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Paris tasting of Royal Wine’s 2022 and 2023 Bordeaux and other French wines – January 2025
Let us start with some facts; Avi Davidowitz, from the Kosher Wine Unfiltered blog, and I were in Paris together this past week. We were there to taste as many Kosher Bordeaux wines from the 2022 and 2023 vintages as humanly possible. We arrived on a Monday and by Noon, we were knee-deep into a plethora of Bordeaux wines. As is typical, the trip started with a massive tasting of Royal Wine’s latest releases, followed by two more organized tastings, and many tastings we did in our hotel room, as usual.
The first wine tasting that Avi Davidowitz and I organized during our trip to Paris was with Menahem Israelievitch, the Managing director and Winemaker of Royal Wine Europe, in his lovely home.
The 2022 Vintage in Bordeaux
So, the 2022 vintage is one that I will openly say surprised me. Until this trip, I had found the 2022 Bordeaux to be a ripe mess. Yes, there were a few exceptions, but the majority of wines, until that week, were a mess. However, even after the week of wonderful wines, I finally realized my issue, there is a difference between a good wine and a wine I want to drink. In this post and the rest of the 2022 Bordeaux wine posts (with more yet still untasted), the theme will be ripeness. Now, ripeness can be managed with good acidity, but at 15.5% ABV or 15% ABV, you may say that the wine is too ripe. However, that is not true. There are examples on this blog of wines we have tasted at that ABV that are actually refreshing!
Some of the wine notes you read below will state those words, the magic refreshing word. The wines, without that word, are still wonderful, and wines I may buy, but there is a sense of weight to those wines that I wonder about. How will they manage themselves in 15 years?
Let us talk about the age-ability of these 2022 Bordeaux wines. They are 100% UNDRINKABLE at this time. PERIOD. Sure, for tasting sake, we can taste them, but they are either horribly closed, horribly fat (meaning showing absurd fruit), or just so large and clumsy that they are not enjoyable at this time. So, when you look at the drinking windows, do not be shocked to see 30-year windows. The Leoville Poyferre, Pontet Canet, and even the Moulin Riche are wines that will cost you dearly now and in the future. These are wines that you will need to put away for 20+ years. In my opinion, these are not wines that will get to their tertiary dream state before a long time. These are wines that will require a very long and patient approach before you will get that payoff. For many of us on this earth, I wonder if I want to buy a wine that will not meet that plateau before I am pretty old. Ignoring mortality or the desire to enjoy wines like that at an advanced age – it is also the knowledge that the space in your cellar is locked away for these wines, and you really are not going to touch them for an extended period.
With all that said, sorry for the tangent; these are very special wines that should deserve some thought on how/where you will age and preserve them, given the long drinking windows. Now, I hear all of you. What about 2015, 2016, and the like? Are they not also akin to this? The answer is NO! Those vintages were balanced and, as such, will come around soon enough. Still, it has been 10 years now, and they are not ready, and they will not be ready for some time. I guess I am just projecting my thoughts here regarding what I can buy, store, and dream about enjoying in 20+ years.
Finally, unlike the 2021 vintage, these wines are not green. Maybe they have roasted herbs, but that is more oak, and they rarely show vegetal notes.
How do I see the 2022 vintage in comparison to other recent vintages? I say the quality and personal interest I have in buying these wines are behind the 2019, 2016, and 2014 but ahead of the 2015, 2018, and so on.
Looking through this list of wine notes below for the 2022 vintage and the ones coming for the other wines we tasted from this vintage, you will see a pattern, good scores, and many QPR WINNERS. Mr. Israelievitch and the team did an excellent job with the 2022 vintage. As you will see soon, there are many wines here. This is an outlier vintage BOTH regarding the number of labels made by Royal and others and the ripeness of the wines. I am not sure, but this feels like the largest number of French labels made by Royal in a single year. That does not even include the dual label (Mevushal and non-Mevushal issue/situation). Even if you look at Bordeaux alone, it has to be the largest, in my opinion. So, when you compare this vintage’s number of QPR WINNER scores, it is unfair. A more interesting thing is to look at the percentage of QPR WINNER to wines. Something I hope to explore.
