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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 mostly Royal 2019 and 2020 Whites and Roses, with some Reds as well
Well, I can honestly say I never meant it to get this out of hand, I was meant to post this months ago! But, 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, and bought lots of wines, and then had lunch with Ari Cohen and Simon Berdugo. I will get to the many wines I bought in the next few posts, God willing.
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 two reds that will get here eventually. My guess is that just like all shipping around the world is waiting on boats, maybe these wines are also being held up behind millions of iPhones, laptops. and Elmo toys. Please, do your Chanukkah shopping NOW, the supply of many items will be very limited in the next few months.
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 high-end Chateau Roubine wines tasted FAR better and different in France – like VERY different! All I can say is that the score represents what I had in France, and I noted that the wines here taste different..
- The 2019 vintage is showing nicely for some parts of France and less so for others, time will tell how well it shows.
- Finally, the 2019 Chateau Malartic, Blanc is simply one of the best, if not the best white wine I have ever tasted, again, all I drink or taste is kosher. It is shockingly wonderful. Yes, there are the beautiful 2014 Von Hovel Auction Rieslings, I did not forget them, and they may well outlive the Malartic, who knows, but this wine is special!
In closing, all of these wines will get here eventually. 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. These new phenomena 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 many of 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:
2019 Les Marrioners Petit Chablis (M) – Score: 90 (QPR: GOOD)
The nose on this wine is nice, tart, with floral notes of apple blossom, quince, mineral, slate, hay, straw, and smoke. The mouth on this medium-bodied wine is lovely, with great acidity, nice fruit focus, and a life to it that is quite refreshing. The mouth shows apple, quince, pear, hints of melon, blossom, orange pith, nectarines, and nice flint. The finish is long, green, with lemongrass, flint, and smoke, with acidity lingering long. Bravo!! Drink until 2023. (tasted June 2021)
2019 Les Marrionniers Chablis (M) – Score: 91 (QPR: GOOD)
The nose on this wine is quite nice with a rich focus that brings incredible minerality, rich saline, fruit that is more white and yellow with a clear precision that makes me smile. The mouth on this medium-bodied wine is rich, layered, and focused, with deep acidity and saline that brings the mouth together incredibly well, followed by rich apple, quince, peach, and mineral galore, the mouthfeel is oily and rich and really incredibly refreshing and also quite elegant, nice! The finish is super long, tart, green, with lemongrass, saline, slate, rock, and smoke, with grapefruit, lemon, and citrus galore. Bravo! Drink until 2024. (tasted June 2021)
The start of 2020 roses and whites and six QPR WINNERS
I am going to keep this post real short. I am catching up on some wines that I have tasted over the past month or more. Sadly, most of these are a mess or just good enough. Thankfully, there were six QPR (Quality to Price) Winners. That included the 2017 Carmel Riesling, Kayoumi Vineyards. I have said this a few times, Rieslings need time! 2017 is no different. It needed time to come around and now it is a solid QPR WINNER.
Roses are slowly trickling in and on kosher wine sites, you can see as many as 20 2020 roses. Sadly, it takes time for them to get to me, so I will start my usual procession of rose wines in a subsequent post, as they get to me here in California. So far, like 2019, they are a mess, and they feel like a total waste of my money.
In the end, the QPR WINNERS are no surprise! The 2020 Covenant Sauvignon Blanc is a solid wine and one that has lovely control and acidity. Having a wine like this with all that mother nature threw at California in 2020, I say Bravo to Covenant Winery! There are two Netofa Latour QPR WINNERS and OMG they are absolute ROCK stars. Please do me a favor and GET THEM! They will move fast! The 2016 Terra di Seta Chianti Classico, Riserva is another absolute Rock Star! Finally, the last QPR WINNER was the new vintage of the Flechas Gran Malbec a lovely wine that is not ready yet but will be nice when it is.
There were a few wines that were not winners:
- The much-ballyhooed 2018 Capcanes Peraj Ha’abib. I had it and it was a mess to mess. It was ripe from the start and while that ripeness did calm a bit it never really came around and for the most part, it was just OK.
- I was not a fan of any of the Carmel Mediterranean Vats wines. The 2019 Mediterranean 2 Vats white wine was ok, but it felt to me like it has RS (Residual Sugar) and that does not fly with me at all.
- The 2017 Marciano Terra Gratia was shockingly ripe and is probably the most elegant Date-juice driven wine I have ever tasted. I could be convinced, at gunpoint, to enjoy that wine, based solely on its elegance.
