rosé are the two Rose WINNERS from the tasting. The 2024 Elvi Wines Vina Encina Rosado was a solid wine, along with the N.V. Summer Ice Rose.
White Wines
We tasted through a lot of white wines. One of them I brought from the USA for Avi to taste was the 2023 Alex Rubin Arinto. That is a wine that I posted about earlier and one that Avi loved as much as I did. The 2023 Chevalier De Marmorieres Blanc was a shocking WINNER find along with the always enjoyable Herenza White. I have no idea why the Herenza White doesn’t move well in the USA; I have no idea! Folks buy a few and try.
On a slight rant, I will start with the positives, thankfully, we have more kosher white wine available now than ever before, PERIOD! However, what is clear is that the kosher-buying public has made Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay their next Cabernet Sauvignon! I am happy you are all starting to enjoy white wines – finally! But good Lord, there are OTHER white wines out there! As stated, I am firmly on the ABC train, outside of a few Cali and France. Sauvignon Blanc is a wonderful grape and please ignore EVERYTHING that Avi says to the contrary, it is not his fault, he has issues with good wine!
Now, all I see is that white wines that are not Chardonnay or Sauvignon Blanc linger on physical or virtual shelves. Thankfully, most of you get Riesling, almost. But that is it! You guys killed the only good Albarino from Ramon Cardova because you all refused to buy it! The Herenza is the same, and this wine is 30 to 40 percent Sauvignon Blanc! OK, I’ll give up and stop my rant here! TRY OTHER white wines – please!
The rest of them are wines that you can try and see if you like.
Italian and Spanish Wines
Overall, the red wines were split between Italy/Spain and Burgundy/Bordeaux. However, the hands-down leader in QPR (Quality to Price Ratio) WINNER scores was Spain and Italy. Spain and Italy had 12 wines, and 7 of them won the QPR score of WINNER.
I must be honest here, I drove everyone crazy! Moises at ElviWines, Jurgen at Capcanes Wine Cellars, and Daniele at Terra di Seta. All of them were very kind to send us samples. The cool thing is, we got to taste Terra di Seta wines long before they appear on the USA shores, or at least before they are released for sale. The same can be said for Elvi Wines; we tasted yet unreleased wines here in the USA. Finally, the Capcanes wines may be released, but either way, they are solid. Our sincere thanks to all of them for taking the time and sharing their excellent work with us!
The seven QPR WINNERS were the
- 2022 Elvi Wines Adar
- 2022 Elvi Wines Herenza, Crianza
- 2023 Capcanes Peeraj Ha’abib
- 2021 Terra di Seta Chianti Classico, Riserva
- 2021 Terra Di Seta Guiduccio
- 2022 Elvi Wines El26
- 2019 Terra di Seta Chianti Classico, Assai, Gran Selezione (which Avi did not taste).
The 2022 EL26 was another stunning Grenache-based red wine, and I cannot say it enough, Elvi is crushing it over and over and over again! The Adar is a lovely Mevushal option that is not sold here in the USA, though it sells nicely in Israel. The 2022 Elvi Herenza Crianza is equally impressive.
Terra di Seta has once again released some lovely new wines, but they will not be available in the USA for a bit. The 2021 Terra di Seta Chianti Classico, Riserva is beautiful, along with the 2021 Terra Di Seta Guiduccio, which shows more refined than the 2020 Guido. Finally, the wine that Avi did not taste, the 2019 Terra di Seta Chianti Classico, Assai, Gran Selezione, is mind-blowing! Pure mushroom and soy sauce heaven.