The truly great vintage, for me, was the 2019 vintage, as I stated many times already, but even there, the 2019 vintage only had 13 QPR WINNER. It was the most balanced vintage so far, outside of 2014 and some of 2015. Of course, PLEASE be clear, I speak of kosher wines. I am sure many think 2020 was the perfect vintage in Bordeaux. However, IMHO, and I think I have tasted every kosher wine made from Bordeaux over the past 8 years; 2019, 2014, and some of 2015 were the winners. Still, the 2022 vintage takes the award for the most QPR WINNER wines produced by Royal Wines, 28! That is an incredible number! I state again that the 2022 vintage is incredible; it shocked me, and the ripeness is my issue. I crave balance, both in my life and in the and in the wines I drink. I think that most will find these wines enjoyable, and they will fly off the shelves, even given the more significant number of wines made.
To me, the 2014 vintage was crazy fun because it is less ripe than the 2015 or 2016 vintage. They were also FAR cheaper. Then you had the 2015 wines, which were more expensive and far riper than the 2014 vintage. This 2016 vintage is the best of both worlds but comes at a crazy high price. During the epic post of my visit to Bordeaux with Mr. Israelievitch, I warned you at that time that you better start saving your money; sadly, nothing has changed about that. The REAL shocker price-wise of the 2016 vintage was Chateau Malartic, which rose to almost 150 or more a bottle! That was close to double the 2014 vintage.
The 2022 vintage is more expensive than the 2021 vintage, which was more expensive than the 2020 vintage. The “deals” were from the 2019 vintage and the upcoming 2023 vintage. In between, the prices went up and up and up! The real Chutzpah was 2021. It was not a good vintage and yet Bordeaux raised their prices! The 2022 vintage is just one of those generational vintages, to those that crave massive fruit, and as such, garnered so many high scores during “En Primeur week” that they had to raise prices, yet again.
In a previous post about the most recent French wines (at that time in 2017) that were arriving on the market, I already discussed pricing and supply, so there is no need to discuss that again in this post.
Read the rest of this entry
Another round of QPR (Quality to Price Ratio) Hits and Misses, 17 QPR WINNERS – Dec 2024
I have been behind on this post. After I do this post, I owe three more: a retrospective on the Kosher California Wine Scene for 2021 and 2022, a write-up on my visit with Avi Davidowitz to the newly built Elvi Wines winery in Priorat, and finally, my yearly Four Gates Wine post.
This post may be one of the largest overall QPR roundups I have done, wine-wise, weighing in at 90 wines. The last one I did was in August 2024. That one had 26 or so wines, and 7 of them garnered a QPR WINNER score. The latest post with the largest number of wines winning a QPR Score of WINNER was the May 2023 post, with 19 wines garnering a QPR score of WINNER.
QPR (Quality to Price Ratio) Wines
It has been four or so months since my last QPR (Quality to Price Ratio) post, and many people have been emailing me about unique wines I have tasted and 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.
Throughout the year, I post 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 QPR WINNERS wines. People are still asking me what a QPR (Quality to Price Ratio) Wine is and what the score of WINNER denotes. Once again, those are explained here in this post.
Some things that made me stand up and take notice (AKA QPR WINNERS):
There are 17 wines that won the coveted QPR score of WINNER this round, and they are all worth your attention.
The Chateau Fayat got a MONSTER quality score, and given its cost, it squeaks into the QPR WINNER score by a hair.
The same can be said for Chateau Trianon. It, too, garnered a massive score, and the price barely got it in under the wire.
The 2022 Philippe Le Hardi Aloxe Corton, Aloxe Corton, Burgundy, is a lovely wine for a challenging vintage. The Clos Vougeot may get a better score but at 5 times the price, it does not equate to a desirable QPR score.
The 2022 Eola Hills Wine Cellars Pinot Noir, Willamette Valley, proves that we can get QUALITY Pinot Noir that is drinkable now at a QPR WINNER price. That deserves a shoutout!!
