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The Kosherwine.com French wine options
With the new year, I wanted to repeat my rules of engagement with wine. Also, with the continued plethora of people writing about wine and selling them as well, I decided to remind my readers, I DO NOT shill. I do not take money or free wines. I pay for my wines and I write about them, no matter what others think. I do go to wine tastings and yes, at that time I do not pay for the wines, but neither does anyone else at the wine tasting. So, yes, I bought these wines from kosherwine.com and I am posting my notes about them. I am also adding my notes about a few wines that I tasted at YC’s house when he had a few Kosherwine.com wines as well. Those notes and the tasting can be found here, and I will post them at the end, just for completeness.
Many of these wines are produced by Louis Blanc, a producer that makes lower level wines at very reasonable prices. Sadly, when they get here, the prices are somewhat elevated. Depending on the location you can find the Brouilly below for 10 euro or so, but here in the USA, it goes for 23 dollars or so. Figure in the shipping, the extra hand (AKA extra person/company) in the mix and you get the price you get. Still, some of the wines are nice enough to buy, IMHO.
Sadly, the best reasonably priced French Bordeaux wine, that I have tasted so far, that costs, in France some 11 euro, would be the 2014 Chateau Grand Barrail, Prestige, Red. It is far better than any of these wines listed here, other than the crazy good 2016 Chateau Guimberteau, Lalande de Pomerol, but that is 4x the price!
I wanted to keep this simple, so the wine notes follow below – the explanation of my “scores” can be found here:
2012 Louis Blanc La Gravelle Chinon, Cuvee Terroir – Score: 90 (QPR)
This wine has changed since the last time I had it. It is showing far better than the clearly bad bottle I had in Israel. This wine is made from 100% Cabernet Franc. The nose on this wine starts off a bit funky, with time it opens to show lovely barnyard, mushroom, with a rich garden of green notes, earthy, foliage bomb, with crazy raspberry, red fruit, showing loads of floral and tart notes. The mouth on this medium bodied wine is nice and layered, and restrained, with nice elegance, showing green notes, soft tannin, and bell pepper, lovely with lovely balancing acid! The finish is long and green, with hints of leather, tobacco, and rosemary. Nice! Drink now through 2019!
2012 Louis Blanc Duc de Serteil Coteaux Bourguignons – Score: 86
This wine is a blend of 60% Gamay and 40% Pinot Noir. The nose on this wine is a bit closed, but with air, it opens to cherry notes, Kirshe, with olives, green notes, herbs, and strawberry, with currant, and foliage. The mouth on this medium bodied wine is a bit too simple, it shows great acidity, with nice enough notes, but the metallic notes and soft tannins make it a bit too simple. The finish is average and nice enough, with more herb, and cherry red notes. Drink UP!
A few new and old wines this past Shabbat. 2017 Petit Guiraud, Sauternes, 2010 Terra di Seta Chianti Classico, Reserva, and 2007 Tzora Vineyards Misty Hills were the winners
This past Shabbat we had some friends over and I opened many a wine, 13 to be exact. There were a few new wines, including the new 2017 Petit Giuraud, the 2nd of three wines that will be released from Chateau Giuraud. The first one was the G of Guiraud, which is a lovely dry wine. The second was the Petit Guigaurd, a Sauternes which has recently been released, and IMHO is better than the 2016 Chateau Piada. The third will be the 2016 Chateau Guiraud, which will be the first release since the 2001 vintage was released many years ago.
Besides, the Petit Guiraud, there was a 2nd tasting of the 2016 Matar Cabernet Sauvignon. We last tasted it in Israel, and it did not show well. Here it did not show well, but it showed better. It was less fruit-forward and absurdly ripe than at the tasting in Jerusalem.
The real winner of the evening, IMHO, was the 2010 Terra di Seta along with the 2007 Tzora Vineyards Misty Hills. It was a lovely wine and shows what Israel can produce when it wants to build wines for the future and not wines for the present alone.