A single Burgundy and Bordeaux Wines
As is familiar with our hotel wines, they open slowly and they are very hard to get a grip on until we are almost on a plane home. I have no idea why this is the case; it feels like it is the curse of the hotel, but we have stayed in different hotels, and the theme remains the same. Also, this phenomenon happens ONLY with Bordeaux wines. The rest of the red wines we taste and the whites open as we expect. The 2020 and 2021 Chateau Olivier Blanc are wines that took 6 days to come around. The 2023 Chateau de Rayne Vigneau Grand Vin Blanc Sec took 6 days to open! I have no idea, no explanation. I am not a chemist, and I am not going to speculate. What I will state is FACT! Wines we taste in the hotel room, for reasons unexplained, just take a LONG time to come around.
So, it was NO surprise when the main wines we were looking forward to tasting went silent for three days. The 2022 Château Angelus Carillon de l’Angélus was closed for four or more days. The 2022 Relais de La Dominique was literally red water for three days. The 2022 Chateau Haut Condissas Prestige was an open book from the start. The 2022 Château Tour Baladoz was closed for two or more days. The 2022 Chateau Haut Brisson may have been the WORST of the bunch – changing over four days from red water to a lovely wine. The 2022 Chateau du Courneau was there and available from the start! The 2022 Vieux Chateau Chambeau Reserve was as open as the time I had it in San Jose. I bought it to make sure that Avi tasted it.
The TRUE SHOCKER was the 2022 Chateau Rocher Gardat! Yes, you have a good memory. We tasted this wine back in 2024. However, my memory isn’t as good, so when I am walking around Paris, I buy what I see. Turns out it was indeed a wine we had tasted and given time to come around, and it never did. HOWEVER, this time, the wine was a shocking WINNER! It showed incredible acidity, pop, and fruit structure, and for the price, GOOD LORD, that is a clear WINNER for Bokobsa! The joy of a feeble mind when in Paris!
In case you were wondering there were four QPR WINNER wines. I will leave it up to you to guess, or you can look below. One of them should be STUPID obvious, the other two, not so much, but hey, that is the joy of wine!
The rest of the wines were average and available, but not exciting.
Where can you buy these wines?
The Taieb wines will find their way to the USA through a menagerie of importers. Those include Liquid Kosher, Kosher Wine, and Victor Wines, which I continue to be baffled at where these wines actually sell, outside of Florida! The Elvi wines are already available in the USA. The Capcanes Cellar wines are already here. The Terra di Seta wines are now available in the USA, but their release will be delayed until the current stock is depleted. Then you have the Mercier Wines, none of which are here, I think. The 2022 Chateau Haut Brisson, 2023 Chateau Angelus Tempo d’Angelus, and the 2022 Château Angelus Carillon de l’Angélus are either available in the USA or on their way; I’m not sure. I saw a bottle on social media, but we can’t be sure if it’s actually here or was brought in by hand.
The 2022 Vieux Chateau Chambeau Reserve is readily available in the USA,
The Mercier wines will find their way here once the previous vintages are sold. As for the rest of the wines, I have no idea!
As always, the 2022 Pavillon de Leoville Poyferre is the Non-Mevushal version of the wine, and is only available in France, the UK, and Israel. We bought it because we couldn’t get a tasting of it – sadly, it didn’t show any better than its Mevushal version.
I have no idea what is going on with all the 2022 Rollan de By wines. These were all made by Taieb, but for some reason, they are not being imported into the USA, and they are hard to find in France, as well. The Condissas is a clear WINNER, but that only helps if you can find it!
Thoughts on this tasting
OK, so overall, this tasting was great! This was better than previous tastings because the 2022 vintage has shown far better than I originally imagined, unlike other hotel wine tastings. Of the 40+ wines that we tasted, 31 of them garnered scores that would be acceptable to most people. That is a great showing! 31 of 40+ wines! Good stuff! Still, 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!
Regarding other wines from France that people will ask me about, the answer is that we tried. We sent out emails and received initial responses, but all subsequent follow-up emails were directed to the Spam Bucket. Sometimes, I wonder if French people hate us Americans! Anyway, the winning lineup is impressive and holds wines that you should be buying. I sure will! There are a couple of wines that were not in that picture, but the scores will make clear they deserved to be there. The issue was that one wine was not delivered until after Avi left, and the others improved after that time as well. So, like I said, these wines take time to come around.