We have a SOLID list of QPR WINNERS:
- 2022 Chateau Fayat, Pomerol – Score: 94 (QPR: WINNER)
- 2022 Chateau Trianon, Saint-Emilion Grand Cru – Score: 93 (QPR: WINNER)
- 2022 Chateau Montviel, Pomerol – Score: 93 (QPR: WINNER)
- 2022 Philippe Le Hardi Aloxe Corton, Aloxe Corton, Burgundy – Score: 93 (QPR: WINNER)
- 2022 Chateau Royaumont, Lalande de Pomerol (M) – Score: 92+ (QPR: WINNER)
- 2023 ESSA Altira, Cape South Coast – Score: 92+ (QPR: WINNER)
- 2022 Domaine Raymond Usseglio & Fils Chateauneuf du Pape, Vielles Vignes, Chateauneuf du Pape, Vielles Vignes – Score: 92+ (QPR: WINNER)
- 2022 Chateau Larcis Jaumat, Saint-Emilion Grand Cru – Score: 92+ (QPR: WINNER)
- 2023 Cave De Tain Crozes Hermitage, Crozes-Hermitage – Score: 92+ (QPR: WINNER)
- 2022 Chateau La Fleur, Saint-Emilion Grand Cru – Score: 92+ (QPR: WINNER)
- 2022 Philippe Le Hardi Mercurey 1er Cru, Mercurey, Burgundy – Score: 92+ (QPR: WINNER)
- 2018 Dalton Semillon, Tic Toc, Galilee – Score: 92 (QPR: WINNER)
- 2022 Chateau Piada, Sauternes – Score: 92 (QPR: WINNER)
- 2022 Chateau la Clare, Medoc (M) – Score: 91+ (QPR: WINNER)
- 2022 Eola Hills Wine Cellars Pinot Noir, Willamette Valley, Oregon – Score: 91+ (QPR: WINNER)
- 2023 Baron Rothschild Flechas De Los Andes Gran Malbec, Mendoza – Score: 91+ (QPR: WINNER)
- 2021 Dalton Chenin Blanc, Wild One, Galilee – Score: 91 (QPR: WINNER)
Other wines worth noting (For good reasons!):
- The 2022 Chateau Leoville Poyferre, Saint-Julien, may not be priced to fit into the QPR WINNER circle, but it is another EPIC showing for this winery. Well worth finding this wine!!
- The 2022 Chateau le Gay, Pomerol – is an excellent wine, but it is a tad too ripe for me. Still, this is the first time it has been made kosher! Bravo!
- The 2022 Philippe Le Hardi Clos De Vougeot, Grand Cru is the first Clos Vougeot made kosher in some 18+ years. So, while the price is steep, the quality is there.
Paris tasting of Royal Wines 2022 Roses and whites with some very special 2021 Reds as well – May 2023
Well, this is getting up later than I wished, but that is life (earlier than last year, but only by a few days, I sense a theme here). Life, lots of hiking, shul, and so much more, got in the way. All good, just wine and my blog had to be put on the back burner for a bit. Thankfully, I am ready to post more often now.
So, here is the story, I landed in Paris, went to the hotel, and got some much-needed sleep. I was hoping to hang with the gang in Paris, but it was Lag Ba’Omer, and well, all the folks with families were unavailable as such, it was a quick burger and some sleep!
On this trip, I did not go hunting for loads of roses and whites and most of them were sent to my hotel or Ari Cohen in advance. At this point, the hotel knows me as the wine writer, I arrive, they give me my wines without even asking, it is a well-oiled machine at this point!
The next morning, I made my way to the lovely home of Menahem Israelievitch, Managing Director and Winemaker at Royal Wine Europe. At the tasting, we enjoyed many lovely wines, and you can read the notes below, I want to point out a few thoughts on them.
- The non-Mevushal versions of the roses I have had so far from Royal are much better. Mevushal does not work well for roses, at least from how Royal Europe is doing it.
- Many of the roses I have listed below were the non-Mevushal versions that sell in Europe. The ones here in the USA are mostly Mevushal and I did NOT taste those, except for ONE. You will see below the notes for wines I tasted side-by-side, Mevushal and non-Mevushal, the Sainte B Rose, and read the notes.
- The 2022 vintage for non-mevushal white and rose returns them close to the good old days!
- There are no 2021 red Burgundy wines – but there is new stuff coming in 2022.
- I came too early to taste the oak-influenced, higher-end Chateau Roubine Inspire and Lion & Dragon wines. Otherwise, I believe I was able to taste everything this time around – my sincere thanks to Mr. Israelievitch for his incredible effort in procuring these wines from all the wineries.
- There are 12 QPR (Quality to Price) WINNERS here – BRAVO to Menachem and team and bravo to the 2022 vintage!! Some of these WINNER are not coming to the USA but the majority are!