- The 2018 Dalton Petite Sirah was nice enough, but for the price, and the overall quality, it was a miss for me.
- Sadly, the 2018 Koenig wines continue to not impress, other than the lovely Riesling
- I tasted a large number of Victor Wines and none of them were any good.
While these other wines were not WINNERS they were quite enjoyable:
- I got to taste the new 2018 Dampt Freres Bourgogne. It is a much better version than the 2017 vintage. Sadly, the wine will probably sell for a price that does not let it be a QPR WINNER. I hope future wines will be priced lower. The sad truth is that there are few good QPR WINNER wines in the simple red wine category. It is a very hard nut to crack both in regards to making good wine and keeping it at the QPR price for that category, which is 20 or so dollars, at this moment.
- There were two nice 2019 Vitkin Wines the 2019 Vitkin Pinot Noir and the 2019 Vitkin Israeli Journey. These wines are solid, both a 90 score, but the prices are still too high for such wines. They are both simple reds and they price above the 20 dollar price range for simple red wines. They punch MUCH higher in regards to quality. The median score for simple reds is 87, at this moment. Again, getting a red wine to score WINNER in the simple red wine category is really tough!
- The Twin Sun white and Rose wines have been doing a great job, which is no surprise, as the Weiss Brothers know how to make great white and Rose wines. The 2018 Twin Suns Chardonnay-Viognier is a nice wine and at a very good price! Nice!
- The famous Matar Sparkling wine was nice enough, but it is not nearly as good as the Yarden Sparkling wines and it is more expensive. The bottle is nice!
- I had the chance to taste the 2017 Chateau Leoville Poyferre again, under less than perfect conditions, NO NOT the KFWV bottle, and I have revised notes, but the score stays the same.
The wine notes follow below – the explanation of my “scores” can be found here:
2020 Rose Wines
2020 Flam Rose – Score: 89+ (QPR: EVEN)
The nose on this wine is nice, with floral notes, with strawberry, flint, and red fruit. The mouth on this medium-bodied wine is nice, with good acid, nice mouthfeel, with a good fruit-focus, nice strawberry, currants, and good grapefruit. (tasted January 2021)
2020 1848 2nd Generation Rose – Score: 84 (QPR: EVEN)
The nose on this wine is nice enough with notes of rosehip, floral notes, citrus, and mineral The mouth on this medium-bodied wine is nice, with good acidity, and not much else, with more citrus, grapefruit, currants, and strawberry. The finish is long, acidic, and more currants and flowers. (tasted January 2021)
2020 Herzog Lineage Rose (M) – Score: 80 (QPR: NA)
Sadly, this is off-dry, it has sweet notes and not my thing. The nose on this wine has a Muscat feel, with floral notes, pineapple, cooked cabbage, and red fruit. The mouth on this medium-bodied wine has no acid, is sweet, ripe, guava, melon, and no citrus, no acid, tropical, and not much else. (tasted January 2021)
2020 Shiloh Rose (M) – Score: 73 (QPR: NA)
The nose on this wine is tropical and ripe, with hints of mineral, and citrus. The mouth on this wine is where it all goes bad, sweet, unbalanced, bitter, a mess. (tasted January 2021)
Wines ordered in score order
2016 Terra di Seta Chianti Classico, Riserva – Score: 93+ (QPR: WINNER)
This is one of the most balanced versions of the Riserva in a very long time. The Riserva is normally undrinkable for a few years, this one is far more accessible than any previous version – WOW! The nose on this wine is incredible, with mushroom, truffle, soy sauce, tar, with floral notes of violets, and earth, smoke, and rich dark fruit, WOW! The mouth on this full-bodied wine is incredible, tannic, gripping, earthy, smoky, and fruity, with lovely tart cherry, currant, plum, and ripe blackberry, with rich earth, loam, mushroom, intense saline, black olives, with intense acid, and mouth-drying and draping aggressive tannin, wow! The finish is long, black, green, and earthy, with umami, soy sauce again, with incredible floral notes, leather, tobacco, tar, and richness, wow! Bravo!! Drink from 2025 until 2033. (tasted January 2021)
2017 Chateau Leoville Poyferre, Saint-Julien – Score: 93+ (QPR: EVEN)
The nose is beautiful and well-controlled with crazy pencil shavings, rich black, and blue fruit, followed by tar, earth, smoke, and licorice. The mouth on this medium to full-bodied wine is closed to start with layers upon layers of currants, dark cherry, blackberry, with mouth draping tannin, crazy mineral, pencil shavings galore, with plush elegance that is plush, mouth-coating, yet the ripeness in the background is ripe and scary, but hedonistic and voluptuous, with layers of tar, earth, licorice, bell pepper, and loads of tannin galore, showing elegance and plushness, with clear hedonistic leanings and graphite/acid core that makes it all work. The finish is long, black, green, and tannic, with plush fruit and smoke, with tobacco, chocolate-covered coffee bean, and earth galore. Bravo!! Drink from 2028 until 2037 (tasted February 2021)
We have a new white wine QPR WINNER and some other roses
Another week and another batch of white and rose wines to enjoy. The summer is quickly approaching and while we have yet to find a single QPR WINNER in the world of kosher 2019 roses, we have some new entries.