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!! Thankfully, this time we got all the wine pictures!
Finally, 100% of the deliveries were to the hotel this time. I have essentially stopped bothering my man Ari Cohen, AKA El-Presidente of Bakus Wines. He has essentially become totally AWOL on our trips. I think the more I go to Paris, the less I get to see him – maybe I am finally becoming a Parisian! Thanks for all the help, as always, buddy!
The wine notes follow below in the order that they were tasted. The explanation of my “scores” can be found here and the explanation for QPR scores can be found here:
2023 Jean-Philippe Marchand Aloxe Corton, Sous Chaillots, Aloxe Corton – Score: 92 (QPR: WINNER)
The nose of this wine is solid, with pomegranate, dried cranberry, plum, cherry, rich smoke, roasted herbs, minerality, and red floral notes. The mouth of this medium-plus-bodied wine is lovely; it is ripe, not candied, more like a Pommard or Volnay, with incredible acidity, nice balance, along with layers of ripe and juicy pomegranate, dried cranberry, tart and juicy Bing cherry, all wrapped in mouth-draping tannin, rich smoke, and lovely roasted herbs. The acidity, juicy fruit, and smoke take center stage. Bravo! The finish is long, ripe, balanced with smoke, ripe, tart, and juicy fruit, with floral notes, and bitter mint flavor. Bravo! Drink by 2030, maybe longer; it feels missing in the tannin. (tasted May 2025) (in Paris, France) (ABV = 13%)
2024 Elvi Wines Vina Encina Tinto, La Mancha (M) – Score: 82 (QPR: EVEN)
The nose of this wine is a bit too ripe and shows more like a Beaujolais than a Tempranillo. Showing candied lifesaver and blue fruit. The mouth of this light-bodied wine is ripe, candied, without the acidity it needs, but it has fruit that is candied and is a bit green as well. Drink by 2025. (tasted May 2025) (in Paris, France) (ABV = 14%)
2022 Elvi Wines Adar, Ribera del Jucar (M) – Score: 91 (QPR: WINNER)
The nose of this wine is ripe, but more controlled than previous vintages, with nice minerality, smoke, soy sauce, and roasted meat aromas. The mouth of this medium-plus-bodied wine is ripe, and the acidity is great, with notes of soy sauce, sweet oak, blackberry, plum, nice graphite, soft tannin, and roasted herb. The finish is long, ripe, and candied, yet balanced with acidity, featuring notes of charcoal, sweet vanilla, roasted meat, and soy sauce. Drink by 2027. (tasted May 2025) (in Paris, France) (ABV = 13%)
2022 Elvi Wines Herenza, Crianza, Rioja – Score: 91 (QPR: WINNER)
The nose of this wine is nice, showing good acidity, pop, tart fruit, loads of smoke, intense sweet dill, hickory, ripe fruit, nice coffee, and umami. The mouth of this full-bodied wine is lovely. There is nice sweet oak, but the wine is balanced, with great acidity and smoke. At first, it is closed, but with time, it reveals blackberry, plum, and dark cherry flavors, along with a smooth mouthfeel, fine tannin, and lingering smoke. The finish is long, ripe, and balanced, with more sweet oak, intense sweet dill, lovely vanilla, and deep loam. Nice!! Drink by 2028. I think this vintage will not last as long. (tasted May 2025) (in Paris, France) (ABV = 14%)
2023 Capcanes Peraj Ha’abib, Montsant – Score: 92 (QPR: WINNER)
This is a return to what I liked about Peraj Ha’abib in the past: smoky, dirty, earthy, charcoal, and tar-driven wine, with nice red and blue fruit. The mouth of this medium-plus-bodied wine, with ripe blackberry, plum, juicy boysenberry, smoke, tar, charcoal, intense tannin, and layers of fruit that come at you, and yet you are almost refreshed – an intense experience that has the bracing acidity to pull it all off. The finish is long, spicy, with smoke, cloves, vanilla, cinnamon, and more tar and charcoal. Bravo! Drink until 2030. (tasted May 2025) (in Paris, France) (ABV = 15%)
Blind tasting in Paris (Part #2) – Nov 2022
Happy belated/late Hanukkah wishes to all, I hope the festival of lights was a true joy for you and all your friends and family! When we last left off, we were detailing the sad truth of the first two rounds of our blind tastings. Things will improve here but overall, this was not a great list of wines, regarding WINNER scores. The tastings, after the whites and the first reds, did indeed improve and they were far more enjoyable, as I state below, but overall, not a lot of WINNER wines. Such is life!