- Finally, there are many new roses here because of the lack of Roses from Israel, given 2022 is a Shmita year.
In closing, all of these wines will get here eventually, other than the non-mevushal versions of the Roses. I cannot say that for the vast majority of wines, I will be posting over the next weeks. So many wines made in France either live and die in France and Europe, as a whole, or are made JUST for Israel. This new phenomenon started with Shaked, and others have joined in. Either way, lots of French wine is not sold in France and lots of French wine never leaves the country – just the fascinating life of French wine. Most of it is made by very small producers or ones with horrible distribution, and as such, they are very difficult to find. Thankfully, as I stated all of these wines and a few of the Bokobsa wines, a post coming soon, should be available in the USA.
My thanks to Menahem Israelievitch and Royal Wines for hosting me and letting us taste the wonderful wines. 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 wine notes are in the order the wines were tasted:
2022 Les Marronniers Petit Chablis, Petit Chablis (M) – Score: 88 (QPR: GOOD)
The nose of this wine is lovely, with intense minerality, bright apple, peach blossom, peach, and quince. The mouth of this medium-bodied wine is lovely, with bracing acidity, peach, baked apple, tart, mouth-filling, lavender, and lovely smoke. The finish is long, tart, mouth-filling, and refreshing, with saline, ocean spray, more floral notes, fresh tart fruit, and smoke. Drink Now. (tasted May 2023) (in Paris, France) (ABV = 13%)
2022 Domaine de Virvane Chablis, Chablis (M) – Score: 91 (QPR: GREAT)
The nose of this wine is a classic Chablis, bright, with screaming mineral, flint, smoke, matchstick, yellow apple, apple blossom, pear, and Asian pear.
The mouth of this medium-bodied wine is nice, tart, balanced, and refreshing, a wine that pulls you in with saline, smoke, Asian pear, yellow apple, screaming acidity, tart, ripe quince, and good precision.
The finish is long, tart, and smoky, with saline, flint, and lovely balanced fruit, really nice with good fruit focus, and precise mineral, a lovely expression of Chablis. Drink Now. (tasted May 2023) (in Paris, France) (ABV = 12.5%)
2022 Les Marronniers Chablis, Chablis (M) – Score: 87 (QPR: GOOD)
The nose of this wine starts a bit closed but with time opens to show intense minerality, sea spray, saline, olives, green apple blossom, and nice pear. Lovely!
The mouth of this medium-plus-bodied wine is a bit more extracted, tart, elegant, and more focused, with great precision, showing tart green apple, yellow plum, hints of wood, Asian pear, and rich smoke, lovely!
The finish is long, tart, and smoky, but I wish it had more acidity. Drink until 2025. (tasted May 2023) (in Paris, France) (ABV = 12.5%)
2021 Domaine du Chateau Philippe le Hardi Mercurey, Roc Blanc, Mercurey – Score: 92 (QPR: WINNER)
This is a lovely expression of oaked Chardonnay, with ripe pear, apple, flint, acacia flower, smoked nuts, almonds, cinnamon, and red peppers. The mouth of this medium to full-bodied wine is lovely, showing white pepper, cinnamon, smoke, green apple, smoked duck, ripe plum, Asian pear, lovely tart fruit, and intense minerality, with bracing acidity, mouthcoating tannin, and lovely precision and fruit focus, a fun wine indeed. The finish is long, tart, green, herbal, smoky, and fruity, with intense flint, saline, and mouthfeel, that is refreshing and exciting. Bravo! Drink until 2027. (tasted May 2023) (in Paris, France) (ABV = 12.5%)
My top 25 kosher wines of 2020 including Wine of the Year, Winery of the Year, and the best Wine 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 and that I tasted it in a reliable environment, not just at a tasting, and that it was scored a 92 or higher. Also, there are a few lower scoring wines here because of their uniqueness or really good QPR.
We are returning with the “wine of the year”, “best wine of the year” along with categories I added last year, “Winery of the Year”, “Best White 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.
