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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)
Final Tasting from my trip to Paris – November 2023
As stated in my previous post, I was in Paris in November, with Avi Davidowitz from Kosher Wine Unfiltered. The number of boxes in our room was not nearly as insane as last year. Last year, we had some 80 wines, this year we were at a measly 62. Of those 62, Avi did not get a chance to taste all of them, as he had to get back to Israel. It was a miracle he was even able to come in the first place and I really thank him and his family for him making it to Paris with all that was going on in Israel.
We were in Paris for a week and during that time Avi not only got to finally see some of Paris but we had three organized tastings and we had some Hotel time to taste other wines. Given the constraints, we sadly, did not have time to do these blind. I hope next year, we will make it a priority. Heck, at this point Avi has seen as much of Paris as I have, though he really does need to go to the Musée de l’Orangerie and some more of Musee d’Orsay. Heck, even a bit of the Centre Pompidou will not hurt him, but we have next time! B”H!!!
Like last time, I wanted to break up the normal approach, or taste wines from the distributor or wine producers and instead taste the wines in their respective groups. So the wines listed below are in the order we tasted them and in the groups, we tasted them.
Rhone & White Wines
Red Rhone wines were the first round of wines we tasted. I will take the blame here. I normally get rid of the white wines first, but I wanted to stick to regions and we did not have all the wines at the start, so yeah, the tasting order, at the start is a bit wonky.
Most of these wines were from Cedev, but a few also came from Yavine.fr. There were ten reds and three whites. The overall impression of the 13 wines was not impressive, though there were two nice wines from Yavine and Les Vins de Vienne and one from Domaine de Corps de Loup.
To start, the prices of some of these wines in France are outrageous and they are no better here in the USA (though some of these are only available in Europe). The others are barely OK wines and the price really is irrelevant. The best was the Yavine Les Vins de Vienne Crozes-Hermitage (white and red). The Domaine de Corps de Loup’s price was outrageous but it is a nice enough wine.
The Cedev wines rated OK to poor. The showing may be their best yet, but I have no need to buy any of them. They do have some interesting wines, like a Kosher red Vacqueyras, I just wish they tasted better.
In the end, the relationship between Yavine and Les Vins de Vienne continues to produce good wines.
Finally, if someone had asked me the day I came home, what was the best NEW wine I tasted on your trip – the answer would have been very simple – that is the 2021 Chateau Olivier Blanc. DONE. I would then have dropped the mic and walked away. It is an incredible wine! The 2020 vintage was nice enough, but the 2021 is shockingly incredible. It is clear that the 2021 vintage is really not good for Cabernet-based wines or even for some Merlot-based ones. It feels a bit like 2013 when the whites were incredible. We had no kosher white 2013 wines, but we had the 2013 Piada, yeah it is white, but it is sweet, and yeah, that was/is incredible!
2021 is a tough vintage for Bordeaux and 2022 is NOT what folks have hyped it – so far
This section is going to be tough. The 2021 vintage is a lost cause. Sadly, a large number of Bordeaux wines were made in 2021. There were no red wines made in 2021 from the wines we tasted in the hotel that were QPR WINNERs. There are four 2022 QPR WINNER wines but I continue to stress, that in the kosher world, for me, so far, 2022 is not the panacea or quality that the non-kosher world is hyping. Sure, we have not yet tasted the Chateau Pontet Canet. LOL! My real hope is that the 2020 Moulin Riche, Montviel, Royaumont, and so on, will NOT be like the 2018 vintage! NO! Please no! We want more of the 2014/016 vintage. Sadly, from what we have seen so far in the kosher wines, it is not what those on the outside are talking about. But, the final answer will be when we get to taste the big boys in November and Feb 2025. Yeah, 2025!!
Of this group, the standouts were the Taieb 20222 wines. No surprise here, Taieb continues to prove that great wine does not need to come from the Grand Cru names. Still, there were 2022 wines that were a ripe mess, but that happens with every vintage. My main issue here is that outside of these four wines we have found no other 2022 vintage that we liked enough to give it a QPR WINNER score. As stated, time will tell.
Other regions tasted with Avi
Literally, nothing here to talk about – next! So much pain!!
Elvi Wines
Elvi has another two QPR WINNER wines, while the 2020 Rioja Crizana (Mevushal and not) is not my cup of tea. The 2021 Clos Mesorah and the 2022 Herenza White are lovely wines. Sadly, because Royal can not sell the Herenza White (AKA Invita), the only place I get to taste the current vintage is in Paris or Europe. It is pathetic, that the USA cannot appreciate the joy and happiness of the Herenza white, but hey, that is OK! They sell out in Europe anyway, this is just the loss to those of us living in the USA!
The 2021 Clos Mesorah is another WINNER and yeah, lovely wine, ripe, bold, and concentrated, but with lots of soy sauce and umami. Great stuff and it shows the complexity that so many other wines we tasted lacked.
Other regions tasted without Avi
This is mostly a press release for the Terra di Seta wines I have yet to taste! JOKING, I do not do a press release wine posts, but yeah, the wines are nice. Look, something has changed at Terra di Seta since 2019, I do not know what it is. Sure, the 2019 Chainati Classico was not bad, it was a bit short, but ok. The 2020 vintage was OK as well, while the 2021 vintage was a real mess. The 2019 Riserva was a hard pass for me at the start. It took a couple of days and then I came around to like it enough but even there, the Riserva did not meet what I expected from TDS. Time will tell what is happening or if the Riserva or Assai are good in the later vintages. I have always felt that the Riserva wines were the real age-worthy wine. I have had my issues with the Assai. Still, something is amiss in the last three years. I am hoping that things will change back soon!
