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Hotel Wine tastings – the final tastings from my trip to Paris – Late May 2024
As stated in my previous post, I was in Paris in Late May, with Avi Davidowitz from Kosher Wine Unfiltered. The number of boxes in our room was not nearly as insane as two years ago. That was a tower of boxes. Still, we had a lot of wines to taste through and some good wines to talk about.
Two years ago, we had some 80 wines, this May we were at 60 wines. There was one wine that Avi missed and there are a couple of wines I think were bad bottles, so I will not post them, so I guess it comes to some 58 or so bottles.
Half of these wines were tasted blind and the rest were not. Let me make this simple, unless we can find someone to pay to help us manage the tastings, tasting blind, and then gathering all the metadata and the forms, and sheets, it is just INSANE! We really need to get a helper, who understands English enough and can handle sheets and the such, in Paris and wherever else we taste wines. Until then, we will have to give up on tasting blind.
The wines were tasted in classic region/style order, whites, reds from Burgundy, Rhone-like areas, Bordeaux/Blend wines, and I think that is it.
Barbera, Rhone, Burgundy, Provence, Loire, and Germany
These were some of the blind wines we tasted. I honestly grabbed bottles shaped in anything other than Bordeaux and we did the tasting blind. It was eclectic and we retasted them twice, so they got their chance. There were two wines in the lineup that were off, and they were removed from the scoring. Otherwise, the wines fell into what I expected, with the real find being the Rhone from Ventoux. The German red wine was nice while the white wine, we tasted later, was a total loss.
There were a total of 13 wines on this flight and one of them was a bad bottle, so we have 12 wines scored below. Six of the 12 were from Taieb Wines. Yoni and his family continue to make well-priced wines and garner QPR WINNER scores. This tasting was no exception, with two WINNER for the Burgundies and other QPR WINNER scores for other wines we tasted in the hotel.
I have posted often about Taieb wines and if you want to read the full background read the first post I made here.
There were four Burgundies made by kosher Taieb in 2022 and we received three of them for tasting. The notes on these wines changed a bit but the scores were consistent. We also got some Loire Valley wines and they showed well as well. There was a Burgundy from Ribeauville that I had already tasted but needed to have Avi taste it, so I made sure to make that happen.
The real find was the Rhone from Ventoux, I have no idea who made the wine, maybe the winery did, but it is a nice wine. I have no idea why it sat around until now, nor do I know why the 2016 wine we tasted later sat around until now!
White and Sparking Wines
We tasted through a lot of white wines and sparkling wines. The Sparkling wines came from Taieb and they were nice to WINNER. The Elvi Vina Encina were both solid and the Herenza White are lovely WINNER wines. I have no idea why the Herenza Whites do not sell in the USA, 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!
There was a new Sancerre and the new 2023 Domaine Lebrun Pouilly-Fume and they were nice. The 2023 Domaine Lebrun Pouilly-Fume is truly exceptional, it keeps up with the great 2021. Though I would be drinking the 2021 already! This one will be good for a few years.
Also, Avi brought an Israeli white wine! Yes! The 2021 Recanati Sauvignon Blanc, Odem Vineyards, Atelier! Lovely wine, and further proof that what Israel needs is good white wine!
The rest of them are wines that you can try and see if you like.
Italy, Spain, and Bordeaux
OK, half of the wines we tasted fall into these two categories and they garnered 8 QPR WINNER scores. Once again, Taieb had many GREAT to WINNER scores here along with some new Italian wines. There was one SHOCKER from Luzzatto, who until now have been really uninspiring wines. However, the 2019 Luzzatto Barolo is a clear WINNER, and yes, it is Mevushal. It started out very slow but with time, it came out of its shell, and showed nicely!
Avi brought the 2022 El Orador Rioja, Rioja Alta from Israel, and that also started very slowly, but it came out of its shell as well. We then tasted three Elvi red wines, which I had last year after Avi had already left. Those were the 2021 Elvi Clos Mesorah, the 2020 Elvi EL26, and the 2019 Elvi Adar. I had the 2019 Elvi Adar in Israel, and the EL26 at home.
The rest of what mattered was a mix of Bordeaux wines ranging from 2016 to 2023. Yes, we tasted a 2016 Chateau Croque Michotte! Why it was not released until now is beyond me. Sadly, I think that wine was oxidized. I have no idea if it was the wine or the bottle. I tried to get another and no matter the emails/WhatsApp chats I could not get another one to try.
The 2023 Baron David and the 2023 Palais de L’Ombriere were solid wines that are available now in Paris and ones I would pick up for a nice Shabbat! Two great wines from Taieb.
Then we had three mid-level quality wines from the 2022 Bordeaux vintage. If these wines prove to be the flag-bearer for that vaunted vintage I may come around and have as much faith as Avi does. Avi believes every vintage is innocent until proven guilty, sadly, I see things differently. I guess, I see wine as uninteresting until the glass proves me wrong.
The three QPR WINNER wines were the 2022 Chateau Tour Perey, 2022 Chateau La Fleur Perey, and the
2022 Chateau Tour Seran. We had issues with the 2022 Chateau Rollan de By. One bottle was bad and one bottle was OK to bad. At this point, if you buy it, I would not hold it for long, if at all. Buy it, open it, and enjoy!