This past year, I think I am pretty sure about my state on kosher wine overall. In the past, I had not yet tasted the pape Clement or other such wines. However, over the past year, those have been covered, and they were a serious letdown. As stated in the article, I truly believe the entire kosher production of the Megrez wines, following the EPIC 2014 vintage of the Pape Clement and others, to be below quality and seriously overpriced, and without value in every category, which is a true shame. The 2015 reds are all poor quality and the whites are not much better, in 2015 and 2016. The 2016 Pape Clement, while better, is a total ripoff for what it is. As I will talk about in my year in review post, 2014 will come out as the best vintage for the past decade in France. That is a hotly debated subject, but IMHO, in the world of kosher wine, there were FAR more best wine options in the 2014 vintage than any other vintage in the past decade. That may not be the case for non-kosher wines, but news flash, I do not drink non-kosher wines, or even taste them, and further this blog is about kosher wines. The 2018 vintage may well have some serious “best wine of the year” candidates, but sadly, not all of those wines are here and I could not travel to France to taste them all, as I do commonly.
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. If last year, I thought the roses were pure junk, this year, you can add another nail in the coffin of rose wines, IMHO. Thankfully, the task of culling the bounty of great wines to come to these top wines was more a task of removing then adding. We are blessed with a bounty of good wines – just not like a few years ago when that bounty included many 95 and 95+ scoring wines.
The supreme bounty comes from the fact that Royal released the 2018 French wines a bit early! Throw in the incredible number of kosher European wines that are coming to the USA and being sold in Europe and this was truly a year of bounty for European kosher wines.
Now, separately, I love red wines, but white wines – done correctly, are a whole other story! Sadly, in regards to whites, we had no new wines from Germany, still. Thankfully, we have some awesome new entries, from the 2017 and 2018 Dampt Freres Chablis, both Grand Cru and Premier Cru, and the new 2019 Meursault!
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.
Finally, some of these wines are hard to find and they may have different siblings – but they are worth the effort. The wine notes follow below – the explanation of my “scores” can be found here:
The 2020 kosher wine of the year – is a return to its greatness – the 2018 Elvi Wines EL26
Elvi EL26 is back! Back to the glory days and I have stocked up and sadly, it will sell out quickly, if it is not already sold out! Get a move on, there was not a huge production of this beauty!
So, why did EL26 win? Simple, it is a great wine, and then throw in its WINNER price, and this wine punches at two levels, at the same time! You can read more about this fantastic wine here, in my post about it. Enjoy!
2018 Elvi Wines EL26, Elite, Priorat – Score: 93 (QPR: WINNER)
This wine is a blend of 80% Garnacha (Grenache) and 20% Carignan. This wine is pure heaven, dirt, smoke, roasted animal, saline, mineral, juicy tart red, and blue fruit, with incredible precision and fruit focus – Bravo!
The nose on this wine is pure fun, showing tart red fruit, incredible fresh loam, and dirt, hints of mushroom, licorice, roasted animal, a whiff of oak, sage, rosemary, with dirt, and green notes. This wine is currently far more Bordeaux in style than that of a Spanish Priorat! The mouth on this medium-bodied wine is not overly extracted, but it is well extracted, with good mouth and fruit texture, with incredible acid, good fruit focus, showing dark cherry, plum, ripe and tart raspberry, strawberry, oak, vanilla, and garrigue, with green notes, and lovely mouth-draping tannin. The finish is long, green, yet ripe, with great control and precision, with lovely graphite, more roasted meat, scraping minerality, saline, rich smoking tobacco, and smoke, lots of char and smoke. Bravo! With time the wine opens more and shows its riper side, still very controlled, but the fun red and blue fruit become a bit fuller and richer in the mouth – quite an impressive wine! Drink from 2026 until 2036. (tasted December 2020)
More simple white, red, and rose Kosher wines, with some mid-range reds – with more WINNERS
As I close out the QPR posts for each of the wine categories, I forgot a few of the simple white wines – so here is a post of them. Please look at the past simple white wines post for more on QPR and the simple white wine category. Again, QPR (Quality to Price Ratio) is where kosher wine needs to go. QPR means well-priced wines. Still, people do not get QPR. To me, QPR WINNER is what I describe and explain here. The overall revised QPR methodology is described here (and linked from the WINNER post as well).
One more reminder, “Simple” white wines is a wine that will not age more than seven or so years. So, please no hate mail! There are many WINNERS here, enjoy! I also threw in a few roses with one WINNER, but it is a 2019 Rose, and 2020 roses are about to be released, so drink up those 2019 roses already. I also tasted a few reds, with the 2017 Les Lauriers de Rothschild getting a slightly higher score.
