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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%)

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Posted in Kosher French Wine, Kosher Red Wine, Kosher Rose Wine, Kosher White Wine, Kosher Wine, Wine, Wine Tasting

Paris tasting of Royal Wine’s 2022 and 2023 Bordeaux and other French wines – January 2025

Feb 3

Posted by winemusings

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.

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Posted in Kosher Dessert Wine, Kosher French Wine, Kosher Red Wine, Kosher Sparkling Wine, Kosher White Wine, Kosher Wine, Wine, Wine Tasting

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Tags: 2022 Les Roches De Yon, Aloxe-Corton, Baron Edmond de Rothschild, Barons de Rothschild Edmond Benjamin, Blanc de Blanc, Brut, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cahors, Carte D'Or, Castillon Cotes de Bordeaux, Cave De Tain, Chateau Bellefont-Belcier, Chateau Bellevue, Chateau Clarke, Chateau d'Agassac, Chateau de Parsac, Chateau Fontenil, Chateau Fourcas Dupre, Chateau Gazin Rocquencourt, Chateau Giscours, Chateau Greysac, Chateau La Fleur, Chateau LaGrange, Chateau Larcis Jaumat, Chateau Le Crock, Chateau le Gay, Chateau le Rey, Chateau Leoville Poyferre, Chateau Les Riganes, Chateau Malartic Lagraviere, Chateau Malmaison, Chateau Meyney, Chateau Montviel, Chateau Moulin Riche, Chateau Piada, Chateau Pontet Canet, Chateau Romefort, Chateau Roubine, Chateau Royaumont, Chateau Saint-Corbian, Chateauneuf du Pape, Château Lascombes, Chevalier de Lascombes, Clos Triguedina, Crozes Hermitage, Cru Bourgeois, Demi-Sec, Domaine du Chateau Philippe le Hardi, Domaine Raymond Usseglio & Fils, Drappier, Grand Cras, J. de Villebois, La Maison Bleue, Lalande de Pomerol, Le Comte de Malartic, Les Champs Michaux, Les Lauriers, Les Marronniers Chablis, Les Rocheuses, Malbec, Malbec du Clos, Mercurey, Mercurey 1er Cru, Merlot, mevushal, Morgon, Pavillon de Leoville Poyferre, Petit Chablis, Probus, Red, Royal Wine, Sancerre, Silex, Vielles Vignes

Paris tasting of Royal’s 2021 and other French wines – November 2023

Jan 4

Posted by winemusings

With my last KFWE post, I have now caught up to my trip to Paris in November, which I think is awesome, because I was really behind! This was a multi-day tasting trip with Avi Davidowitz, from the Kosher Wine Unfiltered blog. It 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 organized wine tasting that Avi Davidowitz, from the Kosher Wine Unfiltered blog, and I went to, during our last trip to Paris, in November 2023 was with with Menahem Israelievitch in his lovely home.

In May I made my way to Paris and I posted the Royal wines I tasted, they were mostly white, rose, and a fair number of red wines as well. For the past many years, I have been tasting the new releases from Royal wines with Menahem Israelievitch. Two years ago, because of COVID-19, I tasted the 2018 vintage in my house. Thankfully, those days are over and things have mostly returned to normal.

The 2021 Vintage in Bordeaux

Vintage-wise, I think 2021 is a mess. I say that because that is the overall feeling I get from tasting the wines from Royal and countless other producers. The 2021 wines, on average, the poor wines, show in one of these three styles:

Thin-tasting wine that is overly green and has notes of Jalapeno and bell pepper
Medium-bodied wines that are horribly hollow and overpowering with their Jalapeno or sometimes cooked/candied Jalapeno notes
Over-ripe and candied cherry wine with green notes

Looking through this list of wine notes below, for the 2021 vintage, and the ones coming for the other wines we tasted from this vintage, you will see a pattern, low scores, and very few QPR WINNERS. Mr. Israelievitch and the team did a wonderful job with these wines given the product (aka the grapes) they had to work with. There are 6 QPR WINNERS here and some good wines.

In comparison, the 2020 vintage was OK, there were some clear WINNER wines, with the 2020 Pavillon de Leoville Poyferre and the 2020 Chateau Montviel. Though 2020 had 11 QPR WINNER wines. The truly great vintage 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.

The 2014 vintage to me, was crazy fun because it is less ripe than the 2015 or 2016 vintages. 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 it comes at a crazy high price. I warned you at that time, during the epic post of my visit to Bordeaux with Mr. Israelievitch, 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.

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.

NOTE: Mr. Israelievitch only had the Mevushal 2021 Chateau Gazin Rocquencourt Grand Vin, Blanc. I will have to wait until I return to Paris to taste the non-Mevushal as the USA imports only the Mevushal version.

Mevushal Wine Push

The Mevushal push, from Royal wines, is continuing for the USA labels. More wines are being made in a Mevushal manner and while I wonder if this is good overall for myself, it makes sense for Royal wines, which in the end, I guess is what matters to them. Will this be an issue? In the past, I have found that the mevushal work of Mr. Israelievitch is top-notch, and just ages the wine rather than ruining it. Sadly, that trend has been failing in recent years, especially when it involves white and rose wines. More and more the mevushal white and rose wines have shown a difference between the two variations, mostly in regards to acidity. I have no idea why the flash affects the acidity but it has been clear to me and the best example was the 2019 Gazin Rocquencourt, Blanc. The non-mevushal version is solid while the mevushal version was not.

So, once again, as I have been doing for YEARS, I will again ask Royal to treat their own, personally made French wines, with the same courtesy that they show Binyamina, Psagot, Capcanes, Shiloh, and others. Why are you OK with importing BOTH the mevushal and non-mevushal versions of wines that are not worthy of the glass they are in but are more than happy to throw a blind eye to wines you personally produce? The French wines deserve better and again, I AM ASKING for you to import BOTH the mevushal and non-mevushal versions as you do for so many other brands.

