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Another round of QPR (Quality to Price Ratio) Hits and Misses, 21 QPR WINNERS – June 2025
I have been behind in posting. However, I am back in the swing of things, and after this post, I owe you a post on the new Royal Wines in Paris. Then an IDS post – with some CRAZY wines, and finally the Hotel wrap-up with some REAL SHOCKERS (in a good way) and of course some massive failures (AKA Classic Paris Hotel tasting).
This post is not as long as my last QPR (Quality to Price Ratio) post, but it still weighs in at 86 wines. The last one I did was in December 2024. That one had around 90 wines, and 17 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. This one tops them all, in regards to QPR scores, with 21 wines winning the WINNER QPR score.
QPR (Quality to Price Ratio) Wines
It has been six 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 excellent 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 many wines here, as stated, and I have been behind on this. So, these wine notes are coming from a collection of times. Some of them are the actual notes from the KFWE events in February that I posted about in March. Some of these wine notes are from personal tastings. Finally, some of these wine notes are from group tastings with friends.
Terra di Seta
Terra di Seta has returned to that special place where its wines are TOP-Tier QPR WINNERS. The 2020 Terra di Seta Chianti Classico Riserva was just lovely! Follow that with the even more affordable, yet lovely, 2022 Terra di Seta Classico. Bravo guys! Here is a slight sneak peek. I tasted an even better terra di Seta in Paris, but that is still three posts away!
Kosherwine.com Wines
I tasted two wines from KW: the 2003 Clos de Menuts and the 2015 Chateau Lavagnac. I found both of them were lovely, though some other people told me I was lucky. Clearly, these wines are on the edge, as my notes state, and they may be good or may not. However, I found the Menuts to be truly enjoyable. Hoping you all have success.
There were more French/European wines from KW that I bought, but they were less interesting.
However, there were two Sleight of Hand (wines made by Ari Lockspeiser) wines that I think KW sells exclusively, and they were both solid. Fruity, with enough brightness to pull it together.
Hajdu Wines
I bought and tasted all the Hajdu current releases, and while I found the white wines WINNERS, more on that below, the red wines are not my cup of tea. They show more fruit and power than I wish for in my cup, but I am sure there are many who will love these wines!
Alex Rubin Wines
Like the Hajdu wines, I bought all of the current releases, and again, the red wines are Cali wines, and the white wines are incredible. The 2023 Arinto is a BLOCKBUSTER and should be sold out already. His Riesling, which was macerated, is also a solid wine that I posted back here. Still, his red wines are more controlled than other Cali producers and I think many people would appreciate them.
Covenant Wines
Jeff, Jonathan, and the gang continue to impress, with no breaks so far. The latest wines I tasted were the 2024 Covenant Rose, the 2024 Mensch Zinfandel, the 2022 Covenant Syrah Bien Nacido Vineyard, and the 2024 Mensch Roussanne.
The Rose is lovely, with no bitter notes, a thing I hate in rose wines. The balance and fruit are there as well. Further proof that even in a weak vintage, the Covenant team delivers value and quality! Great work, guys!
The 2024 Mensch Zinfandel is a Zin that I would buy. Zin used to be my favorite fruit, but that blew off quickly as the wines started getting unruly and unbalanced. Still, if you can create a wine like Covenant did in 2024, my hat’s off to you!!
The 2022 Covenant Syrah Bien Nacido Vineyard is another solid wine, garnering a 92 score and showing the power of California. It was a hot season, and while I found the wine lovely, it is a slight step behind the 2021 vintage, which may well be the best Syrah I have had out of California!
Finally, the Roussanne is solid enough; it is a bit too fruity, but overall, a solid quaff. Keep up the GREAT work, guys!
White Wine WINNERS:
Of the 21 WINNERS, 11 are White or rosé wines! We are getting better in this space, year after year!
I must START with one of the best white wines I have had recently, that is not a Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling, Semillon, or Chardonnay, and that is the 2023 Alex Rubin Arinto. This wine has not undergone maceration, although the mouthfeel suggests it may have had a touch. The wine overall is rich, layered, fruity, intensely acidic, refreshing, and a NO BRAINER BUY! Bravo Alex!
Herzog has two Chenin Blancs, and I posted about them back in September of last year. I tasted the Mevushal one in Oxnard, as the non-Mevushal one was not yet released. The wine does show the oak now, but I found those notes recede over time and show fun wines. These will require some patience, but you will be rewarded.
The 2023 O’Dwyers Creek Sauvignon Blanc continues its torrid run on the kosher wine market! There has yet to be a bad vintage, and while I know of people who are too snooty for the tropical notes, you guys ALL know who they are; these wines hit on all levels for me. This vintage is more steely, more citrus-driven, while still showing enough tropical notes to make me interested. Nice!
The two Hajdu white wines were lovely, the Vermentino and the Proprietary White (a new thing) showed well.
The Otter & Fox (a wine by David Edelman) showed quite nicely! Fruity, balanced, and controlled.
Israeli WINNERS
Yes, there were some good wines from Israel, and they were all Rose or Whites. The 2024 Puzzle Rose is lovely! As was the 2023 Dalton Sauvignon Blanc, Family Collection, the 2024 Netofa Latour Tzahov, White, and the 2024 Dalton Sauvignon Blanc, Fume. Solid choices to enjoy this Summer.
The outlier is the 2023 Matar Cumulus. The 2022 vintage was Shmita so I have no idea what that one tasted like, but the 2021 and the 2023 vintages were both QPR WINNERS! Good for them!
Two Outlier Wines
Every so often, the Vieux Chateau Chambeau Reserve has a good wine! I have tasted three of these wines, which were good, and the rest were not. They are a classic, Mevushal French wine, Russian Roulette. The 2015 was a solid wine, though not the reserve. 2018 was a WINNER under the Reserve label, and it happened again in 2022. The 2022 Vieux Chateau Chambeau Reserve, Lussac Saint-Emilion, has the same score and almost the same notes – perhaps they require a hot vintage to make the wine work; I have no idea.
The other outlier is the 2023 Quinta do Cerrado da Porta Troviscal Tinto, Reserva, Lisboa. Andrew Breskin, of Liquid Kosher, asked me to taste it, and thanks to him, the winery sent the wines to my hotel. I tasted them here in the USA, after they rested for a long time. I sent one or two to him as well, so we both enjoyed this WINNER. I am not sure if they want to export the wine. The notes indicate how much I enjoyed this wine, as does the score; however, it’s essential to understand that the price of this wine in Europe is incredibly affordable.
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Hotel Wine tastings – Taieb Wines, Mercier Wines, Corcos Wines, Bokobsa Wines, Honest Grapes (Montille), plus more
As stated in my previous post, I was in Paris in January with Avi Davidowitz from Kosher Wine Unfiltered. The number of boxes in our room was not nearly as insane as two years ago. That was a tower of boxes. Still, we had a lot of wines to taste and some good wines to talk about.
Two years ago, we had some 80 wines, this past tasting we were at 58 wines. There were a couple of wines I think were bad bottles, so I will not post them, so I guess it comes to some 56 or so bottles.
This post will close out the blog’s 2024 year, and then we can get to the wines of the year and such! Then we can get to the KFWE post! Yeah, lots ahead!
As I have stated before. I want to taste all of these blind. Let me make this simple: unless we can find someone to pay to help us manage the tastings, taste blind, and gather all the metadata and the forms and sheets, it is just INSANE! We really need to get a helper who understands English enough and can handle sheets and the such in Paris and wherever else we taste wines. Until then, we will have to give up on tasting blind.
The wines were tasted in classic region/style order, whites, reds from Burgundy, Rhone-like areas, Bordeaux/Blend wines, and I think that is it. The comments are listed by the producer.
Taieb Wines
There were 23 Taieb wines. We received the usual Jean-Philippe Marchand wines. This year, there are eight wines. There are two whites, the Meursault and the new Puligny Montrachet, and then we have the return of the same reds. Sadly, I could not taste the Pommard or the Aloxe Corton. The two white wines are wines that feel bottle-shocked and also have more oak than I expected. They may come around in a few years. We opened them Tuesday night, and they never came around. They kind of lost some of their oak after 7 days, but honestly, well before that, wine should either be there or not. The red Burgundies we received were terrific and show the continued success of Jean-Philippe Marchand wines.
To close out the story, Mr. Taieb asked for the warehouse to send us the eight Burgundies, but instead, we received two other wines. Such is life!
Taieb Wines. Yoni and his family continue to make well-priced wines and garner QPR WINNER scores. This tasting was no exception, with five WINNER wines from the 24 wines tasted and many wines with a GREAT QPR score. I have posted often about Taieb wines, and if you want to read the entire background, read the first post I made here.
The 2023 Baron David and the 2023 Chateau Tournebrise were solid wines that are available now in Paris and ones I would pick up for a nice Shabbat! Two great wines from Taieb. The 2023 Elysee Palace Merlot is dirt cheap and a solid Mevu option. Finally, the 2023 Moise Taieb, La Petite Metairie Chinon, is a classic Cabernet Franc and shows nicely.
Honest Grapes Wines
Nathan from Honest Grapes was very kind in helping arrange a shipment of Domaine de Montille. These wines were pulled from the barrel, much like the wines I tasted last year in London. The white wines shined in this new 2023 Domaine de Montille Burgundy tasting. The red wines were fine, but one was either shocked or maybe just a bad bottle. Like all barrel tastings, I can put a score on the wine but understand that this may well not be the final score.
