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Paris tasting of Royal Wine’s 2023 Roses and Whites – Late May 2024
Unlike previous May trips, Avi Davidowitz, from Kosher Wine Unfiltered finally made one! This was the first May trip he made with me. This trip changed no fewer than three times with such a late Passover and then Avi had timing issues, so the trip was pushed out to late May. Thankfully, the trip was successful, we got there and came home, so I call that a success.
We did little to no wine searching, other than one store, and the theme is exactly as stated in my Rose post, there are very few new 2023 Whites or Rose wines in Paris, anywhere! All the stores are still selling the 2022 white and roses.
Also, I continue to be shocked by how little French people drink wine. It is a declining Kosher wine demographic for sure! Israel is drinking more kosher wine as is the USA, but Europe, as a whole, is drinking less kosher wine. The UK is a demographic that seems to be holding its own, but that is mostly among the wine geeks. Go to a store in London and the kosher wines are behind by a year or more.
As in past trips, the hotel knows me by now, they are very gracious and put up with all the wine deliveries and always make sure to handle them with care. Kudos to the team!
Avi and I met at the airport, we landed at the same time, give or take 40 minutes. It would have been exactly the same time, but SFO is doing construction on its runway, yet again! So we sat on the tarmac waiting to take off for an hour, joy! Thankfully, Avi met me at the terminal I landed in and we found our way to the hotel together, checked in, and then started in on some of the wines that had already been delivered. That post will be the last, as always, aka the hotel wine post.
The next morning, we made our way to the lovely home of Menahem Israelievitch, Managing Director and Winemaker at Royal Wine Europe. At the tasting, we enjoyed many lovely wines, and you can read the notes below, I want to point out a few thoughts on them.
- My overall feeling about 2023 whites and roses from Europe, as a whole, is that they are lacking in either verve, acidity, or finish. I have no idea why but this is a strong theme I have seen throughout the tastings I have made.
- Overall, I think Rose production is slowing down and stores I visited in NYC and NJ said they are being very diligent in which/what Roses they bring in.
- We had Six WINNER wines with one Rose and five White wines. Two of those wines will not be here as we only get the Mevushal versions here in the USA. The 2023 Chateau Roubine Rose, Premium, Cru Classe and the 2021 Chateau Gazin Rocquencourt Grand Vin, Blanc, Pessac-Leognan, Bordeaux.
The tasting was great as always. We tasted about 27 wines, three of them were red. It is the first time, that I can remember, where I had not tasted any of these wines in advance. For a multitude of reasons I just was not able to get my hands on any of these wines before I got to Paris, which is 100% fine. Also, the 27 wines were mostly the same as in previous vintages, except for a new white Chateauneuf du Pape, Blanc, and two new Vouvray wines.
Avi took all the pictures so if you have any issues blame him! Thanks, buddy!
Finally, I tasted the Mevushal versions of a few of these wines, here in the USA, so I am adding them in as well. I also retasted a few of the wines here and they showed differently. I will be posting those notes as well. Along with some other Royal wines I tasted in NJ.