The Mevushal wines from France for the 2019/2020/2021 vintages will be the

2022 Les Marrionniers Chablis, Petit Chablis
2022 Les Marrionniers Chablis, Chablis
2022 Domaine J. de Villebois Pouilly-Fume
2022 Domaine de Panquelaine
2022 Domaine J. de Villebois Sancerre
2022 Chateau Les Riganes, Bordeaux
2022 Chateau Genlaire, Bordeaux Superieur
2021 Des Barons Edmond & Benjamin de Rothschild Les Lauriers, Montagne Saint-Emilion
2020/2021 Barons Edmond & Benjamin de Rothschild, Haut-Medoc
2019 Chateau Greysac, Medoc
2021 Chateau Le Crock, Saint-Estephe, Bordeaux
2020/2021 Chateau de Parsac
2021/2022 Chateau Les Riganes, Blanc
2019/2020 Chateau Mayne Guyon
2021 Chateau Tour Seran
2021 Pavillon de Leoville Poyferre
2021 Chateau Gazin Rocquencourt (Blanc and Red)
2021 Chevalier de Lascombes, Pessac-Leognan
2022 Clos Triguedina Malbec du Clos
2021 Chateau Lamothe-Bergeron
2021 Chateau Roubine Lion & Dragon, Red

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! Same with the Chateau Le Crock, over the past few years. So, would I buy the mevushal versions of the wines I tasted below? The answer is yes! Would I age them? Yes, I would hold them for slightly fewer years. To me personally, it is very clear, that if Royal had their way they would make the Pontet Canet Mevushal! Nothing to Royal is sacred and this will not stop with the list above, it will grow, proof is Chevalier and Gazin were made mevushal in 2019. Now Pavillon and others in 2021. I personally guess the next wines to be Mevushal will be Chateau Moulin Riche and Chateau Tertre, IMHO.

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.

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Posted in Kosher French Wine, Kosher Red Wine, Kosher White Wine, Kosher Wine, Wine, Wine Tasting

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Tags: Aurore de Dauzac, Baron Edmond de Rothschild, Blanc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cahors, Chateau Clarke, Chateau Dauzac, Chateau de Parsac, Chateau des Laurets, Chateau Fourcas Dupre, Chateau Gazin Rocquencourt, Chateau Giscours, Chateau Haut Condissas, Chateau LaGrange, Chateau Lamothe-Bergeron, Chateau Le Crock, Chateau Les Riganes, Chateau Montviel, Chateau Moulin Riche, Chateau Pontet Canet, Chateau Rollan de By, Chateau Royaumont, Chateau Tour Seran, Château Malmaison Baronne Nadine, Chevalier de Lascombes, Clos Triguedina, Domaine du Chateau Philippe le Hardi, Etoiles de Mondorion, Les Lauriers de Rothschild, Malbec, Merlot, Pavillon de Leoville Poyferre

Another round of QPR (Quality to Price Ratio) Hits and Misses, Twelve QPR WINNERS – Dec 2023

Dec 28

Posted by winemusings

First off, this is not the largest roundup I have written – there is a larger one from October 2021. Sadly, that one only had 6 QPR WINNERs. My last QPR post had a lot of wines as well, and it had 19 QPR WINNERs!

Also, we have a shockingly high number/percentage of EVEN QPR score wines, 26 to be exact. Either the price or the quality pushed them to this level. So, without further ado, the 50 wines I tasted over the past few months.

QPR (Quality to Price Ratio) Wines

It has been seven months since my last QPR (Quality to Price Ratio) post and many people have been emailing me about some unique wines I have tasted and some lovely wines that are worth writing about.

Thankfully, no matter how much garbage and pain I subject myself to, we are still blessed with several wonderful QPR wines out there. This post differs though, as we are back to having a large number of POOR/BAD/N.A. QPR wines. We have 12 QPR WINNER scores and 14 GOOD/GREAT scores. The rest, 24 out of the 50 wines tasted here fall into the EVEN/POOR/BAD/N.A. categories, which is unfortunate.

We have a SOLID list of QPR WINNERS:

2019 Chateau Teyssier, Saint-Emilion Grand Cru – Stunning wine especially for the price some of us paid, not yet available
2019 Tenuta Monchiero Barolo, Barolo _ lovely wine!
2021 Castellare di Castellina Chianti Classico
2021 Chateau Montviel, Pomerol – One of the two best mid-range Bordeaux
2022 ESSA Cabernet Franc, Hemel-en-Aarde Ridge
2023 Baron Edmond de Rothschild Rimapere, Marlborough
2022 ESSA Altira, Cape South Coast
2021 Chateau Royaumont (M) – One of the two best mid-range Bordeaux
2021 Capcanes La Flor Del Flor De Primavera, Montsant (M)
2001 Chateau Bel Air Gallier, Graves
2021 Lovatelli Barbera d’Asti
2021 Hans Wirsching Silvaner, Iphofer

There were also a few wines that were a slight step behind with a GREAT or GOOD QPR score:

2021 Chateau Moulin Riche, Saint-Julien
2022 Chateau Les Riganes Cabernet Franc, Bordeaux (M)
2022 Chateau Les Riganes Cabernet Sauvignon, Bordeaux (M)
2020 Binah Chambourcin, Reserve, Pennsylvania
2021 Chateau de Parsac, Montagne Saint-Emilion (M)
2021 Le Nardian, Bordeaux – lovely wine, but at 110 it is a GOOD
2020 Capcanes La Flor Del Flor De Primavera, Montsant
2021 Pavillon de Leoville Poyferre, Saint-Julien (M)
2020 Ramon Cardova Garnacha, Rioja (M)
2022 ESSA Malbec, Stellenbosch
2022 ESSA Cabernet Sauvignon, Franschhoek
2021 Pescaja Barbara D’asti (M)
2022 Chateau Les Riganes Merlot, Bordeaux (M)
2021 Binah Gruner Veltliner, Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania

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Posted in Israeli Wine, Kosher French Wine, Kosher Red Wine, Kosher Rose Wine, Kosher Sparkling Wine, Kosher White Wine, Kosher Wine, QPR Post, Wine

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Tags: Barbera D'Asti, Barolo, Baron Edmond de Rothschild, Binah, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Capcanes, Castellare di Castellina, Celeste, Chambourcin, Chateau Bel Air Gallier, Chateau de Parsac, Chateau Les Riganes, Chateau Montviel, Chateau Moulin Riche, Chateau Roubine, Chateau Royaumont, Chateau Teyssier, Château Malmaison Baronne Nadine, Chianti Classico, Domaine du Castel, Drappier, ESSA Wine Co., Flam Winery, Granacha, Gruner Veltliner, Hans Wirsching, Harkham Winery, La Flor del Flor de Primavera, Le Nardian, Lion & Dragon, Lovatelli, Malbec, Merlot, Nebbiolo, Pavillon de Leoville Poyferre, Pescaja, Petit Verdot, Ramon Cardova, Razi'el, Reserve, Rimapere, Saint-Emilion, Samso, Sauvignon Blanc, Semillon, Silvaner, Stella, Tenuta Monchiero, Terre Alfieri, Tuke, White Label

The Top 24 QPR Kosher Wine WINNERS of 2022

Jan 29

Posted by winemusings

In May 2020 I wanted to drive home the need for QPR (Quality to Price Ratio) wines. So I set out to create what I thought a QPR metric should be! Gone were arbitrary price ranges and such. Instead, I let the market define what the QPR price range should be. I did this by grouping the wines by their type (white, red, rose, sparkling, and dessert) and then further refined the grouping by ageability 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 2022.