We also tasted a 2012 Chateau Cru DuCasse, a wine I had not tasted for two years and it was on crazy sale at Winess.com. This was a wine that Avi had not yet tasted, as I tasted it back in June of 2021 when Paris was just coming to life from under the cloud of Covid. It had evolved a fair amount and was deeply closed at the start. Another crazy closeout wine I saw at Winess was the 2020 Chateau Taillefer Pavillon de Taillefer. It was selling for 40 or so dollars. I tasted that wine last year May 2023, a trip Avi missed, so I wanted him to taste the wine.
We tasted the white and rose wines from Cantina Giuliano and they are fine, I am sure some people will like them more than I did.
The one wine that Avi was not around for was the 2023 Cave D’Esclans Whispering Angel. It reminded me of the 2021. A solid showing.
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 in the USA already. The Cantina Giuliano wines are in the USA already. The 2020 Chateau Haut Brisson is already in the USA, the other Corcos wines, I am not sure.
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!
Thoughts on this tasting
OK, so overall, this tasting was solid! This was better than previous tastings because the 2021 vintage is mostly played out, unlike other hotel wine tastings. 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! I am still not buying into the 2022 hype but as stated before, I will reserve happiness until I taste good wine!
Regarding other wines from France that people will ask me about, the answer is we tried. We sent out emails and got initial responses and then all follow-up emails went into the Spam Bucket. Sometimes, I wonder if French people hate us Americans! Anyway, the winning lineup, which always is the heading photo for the hotel wine-tasting posts, was solid, and wines I would drink! Sadly, that winning lineup photo is nowhere because I got really sick at the end of the week. I barely made it into Shabbat. I slept it off all Shabbat.
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!! I was flat out and Avi was trying to get out for his flight back to Israel. Sorry buddy I could not help.
Finally, 90% of the the deliveries were to the hotel this time, my man Ari Cohen, AKA El-Presidente of Bakus Wines, was totally AWOL this trip! I think the more I go to Paris the less I get to see him – maybe I am finally becoming a Parisian! Thanks as always! 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:
2022 Jean-Philippe Marchand Aloxe Corton, Sous Chaillots, Aloxe Corton – Score: 92.5 (QPR: WINNER)
The nose of this wine is quite nice with darker plum, raspberry, cherry, and sweet spices, along with sweet herbs, floral notes, lavender, dark smoke, and minerality. The mouth of this medium-plus-bodied wine feels rich, layered, and smokey, dirty, with nice mushroom, forest floor, nice funk, lovely minerality, plum, ripe raspberry, dark cherry, herbal, with nice tannin, and great acidity. The finish is long, tannic, herbal, and funky, but also richer, a bit rounder, but tannic, tart, and refreshing, Bravo! Drink until 2032. (tasted May 2024) (in Paris, France) (ABV = 13%) (tasted Blind)
Paris tasting of Moise Taieb wines – November 2021
As stated in my previous post, I was in Paris in November, with Avi Davidowitz, from the Kosher Wine Unfiltered blog, 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 us 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 stated, in my previous post, we kept to my hotel room for much of the trip. Even vaccinated, I was worried, and am still worried, as such we kept to ourselves, where possible. Still, we were ready to take the train down to the offices, but things could not line up and so Mr. Taieb was very kind, to once again, send the wines to our hotel. We then stayed in the 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 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 our trip was life in the hotel. Everything in Paris is masked and distanced. We had cases, upon cases of wines coming to us at the hotel, differently than last time, as this time, they all came to the hotel. Still, we thankfully had loads of room as we had the top floor suite and the space was ridiculous.
In the end, it was a wonderful outcome, short of not seeing the Taiebs, again. We had time to taste the wines at our pace, room for all the wines to sit and breathe. As stated, we missed hanging out with Mr. Taieb, and I hope he and his lovely family are doing well!
NOTE: A few of the wines seemed to be a bit off, the 2019 Pavillon du Vieux Chantre, 2019 Domaine de Grava, and 2019 Château De L’Anglais. I will not post my notes here as I need to taste them again when I go back to France or if I can get them here in the USA. There were a few Champagne as well, but none of them stood out enough for me to post them here. Finally, we have very few photos of these, apologies.
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, for those that live within Europe and London, and even a few for the USA as well! 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. While they do not make wines like Chateau Smith Haut Lafite, Chateau Malartic, or Chateau Leoville Poyferre, they do produce and distribute wines, within Europe that are of very high quality at reasonable prices, AKA, QPR WINNERS.
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 a different route by consistently producing wines, within Bordeaux, that punch well above their weight and many that shock you for the price they are selling at. 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 of QPR options, within Europe, I think of Taieb’s portfolio! 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, and most recently bringing in some of the better Bordeaux wines, as well. Further, three of these wines, posted below, are QPR WINNER, even in the USA. We need more of this!!!
In Closing
Again, the theme of very solid Taieb wines being very hard to find in the USA is a consistent issue to me. Thankfully, some of these wines are being brought in by Andrew, at Liquid Kosher, so I hope to taste at least some of these again in the USA soon.
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:
2020 Baron David, Bordeaux (M) – Score: 91 (QPR: WINNER (France))
The nose on this wine shows very much like previous vintages, with good clean lines, green notes, red fruit, herb, forest floor, foliage, and loam. The mouth of this medium-plus wine is tannic, balanced, acidic, and green, with herbal notes, foliage, bell pepper, raspberry, dark cherry, roasted mint, basil, and tarragon, with a backbone that is based in fruit and acid and nice minerality. The finish is long, green, tannic, with scraping minerality, graphite, clay, and nice loam. Nice!! Drink until 2024. (tasted November 2021) (in Paris, France) (ABV = 14%)
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