My many thanks to all the folks who shared the dinner with me, and may we all be blessed to enjoy more meals together!
The wine notes follow below – the explanation of my “scores” can be found here:
2014 Roc des Moulins – Score: 88
Classic nose of the cheap Bordeaux Superieur wines, mushroom, dark cherry, rose, earth, and simple notes. At open this wine is very simple, not much complexity, but has solid acid, and nice fruit. With time, it opens nicely, to show a more complex mouth, still clunky and simple, with more cherry fruit, dark currant, and herb galore, along with saline, and mounds of bitter herbs, with tobacco, and forest floor. Nice. Drink by 2021.
2014 Chateau Roquettes, Saint-Emilion Grand Cru – Score: NA
We opened this wine before Shabbat, and it tasted like the notes below. We then tasted it at the Shabbat table, and it was oxidized. The cork is fine. I am not sure if this is an issue of bottle variation or just a bad bottle.
The nose on this wine is super closed and tight to start, with mounds of tobacco, smoke, herb, red fruit, and nice mushroom, showing lovely dark and red ripe fruit. The mouth on this full bodied wine is lovely, with lovely and rich extraction, with still ripping tannin, that is rich and layered, with concentrated fruit, dark plum, forest berry, with dark raspberry, and rich earth, mushroom, and lovely terroir, and nice sweet oak. The finish is long and rich, and layered, with rich minerality, lovely saline, forest floor, foliage, with graphite, tobacco, and saline. Bravo!!
2010 Terra di Seta Chianti Classico, Reserva – Score: 92
Wow, the nose on this wine is coffee, toffee, and heavy smoke, with crazy oak, and red fruit galore, hidden in the background, is dark red fruit, and lovely brightness. The mouth on this medium bodied wine is rich and layered, and really alive, with tart fruit, showing raspberry, cherry, and lovely herb, showing rich tobacco, herb, with mint, oregano, with lovely mouth draping tannin and rich mushroom, with wet forest floor, and great chocolate. The finish is long, and green, and herbaceous, with lovely dirt, and green notes. Drink by 2022. Read the rest of this entry
My top kosher 25 wines of 2016
Well, I have posted my year in review, and now I wanted to get to my top wines for 2016. Please beware that I know I missed many wines and that this list does not include wines that I have tasted that are not available on the open market.
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 and that I tasted it in a reliable environment, not just at a tasting, and that it was scored an A- to A or higher. Also, there are a few lower scoring wines here because of their uniqueness or really good QPR. I also included some of the ebst wines I tasted this year – they are at the bottom.
On an aside, there continues to be a whole mess of madness around wines notes and scores, even the Jewish Week weighed in on the matter. So, let me explain this really simply – go look at some of my recent blog posts – they talk about some nice enough wines, but wines I would not specifically buy. They have all the nice words and such, which were all true and to the point. But without the final value score, I can tell you a Cabernet is full bodied with good fruit and spice – and you may say cool I want that – but then I would say well, yeah but it was not complex or layered. You could try to reason that out of the words I wrote, because the words complex and layered are missing. However, the simple fact that it was scored a B+ or whatever, would have told you that it is not always a wine worth going after (unless it is the Terrenal or such where it gets a QPR moniker).
My point being that wine notes – without a proper context (AKA a real score) – is like looking at a wedding hall through a slit in the window. Sure you can “see” the hall, but are you really sure you want to get married there? I never scored wines to tell people to listen to my score. I score wines to set the context and to always read the notes to see if that sort of wine works for you!
I posted this about my scores – and what they mean, so I hope these are useful to you. OK, enough of the darn score rant for the day, back to the matters at hand, being wines of the year. The list is long – get over it. It is a list of wines that I would buy, have bought, and will buy again – simple enough I hope. I hope you enjoy!