On an aside, you may see two wines that were associated with Honest Grapes, 2022 Chateau Teyssier and 2023 Le Nardian Grand Vin de Bordeaux. They may well still be wines Honest Grapes sells in London, but they are now also available in France. Those two wines can be found under the assorted wines.
Mercier Wines
Once again, Mercier delivers excellent wines at a higher price range. The 2022 vintage did take a slight bite at the 2022 Château de Fieuzal Grand Cru Classé de Graves, Pessac-Leognan. It is the return of this wine, which was last made Kosher in 2005. So, 17 years later, the wine is fine, but it lacks the acidity I crave.
Once again, the 2022 Château Olivier Grand Cru Classe, Pessac-Léognan, on the other hand was a HOMERUN! That wine has everything I want, acidity, pop, body, structure, and minerality. It is quite an impressive wine and a baby! This wine will not be ready to play for a long time.
Once again, the 2022 Chateau Fayat, Pomerol, is sensational. It is priced higher than the 2022 Montviel, higher than the 2018 Echo de Roses Camille, but lower than Gay. To me, it is a QPR WINNER.
The 2022 Chateau Haut-Marbuzet, Saint-Estephe, has the added Cabernet that really helps make the wine pop! It may well be the most balanced wine we had at this tasting overall. Quite impressive indeed! Merlot in hot vintages is more challenging to get perfect than with some Cabernet Franc or Cabernet Sauvignon. The Marbuzet has Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, and a good amount of Merlot.
Then there were three white wines that stood out, two that were dry, and one sweet. Until now, Mercier had been making Sauternes from the Chateau Rayne Vigneau. The latest vintage of Sauternes from the main label was 2018. However, in 2022 and 2023, Pierre Miodownick and Mercier made two dry wines and one second label Sauternes. Both of these dry wines took forever to open. Avi was not even around anymore when the dry white Grand Vin finally opened up.
The 2023 Chateau de Rayne Vigneau Grand Vin Blanc Sec, is not going to be cheap, but it is a beautiful wine. The 2023 Les Sec de Rayne Vigneau, is going to be cheaper, but I am not sure what the prices will be like in the USA. In France it is a QPR WINNER. Finally, the 2022 Chateau Rayne Vigneau Madame de Rayne, Sauternes, is lovely and a solid option for those that want quality Sauternes.
Overall, this tasting may have been Mercier’s best showing, that Avi and I have tasted, so far. Bravo!
Bokobsa Wines
I keep trying to get their wines to taste. So far, I have not been very successful. If you read my previous posts, you will see that they have good wines and great prices, especially in Paris. However, getting to taste them is proving very complicated.
We got three wines to taste, and the Cissac Lamothe is back! The 2022 vintage is solid. The 2022 Bokobsa Gigondas is solid, a bit too ripe for me, but many will love this. Finally, the 2023 Dominique Piron Chiroubles is a solid Gamay for a good price.
Shlomo Corcos (Guter Wein) Wines
I have had enough wine in my life to say that there are very few things that shock me anymore in wine. That may be a blessing and a curse, but that is fine. However, tasting the 2022 Chateau Grand Corbin, Saint-Emilion Grand Cru Classe, shocked me. I have yet to taste a wine that shows that distinct a flavor of roasted lamb. I enjoyed this wine with a freshly baked milk pizza, and I felt dirty. That is a great wine. The other wine is the 2022 Chateau Cantemerle, Haut-Medoc. Both wines are lovely, show good pop, and are made well. I have no idea if/when these wines will be in the USA, so keep your eyes open and tell me if they land in some store in NYC/NJ!
Assorted Wines
The remaining wines came from Ari Cohen, a wine Avi brought, or from stuff I bought from MVC (MesVinsCacher.com). MVC is a great place to go and see the current releases and to buy some older releases. All the wines are held in good storage, and like all old wines, you may hit or you may miss.
Ari has started a business called Bakus Wine. He gave us a few wines to taste. First was the 2023 Hans Wirsching Iphofer Riesling, Iphofen. It is a solid Mevushal Riesling. It shows like a Riesling, and at least in Paris, the price is a WINNER. He also sells three Cascina Perrone wines. We have already posted the notes for the Barbera d’Asti and the Nebbiolo. The 2020 Cascina Perrone Barolo continues to show the fine makeup of this wine line and is a good WINNER, with a long life ahead of it.
Then, I bought one wine for the tasting from (winess.com). David Sabban is a great guy, and he either has the wines in his lovely store in Paris in the 17th Arrondissement or can get them from his warehouse. He helped us with a bottle of 2023 Le Nardian Grand Vin de Bordeaux, Lugaignac. This wine shocked me, as it came in at 15% ABV for a white Bordeaux. That is CRAZY! The 2021 and 2022 Le Nardian came in at 12.5%! So, yeah, while I have no interest in buying this wine again, it is a decent wine. I just cannot get behind a 15% ABV white wine.
Ben Sitruk, owner of WineSymphony.fr, hooked us up with a few wines. The first was the 2022 Chateau Vieux Taillefer, Saint-Emilion Grand Cru. It seems that now the winery is making their wines kosher on their own or maybe through some other hands, I do not know. This is solid but lacks the pop I need and is ripe. Still, it is balanced and will appeal to many people. The next wine he helped us with is the 2022 Chateau Teyssier, Saint-Emilion Grand Cru. It is a solid wine, but it is NOTHING like the 2019 or the 2020. Those two wines scream acidity and pop, while this one has the 2022 curse.
Finally, we bought some older wines from MVC, such as the 2017 and 2018 Dampt Freres Chablis, Premier Cru. The 2017 is a STUNNING wine and has evolved to even higher heights than I dreamed. But it is DRINK NOW! Pop them NOW! There is no tomorrow. Please take note of my DW (Drinking Windows) on those wines – right on point, thank you! LOL! Even a broken clock is correct two times a day!
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Hotel Wine tastings – the final tastings from my trip to Paris – Late May 2024
As stated in my previous post, I was in Paris in Late May, with Avi Davidowitz from Kosher Wine Unfiltered. The number of boxes in our room was not nearly as insane as two years ago. That was a tower of boxes. Still, we had a lot of wines to taste through and some good wines to talk about.
Two years ago, we had some 80 wines, this May we were at 60 wines. There was one wine that Avi missed and there are a couple of wines I think were bad bottles, so I will not post them, so I guess it comes to some 58 or so bottles.
Half of these wines were tasted blind and the rest were not. Let me make this simple, unless we can find someone to pay to help us manage the tastings, tasting blind, and then gathering all the metadata and the forms, and sheets, it is just INSANE! We really need to get a helper, who understands English enough and can handle sheets and the such, in Paris and wherever else we taste wines. Until then, we will have to give up on tasting blind.
The wines were tasted in classic region/style order, whites, reds from Burgundy, Rhone-like areas, Bordeaux/Blend wines, and I think that is it.
Barbera, Rhone, Burgundy, Provence, Loire, and Germany
These were some of the blind wines we tasted. I honestly grabbed bottles shaped in anything other than Bordeaux and we did the tasting blind. It was eclectic and we retasted them twice, so they got their chance. There were two wines in the lineup that were off, and they were removed from the scoring. Otherwise, the wines fell into what I expected, with the real find being the Rhone from Ventoux. The German red wine was nice while the white wine, we tasted later, was a total loss.
There were a total of 13 wines on this flight and one of them was a bad bottle, so we have 12 wines scored below. Six of the 12 were from Taieb Wines. Yoni and his family continue to make well-priced wines and garner QPR WINNER scores. This tasting was no exception, with two WINNER for the Burgundies and other QPR WINNER scores for other wines we tasted in the hotel.
I have posted often about Taieb wines and if you want to read the full background read the first post I made here.
There were four Burgundies made by kosher Taieb in 2022 and we received three of them for tasting. The notes on these wines changed a bit but the scores were consistent. We also got some Loire Valley wines and they showed well as well. There was a Burgundy from Ribeauville that I had already tasted but needed to have Avi taste it, so I made sure to make that happen.
The real find was the Rhone from Ventoux, I have no idea who made the wine, maybe the winery did, but it is a nice wine. I have no idea why it sat around until now, nor do I know why the 2016 wine we tasted later sat around until now!
White and Sparking Wines
We tasted through a lot of white wines and sparkling wines. The Sparkling wines came from Taieb and they were nice to WINNER. The Elvi Vina Encina were both solid and the Herenza White are lovely WINNER wines. I have no idea why the Herenza Whites do not sell in the USA, no idea! Folks buy a few and try.
On a slight rant, I will start with the positives, thankfully, we have more kosher white wine available now than ever before, PERIOD! However, what is clear is that the kosher-buying public has made Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay their next Cabernet Sauvignon! I am happy you are all starting to enjoy white wines – finally! But good Lord, there are OTHER white wines out there! As stated, I am firmly on the ABC train, outside of a few Cali and France. Sauvignon Blanc is a wonderful grape and please ignore EVERYTHING that Avi says to the contrary, it is not his fault, he has issues with good wine!