My thanks to Menahem Israelievitch and Royal Wines for hosting us and letting us taste the wonderful wines. The wine notes follow below – the explanation of my “scores” can be found here and the explanation for QPR scores can be found here. The wine notes are in the order the wines were tasted:
2023 La Maison Bleue Merlot, Vin de France (M) – Score: 87 (QPR: GREAT)
The nose of this wine is good for such a simple wine, showing good fruit of plum, and cherry, along with spice, green notes, roasted herb, loam, floral notes, and Violet. The mouth of this medium-bodied wine is a bit too fruity and off for me, still, it is a clean wine, with good fruit, nice tannin, plum, cherry, and some smoke. The finish is long, herbal, smoky, dirty, classic Merlot, I wish it had more acidity, but people will like this simple wine. Drink now. (tasted May 2024) (in Paris, France) (ABV = 13%)
2023 La Maison Bleue Cabernet Sauvignon, Vin de France (M) – Score: 86 (QPR: GREAT)
The nose of this wine is nice with waxy notes, ripe fruit, smoke, blackberry, cassis, blueberry, green notes, and nice dirt. The mouth of this medium-bodied wine is nice enough, but the acidity is lacking for me, with nice fruit, sweet herbs, nice tannin, blackberry, plum, sweet loam, herbs, and some nice fruit profile. The finish is long, smoky, and fruity. Drink now. (tasted May 2024) (in Paris, France) (ABV = 13%)
2023 La Maison Bleue Chardonnay, Vin de France (M) – Score: 86 (QPR: EVEN)
The nose of this wine is nice, it has notes of apple, pear, orange blossom, and a bit of smoke and spice. The mouth of this medium-bodied wine is nice enough, with good enough acidity, but still a nice wine with good apple, pear, smoke, spices, and yellow blossom. The finish is long, ripe, round, and ready to go. Drink now. (tasted May 2024) (in Paris, France) (ABV = 14.5%)
2023 La Maison Bleue Sauvignon Blanc, Vin de France (M) – Score: 89 (QPR: GREAT)
The nose of this wine is classic with gooseberry, passion fruit, honeysuckle, citrus, and flint. The mouth of this medium-bodied wine shows good enough acidity, nice fruit focus, good gooseberry, grapefruit, lingering flint and mineral, hints of saline, and nice honeysuckle. The finish is long, smoky, and fruity, with minerality lingering. Drink now. (tasted May 2024) (in Paris, France) (ABV = 12.5%)
Paris tasting of Royal Wines 2022 Roses and whites with some very special 2021 Reds as well – May 2023
Well, this is getting up later than I wished, but that is life (earlier than last year, but only by a few days, I sense a theme here). Life, lots of hiking, shul, and so much more, got in the way. All good, just wine and my blog had to be put on the back burner for a bit. Thankfully, I am ready to post more often now.
So, here is the story, I landed in Paris, went to the hotel, and got some much-needed sleep. I was hoping to hang with the gang in Paris, but it was Lag Ba’Omer, and well, all the folks with families were unavailable as such, it was a quick burger and some sleep!
On this trip, I did not go hunting for loads of roses and whites and most of them were sent to my hotel or Ari Cohen in advance. At this point, the hotel knows me as the wine writer, I arrive, they give me my wines without even asking, it is a well-oiled machine at this point!
The next morning, I made my way to the lovely home of Menahem Israelievitch, Managing Director and Winemaker at Royal Wine Europe. At the tasting, we enjoyed many lovely wines, and you can read the notes below, I want to point out a few thoughts on them.
- The non-Mevushal versions of the roses I have had so far from Royal are much better. Mevushal does not work well for roses, at least from how Royal Europe is doing it.
- Many of the roses I have listed below were the non-Mevushal versions that sell in Europe. The ones here in the USA are mostly Mevushal and I did NOT taste those, except for ONE. You will see below the notes for wines I tasted side-by-side, Mevushal and non-Mevushal, the Sainte B Rose, and read the notes.
- The 2022 vintage for non-mevushal white and rose returns them close to the good old days!
- There are no 2021 red Burgundy wines – but there is new stuff coming in 2022.
- I came too early to taste the oak-influenced, higher-end Chateau Roubine Inspire and Lion & Dragon wines. Otherwise, I believe I was able to taste everything this time around – my sincere thanks to Mr. Israelievitch for his incredible effort in procuring these wines from all the wineries.
- There are 12 QPR (Quality to Price) WINNERS here – BRAVO to Menachem and team and bravo to the 2022 vintage!! Some of these WINNER are not coming to the USA but the majority are!
- Finally, there are many new roses here because of the lack of Roses from Israel, given 2022 is a Shmita year.
In closing, all of these wines will get here eventually, other than the non-mevushal versions of the Roses. I cannot say that for the vast majority of wines, I will be posting over the next weeks. So many wines made in France either live and die in France and Europe, as a whole, or are made JUST for Israel. This new phenomenon started with Shaked, and others have joined in. Either way, lots of French wine is not sold in France and lots of French wine never leaves the country – just the fascinating life of French wine. Most of it is made by very small producers or ones with horrible distribution, and as such, they are very difficult to find. Thankfully, as I stated all of these wines and a few of the Bokobsa wines, a post coming soon, should be available in the USA.