2014 Elvi Wines EL 26 – Score: A- to A
This wine is a blend of 45% Carignan, 35% Grenache, and 20% Syrah. This wine is showing far more accessible than previous vintages. The 2014 vintage in Spain makes fro wines that are easily approachable now and yet has the power to last a long time. The nose on this wine is fruit forward with dark candied raspberry, blackberry, and spiced boysenberry, with root beer and earth, showing spice, anise, and cranberry. The mouth is beautiful and controlled, with great mouth coating tannin, sheer elegance, with great sweet and focused fruit, lovely extraction, showing ripe and tart strawberry, raspberry, and boysenberry all mixed together into a compote, with black fruit and earth. The finish is ridiculous, some of the best of the evening, with sweet fruit and ripe structure, yet balanced and focused, with coffee, leather, and sweet spices, nutmeg, and mineral galore, with scraping graphite, BRAVO!!
2014 Capcanes Peraj Habib – Score A- to A
This wine is a blend of 45% Grenache, 35% Cabernet Sauvignon, and 20% Carignan. This wine is showing far more accessible than previous vintages. The 2014 vintage in Spain makes fro wines that are easily approachable now and yet has the power to last a long time. The nose on this wine shows nicely, with chocolate and oak, along with crazy red fruit, roasted animal, toast, graphite, and lovely smoke, with floral notes galore. What a lovely wine, full bodied with great extraction, ripping acid and great crazy tannin that gives way to blueberry, blackberry, lovely cherry, and insane fruit focus that is backed by intense graphite, and mineral, scraping mineral, with mouth drying tannin all coming together into a far more accessible wine than any year before. The wine is really young but accessible, with insane fruit and mineral all coming together. The finish is long and epic, with leather, and rich extraction lingering with coffee and sweet spices coming together beautifully. Bravo!
2013 Covenant Cabernet Sauvignon, Solomon lot 70 – Score: A- to A
Really lovely but pushed nose, with ripe black fruit, tar galore, with garrigue, earth, and rich blackberry. The mouth on this full bodied wine is rich and extracted, showing an impressive attack with rich focus of blueberry, intense gripping tannin, spicy oak, sweet dill galore, with massive almost tactile mouth showing black fruit focus, with impressive inky structure that gives way to black and blue fruit. The finish is long and spicy, with green notes, foliage, good dirt, all wrapped with dark chocolate, leather, tobacco heaven, more green notes, and rich Asian spices.
2014 Elvi Clos Mesorah – Score: A- to A
This wines a blend of 50% Grenache, 35% Carignan from vines that are 105 years old, and 15% Syrah. Wow what a California Syrah nose, with intense root beer, watermelon, crazy how this smells like Shirah Syrah, with blueberry, and boysenberry, and spiced plum punch. The mouth on this full bodied wine wow, the mouth is full bodied, extracted, and crazy rich, with layers of extraction and concentrated fruit, showing searing tannin, ripping acid, that gives way to black and blue fruit, blackberry, plum, with crazy chocolate and coffee coming together to show mouth drying tannin, with earth, spice, cloves, black pepper, and spicy, with heady spice and blue fruit. The finish is long and spicy, with sweet spice and fruit that gives way to chocolate, roasted meat, and graphite. Really impressive wine bravo!
2010 ELvi Wines Rioja Reserva – Score: A- to A
Wow what a glass of umami, pure hedonism, bravo! The nose on this wine is pure joy, with root beer, blueberry, roasted meat, black pepper, mushroom, dirt, smoke, and toast. The mouth on this medium bodied wine is far more accessible than the 09, with sweet fruit, earth, dirt, sweet blue fruit, crazy candied and juicy blue fruit, that gives way to cherry, candied and spiced raspberry, with mouth coating and drying tannin, rich juicy and concentrated fruit, with insane focus and attack. The finish is long and juicy, with sweet fruit, nutmeg, sweet baking spices, milk chocolate, smoke, and crazy spices, anise and licorice. Bravo!
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