Now, all I see is that white wines that are not Chardonnay or Sauvignon Blanc linger on physical or virtual shelves. Thankfully, most of you get Riesling, almost. But that is it! You guys killed the only good Albarino from Ramon Cardova because you all refused to buy it! The Herenza is the same, and this wine is 30 to 40 percent Sauvignon Blanc! OK, I’ll give up and stop my rant here! TRY OTHER white wines – please!
There was a new Sancerre and the new 2023 Domaine Lebrun Pouilly-Fume and they were nice. The 2023 Domaine Lebrun Pouilly-Fume is truly exceptional, it keeps up with the great 2021. Though I would be drinking the 2021 already! This one will be good for a few years.
Also, Avi brought an Israeli white wine! Yes! The 2021 Recanati Sauvignon Blanc, Odem Vineyards, Atelier! Lovely wine, and further proof that what Israel needs is good white wine!
The rest of them are wines that you can try and see if you like.
Italy, Spain, and Bordeaux
OK, half of the wines we tasted fall into these two categories and they garnered 8 QPR WINNER scores. Once again, Taieb had many GREAT to WINNER scores here along with some new Italian wines. There was one SHOCKER from Luzzatto, who until now have been really uninspiring wines. However, the 2019 Luzzatto Barolo is a clear WINNER, and yes, it is Mevushal. It started out very slow but with time, it came out of its shell, and showed nicely!
Avi brought the 2022 El Orador Rioja, Rioja Alta from Israel, and that also started very slowly, but it came out of its shell as well. We then tasted three Elvi red wines, which I had last year after Avi had already left. Those were the 2021 Elvi Clos Mesorah, the 2020 Elvi EL26, and the 2019 Elvi Adar. I had the 2019 Elvi Adar in Israel, and the EL26 at home.
The rest of what mattered was a mix of Bordeaux wines ranging from 2016 to 2023. Yes, we tasted a 2016 Chateau Croque Michotte! Why it was not released until now is beyond me. Sadly, I think that wine was oxidized. I have no idea if it was the wine or the bottle. I tried to get another and no matter the emails/WhatsApp chats I could not get another one to try.
The 2023 Baron David and the 2023 Palais de L’Ombriere were solid wines that are available now in Paris and ones I would pick up for a nice Shabbat! Two great wines from Taieb.
Then we had three mid-level quality wines from the 2022 Bordeaux vintage. If these wines prove to be the flag-bearer for that vaunted vintage I may come around and have as much faith as Avi does. Avi believes every vintage is innocent until proven guilty, sadly, I see things differently. I guess, I see wine as uninteresting until the glass proves me wrong.
The three QPR WINNER wines were the 2022 Chateau Tour Perey, 2022 Chateau La Fleur Perey, and the
2022 Chateau Tour Seran. We had issues with the 2022 Chateau Rollan de By. One bottle was bad and one bottle was OK to bad. At this point, if you buy it, I would not hold it for long, if at all. Buy it, open it, and enjoy!
We also tasted a 2012 Chateau Cru DuCasse, a wine I had not tasted for two years and it was on crazy sale at Winess.com. This was a wine that Avi had not yet tasted, as I tasted it back in June of 2021 when Paris was just coming to life from under the cloud of Covid. It had evolved a fair amount and was deeply closed at the start. Another crazy closeout wine I saw at Winess was the 2020 Chateau Taillefer Pavillon de Taillefer. It was selling for 40 or so dollars. I tasted that wine last year May 2023, a trip Avi missed, so I wanted him to taste the wine.
We tasted the white and rose wines from Cantina Giuliano and they are fine, I am sure some people will like them more than I did.
The one wine that Avi was not around for was the 2023 Cave D’Esclans Whispering Angel. It reminded me of the 2021. A solid showing.
Where can you buy these wines?
The Taieb wines will find their way to the USA through a menagerie of importers. Those include Liquid Kosher, Kosher Wine, and Victor Wines which I continue to be baffled at where these wines actually sell, outside of Florida! The Elvi wines are in the USA already. The Cantina Giuliano wines are in the USA already. The 2020 Chateau Haut Brisson is already in the USA, the other Corcos wines, I am not sure.
The Mercier wines will find their way here once the previous vintages are sold. As for the rest of the wines, I have no idea!
Thoughts on this tasting
OK, so overall, this tasting was solid! This was better than previous tastings because the 2021 vintage is mostly played out, unlike other hotel wine tastings. Still, Kosher plonk exists in spades in all regions of the world! The USA may have the largest availability to them, but Paris is not far behind! I am still not buying into the 2022 hype but as stated before, I will reserve happiness until I taste good wine!
Regarding other wines from France that people will ask me about, the answer is we tried. We sent out emails and got initial responses and then all follow-up emails went into the Spam Bucket. Sometimes, I wonder if French people hate us Americans! Anyway, the winning lineup, which always is the heading photo for the hotel wine-tasting posts, was solid, and wines I would drink! Sadly, that winning lineup photo is nowhere because I got really sick at the end of the week. I barely made it into Shabbat. I slept it off all Shabbat.
Before I forget – Avi took all the pictures from this trip so if you dislike them, blame him. If you love them disregard the previous sentence! Thanks, buddy!! I was flat out and Avi was trying to get out for his flight back to Israel. Sorry buddy I could not help.
Finally, 90% of the the deliveries were to the hotel this time, my man Ari Cohen, AKA El-Presidente of Bakus Wines, was totally AWOL this trip! I think the more I go to Paris the less I get to see him – maybe I am finally becoming a Parisian! Thanks as always! Thanks for all the help as always buddy!
The wine notes follow below in the order that they were tasted. The explanation of my “scores” can be found here and the explanation for QPR scores can be found here:
2022 Jean-Philippe Marchand Aloxe Corton, Sous Chaillots, Aloxe Corton – Score: 92.5 (QPR: WINNER)
The nose of this wine is quite nice with darker plum, raspberry, cherry, and sweet spices, along with sweet herbs, floral notes, lavender, dark smoke, and minerality. The mouth of this medium-plus-bodied wine feels rich, layered, and smokey, dirty, with nice mushroom, forest floor, nice funk, lovely minerality, plum, ripe raspberry, dark cherry, herbal, with nice tannin, and great acidity. The finish is long, tannic, herbal, and funky, but also richer, a bit rounder, but tannic, tart, and refreshing, Bravo! Drink until 2032. (tasted May 2024) (in Paris, France) (ABV = 13%) (tasted Blind)
A Quick stop in London on my way to Israel – Honest Grapes Domaine Montille and some extras!
It had been almost 5 years since I had stepped foot in Israel. I tried to rectify that issue last year but the war and the lack of planes put a large crimp in that plan. So, once I saw Lufthansa was flying planes again to Israel, in January 2024, I booked a flight and was all ready to go to Israel on a clean and simple one-stop flight in each direction. SFO-MUC-TLV and TLV-FRA-SFO. Either way, the flights forced me to stay overnight in Frankfurt, but that was life.
The flights were booked and I was planning my trip, my hotels and all, when I got this strange email from Ruth Morrell, a new name for me in regards to Honest Grapes, it read: Private Tasting of Domaine de Montille 2022 Kosher Cuvees – January 22nd. I must say that I rarely feel the need to run to such events but I was already going in that direction a day before. So after a few changed flights, itinerary, and a crazy couple of phone calls, my tickets were set to fly through London for a day.
None of this could have happened without the insane kindness, hospitality, and openness of Richard and his wife Hannah! They opened their home for me, shared their brand new wines with me and so many others, and threw the entire event in the evening so that we could all taste some wines together. A total mensch and a truly kind and wonderful person. I cannot forget the kids for putting up with me arriving early as well, an all-around very kind and overly hospitable experience! My sincere thanks!
The event was being hosted by Richard and Hannah in their home in London, later that evening, and I asked if I could arrive early and taste the wines that came just that day. The number of kindnesses by Richard and family was met by the kindness of Nathan Hill, the Bond warehouse, and two separate delivery people, all needed to play a very fine hand to meet the needs of the many, including myself!
Honest Grapes
I have written about Domaine de Montille before when I first tasted them, long after I had bought them En Primeur. However, I never had the time to talk about Honest Grapes, that was until I wrote my post on M&M Impoters, a partner of Honest Grapes and the importer of their wines in the USA.
Tom Harrow and Nathan Hill built quite the company and we have all been the beneficiaries of more kosher wines, because of Mr. Hill. Mr. Hill was very kind in the email exchanges we had along with the newly hired Ruth Morrell. They assured me that the event was on and it was going to be an opportunity to taste the following 2022 wines, though these were all barrel/tank samples.
Honest Grapes have just launched these stunning wines as en primeur in the UK. All the cuvees are exclusive to Honest Grapes and are funded entirely by us as in previous years. We are immensely proud of these wines and they follow the sold-out 2021’s from last year though production is higher, the quality is excellent and we are very confident in high critical appraise once again.
The tasting will be at the private home of one of our club members in Hendon on Monday January 22nd from 18:30-20:00 . We will enjoy a selection of canapes catered by Chef David Scott and his team that will accompany the wines. We are asking for a £40 contribution towards the canapes and waitressing staff to be paid directly to our host on the evening. We are limited to a certain number of guests so please may I ask that you RSVP as soon as you can. Address to follow.