The clear WINNER of this tasting is the 2019 Chateau Lacaussade, Vieilles Vignes, Saint-Martin. That along with the 2018 Koenig Riesling, which I like more now than I did a year ago. Also, the 2017 Les Lauriers de Rothschild. The 2017 Les Lauriers de Rothschild, Montagne Saint-Emilion was a winner in my previous post, I just slightly raised the score on it.
The wine note follows below – the explanation of my “scores” can be found here and the explanation for QPR scores can be found here:
ROSE Wines (DRINK them now – if you must)
2019 Rubis Roc Rose – Score: 91 (QPR: WINNER)
This wine is a blend of 50% Cinsault and 50% Cabernet Sauvignon. This is a weighty and food-required style rose than a refreshing rose. The nose of this wine is fresh and alive, with meaty notes, showing red and blue fruit notes, with nice citrus, with good attack and herbs. The mouth on this medium-bodied wine is solid, a drop less acid than I would like, but still very good with hot peppers, green notes, blue fruit, raspberry, dried lime/lemon, with mineral, and nice spice. The finish is long, green, and enjoyable, with good structure and nice minerality, nice! Drink now. (tasted Oct 2020)
2019 Yaacov Oryah Pretty as the Moon Rose– Score: 89+ (QPR: POOR)
This rose is a blend of 45% Syrah, 40% Grenache, and 15% Petite Sirah. The nose on this wine is divine – a lovely nose of floral violet, loads of rosehip, followed by a bit of nice funk, dried and tart cranberry, along with loads of mineral, this smells like what I want from a Provence wine, with dried/tart red fruit, a bit of reductive oxidation, and green notes as well. The mouth on this medium-bodied wine is nice but the acidity is where the wine fails, it has acidity, but the wine’s profile, which has nice fruity and refreshing characteristics lacks the punch of bright acidity to bring it all together, still, showing mineral, and lovely red fruit, with tart strawberry, lovely green/tart apple, quince, watermelon, hints of passion fruit, and loads of mineral. The finish is long, complex enough, with slate, graphite, more flowers, and lovely freshness, WOW! Bravo! Drink now! (tasted Oct 2020)
Tasting of Royal Wine’s 2018 and some 2019 French wines in California
Well, it is official, 2020 continues to take, and though my annoyances are minor in comparison to the pain others are feeling, it still has impacted my routine, which I guess is the story of 2020. For the past three years, I have been tasting Royal’s latest wines with the man in France for Royal, Menahem Israelievitch. Sadly, this year, no matter how much I planned and tried, it is a no go. So, for the first time, in a long time, the tasting will be here in Cali and it will only be a small part of the 2018 and 2019 wines, such is life.
So, no there will not be a picture with all the wines, and some of the wines from last year are still not here right now! But, I will post here what I did taste so far, and my overall feeling of the 2018 and 2019 vintages.
In a previous post about the most recent French wines (at that time in 2017) that were arriving on the market – I already spoke about pricing and supply, so there is no need to talk that over again in this post.
While the 2015 and 2016 vintages were ripe, and the 2017 vintage was not ripe at all, the 2018 vintage makes the 2015 ripeness look tame! Now that is a very broad-stroke statement that cannot be used uniformly, but for the most part, go with it!
I see no reason to repeat what Decanter did – so please read this and I will repeat a few highlights below.
For a start, the drought came later in 2018,’ says Marchal, pointing out that early July saw less rain in 2016. ‘But when it came in 2018, it was more abrupt, with the green growth stopping across the whole region at pretty much the same time’. He sees it closer to 2009, but with more density to the fruit. … and high alcohols!
Alcohols will be highest on cooler soils that needed a long time to ripen, so the Côtes, the Satellites, and the cooler parts of St-Emilion have alcohols at 14.5-15%abv and more. I heard of one Cabernet Franc coming in at 16.5%abv, but that is an exception. In earlier-ripening areas, such as Pessac-Léognan and Pomerol, alcohols are likely to be more balanced at 13.5% or 14%abv, as they will have reached full phenolic ripeness earlier.
‘Pessac-Léognan did the best perhaps because it’s an early ripening site,’ said Marie-Laurence Porte of Enosens, ‘so they were able to get grapes in before over-concentration. If you had to wait for phenolic ripeness, that is where things could get difficult’.