So, we continue where we left off last time, with some poor wines indeed. As stated in that previous post, I was in Paris in November, with Avi Davidowitz from Kosher Wine Unfiltered. The sheer number of boxes in our room was insane, somewhere nearly 120 bottles of wine came to our hotel or Ari Cohen’s home. The poor bellman pushing that cart laden with wine boxes was a site to see.
Blind Tasting Methodology
This time I wanted to break up the normal approach, of tasting wines from the distributor or wine producers and instead taste the wines blind in their respective groups. The methodology was simple, bag all the wines, hand them to Avi who wrote a number/letter, and then line them up for the tasting. Then we taste them in numerical/alphabetical order and write the notes. After the first pass, we taste the wines again to see if they have changed. Then we show the wines and write the names down. We did find a few anomalies in the system. First, the more closed wines needed time to open and those were tasted again later. If there were flaws at the start those stayed in the notes, at least for me, and if there were issues after they were also written.
2020 Vintage versus 2021 Vintage in Bordeaux
I will repeat what I wrote previously, as this post will showcase far more 2021 wines from Bordeaux. So far, the sample size of 2021 wines from Bordeaux includes very few big names because they are still in the barrels. Or should be! So, the sample size of 2021 wines from Bordeaux is all simpler and of lower starting quality. Still, what is apparent, from this sample size, is that 2021 will be a very hard year. The 2020 vintage, by contrast, is hit and miss, and so far, while the hits have been solid, there are no home runs, and we have tasted most of the wines we expect to rave about from the 2020 vintage. There will be one 95-scoring wine, ONE, from all the wines we tasted on this trip. I expect even fewer exceptional wines from the 2021 vintage and I personally, will be buying far fewer of the 2020 or 2021 wines. Finally, the wine notes from the 2020 vintage should be witness to the fact that while the 2020 wines are OK to good, they are far more accessible than previous vintages. The glaring exception to that will be highlighted in a subsequent post.
Thoughts on Red Wines (part #2) (Round three)
Overall, this list has many decent enough wines but only two WINNER wines. Sadly, the two WINNER wines are repeats of last year’s tasting. They are the 2019 Château de Marmorières Les Amandiers, La Clape, Languedoc and the 2018 Maison Sarela 1922 Meritage, Languedoc. Many of these wines will never make it to the USA. The 2020 Elvi will make it, along with the 2021 Pavillon du Vieux Chantre, and others, like the Paloumey. The best of them will never make it here and that is the shame!
Thoughts on Red Wines (part #3) (Round four)
There are a lot of wines here and there are a few wines that I have been hounded on for information – so here you go! Included in this list are the famous three new wines from Pierre Miodownick, the Godfather of Bordeaux wine and founder of Netofa Wines in Israel. They are the 2020 Château Olivier Grand Cru Classe, Pessac-Léognan, 2020 Chateau Clement-Pichon, Haut-Medoc, and the famous 2020 Château Angelus Carillon de l’Angélus, Saint-Emilion Grand Cru. They all showed nicely with the clear WINNER, in regards to value for the price being the Chateau Clement-Pichon.