We will be tasting the following 6 Domaine de Montille cuvees:
| 2022 | Beaune Premier Cru ‘Les Perrières’ | Domaine de Montille | Red |
| 2022 | Monthelie Premier Cru ‘Les Duresses’ | Domaine de Montille | White |
| 2022 | Nuits-Saint-Georges Premier Cru ‘Aux Thorey’ | Domaine de Montille | Red |
| 2022 | Pommard Premier Cru ‘Les Grands Epenots’ | Domaine de Montille | Red |
| 2022 | Puligny-Montrachet Premier Cru ‘Les Chalumeaux’ | Domaine de Montille | White |
| 2022 | Volnay Premier Cru ‘Les Brouillards’ | Domaine de Montille | Red |
The very cool part was that while these were what the tasting (what Nathan called the NON-RCC Tasting) was about, because of Richard’s kindness it also included the 2021 Domaine Montille wines as well!
You see the day I landed in London was the same day the 2021 Domaine Montille wines arrived, from Bond to Richard’s home! Through Richard and Hannah’s kindness, they shared the wines with us all and allowed us to taste them all in one night.
NOTE: There are EIGHT Kosher Burgundy wines in 2022, there are also two Bourgogne wines a white and a red, sadly they were not at the tasting.
The Tasting
As stated previously, I had asked Richard if I could arrive earlier and taste his 2021 wines quietly, without the noise and smells of cooking food, which would be the case later that evening.
As you read the evening would have some lovely small bites and that food was cooked in the house. So, the faster I could taste the wines the better I could feel about my notes. I arrived a bit before the chef arrived and an hour or so before Mr. Hill and Ruth did. This gave me ample time to taste the five 2021 wines that Richard had bought. I did not taste the 2021 Domaine de Montille Beaune, 1er Cru, Les Perrieres, Beaune, 1er Cru.
Overall, I found the 2021 Domaine de Montille wines to be right between the JP Marchand Burgundies and the Aegerter. Avi and I tasted the JP Marchand 2021 Burgundies in Paris in late Nov 2022 and I tasted them again in Jan 2023. The Aegerter wines I tasted in May 2023 (and again in Nov 2023) with Avi as well.
From the six times or more that I have now tasted kosher 2021 Burgundies, I can say that while they do not reach the 2020s or earlier, they are not the disaster that describes the 2021 Bordeaux vintage.
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The Best and Top 25 Kosher Wines of 2023, including the Wine of the Year, Winery of the Year, the Best Wine of the Year, and the Best Mevushal wines 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 that I tasted it in a reliable environment, not just at a tasting, and that it scored a 93+ or higher.
We are returning with the “Wine of the Year”, “Best Wine of the Year” “Winery of the Year”, and “Best White Wine of the Year”, along with a last year’s new addition the – “Best Mevushal 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.
The Mevushal wine of the year is something I dread. I understand the need for a wine that can be enjoyed at restaurants and events, but when we start seeing Château Gazin Rocquencourt and Chevalier de Lascombes go Mevushal – we know we have a problem. As I have stated in the past, if this is what needs to happen, then please sell both options as many do with Peraj Petita/Capcanes, Psagot wines, and many others. Still, it is a wine and as such, it needs a best-of-the-year moniker, so we do it once again!
This past year, I tasted more wines than I have ever, in the past. Now to be clear here, I did not taste many Israeli wines as they have proven to me over and over again, even with the much-ballyhooed 2018 vintage that they are not worth my spending my money on. Still, I did taste a large number of Israeli wines both in my home and at KFWE events. I spent a fair amount of time tasting all the French and European wines I could get my hands on and I feel that is where I added the most value, IMHO. For those who like the Israeli wine style – other writers/bloggers can point you in some direction. This past year, was a return to below-average because of the massive failure in Bordeaux and all over Europe in the 2021 vintage.
We were spoiled with the 2019 wines from Bordeaux and all over Europe, even the 2020 vintage had OK options. This year, there are FOUR wines from Royal Wine’s portfolio (really three) they are the 2017 and 2018 Elvi Herenza, Reserva, the 2021 Domaine Raymond Usseglio & Fils Chateauneuf du Pape, and the 2021 Herzog Cabernet Sauvignon, Alexander Valley. Overall, 2021 from California is what I am buying from the 2021 vintage, worldwide, outside of a few wines, for vertical interests, and the CDP.
The vast majority of wines on this list are from M&M Importers and a couple from Andrew Breskin’s Liquid Kosher portfolio. This is a FIRST for me and these lists and I am truly happy to see Italy and other regions rising to the top of the lists. There are a couple of Four Gates wines as well.
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, none were close to this star-studded group. This year we had a crazy large number of WINNER wines, 152 in total, but the top-shelf wines were smaller with fewer.
Now, separately, I love red wines, but white wines – done correctly, are a whole other story! Sadly, in regards to whites, we still had no new wines from Germany, still. Thankfully, we have some awesome entries, from the incredible 2021 Gustave Lorentz Riesling, Grand Cru, 2020 Domaine de Chevalier, Blanc, 2020 Domaine de Montille Puligny Montrachet 1er Cru Les Chalumeaux, 2021 Chateau Olivier Blanc, Grand Cru Classe, and the 2021 Domaine Vacheron Sancerre, Grand Champs. This will be the largest number of white wines in the top wine list for any given year – I hope we have NOT hit peak White Wine! We need more options. Thankfully, there are also many good lower-priced white wine options as well in the kosher market a large shift is underway!
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:
The 2023 Kosher Winery of the Year
This award continues to get harder and harder each year. The sad cold, hard truth is that there are too few great kosher wineries. When I started this award, some 4 years ago I thought it would only get easier. Sadly, there are a few truths that limit my ability to give out this award.
First, as much as we have been blessed with great Kosher European wines, in the past 6 years, most of those blessings come under the auspices of single-run kosher wines. Chateau Leoville Poyferre, Château Smith Haut Lafitte, you name it, are all based upon kosher runs. What we have in Europe, kosher-winery-wise, is Terra di Seta, Cantina Giuliano, and Elvi Wines (including Clos Mesorah). Along with this year’s winner, Domaine Roses Camille. Officially, Domaine Roses Camille only became 100% kosher in 2020, but for all intent and purpose, they have been producing the vast majority of their wines in kosher, since 2011.
The requirements to receive this award are simple, the winery must be kosher, not a kosher-run, the quality must be consistent, and the wines must be readily available. The last requirement is the main reason why Four Gates Winery has yet to win the award, but at this point, it is only a matter of time, as kosher wine availability is becoming less of an issue overall, given the sheer number of cult-like kosher wineries that exist today.
This year the award goes to Covenant Winery. I have been pounding the table about the good wines coming out of there over the past two years. Yes, there are a couple of wines I do not love, but given the vast swath of wines they make, the vast majority scored a 91 or higher.
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Latest releases from Andrew Breskin and Liquid Kosher
I just came back from Israel, that is a whole other post, including two stopovers, one before the trip to Israel and one on the way home. The stopover on the way to Israel was to taste Honest Grapes wines, yes, that is another post as well! The final stopover before returning home was to see my friend Andrew in San Diego. The airport is an absolute mess, but the new Terminal 1 is starting to take shape, still, please beware before going there!
Mr. Breskin is the founder of Liquid Kosher a wine curator and importer of a wide array of kosher wines, from French wines (like the famous Domaine Rose Camille to Israeli favorites). My trip this time was more of a mad dash than a proper visit and thankfully Andrew kept it simple. It was great to hang with Andrew, which I normally get to do only once a year at KFWE Los Angeles. Sadly, with no KFWE this year, this will be my only time with Andrew, unless I can find my way down there again, later this year!
Andrew has been the go-to guy for access to French wines that are not imported into the United States by Royal or the other larger kosher wine importers. Andrew has brought us Burdungdies like Domaine Chantal Lescure, and Domaine d’Ardhuy, along with the famous Domaine Roses Camille, which have been top scorers for many years now. These are all wines that Taieb has made for many years now. Sadly, 2017 was the last vintage of the Lescure, and Domaine d’Ardhuy ended in 2015.
The wines I tasted included a few JP Marchand Burgundies from the new 2022 vintage along with a few Taieb wines as well. Sadly, Taieb only made 4 red wines in 2022, no white wines. There were a couple of other wines, including the Domaine Roses Camille 2020 Chateau Les Graves de Lavaud. It is a lovely wine but I already posted the notes on that one.
Next, there were new Taieb wines that I had not tasted in Paris. First, it was a very simple but good Mevushal option called 2022 Prince George 1er Choix de Cuvee, IGP Coteaux de Narbonne. I had never heard of the region called IGP Coteaux de Narbonne. It is a region in the Rhone, but not a very well-known one for Kosher wine.
Next came the 2021 Chateau Castelbruck and the 2021 Chateau Haut-Breton Larigaudiere. The Castelbruck broke out of the failed 2021 Bordeaux mold. It showed well for such a failed vintage. The 2021 Chateau Haut-Breton Larigaudiere sadly did not follow and it too succumbed to the 2021 Bordeaux malaise. The pictures include a few other wines that I already posted, like the 2022 Chateau Tournebrise, the 2021 Jean-Philippe Marchand Bourgogne Hautes-Cotes de Beaune, and the 2022 Chateau Meilhan. The Tournebrise is a refreshing wine and one that I almost drank, during the tasting, very refreshing. The 2021 Jean-Philippe Marchand Bourgogne, Hautes-Cotes de Beaune showed beautifully, as during the tasting in Jan of 2023. Finally, the 2022 Chateau Meilhan is OK, one of the less impressive 2022 showings. We also tasted the 2019 Lahat Syrah, it is so Israeli, but not evil, I did not write notes. The 2022 Gehring Riesling and the 2018 Rieslings were all very nice.