Let us discuss the approach

I have heard from a few of you. I do not understand your QPR (Quality to Price Ratio) scoring. So, let us take another shot at this! Every time a customer comes into a shop or goes online to buy kosher wine they have a choice of a few thousand wines, online, or many hundreds in a store. The question is how does a buyer differentiate one wine from the next?

If they like Terra di Seta wines, as I do, and it costs 30 dollars then he/she will compare other wines to that wine, in regards to the wine and the price. That is the same for any wine they like and any wine they are looking at buying. Price matters! Now, the real question is how can you compare two wines to each other? Any two wines in the world of kosher wines? What characteristics can you use to compare them?

Let us say they like the 2018 Elvi Wines Clos Mesorah, the 2022 wine of the year (AKA best-priced QPR wine). It is a red wine from Montsant, Spain. OK, what other wine can you compare with it? You can compare other Montsant kosher wines, like the Cellar Capcanes wines. However, the Cellar Capcanes wines have an issue – they have been poor for many years! As the ratio states it is QUALITY to price! Quality is primary; once you have a good wine, you can attempt to compare it with similarly good wines.

OK, so we need equal or comparably equal quality and that is it??? So, let us say there exists a rose from Montsant that scores the same quality score as Clos Mesorah are they comparable? What about a white wine – same? Can/should compare them? I will tell you that no one would act in such a manner. People will compare items. OK, so are we then forced to compare Montsant wines with Montsant wines – again I will tell you no! People will compare like-scored red wines with like-scored red wines.

OK, but what is “like” – that is the body of work that my QPR approach works to answer. If you agree that people will attempt to compare items that are similar in nature but not locale, region, or price, what is that characteristic that they will use to compare two arbitrary kosher wines? Price IS NOT the answer.

So, let us recap – we have two similarly scored wines (AKA quality) but they are very different in many ways. Let us look at three of the wines below, two of which are from the greater Medoc region:

2020 Chateau Clarke, Baron Edmond de Rothschild, Listrac-Medoc – Score: 92.5 (QPR: WINNER)
Drink from 2025 until 2032. (tasted November 2022) (in Paris, France) (ABV = 13.5%)
2020 Chateau Fourcas Dupre, Listrac – Medoc – Score: 92.5 (QPR: WINNER)
Drink from 2024 until 2035. (tasted November 2022) (in Paris, France) (ABV = 12.5%)
2019 Chateau Royaumont, Lalande de Pomerol – Score: 92.5 (QPR: WINNER)
Drink from 2024 until 2032. (tasted December 2022) (in San Jose, CA) (ABV = 15%)

These wine price from 38 dollars to 55 dollars. The question you need to ask is are they comparable? I would state they are and I would further state that wine buyers compare them every time they read my lists and other lists that like these wines. Again, the primary requirement is quality – and these all scored the same quality score.

So, next, would you at least compare two Listrac-Medoc wines to each other? The Chateau Fourcas Dupre and the Chateau Clarke? I would say yes for sure. Well, why is the Royaumont any different? They are very different wines, of course, but in the end, what do oenophiles buy such wines for?? To store them and share them at a later date, meaning that wine buyers classify wines by regions but ultimately they classify them by their ability to age gracefully or not! Meaning some wines age beautifully and many are good to enjoy in the coming years.

So, now you see the logic to the categories I use to compare wines – this is the list once again:

Drink “soon” White Wine (Simple whites)
Rose Wine (always drink soon)
Drink “soon” Red Wine (Simple reds)
Mid-range aging Reds (4 to 11 years)
High-end Red wines (11 and more years)
High-end White wines (7 and more years)
Sparkling Wine (No need here for extra differentiation)
Dessert Wine

Essentially, ignoring sparkling, rose, and dessert wines, there is white wine and red wine. Each of those two major categories is broken into their age-ability. Red wines have three age ranges while white wine has two. Then there are the other three aforementioned groups, rose, sparkling, and dessert wines.

Once you have scored a wine – IRRELEVANT to the price – this is KEY you are then required to place that wine into one of the 8 categories listed above. Once you have done that any wine in that category is available for comparison. Using the median approach wines are stacked and ranked by their price, within that category, and some rise above others, by having an equal or better quality for a lower or equal price. Please read more about this here and here.

The Summary

This year, the list came to a total of 24 names, and none had to dip below 92+ in the scores, which is a large number and better scores overall than last year, but again, the pool from where they are culled continues to grow, and the diamonds in the rough are getting harder and harder to find. There are 24 or so WINNER that scored 92+ this year but not in a single area.

Like last year, we return with QPR for France, the prices for many wines there, are dirt cheap! There is also QPR for the USA, which is the default. Finally, some wines are QPR here in the USA but not in France.

Of course, the first wine on the list is the 2022 Wine of the year! Elvi Wines is a perennial producer of QPR WINNER wines and a most deserving winner of the 2021 Winery of the year!

Maybe, Avi Davidowitz, from kosher wine unfiltered, can create a list like that for Israel, this year, a bunch of wines became available there, and a proper QPR list would be worthwhile!