My thanks to Menahem Israelievitch and Royal Wines for hosting me and letting us taste the wonderful wines. The wine notes follow below – the explanation of my “scores” can be found here and the explanation for QPR scores can be found here. The wine notes are in the order the wines were tasted:
2022 Les Marronniers Petit Chablis, Petit Chablis (M) – Score: 88 (QPR: GOOD)
The nose of this wine is lovely, with intense minerality, bright apple, peach blossom, peach, and quince. The mouth of this medium-bodied wine is lovely, with bracing acidity, peach, baked apple, tart, mouth-filling, lavender, and lovely smoke. The finish is long, tart, mouth-filling, and refreshing, with saline, ocean spray, more floral notes, fresh tart fruit, and smoke. Drink Now. (tasted May 2023) (in Paris, France) (ABV = 13%)
2022 Domaine de Virvane Chablis, Chablis (M) – Score: 91 (QPR: GREAT)
The nose of this wine is a classic Chablis, bright, with screaming mineral, flint, smoke, matchstick, yellow apple, apple blossom, pear, and Asian pear.
The mouth of this medium-bodied wine is nice, tart, balanced, and refreshing, a wine that pulls you in with saline, smoke, Asian pear, yellow apple, screaming acidity, tart, ripe quince, and good precision.
The finish is long, tart, and smoky, with saline, flint, and lovely balanced fruit, really nice with good fruit focus, and precise mineral, a lovely expression of Chablis. Drink Now. (tasted May 2023) (in Paris, France) (ABV = 12.5%)
2022 Les Marronniers Chablis, Chablis (M) – Score: 87 (QPR: GOOD)
The nose of this wine starts a bit closed but with time opens to show intense minerality, sea spray, saline, olives, green apple blossom, and nice pear. Lovely!
The mouth of this medium-plus-bodied wine is a bit more extracted, tart, elegant, and more focused, with great precision, showing tart green apple, yellow plum, hints of wood, Asian pear, and rich smoke, lovely!
The finish is long, tart, and smoky, but I wish it had more acidity. Drink until 2025. (tasted May 2023) (in Paris, France) (ABV = 12.5%)
2021 Domaine du Chateau Philippe le Hardi Mercurey, Roc Blanc, Mercurey – Score: 92 (QPR: WINNER)
This is a lovely expression of oaked Chardonnay, with ripe pear, apple, flint, acacia flower, smoked nuts, almonds, cinnamon, and red peppers. The mouth of this medium to full-bodied wine is lovely, showing white pepper, cinnamon, smoke, green apple, smoked duck, ripe plum, Asian pear, lovely tart fruit, and intense minerality, with bracing acidity, mouthcoating tannin, and lovely precision and fruit focus, a fun wine indeed. The finish is long, tart, green, herbal, smoky, and fruity, with intense flint, saline, and mouthfeel, that is refreshing and exciting. Bravo! Drink until 2027. (tasted May 2023) (in Paris, France) (ABV = 12.5%)
Paris tasting of Royal 2021 Roses with some very special 2020 Reds as well – May 2022
Well, this is getting up later than I wished, but that is life. Life, shul, and so much more, got in the way. All good, just wine, and my blog had to be put on the back-burner for a bit. Thankfully, I am ready to post more often now.
So, we return to the story, I landed in Paris, bought lots of wines, and had even more wines shipped to my hotel, and other hotels as well! Long story, not for the blog. Was hilarious walking into a hotel and asking for a package from the concierge while he realizes you are not a guest – think of them as a local Post Office!!
But let us start with the roses and whites I enjoyed in the company of Menahem Israelievitch. These wines are almost all here, except for the three Burgundies that will get here eventually. My guess is that just like all shipping around the world is waiting on boats, or containers, at least they are getting what does arrive here off the boats quickly now.
At the tasting, we enjoyed many lovely wines, and you can read the notes below, I want to point out a few thoughts on them.
- The non-Mevushal versions of the roses I have had so far from Royal are much better. Mevushal does not work well for roses, at least from how Royal Europe is doing it.
- The 2021 vintage is OK, at least for non-mevushal roses, better than previous vintages, other than the original Roubine release.
- Royal has come back with some high-end Pinot Noir from Burgundy and they are showing well now but will improve with time for sure.
- As I explained in my previous post, the timing of my visit, along with supply chain issues meant that I was not able to taste all the wines that will be available soon from Royal. We are missing the oak-influenced, higher-end Chateau Roubine Inspire and Lion & Dragon wines. Along with all the 2021 white wines I missed. I hope to taste them when they come here to the USA.