In regards to the three red wines that Pierre and team made, the 2020 Château Angelus Carillon de l’Angélus, Saint-Emilion Grand Cru is famous and lovely but at $360 a pop, I really do not understand the market, IMHO. I am sure they will sell, as the wine is good and there are enough of these wines out there now at that price, but WOW! The other two wines are priced more in line with the quality, especially the Clement-Pichon.
There were also some really impressive wines like the 2019 Chateau Tour Seran, NON-Mevushal. The wines that come here are Mevushal but those in Europe are left non-mevushal and it showed beautifully. Again, all of these wines were tasted blind and the Tour Seran really stuck out like a sore thumb, in all the right ways, from the very start.
Another incredible WINNER was the 2020 Chateau Castelbruck, Margaux. The 2015 Vieux Chateau Chambeau, Lussac Saint-Emilion, shocked me for an old Mevushal wine. I KNOW I had tasted the wine and sure enough, a quick search of the blog using Google found it! I liked this blind more than when I had it two years ago with GG (AKA Gabriel Geller), though that was from a 375 bottle.
On the list of wines that showed HORRIBLY would be the 2017 Chateau Pape Clement, Pessac-Leognan. Just an oxidized disaster. There is a 2018 vintage as well but I have NO IDEA where it is! They are sold out of it in Europe and what I see now is 2019, which I posted notes about a few months ago. Other than the horrific Pape, the fourth round was nice enough and many of the wines showed well at the opening and onwards, while some needed time like the wines from Pierre.
Thoughts on Red Wines (part #4) (Round five)
This was the final round and it had a few WINNER wines as well some were quite surprising including wine from Georgia, no not the state, the country, and a lovely new vintage of the Vignobles Mayard Le Hurlevent, Châteauneuf-du-Pape. There were no massive duds, and this round showed simpler, more accessible wines that were either good to go, from the start, or ones that will never be good to go!
The real shocker, other than the lovely Georgian wine which we both thought was a Rhone was the 2021 Philippe Paine La Petite Metairie, Chinon. It was lovely, not simple, yet not built to last. More proof that nice wines can come at any price point.
This round was maybe the best overall one of the tasting, not from the number of WINNERs but rather from the lack of massive failures. A lovely, enjoyable, wine tasting.
Read the rest of this entryThe top 25 QPR Kosher wine WINNERS of 2021
This past year 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 2021.
This year, the list came to a total of 25 names, and none had to dip below 91 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.
I have added a few new things this year. The first is QPR for France, the prices for many wines there, are dirt cheap! 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!
Shoutout to a GREAT wine that is just sitting around!
I am sorry to get on my soapbox before we get to the top QPR wines of 2021. But I have to ask what is wrong with the 2018 Vitkin Grenache Blanc??? Yes, it is a bit expensive, but it is also one of the best white wine on the market currently, hailing from Israel. It is incredible – funky, acidic, rich, and expressive – please folks – try the bottle and then once you find out how awesome it is, buy some!! As always, I get nothing for promoting/suggesting a wine, NOTHING, I am simply reminding folks – great wines still hail from Israel!
The wines on the list this year are all available here in the USA, 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 2021 Red QPR kosher WINNER
The 2017 Clos Mesorah is lovely! It is available in the USA and elsewhere. I tasted the 2018 and 2019 as well, and they are lovely, but I will taste them again on the release here in the USA.
2017 Clos Mesorah, Montsant – Score: 94 (QPR: WINNER)
This is a super elegant, floral, and feminine wine, bravo!! The nose on this wine is beautiful, showing floral notes of violet, white flowers, with blueberry, black fruit, smoke, roasted duck, earth, and loads of smoke, dirt, and loam. The mouth on this full-bodied wine is so elegant, layered, concentrated, earthy, fruity, smoky, and richly extracted, with boysenberry, lovely green olives, blackberry, dark cherry, plum, smoke, earth, loam, and lovely sweet cedar, with green notes, sweet tobacco, sweet basil, and lovely acid. The finish is long, green, with draping elegant tannin, showing a bit more acid than even 2019, sweet smoking tobacco, dark chocolate, white pepper, and anise. Bravo!! Drink from 2025 until 2035. (tasted November 2021) (in Montsant, Spain) (ABV = 14.5%)
The 2021 White QPR kosher WINNERS
These two wines were available before but I fear the 2019 Netofa Latour, White is sold out, and the 2020 vintage is not as good as the 2019 vintage. The 2018 Tel Qasser, White is lovely and available.