After that, we tasted a few wines that are tangentially related to Andrew and his business. The Corcos wines from 2016, including the 2016 Chateau D’eck, the 2016 Chateau Haut-Bacalan, and the 2016 Verdeto. I was on point with my concern with the 2016 Verdeto, when I tasted it in June of 2021. The ripeness could never find balance and tasting it that night was not painful but not enjoyable – drink up! The 2016 Chateau Haut-Bacalan did not show well, it felt closed and nowhere, I hope it is just asleep, I will check in on it in a year, God-Willing. Finally, the 2016 Chateau D’eck was also, uninspiring, much like I felt back in 2020.
The newly released 2020 Elk Cabernet Sauvignon, Mount Veeder was quite nice. A classic Napa Cabernet. I always wish for more verve and acidity, but it is quite nice still.
Finally, I was graced with two other wines that evening, both of which I wish I could eviscerate from my memories. They are the 2019 Viniferia, Castel Luciano, Super Tuscan, and another wine I will retaste. The 2019 Viniferia Castel Luciano, Super Tuscan, is nice enough, not super, and maybe it is Tuscan, but not for me! The 2017 vintage of this wine did not score much better when I tasted it back in 2022.
My many thanks to Andrew Breskin and his wife for hosting me and for sharing his time, home, and wines with me. The wine notes follow below, in order of quality and grouping – the explanation of my “scores” can be found here and the explanation for QPR scores can be found here:
2022 Jean-Philippe Marchand Burgundies
2022 Jean-Philippe Marchand Bourgogne, Hautes-Cotes de Nuits, Hautes-Cotes de Nuits – Score: 91 (QPR: GOOD)
The nose of this wine opens to show pomegranate, sour Bing cherry, intense rosehip, cinnamon, English lavender, and funk, with loads of dirt, earth, mineral, rich smoke, and roasted meat. The mouth on this medium-bodied wine is lovely, intensely acidic, layered, and earthy, with loads of floral notes, lavender, rosehip, smoked meat, and classic dark cherry. What stands out is the sweet oak influence of cedar, mouth-draping tannin, tart cherry/lavender, and minerality. The finish is floral, and very feminine, with herbs, graphite, toast, mushroom, and forest floor. Nice! Drink until 2030. (tasted January 2024) (in San Jose, CA) (ABV = 12.5%)
A tasting of M&M Importers’ current wines – February 2024
I did it again, too much time has passed from my previous post on M&M imports, and this follow-up post is some 9 months apart! This post is meant to not only catch up with the wines that I missed in my last post but also to show ALL the current wines available from M & M Importers.
It is always a pleasure to taste the wines from Ralph Madeb, president and CEO of M&M Importers. The BIG news is that now some of his wines are available on kosherwine.com! I really hope this helps to spread the good word about the work that Ralph and his team do! More info on M & M Importers can be found here.
Where can you find the wines?
Let us get the obvious out of the way first, it is very hard to track what M&M imports and where they are for sale. As stated above kosherwine.com is selling some of them and IDrinkKosher.com also sells them. Neither is the best option because KW has a limited number of the total portfolio, more of that in a moment and IDK is solid, both in pricing and in what they buy. However, knowing what is ACTUALLY available is almost impossible unless you show up at the store. I have been at the store a few times and they have great prices and good storage – again the issue lies in knowing what is actually for sale, as the website is never updated. Calling in does not help much either, but this post is here to shed more light on the matter. I know Ralph is working very hard on this matter and I hope we get more news on this soon.
UPDATE: You can now buy many of the SKUs from elkwine.com! Elchonon Hellinger is a dear friend and as always, I make NOTHING from your purchases, but if you live or are visiting the Miami area, please look him up! If you do not find what you need on the site, text him on Whatsapp: 17867501019, he is adding more SKUs as fast as he can!
Portfolio
If anyone wants to get a bird’s eye view of Ralph Madeb they should listen to the great podcast series from Simon Jacobs – The Kosher Terroir. The episode that focuses on Dr. Ralph Madeb and M&M Importers is this one.
From a Fifty Thousand Mile view, Ralph started his adventure as a mixture of importing IDS wines while also creating his own. Even when he was bringing in some IDS wines, it was not all of them, and access to them was almost impossible.
Since then, things have grown, by leaps and bounds and now they produce or import more than 70 wines.
Again, aside from the accessibility to/of these wines, for the average guy, not living in/near/around NYC, let us talk about what they are and where they come from.
IDS makes wines from all around France and you can find all my wine notes from November 2023, here. Between, Pinot Noirs from Burgundy, famous estates from Bordeaux, and now famous estates from Alsace, Provence, and Sancerre, IDS has expanded its portfolio over these past 10 years.
Names like Chateau Smith Haut Lafitte, Domaine de Chevalier, Chateau Lafon-Rochet, Chateau Marquis d’Alesme Becker, Virginie de Valandraud. Chateau Labegorce, Chateau la Tour de By, Chateau de Valois, Chateau Leydet-Valentin, Chateau Trianon, Chateau Sainte Marguerite, Domaine Aegerter Gevrey-Chambertin, Domaine Aegerter Nuits-Saint-Georges Premier Cru, Domaine Aegerter Nuits-Saint-Georges, Domaine Aegerter Beaune Premier Cru, Gustave Lorentz, Tokaj-Hetszolo, Domaine Vacheron Sancerre, Jean Luc et Paul Aegerter Pouilly Fuisse, Jean Luc et Paul Aegerter Meursault, Clos des Lunes Lune D’Argent.
These are wines made by and for IDS and M&M imports them and sells them locally here in the USA.
Mercier Wines
When you see names Chateau Cantenac Brown, Château Saint Martin Rouge and Rose, Domaine Lebrun Pouilly Fumé, Château Rayne Vigneau, Chateau Fayat, Chateau Olivier Red and White, Chateau Clement Pichon, Alphonse Mellot Sancerre, La Moussiere, Chateau Haut-Marbuzet, and Carillon d’Angelus, these are all made under the auspices of Maison Mercier.
Some of these wines are imported and sold by Royal Wines and some are imported and sold by M&M Imports.
They make many other wines and they import a large portfolio of Israeli wines into France as well. Most of the French wines are made under the watchful eye of Pierre Miodonick, whom I have written up on a few times.
These are really big names for Kosher, much like Royal makes with Pontet Canet, and IDS makes with Smith Haut Lafitte. Any time we can get kosher wines from Angelus and Pichon things are moving in the correct direction. Still, the prices are sky-high because of the added partners in the process.
Honest Grapes
Tom Harrow and Nathan Hill (a man I met for a few hours recently, more on that in a few posts) built an impressive wine club system. They are happy to sell you wine here and there, but their business is built on wine clubs and events. They have been in business since 2014 and they started a kosher line in 2017. Like much of their business and clubs, they run using a mix of crowd-sourcing and partnerships.
The 2017 and 2018 vintages were all sold out long ago as they were both crowd-sourced and sold to those who signed in to the En Primeur. The 2019 vintage was a change, they expanded and with that expansion came a bit more space for non-club access. They expanded a bit because of demand and also because of the appearance of M&M. That was a bit ahead of schedule, and there was no real extra access, at that time, mostly leaving the wines to be sold En Primeur.
The 2020 vintage was when the partnership helped Honest Grapes to expand and make more of the small winery plots kosher. Remember, it is not like they can go from 1000 bottles to 1100 or 1200 bottles. Everything is still barrel based. Either the barrel (25 cases of 12 bottles) is kosher or it is not! These plots are so small, for the most part, that it was not long before the plots were vinified 100% kosher.
The impressive wines in this portfolio are a mix of Bordeaux and Burgundy:
- Chateau Teyssier (QPR Homerun)
- Vieux Château Mazerat
- Le Dôme Kosher
- Pontet Labrie
- Domaine de Montille Pommard Premier Cru ‘Les Grands Epenots’
- Domaine de Montille Puligny-Montrachet Premier Cru, Les Chalumeaux
- Domaine de Montille Volnay Premier Cru ‘Les Brouillards’
- Domaine de Montille Nuits-Saint-Georges Premier Cru ‘Aux Thorey’
- Domaine de Montille Beaune Premier Cru ‘Les Perrières’
- Domaine de Montille Monthelie Premier Cru ‘Les Duresses’
- Domaine de Montille Bourgogne Blanc
- Domaine de Montille Bourgogne Rouge
Right now, M&M only has two wines for sale from Honest Grapes, the 2019 Chateau Teyssier (QPR Homerun), and the 2020 Domaine de Montille Volnay Premier Cru ‘Les Brouillards’.
The rest of the 2020 Bordeaux and the 2021 Burgundies are still in route and will be here soon enough.
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Three beautiful Burgundy wines from Domaine de Montille, M&M Importers, and Honest Grapes
Now that I finally got my KFWE post completed I can get back to posting about many wines I have been enjoying recently. However, none of the wines are as good as these three 2020 Burgundies from Domaine de Montille.