In closing, all of these wines will get here eventually, other than the non-mevushal versions of the wines I have already posted here. I cannot say that for the vast majority of wines I will be posting over the next weeks. So many wines made in France either live and die in France and Europe, as a whole or are made JUST for Israel. This new phenomenon started with Shaked, and others have joined in. Either way, lots of French wine is not sold in France and lots of French wine never leaves the country – just the fascinating life of French wine. Most of it is made by very small producers or ones with horrible distribution, and as such, they are very difficult to find. Thankfully, as I stated all of these wines and a few of the Bokobsa wines, a post coming soon, should be available in the USA.
My thanks to Menahem Israelievitch and Royal Wines for hosting me and letting us taste the wonderful wines. The wine notes follow below – the explanation of my “scores” can be found here and the explanation for QPR scores can be found here. The wine notes are in the order the wines were tasted:
2021 Chateau Roubine R De Roubine Rose, Provence (M) – Score: 83 (QPR: POOR)
The nose of this wine is almost flat while the mouth is a bit expressive with good pith and fruit but again it is missing acidity. Raspberry, strawberry, and flint, with loads of pith and not much else, drink now! (tasted May 2022) (in San Jose, CA & Paris, France) (ABV = 13%)
Final take on 2020’s crop of Kosher roses – 2 QPR Winners, but overall not great
Kosher 2019 Roses charted by price and wine score (QPR)
So, as the image above shows roses are very expensive and the majority of the 28 of the 55 are at or above the median price of 23. This is not new, IMHO, roses overall have not been good or even very interesting this season.
Please read this post for my writeup on rose wines this year. I had a few follow-ups after that, including the one post with the QPR Rose for 2020, but this post will list all the rose wines I have had this year. Also, as I tasted more wines the price of the median went up and that allowed the Roubine La Vie to also become a QPR Winner. Again, the MARKET decides the QPR winners, not me! All I decide is the wine’s subjective quality score, and yes, that is subjective! The rest, the P part of QPR (Quality to Price Ratio) is decided upon by the market. Please read my revised QPR scoring here.
The image does not show the 2 QPR Winners as obvious winners, as the dot that represents the Carmel Rose and the Roubine La Vie Rose is on the top left of the winner box. These wines barely made their way into the Winner’s square, but with such a horrible vintage, rose-wise, 2 is better than NONE.
In regards to rose, look a lot of my friends and I do not agree. Look at the Cantina Giuliano Rosato, it is a VERy nice and classically made Gris style rose, but it has a bit of RS (Residual Sugar) in it, at least to my palate, and I have issues with that. Other wines that have more RS drive me nuts. My friends do not care about RS or ripe notes in rose as long as it is balanced. To me, rose, red, or white, I DO NOT want RS. The funny thing is that Kedel Jackson probably got away with1% RS in his Chardonnays for decades, and made it the classic style for Cali Chard, which brought on the famous ABC movement (Anything But Chardonnay). Which spawned Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling, and so many other great white wines here in California.
So, yes, there are two winners now, and there are a few 91 scored roses, but please look at the chart!! LOL! It is visually clear that the vast majority of the wines are not something I would look to buy. They are either too expensive or not interesting and that is what has gone wrong with the kosher rose market. Again, I have said it a few times, IMHO, the wineries have thrown in the towel and they make rose thinking it will sell, no matter what they release. This will eventually end badly. Only time will tell. Read the rest of this entry
The 2020 Kosher rose season is open and once again I am underwhelmed – part 1
It is not yet summer but here in NorCal, it feels more like summer than spring, and the weather is making shipments really hard at this time of year. Normally, I would have been in Israel by now, one way or the other, and I would have at least had two tastings with the gang. Sadly, with the times we live in now, neither of those wonderful ideas is possible. Sad and strange days we live in. Also, this is round 1, there will be another 15 roses I will get through over the next week or so.
While rose wine in the non-kosher market is exploding – especially Rose wine from Provence; a wine region of France, the kosher market this year will be more subdued. In the past, distributors brought in as much as 60+ kosher rose wines, this year with the issues I brought up in my previous post – there is less of an appetite for all those wines.