The final averages per grape, according to Fabien Faget of Enosens, are Sauvignon Blanc 13.5%abv, Sémillon 12.5%abv, Merlot 14.5%abv, and Cabernet Sauvignon 14%abv’.
The Mevushal push, from Royal wines, is continuing for the USA labels, a fact I wonder about more and more. Look, if you are going to force Mevushal wine down our throats, why not import BOTH? If you look at the numbers for wines like we will taste in the post, the majority of the buyers are not restaurants or caterers. Sorry! No matter how much Royal Wines wants to fool itself into thinking. Throw in COVID and FORGET about this INSANITY, please! I beg of you!
There is no denying that it affects the wine, it does. I have tasted the Chateau Le Crock side by side, the Mevushal, and non-Mevushal and while I feel that Royal does a good job with the boiling, it is still affected. If you want to have Mevushal wines in the USA, then bring them BOTH in! Royal does this for Capcanes Peraj Petita and the undrinkable Edom and others in Israel. So what Royal is saying is – that could not sell the Chateau Le Crock numbers that they import into the USA without boiling it? Why else would they feel forced to boil it and import it if not otherwise? To me, it makes me sad, and in a way, it disrespects what Royal is trying to do to its French wine portfolio, IMHO. They should, at minimum, import both! Allow for the caterers and restaurants (like anyone needs that nowadays – HUH???) to have the Mevushal version and sell the non-mevushal version to us, as you do with Edom and Petita. There I have stated my peace, I am 100% sure I will be ignored – but I have tried!
The Mevushal wines from France for the 2018/2019 vintage will be, the 2018 Barons Edmond et Benjamin de Rothschild, Haut-Medoc, 2018 Chateau Greysac, 2018 Chateau Chateau de Parsac, 2018 Les Lauriers, Des Domaines Edmond de Rothschild, 2018 Chateau Le Crock, 2019 Chateau Les Riganes, Red, 2018 Chateau Genlaire, along with the whites wines, the 2019 Bourgogne Les Truffieres, Chardonnay, the 2019 Les Marronniers, Chablis, and the 2019 Chateau Les Riganes, Blanc.
Now does mevushal impede the long-term viability of aging in regards to the wine? Well, that too is not something that we have scientific proof of. I have tasted a mevushal 1999 Herzog Special Edition and it was aging beautifully! So, would I buy the mevushal versions of the wines I tasted below – yes! Would I age them? Yes, I would hold them for slightly fewer years.
Other than the mevushal aspect, there are no differences between the European version of the wines and the USA version of the wines. While that sounds obvious, I am just stating it here. The wines will be shipped now and the temperature issues that affected Israel’s wines of old, have not been a factor here.
The “other” wines not here yet or I have not had
There is the just-released 2018 Château Cantenac Brown Margaux (will post that when I get it), along with these yet unreleased wines. The 2019 Chateau Gazin Blanc (2018 was/is INCREDIBLE), 2018 Chateau Fourcas Dupre, 2018 Château Meyney Saint Estèphe, 2018 Chateau Giscours, 2018 Chateau Lascombes, 2018 Chatyeau Tertre, and 2018 Chateau Royaumont.
I understand this is a sub-optimal situation and blog post. It does not cover Royal’s 2018/2019 European wine portfolio. Still, it covers what has been released (or very close to it), here in the USA, and hopefully, it will help you. One day soon, I hope and pray, things will return to some semblance of normalcy, and we will all travel around again. Until then, this is the best I can do. Stay safe!
Final comments, disclaimer, and warnings
First, there are a TON of QPR winners but there are also a LOT of good wines that I will be buying. Please NOTE vintages. The 20016 Haut Condissas is a disaster while the 2017 vintage is fantastic! So, please be careful!
These wines are widely available in the USA, so support your local wine stores folks – they need your help! If you live in a wine-drinking desert, like California, support the online/shipping folks on the side of this blog. They are folks I buy from (as always – I NEVER get a bonus/kickback for your purchases – NOT MY STYLE)!
Sadly, there was no plane trip, no hotels, no restaurants, nothing. So, no trip to talk about – just the wines and my lovely home! Stay safe all and here are the wines I have had so far. I have also posted many scores of 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018 wines which are still for sale here in the USA. My many thanks to Royal Wine for their help in procuring some of these wines. The wine notes follow below – the explanation of my “scores” can be found here:
Wine Musings Blog 