2019 Netofa Latour, White – Score: 93 (QPR: WINNER)
The nose on this wine is pure heaven, incredible, refined oak, with a refined approach to the fruit, straw, earth, pear, white apple, and smoke, with creme brulee, awesome! The mouth on this medium-bodied wine is truly impressive, with layers of acidity, elegance, sweet oak, with oak tannin, but the creme brulee and smoke are beautiful, with green notes, pear, tart guava, and sweet apple brioche, wow! The finish is long, green, tart, with sweet fruit, mineral, slate, and more freshly baked goods. Bravo! Drink from 2023 until 2030. (tasted January 2021)
2018 Netofa Tel Qasser, White – Score: 92+ (QPR: WINNER)
The 2018 vintage shows far more of the classic Roussanne reductive aspects than 2017 does today, but it is also far richer, deeper in intensity, and approachable, but I would let this lie. The nose on this wine, like 2017 starts closed, yes, it is open, but please there is so much more here, it is just covered in marzipan, almonds, walnuts, oak, smoke, orange, orange blossom, with rich salinity, big bold and bright fruit hiding, and lovely spice. The mouth on this full-bodied wine is incredible, just WOW, and that is with 10 minutes of air, this wine will improve with a couple of years, but I do see how approachable this wine can feel, and if you want to go ahead, but it will be better in a few years, with layers upon layers of smoke, ripe controlled fruit, with ripe peach, apricot, melon, incredible nutty notes, lovely tannin, green olives, wrapped in an unctuous and oily mouthfeel that feels like being wrapped in a sushi roll of oak, smoke, fruit, and nori – WOW! The finish is so long, I AM VERY HAPPY it was my last wine of the tasting, this is crazy, so incredible, with lingering notes that last forever of almonds, walnuts, nuts, smoke, grip, orange blossom, orange, tannin, acid, rock, hay, and more acid, incredible! BRAVO!! BRAVO to the master! Drink from 2023 until 2027. (tasted March 2021)
Rest of the top QPR Winners (in no particular order)
2019 Chateau LaGrange Grand Cru Classe En 1855, Saint-Julien – Score: 94+ (QPR: GREAT)
WOW, what wine for a 12.5% ABV wine, come on, the next time someone says I need to wait for the phenolics to talk with me, the answer is this wine! This wine is a blend of 80% cabernet Sauvignon, 18% Merlot, & 2% Petit Verdot.
The nose on this wine is lovely and perfumed with rich minerality, dense loam, graphite, smoke, roasted animal, clay, black and red fruit, all wrapped in more dirt, tar, and licorice, wow!
The mouth on this medium-plus bodied wine is beautiful, the acid is perfect, balanced and tart, elegant and layered, with lovely raspberry, plum, dark currants, hints of blue fruit, with ripe cassis, scraping mineral, dirt, loam, roasted herbs, menthol, with sweet vanilla, and lovely licorice.
The finish is long, with draping tannin, scraping mineral, and lovely tar, loam, nice leather, and rich garrigue, really lovely! Drink from 2031 until 2042. (tasted November 2021) (in Paris, France) (ABV = 12.5%)
Paris tasting of Moise Taieb wines – June 2021
As stated in my previous post, I was in Paris in June, and while it took forever to post these notes, I am happy to finally be getting to them at this point. I must start by thanking Yoni Taieb and the rest of Taieb wines for sending the wines to me to taste. In the past, I have made my way to Taieb’s office, once by myself and once with Avi Davidowitz from Kosher Wine Unfiltered.