The wines on the list this year are all available here in the USA, and in Europe, and a few can be found in Israel, as well. The wine notes follow below – the explanation of my “scores” can be found here and the explanation for QPR scores can be found here:

2018 Clos Mesorah, Montsant – Score: 94 (QPR: WINNER)
The nose of this wine shows more black fruit than the 2019 vintage, with lovely blackberry, smoke, root beer, and roasted animal, more than 2019, with some red fruit, a bit bluer, with white and pink flowers that emerge after time, raspberry, and mineral. The mouth on this full-bodied wine is rich, layered, elegant, and a bit riper than 2019, with rich salinity, sweet oak, black olives, blackberry, plum, boysenberry, root beer, dark currants, anise, and rich mouthfeel and fruit structure, that gives way to saline, roasted herbs, and graphite. The finish is long, dark, brooding, smoky, earthy, forest floor, and blackcurrants, with dirt, loam, clay, leather, and rich spices. Bravo!! Drink from 2027 until 2036. (tasted November 2021) (in Montsant, Spain) (ABV = 15.5%)

2020 Château Olivier Grand Cru Classe, Pessac-Léognan – Score: 94 (QPR: WINNER (France), GOOD (USA))
The nose of this wine is quite nice, a wine I would drink, with a bit of soy sauce, rich salinity, mushroom, earthy, and dirty, like a rich and redolent mud pen, with a bit of heat, and lovely smoke. With time, the heat drops off, ripe, muddy, mushroom haven, lovely! The mouth of the full-bodied wine is dense, layered, rich, and concentrated, with rich extraction, dark and brooding, with juicy blackberry, ripe strawberry, mushroom, forest floor, wet leaves, rich salinity, soy sauce, umami, just a fun, ripe, savory, and dirty wine. The finish is long, dark, and brooding, but well controlled, one of those rare ripe/dirty/earthy controlled monsters, with dense minerality, scraping graphite, ripe fruit, and leather, Bravo! Drink until 2035. (tasted November 2022) (in Paris, France) (ABV = 14.5%)

2019 Chateau Tour Seran, Medoc – Score: 94 (QPR: WINNER (France))
This is one of the best wines of our blind tastings here in the hotel. The nose of this wine is lovely, and perfectly balanced, with licorice, smoke, black and red fruit, char, toasty oak, loam, lovely mushroom (that comes out after a few hours), and forest floor. The mouth of this full-bodied wine is dense, ripe, layered, and rich with good acidity, richly extracted, but savory, not overly ripe, a real joy, with blackberry, ripe raspberry, currants, dense loam, forest floor, with scraping minerality, graphite, tar, and rock, this is too much fun! The finish is long, and mineral-driven, with good fruit focus, great graphite, and rock. Drink until 2036. (tasted November 2022) (in Paris, France) (ABV = 14%)

2019 Clos Mesorah, Montsant – Score: 93.5 (QPR: WINNER)
This wine is beautiful with lovely floral notes of rosehip, violet, tisane tea, and red and blue fruit, with roasted herb, smoke, roasted animal, rhubarb, dried cherry, and lovely forest floor notes. The mouth on this medium-plus bodied wine is lovely with screaming acidity, lovely dark raspberry, plum, tart currant, mouth-draping tannin, rhubarb, dark cherry, with lovely green notes, rich saline, mineral, spice, roasted herb, lovely blackberry, smoke, and rich graphite. The finish is long, green ripe, blackberry, with saline, smoke, blueberry, leather, cloves, cinnamon, and sweet oak, bravo!!! Drink from 2026 until 2034. (tasted November 2021) (in Montsant, Spain) (ABV = 15.5%)

2020 Chateau Lafon-Rochet, Saint-Estephe – Score: 93.5 (QPR: WINNER (FRANCE), USA(EVEN))
This wine is a blend of 55% Cabernet Sauvignon & 45% Merlot.
The nose of this wine is a less ripe wine, with savory notes, lovely green and red fruit, elegant redolence, minerality, lovely iron shavings graphite, beautiful pencil shavings, with incredible raspberry, cherry, and rich smoke. The mouth of this medium-bodied wine is lovely, elegant, extracted, rich, and beautiful with ripe and juicy cherry, elegant tart/juicy raspberry, beautiful smoke, intense and elegant charcoal/graphite, just lovely, with red fruit, loam, and mouth-scraping tannin. The finish is long, red, ripe, and smoky, with great tobacco, rosemary, savory notes, dark chocolate, loam, leather, and lovely smoke. Drink from 2023 until 2033. (tasted November 2022) (in Paris, France) (ABV = 13%)

2016 ElviWines Herenza Rioja, Reserva, Rioja – Score: 93.5 (QPR: WINNER)
This is what I crave in wine – balance, complexity, elegance, and all bottled for a price that makes it a WINNER! The nose of this wine is beautiful, balanced, complex, and lighter than 2014, but still bold, rich, and expressive, soy sauce, umami, rich mushroom, loam, spices, blue and red fruit, and sweet anise, lovely! The mouth on this medium-bodied wine is not as bold as the 2014 and it starts a bit ripe, with time the wine opens to show balance, dark blueberry, plum, candied/spiced raspberry, and rich sweet spices give way to a mouth-draping elegance, sweet tannin, plush mouthfeel, and rich loam, clay, and earth, beautiful. The finish is long, and balanced, with leather, sweet tobacco, root beer, sweet baking spices, cloves, cinnamon, sweet cedar, dark chocolate, and rich searing acidity that brings this wine altogether. Bravo!! Another smash! Drink from 2024 until 2032. (tasted November 2021) (in Montsant, Spain) (ABV = 14.5%)

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Posted in Kosher French Wine, Kosher Red Wine, Kosher White Wine, Kosher Wine, QPR Post, Wine

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Tags: Anthony Girard, Chalk Hill, Chateau Castelbruck, Chateau Clarke, Chateau Clement-Pichon, Chateau Fourcas Dupre, Chateau Labegorce, Chateau Lafon Rochet, Chateau Montviel, Chateau Olivier, Chateau Royaumont, Chateau Tour Seran, Chianti Classico, Clos Lavaud, Clos Mesorah, Covenant Winery, Domaine du Chateau Philippe le Hardi, Echo de Roses Camille, Elviwines, Gevrey Chambertin, Herenza Reserva, Herzog Cellars Winery, Lake County, L’indiscrete, Le Hurevent, Les Crais, Pavillon de Leoville Poyferre, QPR, Riserva, Sancerre, Solomon Blanc, Special Edition, Special Reserve, Terra di Seta, top kosher wines, Vignobles Mayard

Paris tasting of Royal’s 2020 and other French wines – November 2022

Jan 5

Posted by winemusings

The second organized wine tasting that Avi Davidowitz, from the Kosher Wine Unfiltered blog, and I went to, during our last trip to Paris, in November 2022 was with with Menahem Israelievitch in his lovely home.

In June I made my way to Paris and I posted the Royal wines I tasted, they were mostly white, rose, and a few red wines as well. For the past many years, I have been tasting the new releases from Royal wines with Menahem Israelievitch. Two years ago, because of COVID, I tasted the 2018 vintage in my house. Thankfully, those days are over and things have mostly returned to normal.