The three beauties are the 2020 Domaine de Montille Puligny Montrachet 1er Cru Les Chalumeaux, 2020 Domaine de Montille Volnay, 1er Cru Les Brouillards, and the 2020 Domaine de Montille Pommard 1er Cru, Les Grands Epenots.
Domaine de Montille
Domaine de Montille is a family-owned winery located in the Côte de Beaune region of Burgundy, France. The estate was founded in 1750 and has been passed down through many generations of the Montille family. Today, the estate is run by the siblings Etienne and Alix de Montille. Etienne concentrates his time on the 37 acres of red fruit scattered about Burgundy while Alix concentrates on the stunning Château de Puligny-Montrachet and other white wines under their négociant label called “Maison Deux Montille Soeur et Frere”. Together Alix makes some 12,000 cases of white wine including 7,000 from the Puligny-Montrachet vineyards. After 2017, they folded the Château de Puligny-Montrachet brand under the Domaine’s name.
The Domaine dates back to 1730, and slowly they grew their vineyards to encompass some 85 acres of land, by the late 19th century. Sadly, piece by piece the family sold off vineyards to keep living their lifestyle. The family slowly divorced themselves from the Domaine and used it as a piggybank. Sadly, by the time Hubert de Montille took over in 1947, at the young age of 17, all that was left was 7 acres!
Hubert de Montille
Domaine de Montille is known for three time periods, as of now anyway. The first/original one, which grew the Domaine and then almost destroyed it. The next period is affectionally known as the “Hubert era”. In this period, from the 40s until 2001 Hubert made the penultimate decision to make his own wines! Until then, the family had been selling their vineyards and grapes to négociants. Starting with the harvest of 1947 Hubert decided that the quality was too good to keep selling the grapes. It was time to believe in the terroir and make a name in Burgundy using his own grapes!
Hubert’s period was known as an era of wines that were tightly wound, rich, and built to last. Sadly, the winery was not allowing for ends to meet, at the start, so he followed in the family’s footsteps and became a lawyer. Throughout that period he split his time between law and wine, and he excelled at both! The last year he sold grapes to négociants was 1961. The de Montille name started to grow through the decades with vintage after vintage quality wines that were built for the long haul.
As a youngster, Etienne was not a fan of the stodgy Domaine. It was located in the family plot in Volnay and as a child, in the 70s, few people saw the allure of Volnay. As a youngster, there was nothing there to keep him entertained when all his classmates were elsewhere. By the tender age of 18 Etienne was already on his way to the United States of America to escape the vineyards and winery. Though wine was not far away and as he slowly started working at different wineries in California his father’s success and their name kept coming up in conversations.
Eventually, Etienne made it back to the winery for the 1983 harvest and stayed in the region for 3 years while he studied law and winemaking in Dijon. After that, he took different jobs and eventually met his wife at one of them. They had a child but the marriage did not last. Throughout it all, Etienne kept close to the winery and studied under his father’s watchful eyes, notwithstanding his studies at Dijon. In 1995 Etienne became co-manger of the Domaine and brought de Montille to the next stage of its evolution!
Etienne and Organic/Biodynamic Farming
Organic winemaking was not a thing of the 40 or 70s, but it was slowly becoming a thing in the 90s and when Etienne brought it up to Hubert, though it was not his style, he agreed. Thinking it was time and a good thing for the vines.
Another thing that Etienne started to change was the overall wine profile. The early years were lean, but robust wine, low in alcohol, but also very tight and not so enjoyable for the first 20 years! Etienne was hoping to change that a bit and move from the “Hubert Era’s” tight wines to some more accessible wines. Etienne strived to make the wines more open to the consumer from the start, he minimized the extraction time, moved towards whole-cluster fermentations, and limited pump-overs. By 1998 the Domaine started its third and current era, though not officially named so, the “Etienne Era”.
Growth
Hubert slowly grew his Domaine from a Volnay-focused vineyard to other regions, by buying small parcels bit by bit in Volnay and Pommard. However, in 1993, they bought “Les Cailleret” 1er Cru de Puligny-Montrachet. Their first white wine vineyard and the ranks of their vines have grown more and more over the years.
In 2001, Etienne started working for Chateau de Puligny Montrachet, a vaunted Chardonnay-based vineyard and Chateau and one that was a mere 5 miles from their family’s estate. From that point, Etienne has been in Burgundy full-time and has not looked back. The biggest addition came when he teamed up with Domaine Dujac to buy part of the 35 acres that the Thomas-Moillard estate was selling. As part of the deal, Hubert and Etienne came away with vineyards in Vosne-Romanee Les Malconsorts, Clos de Vougeot, Corton Clos du Roi, Beaune Grèves, and more
Alix joins the family business
From an early age, Alix was a classically-trained pianist and Hubert wanted her to go into law to help him with his firm. However, after sitting in on a nasty murder case, she quickly realized that the law was not for her! She worked in some of the greatest restaurants in the world, and she is in a few movies as well, including Back to Burgundy and Haute Cuisine. However, the allure of wine would eventually pull Alix back into the fold. In 1998, Alix started working for a négociant named Alex Gambal. A few years later she joined the large négociant called Ropiteau Freres and she exerted control over how the relationship was to be between the growers and the négociant, which was a new style for that time.
Soon after, she joined Etienne at the winery, when they bought the acclaimed estate of Château de Puligny-Montrachet, and now Alix handles the white wines for Domaine de Montille. She also runs Maison de Montille with her brother and all together they make some 12,000 cases of white wine a year.
Domaine de Montille has been recognized for its exceptional wines, with numerous high scores from wine critics and inclusion in top wine guides. The estate’s wines are highly sought after by collectors and Burgundy enthusiasts.
Tasting
It took me a bit of time to get my hands on these wines but with the help of M&M Importers, I was able to taste the three wines in my home, this past month. The wines are just incredible, they were made with the help of Honest Grapes in the U.K. The last kosher Puligny Montrachet was in 2004 so I was psyched to taste this and the two 1er Cru red wines. The wines did not disappoint and while their price may be a bit steep their value is in line with what I would expect for wines of this quality.
My sincerest thanks to Ralph and his partner at M & M Importers for sharing their wonderful wines with us all! The wine notes follow below – the explanation of my “scores” can be found here and the explanation for QPR scores can be found here:
2020 Domaine de Montille Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru Les Chalumeaux, Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru – Score: 93+ (QPR: GREAT)
The last kosher Puligny Montrachet was in 2004, so this was so much fun! This wine is not like any other Chardonnay you will have, outside of maybe another kosher Puligny Montrachet. It is not a Cali Chard, for sure, it is not a Meursault, and it is not a Chablis. It is truly unique and lovely. This wine is NOT ready, it may seem so, but it needs another 5 years before you think about touching it, AT LEAST! The nose of this wine is beautiful, tart, and precise, with lovely lanolin, and an elegance that takes time to evolve, ripe Meyer lemon, lime, almonds, honeysuckle, chamomile, lavender, roasted almonds, beautiful sweet oak, and lovely minerality. The mouth of this full-bodied wine is an acid bomb, a true carpet bombing of acidity, with intense lemon/lime Fraiche, lovely honeyed almond pie, peach, freshly baked butter-infused apple pie, roasted and smoked duck, roasted pear and apricot, honeysuckle, smoked almond, toast, sweet oak, scraping minerality, and elegance. The finish is long, tart, and acidic to the core, with peach, saline, roasted apricot, and more scraping minerality, flint, rock, wow! Drink from 2027 until 2032. (tasted January 2023) (in San Jose, CA) (ABV = 12%)
2020 Domaine de Montille Volnay, 1er Cru Les Brouillards, Volnay 1er Cru – Score: 93+ (QPR: GREAT)
The nose of this wine is a fruit beast, rich, ripe, aggressive, but incredibly controlled, with big ripe, and bright boysenberry, blackberry, smoke, heritage rose petals, earth, loam, smoked meat, and incredible minerality. The mouth of this full-bodied wine is ripe, with lovely acidity, lanolin, and mouth-draping tannin, with blackcurrant, blackberry, juicy raspberry, and boysenberry, ripe, precise, and truly focused, with intense minerality, sweet oak, iron shavings, rose notes, coffee, and rich smoke. The finish is long, ripe, dense, and beautiful, with more boysenberry, minerality that jumps out at you, graphite, iron rock, iron shavings, rock, smoke, and lovely milk-covered coffee beans. Just a lovely expression of Volnay! Drink from 2027 until 2035. (tasted January 2023) (in San Jose, CA) (ABV = 13%)
2020 Domaine de Montille Pommard 1er Cru, Les Grands Epenots, Pommard 1er Cru – Score: 95 (QPR: GREAT)
The nose of this wine is ripe but a bit more balanced than the Volnay with ripe black and red fruit, and hints of blue fruit in the background, with even more minerality, sweet spices, brighter fruit, freshly baked boysenberry pie, sweet oak, rose, and violet, just incredible, a truly controlled fruit and mineral beast. The mouth of this full-bodied wine is incredible, layered, dark, brooding, controlled, and elegant, I am running out of words to express beauty, with a rich acid core, followed by rich minerality, my mouth salivates as I taste it, incredible, with black oolong tea, dense blackberry, plum, tamarind, blackcurrant, dark cherry somewhere back there, and mouth-draping tannin, just incredible! The finish is long, dense, elegant, concentrated, and smokey with coffee, dark chocolate, tea, sweet spices, anise, cloves, tannin, and minerality. WOW!! Drink from 2028 until 2036. (tasted January 2023) (in San Jose, CA) (ABV = 13%)
A tasting of Taieb JP Marchand Burgundies, a massive Domaine Roses Camille vertical, two Taieb Bordeaux verticals, and more!