As I stated, in my previous post, I kept to my hotel room for much of the trip. Even vaccinated, I was worried, and am still worried, as such I kept to myself, where possible. Because I did not want to ride trains and automobiles with all the COVID madness, Mr. Taieb was so very kind to send them to my hotel. I then stayed in my hotel room and tasted through them.
As always, you can get these wines and much more from Taieb’s online website. They ship within Europe and to London. Sadly, they are all sold out of almost all the incredible 2019 Burgundies that I enjoyed tasting at Andrew Breskin’s house. Andrew has some of them still for sale, like the lovely 2017 Domaine Chantal Lescure and the 2019 Jean-Philippe Marchand wines – lovely!! Get them while they last!
Tasting in the hotel room
The most hilarious part of my trip was my life in the hotel. Everything there was, at that time, and I think still is, at this time, masked and distanced. I had cases, upon cases of wines coming to me, in my hotel, and to Ari Cohen’s house, and it became quite a balagan to get things moved around. My many thanks to all the guys that helped make that trip work!
In the end, it was a wonderful outcome. I had time to taste the wines at my pace, room for all the wines to sit and breathe. The A/C was running full-time but it was great and the hotel folks were very nice. Of course, I missed hanging out with Mr. Taieb, and I hope he and his lovely family are doing well!
NOTE: I bought a few wines as well and I tasted them in my room and with some friends. These wines are denoted below and they were wines I never tasted at Taieb’s offices.
QPR WINNING Wine Distributor
Since the first time I was lucky to sit down and taste through the Taieb Wine portfolio, I kept commenting to Yoni, how there were so many good QPR wines. Now, how does this happen? Well, let us talk about Taieb’s wine portfolio. They have an exclusive relationship with Laurent Perrier for producing kosher Champagne, and that is great. But, to be fair you say. they may make QPR wines but they do not make Chateau Smith Haut Lafite, Chateau Malartic, or Chateau Leoville Poyferre!
Well, let us continue with the fact that Taieb makes some of the very best Burgundy wines on the market and has been doing so for more than 10 years now! However, those wines, while wonderful, are not as much QPR as they quality/score stars! In Bordeaux, Taieb has gone long and slow with great names, many of whose latest vintages I tasted in June. They may not top out at 95 in scores, like Domaine Chantal Lescure, Domaine D’Ardhuy (almost), or J.P. Marchand, but they do choose the wineries they work with inside of Bordeaux, incredibly well, to create QPR WINNERS at a very impressive rate!
In the end, that is what differentiates Taieb from the other Kosher wine producers. Sure, Royal Wines does a great job with QPR while also having the quality superstars that are hard to fit in the QPR bucket. In my last tasting with Bokobsa, they showed high quality and good prices, in France, for a fair number of wines. Still, when I think QPR, I think Taieb, again in France! I am consistently shocked at why the folks in London do not buy Taieb wines by the cases – given the wonderful prices, the easy shipping, and the favorable exchange rate. The real Achilles Heel of Taieb Wines, IMHO, is the lack of great distribution and equally solid pricing in the USA.
Until then, you can follow what I wrote up in this post, and try to piece together some of these wines in the USA, if you can! Thankfully, we have Andrew, at Liquid Kosher, helping to drive Burgundy excellence in the USA.