Vintage-wise, I think 2020 is like a blend of 2016 and 2017. I say that because some of the wines are riper than I like and some are green like we saw in many 2017 wines. You will see here that some of the wines are overripe and some are very green, while others are in between. There are still WINNERS, but they are not as many big-hit WINNERS. Meaning, even the WINNERs are not getting big scores. It is just one of those vintages. I have very little hope for the 2021 vintage and even 2020 is not a vintage I will fully stock up on.

We were spoiled last year with the 2019 vintage for two reasons. First of all, the 2019 vintage was on par, if not a drop better than the 2014 vintage, which had the largest number of 95+ scored wines in a vintage, that was until 2019. 2019 eclipsed the 2014 vintage with higher scores and it had lower prices. No, not lower than the 2014 prices, but lower than the 2018 prices were. Now, the 2020 wines are not as good as the 2019 and they are all higher in price.

NOTE: Mr. Israelievitch did not have the 2019 Barons Edmond & Benjamin de Rothschild, Haut-Medoc nor the 2021 Chateau Roubine Rose, Inspire. Such is life! I tasted the Edmond at home and posted it here, sadly I have yet to taste the 2021 Roubine Inspire.

Mevushal Wine Push

The Mevushal push, from Royal wines, is continuing for the USA labels. More wines are being made in a Mevushal manner and while I wonder if this is good overall for myself, it makes sense for Royal wines, which in the end, I guess is what matters to them. Will this be an issue? In the past, I have found that the mevushal work of Mr. Israelievitch is top-notch, and just ages the wine rather than ruining it. Sadly, that trend has been failing in recent years, especially when it involves white and rose wines. More and more the mevushal white and rose wines have shown a huge difference between the two variations, mostly in regards to acidity. I have no idea why the flash affects the acidity but it has been clear to me and the worst/saddest example was the 2019 Gazin Rocquencourt, Blanc. The non-mevushal version is stunning while the mevushal version was not.

The Mevushal wines from France for the 2019/2020/2021 vintages will be the

2020/2021 Les Marrionniers Chablis, Chablis
2020 Les Roches De Yon Figeac (this is the first time for the RYF)
2020/2021 Chateau Les Riganes, Bordeaux
2020/2021 Chateau Genlaire, Bordeaux Superieur
2019/2020 Des Barons Edmond & Benjamin de Rothschild Les Lauriers, Montagne Saint-Emilion
2019 Barons Edmond & Benjamin de Rothschild, Haut-Medoc
2019 Chateau Greysac, Medoc
2019 Chateau Le Crock, Saint-Estephe, Bordeaux
2019/2020 Chateau de Parsac
2020/2021 Chateau Les Riganes, Blanc
2019/2020 Chateau Mayne Guyon
2019 Chateau Tour Seran

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 on. I have tasted a mevushal 1999 Herzog Special Edition and it was aging beautifully! Same with the Chateau Le Crock, over the past few years. So, would I buy the mevushal versions of the wines I tasted below? The answer is yes! Would I age them? Yes, I would hold them for slightly fewer years. To me personally, it is very clear, if Royal had their way they would make the Pontet Canet Mevushal! Nothing to Royal is sacred and this will not stop with the list above, it will grow, proof is Chevalier and Gazin were made mevushal in 2019. There were rumors that they were going to make the 2020 Pavillon mevushal, thankfully that turned out to be a false alarm, for now.

The 2020 Pricing and access

I posted my 2019 notes, from the tasting we had last year, when most of the wines were already in the USA and pricing was well known. The prices are now known for the 2020 vintages as well and they are higher than the 2019 wines, of course, and they are higher than the 2018 wines as well!

The 2020 Chateau Pontet Canet and the 2020 Chateau Leoville Poyferre will be higher than they have ever been, though probably not as high as the 2020 Château Angelus Carillon de l’Angélus. Chateau Giscour is also going up in price as is the Chateau Malartic Blanc, so yeah, higher!

In terms of access – sure enough, all the Pontet Canet sold-out in one day from Royal and each store is being given tiny allocations. This leaves us begging for wine and paying 300+ a bottle at the door! Classic madness and FOMO. Such is life!

Tasting in Paris

It is always a joy and honor to do our yearly tasting with Menahem Israelievitch. His care, love, and true joy in sharing the wines he creates for Royal Wines, even with folks like us, is a true testament to his professionalism.

My many thanks to Menahem Israelievitch for going out of his way to help me to taste all the current French wines from Royal Wines before they were publicly released. It was truly an inopportune time for Mr. Israelievitch and his family to have the tasting and I truly thank him and his family and wish them only happiness and success in the coming years.

The wine notes follow below – the explanation of my “scores” can be found here and the explanation for QPR scores can be found here:

2021 Chateau Roubine Rose, Lion & Dragon, Cotes de Provence – Score: 91 (QPR: GREAT)
The nose of this rose is classic with strawberry and creme, rich salinity, peach, orange blossom, and lovely smoke. The mouth of this medium-plus-bodied wine is nicer than the previous vintage, the second vintage here is showing better than 2020, and has more balance as well, with good acidity, nice fruit focus, less oak influence, with nice peach, apricot, strawberry, good salinity, nice minerality, and smoke. The finish is long, smoky, tart, and refreshing, with good acidity and salinity, and flint. Nice! Drink now. (tasted November 2022) (in Paris, France) (ABV = 13%)

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Posted in Kosher Dessert Wine, Kosher French Wine, Kosher Red Wine, Kosher Rose Wine, Kosher White Wine, Kosher Wine, Wine, Wine Tasting

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Tags: 2nd Grand Cru Classe du Medoc en 1855, Baron Edmond de Rothschild, Barons de Rothschild Edmond Benjamin, Blanc, Chateau Bellefont-Belcier, Chateau Clarke, Chateau de Parsac, Chateau des Laurets, Chateau Fourcas Dupre, Chateau Giscours, Chateau Greysac, Chateau Larcis Jaumat, Chateau Le Crock, Chateau Leoville Poyferre, Chateau Les Riganes, Chateau Malartic Lagraviere, Chateau Mayne Guyon, Chateau Montviel, Chateau Piada, Chateau Pontet Canet, Chateau Roubine, Chateau Signac, Chateau Trijet, Château Lascombes, de Yon Figeac, Grand Cru, Grand Cru Classe de Graves, Grand Cru Classe en 1855, J de Villebois, Les Lauriers de Rothschild, Les Marronniers Chablis, Les Roches, Lion & Dragon, Pavillon de Leoville Poyferre, Premier Cru, Reserve, Saint-Emilion Grand Cru Classe, Sancerre, Silex

Finishing my tasting of Royal Wine’s 2018 French wines in California

Jul 1

Posted by winemusings

I know some of you are hoping for posts from my trip to France. However, I need to clean-up some missing posts, I have a lot of wine that needed to be posted and now I will do those quickly. After that I will start posting the wines I tasted in France.