I am sorry for the long title, I really could not succinctly summarize the tasting I had last week with Neal and Andrew Breskin in not-so-sunny San Diego. Neal and I flew in from different parts of the country on a no so warm Monday morning, I picked up Neal at the airport, and we made our way to Andrew Breskin’s home, the proprietor and founder of Liquid Kosher.
I had been bugging Andrew that it was time to meet again for a tasting of the new 2021 Jean-Philippe Marchand Burgundies. I had tasted them with Avi Davidowitz in Paris, but as I said in that post, I was hoping to taste them again with the opportunity to see if they evolve with a bit of time, after opening. While I liked them in Paris, I was wondering if they would evolve with a bit more time. As stated in that post, we both flew home the next day and we did not have the chance to see them evolve over a day or so.
Thankfully, my calendar worked out, and we arrived on the day of Rosh Chodesh Shevat. The morning started with me picking up some breakfast at this lovely, but expensive bakery in La Jolla called Parisien Gourmandises. Before I continue with the story, please visit this place, when/if you are in the San Diego area. I do not like to say I am a picky eater, however, my opinions of food/food establishments, when traveling can be a bit coarse. I have recently been in Florida and Paris for different wine tastings and this bakery had better croissants and flaky dough pastries than either the bakeries in Paris or the wonderful bakery in Fort Lauderdale called Moran Patisserie Bakery. The people, food, and overall ambiance are really impressive, and aside from the actual location (a small room inside a potpourri store – you have to be there to understand), the food is worth the price of admission. Now on to the rest of the story!
I then picked up Neal at the airport, as stated above, and 20 minutes later we were ensconced under the shade of lemon trees and tasting wonderful wines.
The schedule was open-ended and after a lovely cup of coffee and Parisien Gourmandises pastries, we were ready to settle down for a day of wine tasting.
Pre-Dinner tasting
We started the tasting with two Champagne, one of them was simple enough and lacking in bubbles while the other one was nice and very accessible. The first one was N.V. Louis de Vignezac, Cuvee Special, Brut and the second was N.V. Champagne Charles de Ponthieu.
After those two aperitifs, it was time for some Burgundy! We started with the 2019 Jean-Philippe Marchand Meursault followed by the 2021 Jean-Philippe Marchand Meursault. Having the opportunity to taste the two of them side-by-side was quite a treat! I had not tasted the 2019 Meursault in 2 years. I had it with Andrew and Gabriel Geller later in 2021 as well, but I have less of a memory of that time.
We then started in on all of the 2021 Jean-Philippe Marchand red Burgundies and they were an exact match to the wines I had in Paris in late November 2022. They are all lovely wines with a floral approach. Even the 2017 and 2019 Gevrey Chambertin that we had later that night followed that approach. The Gevrey has more weight but overall their approach is more for the ethereal Pinot Noir than the full-bodied one.
Once we had tasted the Pinot Noir we had the opportunity to taste some soon-to-be-released Domaine Roses Camille wines, including 2016, 2017, and 2018 vintages. To be fair, I am never a fan, interested in tasting unreleased wines as they may change before being bottled. Thankfully, the 2016 and 2017 vintages are already bottled, while 2018 was a tank sample.
All the Domaine Roses Camille wines were exceptional but as I stated before I wanted the opportunity to taste them again the following day. So after our initial tasting of the wines, Andrew got some plastic Ziplock bags and bagged me some 30 ml of each wine and labeled each bag to boot! This assured me two things, I will have wine to taste the next day, as the wines were open for the dinner that was fast approaching, and I knew what each wine was, the following day!
The bags worked like a charm, Andrew placed them in a box and moved them to the garage where they stayed until the following morning – bravo my man!
Dinner – AKA SoCal RCC Jan 2023
After all the wines were tasted and bagged it was time to focus on dinner. Andrew had already started on the beautiful ribs and was getting the rib roast prepared. It was about that time that I looked at the rib fat/sauce and I started skimming off the obvious fat and then worked on cooking it down a bit and thickening it with some simple starch slurry.
After that, Andrew started cooking some nice Gnocchi and then pan-seared them. I helped a bit with this and the potatoes. I laugh because there is this Italian chef who lives in Australia (Vincenzo Prosperi of Vincenzos Plate) that loves to rant about other chefs who do things that are not exactly Italian! LOL, he tore apart some chefs for doing this very thing, but honestly, I found them very enjoyable!
Soon after Neal and I finished helping here and there the guests started to arrive. The first was Elan Adivi, who works with Jeff’s Sausage and he came armed with a basket full of sausage, charcuterie, and rectangle pie crusts. He made some pretty good pizzas and he topped them with the only green things that graced any of our plates, some arugula, though to be honest, no one went hungry that night!
The evening started with some lovely sushi and the Champagnes we tasted earlier along with some 2019 La Chablisienne, which was a nice enough Mevushal Chablis.
After the Sushi, it was red meat and wine all the way, which is the only way an RCC should be! The Ribs and the Rib Roast were just awesome, and my sauce reduction was not bad either! The Pizzas turned out quite nicely, as well. There was also some very interesting beef jerky, but I did not catch where they were sourced from, I think Andrew had them flown in from Holy Jerky in Five Towns, the stuff was solid!
First I tried the Burgundies again, as well I wanted to see if they had evolved over a few hours, but nothing had changed much. Next, I enjoyed tasting the three Gevrey Chambertin from Jean-Philippe Marchand. Much like the 2019 Jean-Philippe Marchand Meursault I had not tasted the 2017 or 2019 Jean-Philippe Marchand Gevrey Chambertin for many a year.
Of the three, at their current place, I would still go for the new 2021 Gevrey, which is quite surprising to me but also makes me happy to see that there were some good wines from the 2021 vintage.
I then tasted the two mini-verticals of Chateau Castelbruck, Margaux, and Chateau Haut-Breton Larigaudiere. We had 2018, 2019, and 2020 vintages of the Chateau Castelbruck, and Chateau Haut-Breton Larigaudiere. The two wine verticals had not evolved very far from what I had over the past three years. Some wines evolve over a short period, and while these did change slightly from previous tastings, the evolution was more about which fruit emerged ahead of another rather than moving into a drinking window or showing tertiary notes.
Domaine Roses Camille Vertical
Unlike the smaller Chateau Castelbruck, and Chateau Haut-Breton Larigaudiere verticals the Domaine Roses Camille was larger and therefore one that showed a more obvious effect in the years past.
Each of 2011, 2012, and 2014 vintages had clearly evolved with the 2011 vintage almost entering a drinking window. The younger wine (2015) followed the same script as the Taieb Bordeaux and did not change much, if anything, at this point. The even younger wines were all new to me so they may have evolved since being bottled but I would not know.
It was great getting to taste these wines all side by side and seeing the impact of a season on the same vineyard. AKA, Horizontal tasting 101!
After the DRC work, I tried the famous 1997 Chateau de Fesles Bonnezeaux, it had clearly passed its prime but it was nice enough indeed! If you have any still, drink NOW!! I also tried some Montelobos Mezcal Pechuga – it was smoked with kosher Turkey Breast!!! LOL!! Yeah, it was fun! There were some 1999 and 2001 Chateau Guiraud passed around but I missed them and that is fine, I know them well.
It was great hanging out with Shimon Weiss from Shirah Winery and Alex Rubin (a winemaker helping the guys), and I first met Alex on my way to Josh’s wedding in the plane jetway! Life is such a small world! If any of this sounds familiar, in some manner, you have a great memory! Indeed, in August of 2012 found me, along with the aforementioned Shimon Weiss, and Jonathan Hajdu with the same awesome hosts getting together for an awesome event! It was a lunch to truly remember!
Second Tasting
Noon, the next day, I crashed at Andrew’s place, once again, and I tasted through the Burgundies from the plastic bags some had indeed evolved and improved, but none took a step backward.
Once I was done tasting through the wines I bid my adieu and made my way to the airport! The sad fact is that if you have no status you get what you pay for! I was done a few hours before my flight home, but I flew down using Southwest and I have no status with them, so changing a ticket the day of, would have cost me an arm and leg, so I sat in the terminal and waited for my plane. Of course, the plane was eventually delayed, but my plane was so empty they had to distribute us across the plane – so yeah, I was fine! It is all about perspective – right?
My thanks to Andrew and Shauna Breskin for hosting the tasting and for putting up with me and everyone else who crashed their home for more than 24 hours! Also, I used many of Andrew’s lovely pictures – thank you, sir!!! The notes speak for themselves.