QPR (Quality to Price Ratio) is the non-qualitative score I have been giving to wines recently. In my last update to QPR, a week after I posted the QPR revised methodology, I defined the QPR score of WINNER. A QPR score of WINNER is defined as a wine that scores a qualitative score of 91 or more, a score I define as a wine I would buy happily while also being a wine that is cheaper than the respective median wine category.
This week we have a mix of 7 wines 3 whites and 4 roses. One of the whites I have already posted about, a winner of the QPR GREAT score, the 2018 Koenig Riesling, Alsace. The wine is lovely and well worth the effort to find it and buy it.
However, the absolute clear QPR WINNER of this week’s post is the FIRST 2019 wine that gains the QPR WINNER title! Bravo!!! The wine is the 2019 O’Dwyers Creek Sauvignon Blanc. The 2018 O’Dwyers Creek Sauvignon Blanc was not a wine I liked while the 2017 O’Dwyers Creek Sauvignon Blanc was a solid WINNER, even when we did not have the WINNER QPR category at that time.
NOTE: I state the 2019 O’Dwyers Creek Sauvignon Blanc is the FIRST 2019 WINNER because even though the 2019 Herzog Sauvignon Blanc, Lineage, I listed in my last post, it is not actually available yet.
The 2019 Domaine Netofa Rosado, Latour, is another wine that got close to WINNER status, yet sadly, it did not. A nice wine, but with the price and score it received a solid QPR score of GOOD.
In an interesting twist, the Domaine Netofa Rose, which comes in at 7 dollars below the Latour Rose price, is not as good but given its price is below the Median for rose wines it has a better QPR score. There lies the issue of cost! Either we are going to bend to the needs of higher quality at all costs or we will go with slightly lower quality for less money. Sadly, for 2019 Roses that is LITERALLY our story! There are NO QPR WINNER roses, at least so far, 2019 is one of those years. The rest is a hodgepodge of QPR scores.
I continue to stand by my opinion that 2019 is one of the very WORST vintages for white and rose wines in the last 10 years for Israeli wines. I continue to dream of the 2013/2014 vintage for Israeli whites. Some of the very best Israeli whites came from the 2013/2014 vintages. Yes, I have not had as many of the 2019 whites and roses from Israel, as I would normally have had by now, sadly, the current circumstances do not let me do that. There are many roses still in France and Israel that I have not had, but of the ones I have had from Israel so far, I am fine with my statement.
Roses, so far this year have been an absolute letdown and honestly, without a SINGLE QPR WINNER in roses and 8 QPR winners in whites, it is clear as day to me that white wines are the way to go this summer (and the 19 days from now before that)!
The wine note follows below – the explanation of my “scores” can be found here and the explanation for QPR scores can be found here:
2019 O’dwyers Creek Sauvignon Blanc – Score: 91+ (QPR: WINNER)
This wine is in the 2nd quintile of quality scoring and it is below the median price line, so this wine SHOULD get a score of GREAT for QPR. However, it is ALSO one of the few white wines that score at least a 91, and that has a price that is below the median price line, so this wine gets the coveted score of WINNER for QPR. Bravo!!!
Lovely notes of passion fruit, incredible cat pee, gooseberry, and loads green notes for the cat to pee on, with incredible saline, such a wonderful and classic New Zealand nose. This is a very fruity, yet extremely well-balanced New Zeland Sauvignon Blanc, it is more tropical than the 2018 Goose Bay Sauvignon Blanc, but also more New Zeland – in nature. The mouth on this medium-bodied wine is lovely. well balanced, with good acidity, extremely refreshing, with loads of grapefruit, guava, passion fruit, lemon/lime, and lovely loads of crazy tart gooseberry, and incredible slate. The finish is long, green, with lovely salt, intense saline, rock, and more citrus. Bravo! Drink until 2024. Read the rest of this entry