So, back in November 2020, I did a tasting at my home to taste the 2018 wines from Royal, at least the ones that were here in the USA at that time. I will skip much of the text that I wrote then, but I will repost all the 2018 notes, to make it complete. Remember, all my notes have tasting dates on them.

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’.

Final comments, disclaimer, and warnings

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)!

Again, I am just posting the 2018 reds and a couple of other wines that have changed in a good and bad way. 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:

2018 Les Marronniers Chablis (M) – Score: 88 (QPR: EVEN)
Sadly, as I continue to watch this wine evolve I feel it is not a wine that I will stock up on. This and the 1er Cru, sadly. The reason is that the wine keeps losing acidity as it ages. We opened the wine on Friday afternoon, and even then it had turned, and by Shabbat morning the acidity was far removed from where it was on Friday and that feels further removed from my notes and memories.
This wine is made with native yeasts and as little manipulation as possible. The nose on this wine is beautiful with orange blossom, yellow apple, and rosehip, with lemon curd, and yeasty and creamy notes. The mouth was lovely in the past, at this point, it has moved even further. The mouth on this medium-bodied wine is not as acidic as in the past and it is time to drink, sweet Meyer lemon, quince, pie crust, with Anjou pear, and nice peach. The finish is a bit short, with baked pear and apple, cinnamon, nutmeg, some mineral, and now the fruit is showing sweeter. Drink now. (tasted March 2021)

2018 Les Marronniers Chablis, Premier Cru, Cote de Jouan – Score: 88 (QPR: POOR)
Sadly, as I continue to watch this wine evolve I feel it is not a wine that I will stock up on. This and the 1er Cru, sadly. The reason is that the wine keeps losing acidity as it ages. We opened the wine on Friday afternoon, and even then it had turned, and by Shabbat morning the acidity was far removed from where it was on Friday and that feels further removed from my notes and memories.
The nose on this wine still shows floral notes, starting with rosehip and yellow flowers, followed by some minerals, slate, blossom water, apple, and smoke. The mouth on this medium-bodied wine is where things have gone wrong, with a bit of weight at this time, yellow apple, some citrus, Asian Pear, nice peach/apricot, Orange pith, hints of nectarines and orange. Sadly, as I state above the acidity slows early and leaves in a few hours, so while I loved the wine at release, it is not for long holding. Drink now. (tasted March 2021)

Red Wines ordered by Vintage and QPR

2018 Chateau Le Crock, Saint-Estephe (M) – Score: 93 (QPR: WINNER)
The nose on this wine, is deep dark beautiful notes of black and red fruit, with rich salinity, mineral galore, with lovely tar, smoke, and what I crave from French wine – DIRT, DIRT, and more dirt! The nose is lovely, with green notes lurking in the background, and lovely licorice.
So, while I have been unhappy with the 2018 vintage so far, this wine returns my hope for the vintage, this wine is better than 2016, and that IS SAYING a lot!
This wine is a blend of 72% Cabernet Sauvignon, 22% Merlot, and 6% Cabernet Franc. The 2018 vintage has more Cab in it and it smells blacker than 2016 in many more ways than just that. Lovely wine! The blueberry of the past is gone and all you get is this intense earth, dirt, smoke, along with some shockingly beautiful violet, black and red fruit bonanza, with ripples of minerality through it – bravo and this is the Mevushal version!
The mouth on this full-bodied beast is impressive, with rich extraction, like in 2016, deeply concentrated, yet with lovely finesse and elegance, showing a richness that belies its youth, with blackberry, dark, yet controlled, plum, dark raspberry, earth, cherry, smoke, and a mouth draping elegance in the tannin structure that is impressive for its youth, with a lovely plushness, with deep furrows of graphite, saline, and rock. The finish is long, not so green, there is a few green notes, more in the way of tobacco than in the way of foliage, but here the finish is about the dirt, loam, forest floor, smoke, and dark chocolate, with hints of oak, with crazy acidity, leather, all wrapped in roasted herbs that linger long and forever. Bravo!!! This is the best Chateau Le Crock, I have ever tasted, at least in regards to the Mevushal version! Drink from 2025 until 2037. Incredible! (tasted Nov 2020)

2018 Chateau Royaumont, Grand Vin Bordeaux – Score: 93 (QPR: WINNER)
This wine is a blend of 70% Merlot & 30% Cabernet Franc. The nose on this wine is balanced, though a bit ripe, with bright fruit, ripe plum, dark cherry, anise, menthol, tobacco, with green notes from the Cabernet Franc, foliage, smoke, and slightly burnt oak. The mouth on this full-bodied wine is well-balanced, with loads of fruit to start, layered, concentrated, plush, with screaming acid, black raspberry, plum, smoke, oak, rich fruit, nice saline, good dirt, earth, black pepper, with ripe fruit, and loads of mouth draping tannin. The finish is long, ripe, with loads of sweet chewing tobacco, dark chocolate almost milky, with more earth, graphite, and smoke galore. Nice! Drink from 2028 until 2034. (tasted May 2021)

2018 Chateau Fourcas Dupre, Listrac-Medoc – Score: 92+ (QPR: WINNER)
This wine is a blend of 44% each Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, with 10% Cabernet Franc and 2% Petit Verdot. The nose on this wine is ripe, scary ripe, but under a blanket of dirt, earth, smoke, more ripe fruit, mushroom, forest floor, and earth, wow! The mouth on this medium-bodied wine is lovely, rich, layered, elegant, but ripe, but the ripeness is balanced well by the acidity, with incredible dirt, along with floral notes, blackberry, currant, plum, and rich salinity, with dark chocolate, smoke, and rich loam, acid galore, and smoke. The finish is long, green, black, and mineral-driven, with loads of scrapping graphite, dirt, and foliage, wow! Bravo!! Drink from 2026 until 2033. (tasted January 2021)