The wine notes follow below, in the order, they were tasted – the explanation of my “scores” can be found here and the explanation for QPR scores can be found here:
N.V. Louis de Vignezac Cuvee Special, Brut, Champagne – Score: 89 (QPR: EVEN)
The nose of this wine is very yeasty, with baked goods, lemon/lime, and green apple. The mouth o this medium-bodied wine is ok but uni-dimensional, with nice minerals, green/yellow apple, and lime, but not much more than the acid and the fruit to grab you. The mousse is ok, not bracing and not attacking, but the acidity is great. The finish is long, and tart, with pear, apple, and lime. Drink now. (tasted January 2023) (in San Diego, CA) (ABV = 12.5%)
N.V. Champagne Charles de Ponthieu, Champagne – Score: 91 (QPR: GREAT)
The nose of this wine is screaming with bright fruit, rich minerality, slate, rock, baked goods, pear, and apple. The mouth of this medium-bodied wine is fresh, with great fruit focus, a lovely small bubble mousse, pear, apple, lime, baked apple pie, and lovely yeast, with floral notes. The finish is long, fruity, balanced, tart, lovely, refreshing, and focused. Nice! Drink now! (tasted January 2023) (in San Diego, CA) (ABV = 12.5%)
2019 La Chablisienne Chablis, Cuvee Casher, Chablis (M) – Score: 90 (QPR: EVEN)
The nose of this wine is nice enough with nice minerality, smoke, and saline, pear, and apple. The mouth of this medium-bodied wine is ok, a bit cooked, funky, and fruity, with apple, pear, and lemon/lime. The finish is long, cooked, and flinty, nice! Drink UP! (tasted January 2023) (in San Diego, CA) (ABV = 12.5%)
2021 Jean-Philippe Marchand Burgundies from Taieb Wines
Over the past month or so I have been posting my wine notes from my trip to Paris in November 2022. The tastings were all done with my buddy Avi Davidowitz, from the Kosher Wine Unfiltered blog. On the last day we were there we had the chance to taste the newly bottled 2021 JP Marchand Burgundies from Taieb Wines. I continue to hope that on our next trip to Paris, Avi and I will once again make our way down to the Lyon, France area. Of course, without the “hotel” memories/baggage of the last trip! That was the eventful evening that led me to state these lines; After that, we made our way to our hotel and called where we slept that night – a hotel, well that is kind of like saying World War II was a mistaken exchange of friendly fire. WOW, that place was super strange on so many levels. Next time we finally get down to the Lyon area, where the Taieb offices are, we will make sure to stay at a normal hotel!
Back to the wines! As I have stated in my many posts so far I am not a huge fan of the 2020 or 2021 vintages so far. I have not had all the 2020 wines and obviously, we have only scratched the surface of the 2021 vintage. These wines did have their moments and some were quite nice but in the end, the 2021 vintage will be a tough go for almost all winemakers.
For the 2021 vintage Taieb once again made Meursault along with seven red Burgundies. There are no 1er or Grand Cru wines this vintage from Jean-Philippe Marchand and Taieb wines. I guess that the 2021 vintage was already so small in size that to have gotten those grapes would have been impossible. The Meursault was exceptional as was the Gevrey-Chambertin, and there were a few other solid wines as well. The main issue was that some of the wines were nice but not complex, sadly, they were scored from what we tasted that night. I attribute this to the 2021 vintage which was a complicated and difficult one for sure.
I want to stress that these wines were NOT tasted blind, in comparison to the other, non-organized wine tastings where all the wines were tasted blind over a couple of days. Sadly, there was just no time for that to happen. However, I will be tasting these wines in a few weeks and I will repost my notes again.
I will keep this to a minimum, a simple post about the wines I tasted. If you want more on Taieb Wines – read the family history here.
Hopefully, these wines will be brought in by Andrew, at Liquid Kosher, again I hope to taste at least some of these, a second time, in the USA soon. My many thanks to Yoni Taieb and all at Moise Taieb Wines & Spirits for taking the time to send me the wines to my hotel. The wine notes follow below – the explanation of my “scores” can be found here and the explanation for QPR scores can be found here:
2021 Jean-Philippe Marchand Meursault, Meursault – Score: 93+ (QPR: GOOD)
The nose of this wine is intense, funky, and dirty, with rich salinity, smoke, hay, honeyed melon, toasty oak, hazelnuts, and lemongrass. The mouth of this full-bodied wine is intense, dense, rich, and layered, truly incredible, with layers of acidity, butterscotch, toast, melon, apple, lime, hay/grass, with minerality, flint/slate, with such an unctuous and rich mouthfeel, almost oily, with a weightiness and freshness that is truly incredible. The finish is long, tart, and rich, not as ripe as 2019, but lovely with more lemon/lime Fraiche, flint, rock, saline, and honeyed notes. Lovely! PLEASE, many of you will be motivated to drink this up as it is an awesome wine, but control yourselves please, this wine needs time! Drink until 2029, maybe longer. (tasted November 2022) (in Paris, France) (ABV = 13%)
2021 Jean-Philippe Marchand Bourgogne, Hautes-Cotes de Nuits, Hautes-Cotes de Nuits – Score: 88 (QPR: POOR)
This wine is evolving, changing with air and time, with more floral notes, showing rosehip, and violet, with roasted herbs, green notes, red fruit, and foliage. The mouth of this medium-bodied wine is ripe, with dried floral notes, cherry, smoke, earth, mushroom, and smoke, with soft tannins, menthol, and green notes. The finish is long, green, sweet, floral, and herbal, with graphite, and smoke. Bravo! Drink until 2026. (tasted November 2022) (in Paris, France) (ABV = 12.5%)
2021 Jean-Philippe Marchand Bourgogne, Hautes-Cotes de Beaune, Hautes-Cotes de Beaune – Score: 91+ (QPR: GOOD)
The nose of this wine is lovely, far more restrained than the Hautes-Cotes de Nuits, with lovely mushroom, loam, dirt, smoke, red fruit, rich funk, and nice umami. The mouth of this medium-bodied wine is lovely, layered, and concentrated, with bracing acidity, lovely salinity, dark cherry, and raspberry fruit, all balanced and wrapped with elegant tannin, more rosehip, lavender, tart notes, and sweet fruit. The finish is long, tart, and balanced, with menthol, roasted herbs, loam, and smoke. Drink by 2028. (tasted November 2022) (in Paris, France) (ABV = 12.5%)
2021 Jean-Philippe Marchand Nuits-Saint-George, Aux Herbues, Nuits-Saint-George – Score: 88 (QPR: BAD)
the nose of this wine starts with earthy notes, smoke, and funk, a bit of heat, with lovely cherry, dark raspberry, cranberry, pomegranate, coffee, violets, and foliage, with menthol. The mouth of this medium-bodied wine is ripe, and hot, with ripe fruit, bramble, jammy pomegranate, and cranberry, with more tannin, candied fruit, roasted herb, wrapped in sweet currants, and a dense rich mouthfeel. The finish is ripe, with sweet fruit, more acidity, sweet oak, milk chocolate, sweet licorice, and candied strawberry. Drink by 2030. (tasted November 2022) (in Paris, France) (ABV = 13%)
2021 Jean-Philippe Marchand Volnay, Sous Luret, Volnay – Score: 91 (QPR: EVEN)
The nose of this wine is far more constrained and controlled with lovely mushrooms, dark cherry, smoked meat, violet, lavender, coffee bean, earth, and mineral. The mouth on this medium-bodied wine is truly layered, rich, and smoky, with dark Kirche cherry, currant, dirt, bright scream acidity, with a nice tannin structure, followed by more floral notes, and tart fruit. The finish is long, tart, green, ripe, and smoky, with tart cherry, nice tannin, and floral notes lingering long, with mushroom and loam lingering as well. Nice! Drink by 2030. (tasted November 2022) (in Paris, France) (ABV = 13%)
2021 Jean-Philippe Marchand Aloxe Corton, Sous Chaillots, Aloxe Corton – Score: 88 (QPR: POOR)
The nose of this wine is funky, with mushrooms, flowers, red fruit, herbal notes, and smoke. The mouth of this medium-bodied wine is ripe, and floral, with cranberry, cherry, and currants, all wrapped in violets and rosehip, with nice tannin. The finish is long, tart, and candied, with almost pomegranates, and loads of floral notes that are sweet from the candied fruit, mushroom, and earth. Overall, the red fruit, dense floral notes, and acidity are what carry this wine. Drink until 2030. (tasted November 2022) (in Paris, France) (ABV = 13%)
2021 Jean-Philippe Marchand Pommard, Le Dome, Pommard – Score: 89 (QPR: POOR)
The nose of this wine is oaky, with nice mushrooms, ripe red fruit, herbs, and dirt. The mouth of this medium-bodied wine is once again a flower pot with nice red fruit, cherry, and raspberry, not as candied as others, with nice acidity, and tannin. The finish is long, floral, herbal, and fruity, with lavender and smoke. Drink by 2029. (tasted November 2022) (in Paris, France) (ABV = 13%)
2021 Jean-Philippe Marchand Gevrey-Chambertin, Gevrey-Chambertin – Score: 93 (QPR: GOOD)
The nose of this wine is balanced with good mushrooms, bright and ripe red fruit, cola, umami, funk, and dirty sock funk, that gives way to soy sauce, and earth. The mouth of this medium-bodied wine is ripe, balanced, and nice, with rich salinity, nice tannin structure, lovely dark cherry, ripe strawberry, rich extraction, dense fruit, and mouthfeel, smoked meat, elegant, yet ripe, with a lovely plush and rich mouthfeel, lovely! The finish is long, red, ripe, and extracted with lovely fruit, menthol, garrigue, mushrooms, smoke, and more roasted animal, lovely! Drink by 2031. (tasted November 2022) (in Paris, France) (ABV = 13%)
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