QPR and Price
I have been having more discussions around my QPR score with a few people and their contention, which is fair, in that they see wine at a certain price, and they are not going to go above that. So, instead of having a true methodology behind their ideas, they go with what can only be described as a gut feeling. The approaches are either a wine punches above its weight class so it deserves a good QPR score. Or, this other wine has a good score and is less than 40 dollars so that makes it a good QPR wine.
While I appreciate those ideals, they do not work for everyone and they do NOT work for all wine categories. It does NOT work for roses. Look, rose prices are 100% ABSURD – PERIOD! The median rose price has gone up this year and it is around 22 bucks – that is NUTS! Worse, is that the prices are for online places like kosherwine.com or onlinekosherwine.com, with free or good shipping options and great pricing, definitely not retail pricing.
As you will see in the scores below, QPR is all over the place and there will be good QPR scores for wines I would not buy while there are POOR to BAD QPR scores for wines I would think about buying, based upon the scores, but in reality, I would never buy another bottle because the pricing is ABSURDLY high.
Also, remember that the QPR methodology is based upon the 4 quintiles! Meaning, that there is a Median, but there are also quintiles above and below that median. So a wine that is at the top price point is by definition in the upper quintile. The same goes for scores. Each step above and below the median is a point in the system. So a wine that is in the most expensive quintile but is also the best wine of the group gets an EVEN. Remember folks math wins!
Still, many of the wines have a QPR of great and I would not buy them, why? Well, again, QPR is based NOT on quality primarily, it is based upon price. The quality is secondary to the price. So, wines that are drinkable with an 88 or 89 score, though wines that I would not buy, have a low enough price to get a GOOD or GREAT score. Does that mean that I would buy them because they have a GREAT QPR? No, I would not! However, for those that really want roses, then those are solid options.
Please remember, a wine score and the notes are the primary reason why I would buy a wine – PERIOD. The QPR score is there to mediate, secondarily, which of those wines that I wish to buy, are a better value. ONLY, the qualitative score can live on its own, in regards to what I buy. The QPR score defines, within the wine category, which of its peers are better or worse than the wine in question.
Finally, I can, and I have, cut and paste the rest of this post from last year’s rose post and it plays 100% the same as it did last year. Why? Because rose again is horrible. There is almost no Israeli rose, that I have tasted so far, that I would buy – no way! Now, I have not tasted the wines that many think are good in Israel, the Netofa, Vitkin, and Recanati roses. Yes, there is ONE rose I would “buy” by my qualitative scoring approach, which is why I used the word almost above. That wine would be the 2019 Bat Shlomo Rose, but at some 28 or more dollars a bottle, it is highway robbery for that score. Read the rest of this entry
Teperberg Wines at the 2012 Gotham Tasting and Sommelier
This is the tenth article I am writing on wineries from the Judean Hills wine region of Israel. No matter where you look around the landscape of Israeli wines and wineries you will find story after story of rebirth, renewal, and a fair amount of plain old new! Carmel, Binyamina, Barkan, were all producing mass consumption/bulk wine up until 1o to 15 years ago. Since then, they have seen serious rebirth, still selling almost undrinkable swill for the masses, and also selling high-end, and very respectable wines for us wine aficionados.
Personally, I think it is the correct business structure to have for a growing winery. You need simple bulk wines that have high margins and can be sold anywhere and everywhere. Wines that people buy in the millions, literally. Then you need wines that bolster the lineup, entry-level wine-drinker wines, that can be the bridge to take you from swill to paradise. Think white zinfandel from Herzog Wine Cellars, they sell those bottles by the millions and they are the perfect gateway drug to get you to Chenin Blanc and then maybe to Chardonnay or Black Muscat, and finally to some real dry red wines.
Today the winery we are looking at is the Teperberg winery which was founded in 1870 by the Teperberg family (from where the name of the winery is derived) in the Old City of Jerusalem. Actually, to be accurate it was located in an alleyway of the old city of Jerusalem, and may well have been the first winery in the modern era of Israel. Later in 1964, the winery moved outside of Jerusalem, to the then quiet suburb of Motza (now a thriving community), and took on the name Efrat. The winery, ignoring its many name changes, continues to mostly produce sacramental sweet wines, as that is what its main clientele are looking for. However, in the 1990s Efrat started to create dry red wines, and to be honest they were a disaster. I remember always passing up on them, even when in school, and buying Carmel dry or semi-sweet wines instead. Read the rest of this entry
Wine Musings Blog 