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Posted in Kosher Dessert Wine, Kosher French Wine, Kosher Red Wine, Kosher White Wine, Kosher Wine, Wine, Wine Tasting

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Tags: 1er Cru, 2018 Chateau Fontenil, Baron Edmond de Rothschild, Chateau Cantenac Brown, Chateau Clarke, Chateau Du Tertre, Chateau Fourcas Dupre, Chateau Giscours, Chateau Guiraud, Chateau Le Crock, Chateau Malartic Lagraviere, Chateau Meyney, Chateau Montviel, Chateau Piada, Chateau Rayne Vigneau, Chateau Royaumont, Château Grand-Puy Ducasse, Château Lascombes, Fronsac, Les Marronniers Chablis, Listrac-Medoc, Pavillon de Leoville Poyferre, Petit Guiraud, Pomerol, Royal Wine, Saint-Estephe, Saint-Julien

My top 25 kosher wines of 2020 including Wine of the Year, Winery of the Year, and the best Wine of the Year awards

Jan 20

Posted by winemusings

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)

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Posted in Kosher French Wine, Kosher Red Wine, Kosher Sparkling Wine, Kosher White Wine, Wine

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Tags: Alexander Valley, Arneis, Assai, Blanc de Blanc, Brut, Cabernet Sauvignon, Chablis, Chalk Hill, Chateau Cantenac Brown, Chateau de Santenay, Chateau Guiraud, Chateau Haut Breton Larigaudiere, Chateau Haut Condissas, Chateau Lafon Rochet, Chateau Le Crock, Chateau Pavillon de Leoville Poyferre, Chateau Piada, Château Marquisat de Binet, Chianti Classico, Clone Six, Clos Lavaud, Clos Mesorah, Cuvee Abel, Dampt Freres, Domaine Netofa, Eagle's Landing, Echo de Roses Camille, el26, Elviwines, Forebearers, Four Gates Winery, Gevrey Chambertin, Gran Selezione, Grand Cru, Herzog Cellars Winery, Jean-Philippe Marchand, Kos Yeshuos, Latour, Margaux, Mercurey, Merlot, Meursault, Nuits Saint Georges, Pavillon de Leoville Poyferre, Pescaja, Pinot Noir, Premier Cru, Priorat, Special Edition, Special Reserve, Terra di Seta, Terre Alfieri, top kosher wines, Viognier, Volnay, Yarden Winery

Tasting of Royal Wine’s 2018 and some 2019 French wines in California

Nov 23

Posted by winemusings

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.

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.

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!

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:

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Posted in Kosher French Wine, Kosher Red Wine, Kosher Semi Sweet Wine, Kosher White Wine, Kosher Wine, Wine, Wine Tasting

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Tags: 2018 Chateau Fontenil, Baron Edmond de Rothschild, Barons de Rothschild Edmond Benjamin, Blanc, Blaye, Chablis, Chateau Clarke, Chateau D'Arveyres, Chateau de Parsac, Chateau de Santenay, Chateau Du Tertre, Chateau Fourcas Dupre, Chateau Gazin Rocquencourt, Chateau Genlaire, Chateau Giscours, Chateau Greysac, Chateau Guiraud, Chateau Haut Condissas, Chateau La Clare, Chateau La Petit Chaban, Chateau La Tonnelle, Chateau Lamothe-Cissac, Chateau Le Crock, Chateau Leoville Poyferre, Chateau Les Riganes, Chateau Malartic Lagraviere, Chateau Mayne Guyon, Chateau Montviel, Chateau Moulin Riche, Chateau Piada, Chateau Rollan de By, Chateau Royaumont, Chateau Saint-Corbian, Chateau Signac, Chateau Tour Seran, Château Lascombes, Chevalier de Lascombes, Cote de Jouan, Coteaux du Giennois, Cotes Du Rhone, Domaine de Panquelaine, Domaine Ternynck Bourgogne, Fronsac, Grand Cru, Grand Cru Classe, Haut-Medoc, Jean-Pierre Bailly, Lalande de Pomerol, Le Classique, Les Bois de Lalier, Les Lauriers, Les Marronniers Chablis, Les Roches, Les Truffieres, Limited Edition, Listrac-Medoc, Margaux, Medoc, Mercurey, mevushal, Montagne-St-Emilion, Old Vines, Pascal Bouchard, Pavillon de Leoville Poyferre, Pessac-Leognan, Petit Guiraud, Pliocene, Pomerol, Pouilly-Fume, Premier Cru, Premier Grand Cru Classe, Prestige, QPR, Ramon Cardova, Rioja, Saint-Emilion, Saint-Estephe, Saint-Julien, Sancerre, Sauternes, Sauvignon Blanc, Sec

My top 25 kosher wines of 2018 including wine of the year and best wine of the year awards

Jan 2

Posted by winemusings

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 93 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 best wines I tasted this year – they are at the bottom.

We are returning with the “wine of the year”, and “best wine of the year”. Wine of the year will go 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. This year, it is one of the QPR Kings of 2018. Yes, last year, we had a single QPR King, this year, there are a few. Why? Because as I will discuss in my year in review, 2018 was about having more solid wines than having GREAT wines. Sure there is a clear Best wine of the year, which is revealed below, but 2018 will be remembered for having MANY very enjoyable wines, rather than a few GREAt wines.

Also, yes, the Wine of the year and the Best wine of the year, both made by Royal wines, such is life, and I could care less for the most part.

Again, the list is missing wines I have yet to taste, like the 2015/2016 Chateau Pape Clement, which I am sure would have been on this list if I had tasted them. 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 – blame that on the poor crop or rose wines overall, they did not even crack the interesting list. Also, this year, we were given a bounty of top wines and finding the list this year was really a task of removing then adding.

The supreme bounty comes from the fact that Royal released the 2015 and 2016 French Grand Vin 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. Thankfully, we had Domaine Netofa and Yaccov Oryah Wines to come to the rescue. On top of that, we had another EPIC year for 2016 Herzog Chardonnay, Reserve, Russian River. This year, quite deservedly, it cracked the top 25 wines of the year! The new Chablis is also nice, but the winner in the “very close” section has to be the 2016 Koenig Riesling – Bravo guys!

Some of these wines are available in the USA, some only in Europe, and a few only available in Israel.

The 2018 kosher wine of the year – we have a TIE!