In Closing
Again, the theme of very solid Taieb wines being very hard to find in the USA is a consistent issue to me and a sad one. My many thanks to Yoni Taieb and all at Moise Taieb Wines & Spirits for taking the time to send me the wines to my hotel. 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 La Chablisienne Chablis, Chablis (M) – Score: 87 (QPR: EVEN)
The nose on this wine is too simple, I was hoping for more complexity, yellow apple, quince, pear, and mineral. The mouth on this light to medium-bodied wine is a bit lacking, it has enough acidity, but the middle is a bit hollow, pear, tart apple, smoke, and melon. The finish is long, green, with flint, more baked apple, lemon, and nice acidity lingering. Drink now. (tasted June 2021)
2018 La Chablisienne Chablis, 1er Cru, Chablis (M) – Score: 90 (QPR: POOR)
The nose on this wine is slightly more elevated with fresher notes, apple, pear, melon, more minerality, starfruit, and hints of gooseberry. The mouth on this medium-bodied wine, shows nice weight, with a lovely mouthfeel, nice acidity, mineral, tart and sweet fruit, starfruit, gooseberry, grapefruit, melon, Asian Pear, and good green foliage. The finish is long, green, tart, and richer, with saline, slate, rock, mineral, straw, and good tart acidity on the long finish. Drink by 2022. (tasted June 2021)
A wine tasting of some incredible 2014 kosher French wines with Nathan Grandjean
When I last left off on the story of my trip to Israel and Europe, I had just ended with a classic run for the border to Weingut Von Hovel. After we returned from visiting Von Hovel we had a wine tasting. It included some new 2016 wines but it mostly involved French wines from the 2014 vintage and earlier.
As I posted here and here, I have been trying to get to all of the 2014 French wines and as many of the 2015 vintages that are released. With this last tasting, I have been able to get to most of the top 2014 kosher French wines that I know of. The two top 2014 kosher Bordeaux wines that I have been able to taste are the 2014 Chateau Pape Clement and the 2014 Smith Haut Lafitte (which I tasted here at this tasting). Right after those superstars come the 2014 Chateau Giscours, 2014 Chateau Malartic, the 2014 Chateau Tour Saint Christophe, the 2014 Chateau Soutard, and the 2014 Chateau Marsac Seguineau. In regards to Sauternes, the two winners are the 2014 Chateau Rayne Vigneau, 1er Cru Classe, and the 2014 Chateau La Tour Blanche, 1er Cru Classe.
I had not been able to taste the Smith Haut Lafitte or the 2014 Chateau La Tour Blanche, 1er Cru Classe, until this tasting and they were not a letdown in any manner. WOW, they were worth the trip and worth stocking up where and if possible.
If you are interested in these wines, they are mostly wines that are here or will be here eventually. If you cannot find them or do not want to wait – email Nathan Grandjean about how to get them: Contact@yavine.fr (I DO NOT work for wine stores, never have and never will. I get no kickback or payment for this). I state this here only as information. It also seems that kosherwine.com will soon have the 2014 Chateau La Tour Blanche, 1er Cru Classe as well.
We continued tasting these wines for more than a day, it was only after a long time that the great 2014 wines really opened up. Also, we tasted the Von Hovels throughout this time as well (I did not post the scores here again, as they are in their own post).
The rest of the wines at the tasting were either horrible, passable, or nice enough. My many thanks to JK, Nathan, and his family (for putting up with us). The wine notes follow below – the explanation of my “scores” can be found here:
2016 LI BI Rose, Cotes du Rhone – Score: 88
The wine is a rose made of 80% Grenache and 20% Syrah. Lovely nose of grapefruit, floral notes, with green apple, gooseberry, with nectarines, and good mineral. The mouth is nice enough, the acid is medium in nature, and while it is well balanced it is unidimensional, with good lemon, peach, and nice acid that does rise after a bit. The finish is long and floral with good saline, mineral, slate, and good spice. Drink up!
2016 Le Mourre de L’isle, White – Score: 87
The wine is a blend of 40% Roussanne, 30 Viognier, and 30% Grenache Blanc. Lovely nose of peach, and honeysuckle, floral notes, with green apple, and spice. The mouth is slow to open, with peach notes, good acid, and balance, with again little complexity but nice acid, with peach, grapefruit, and crazy floral notes. The finish is long with mineral and sweet spices, cinnamon, and cloves. Drink by 2018.
Read the rest of this entry
Wine Musings Blog 