This one was a NOT a no-brainer to me this year. It was really hard. I wanted to give it to the 2016 Chateau Larcis Jaumat, Saint-Emilion Grand Cru, straight up, but it is already sold out, between me and Gabriel Geller, we sold that wine out in no time. So, instead, we will share the winner with the almost impossible to find, aforementioned Larcis Jaumat, along with another from Europe, the 2015 Cantina Terra di Seta Chianti Classico, which is also QPR superstar as well! Congratulations to Cantina Terra di Seta and Royal Wines, and to Chateau Larcis Jaumat, along with an elevated nod of the chapeau to Menahem Israelievitch for finding and curating this wonderful QPR winery tucked into a corner of Saint-Emilion! Bravo!

2016 Chateau Larcis Jaumat, Saint-Emilion Grand Cru – Score: 92 (Crazy QPR)
This wine starts off open and then closes so tight like an oil drum, this thing is nuts. The wine is made of 90% Merlot and 10% Cabernet Franc, a classic right bank wine from Saint-Emilion. The nose on this wine is really bright, ripe, and intense, with rich intensity, mushroom, earth, but so much redolence, the nose is far more open than the mouth, showing rich blackberry, dark plum, and rich vanilla, followed by herb, mint, rosemary, and green notes galore. The mouth on this medium to full-bodied wine is crazy rich, it does at times remind me of Benyo’s Merlots with a fair amount of blackcurrant thrown in, which is never found on Benyo wines, but the mad acid, rich mouthfeel, closed tight fruit structure has me reminded often of a Four Gates wine, with intense notes, they scream because of the acid, that gives way to rich tannin structure that is searing and yet inviting, with rich cranberry, cherry, and crazy earth, that will give way to mushroom and forest floor with time. The finish is long, really long, lingering, and intense, with gripping tannin, acid, tobacco galore, mounds of blackcurrant, vanilla, herb, foliage, and green notes, that give way to a gripping mouthfeel that will crush anything, with tar, menthol, and more earth. OMG, this Benyo in France! Wow!! Drink from 2021 to 2030.

2015 Terra di Seta Chianti Classico – Score: 92
The nose on this wine is ripe, at first, the wine starts off with heat, but that blows off, but it is also well balanced, with lovely earth, mineral, dirt, with dark cherry, coffee, and lovely dark fruit. The mouth on this medium to full-bodied wine is beautiful, complex, well layered, with rich concentration, nice extraction, all balanced and plush, with rich blackberry, currant, lovely mouth draping tannin, with lovely foliage, and some nice earthy and fruit bite. With time, it shows its ripeness, but also intense minerality, saline, graphite galore, and lovely tannin structure. The finish is long, green, and ripe but balanced, with lovely acid, great texture, that gives way to more coffee, graphite, scarping mineral, and light almond bitterness on the long finish. Bravo!! Drink 2019 to 2023.

The 2018 best kosher wine of the year!

This one was really tough. First of all, the one I chose is not available yet for purchase in the USA. Also, in terms of score, it did not beat out the 2016 Chateau Giscours, 2016 Chateau Lascombes, 2016 Chateau Du Tertre, Margaux, 2016 Chateau Montviel, or 2014 Chateau Tour Seran, Medoc (NOT Mevushal), or the 2014 Chateau Cantenac Brown, which I somehow missed from last year’s top wines. In the end – for its sheer awesomeness it beat out a very crowded field. In the end, the winner of the BEST kosher wine of 2018 goes to the 2016 Chateau Malartic, and it deserves the crown – bravo!!

2016 Chateau Malartic Lagraviere, Pessac-Leognan, Grand Cru Classe – Score: 94
The 2016 Malartic-Lagraviere is a blend of 53% Cabernet Sauvignon, 40% Merlot, 4% Cabernet Franc and 3% Petit Verdot (at least in the non-kosher version). Wow, the nose is really ripe, not what I expect from a Malartic, but still lovely, with chocolate, black fruit, earth, and lovely hints of umami, with sweet oak, earth, and sweet blue fruit. The mouth on this full bodied wine is rich, layered, and concentrated with nice control, expressive, with blackberry, blueberry, and what a change, Malartic with blueberry! Showing more raspberry, earth, and rich fruit, with a truly incredible plushness, that gives way to a rich mouth coating tannin that drapes and lifts the mouth, showing a precision, and an incredible professional touch, with plush fruit, loam, and lovely saline. The finish is long, and plush, with more blue, green, and red fruit, with leather, and power that belies its youth, a wine that will push long into its life, with tannin, licorice, and graphite/mineral that lingers long, Bravo!! Drink from 2025 until 2035. Read the rest of this entry →

Posted in Israeli Wine, Kosher Dessert Wine, Kosher French Wine, Kosher Red Wine, Kosher Sparkling Wine, Kosher White Wine, Kosher Wine, Wine

17 Comments

Tags: Albarino, Assai, Baron Edmond de Rothschild, Carmel Winery, Chardonnay, Chateau Cantenac Brown, Chateau Clarke, Chateau Du Tertre, Chateau Giscours, Chateau Grand Barrail, Chateau Guimberteau, Chateau Guiraud, Chateau Haut-Brisson, Chateau Labegorce, Chateau Larcis Jaumat, Chateau Le Crock, Chateau Malartic Lagraviere, Chateau Montviel, Chateau Pavillon de Leoville Poyferre, Chateau Peyrat-Fourthon, Chateau Tour Saint Christophe, Chateau Tour Seran, Chateau Yon-Figeac, Château Lascombes, Chianti Classico, Clos Mesorah, Crement d'Alsace, Cuvee Albert, Domaine du Castel, Domaine Netofa, Drappier, Elviwines, grand vin, Herzog Cellars Winery, Jacques Capsouto, Jean-Pierre Bailly, kayoumi, Koenig, Les Marronniers Chablis, Les Roches, Light from Darkness, Nature, Pavillon de Leoville Poyferre, Petit Guiraud, Pouilly-Fume, Ramon Cardova, Reserve, Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc, Silent Hunter, Tel Qasser, Terra, Terra di Seta, Virginie de Valandraud, Yaacov Oryah Winery, Zero Dosage

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The Summary

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Mevushal Wine Push

The 2020 Pricing and access

Tasting in Paris

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Final comments, disclaimer, and warnings

Red Wines ordered by Vintage and QPR

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The 2020 kosher wine of the year – is a return to its greatness – the 2018 Elvi Wines EL26

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The “other” wines not here yet or I have not had

Final comments, disclaimer, and warnings

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The 2018 kosher wine of the year – we have a TIE!

The 2018 best kosher wine of the year!

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