I tasted a bunch of wines in June of 2023. They were at a wine event and they were imported by BAM Imports. I wrote about them here. Well, it turns out I had them again, without Avi in Paris and they showed far better. This can always be an import issue, bottle variation, or who knows what. Still, the concern is clear and the wines were not evil in Paris, so who knows!
Finally, I had a couple of wines in the hotel after Avi left and the WINNER of those was a lovely Ribeauville Pinot Noir! I know the joke, Kosher Alsace Pinot Noir is too cheap to clean the car with. Still, this vintage was a SOLID QPR WINNER. Of course, import it to the USA, and goodbye QPR! Still, for those in Europe, ENJOY! This is a daily quaffer HOMERUN!
Where can you buy these wines?
So, the Cedev wines are in the USA, I have no idea what stores are selling their wines sorry. The Olivier and others from Mercier are imported by M&M (AKA Ralph) and sold by Kosher Wine Direct. The Taieb wines will make their way to the USA soon, and should be available by Liquid Kosher, and Elk (you can contact Elk, listed to the right on the desktop view of this page) has/should have them as well. Finally, the TDS and Elvi wines will get to the USA soon or are already here. The biggest issue I find, outside of Royal Wine produced wines, is distribution for the kosher wine buyer. It is almost impossible for the average Kosher wine-buying Joe, to know where to buy each and every SKU/wine, it is crazy!
Thoughts on this tasting
OK, so overall, this tasting was a disaster, much like most of our hotel wine tastings. Look, 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! That is the MAIN takeaway! Followed by that is the horrible 2021 vintage (other than white wines). Finally, 2022 is not all it has been cracked up to be. OK, that is a wrap for Paris 2023! Looking forward to my next trip over the pond!
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!! Finally, while most of these deliveries were to the hotel this time, my man Ari Cohen, AKA El-Presidente of Bakus Wines, still put up with our many deliveries. Thanks as always! These hotel tastings could never happen with you, my man!!!
The wine notes follow below – the explanation of my “scores” can be found here and the explanation for QPR scores can be found here:
—————————— Rhone & White Wines ———————————————-
2022 Domaine La Martinelle Cotes du Rhone Villages Visan, Cotes du Rhone – Score: 78 (QPR: POOR)
This wine is painful, it smells hot, it tastes hot, and it feels painful, literally. It also tastes like the wine came out of the wine vat early, AKA, hard pass! The wine has no acidity, loads of astringent, and uncontrolled tannin. Next! (tasted November 2023) (in Paris, France) (ABV = 14.5%)
2022 Vignobles Vuillemin de Valois Bonne Etoile, Cotes du Rhone Villages – Score: 87 (QPR: EVEN)
This wine is a blend of 70% Syrah, 15% Grenache, and 15% Carignan. This is a solid wine for a good price the wine has nice acidity, showing blue, red, and green notes, and earthy, smoky, dirty, and loads of graphite. The mouth of this medium-bodied wine is solid is nice, with good acidity, nice tannin, good fruit, herbs, nice blueberry, raspberry, roasted herbs, soft tannin, and graphite. The finish is nice, tannic, fruity, simple, and not asking for much. Drink now. (tasted November 2023) (in Paris, France) (ABV = 14%)
Final Tasting from my trip to Paris – May 2023
As stated in my previous post, I was in Paris in May, without Avi Davidowitz, from the Kosher Wine Unfiltered blog, his lame excuse this time was not even a good one, like marrying off a daughter! Nope, I will not say something like a four-letter word on this blog! Whatever, you were missed buddy! Mostly for the IDS and Royal tasting! This part you missed nothing!
I kept to my hotel room for much of the trip. All these wines were tasted in my room. There were very few Roses available and what I could find, at that time, I have posted here.
White & Roses
After tasting roses from IDS and Royal I had a few more that I found around town. They were all very poor. I got to taste more roses in NYC, which was later in June, I will post those after this last Paris post.
Two red wines from Bakus Wines
Ari Cohen has a startup wine company called Bakus Wines. He shared two wines with me and this year’s vintages are solid! No issues with being over-oaked or overripe. Solid wines. Nice!
Two Chateau Peyrat Fourthon wines
This was the first big boy that I tasted from the 2021 vintage and scares me what these wineries will do with all the stock. These wines will not move quickly, short of drastic pricing, or just dumping. They are not the only ones sitting on palates of 2021 Grand Cru wines. Some wineries will weather the vintage and feel the satisfaction of the killing they will be making from the 2022 vintage. However, some wineries, like Chateau Peyrat Fourthon make very large batches of kosher wines and will be sitting on these for a long time and that makes me sad!
Understand that Chateau Peyrat Fourthonis one of the very few wineries that make the kosher wine by themselves and they therefore do not have the large “kosher stamp markup”. They sell the wine for a few more euros than the non-kosher sells for in France and Europe. It will be sad if the 2021 vintage stops them or slows them down from this approach. Here is hoping for another few years from Chateau Peyrat Fourthon!
Mercier Wines
I tasted two wonderful wines from the Mercier group and two basic ones that are okay. The 2021 Chateau Saint-Martin Rouge and 2021 Domaine Lebrun Pouilly-Fume! There were also some simple wines, three 2022 Le Grand Castellan and two L’enclos de Zeide Reserve wines.
The Rest
The rest were okay, though the lovely 2018 Ribeauville Riesling, Rosacker, Alsace Grand Cru is a wine that should be imported into the USA! Like its brother the 2018 Cave de Ribeauville Riesling, Vendanges Manuelles (which I have tasted two times in France – great wine!).
Thoughts on this tasting
Overall, most of these wines are not available in the USA, but you are missing nothing other than the Ribeauville and the Terra de Vinyaters. The rest are in the USA, including the Mercier wines and the Chateau Peyrat Fourthon 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:
2021 Chateau Saint-Martin Rouge, Cotes de Provence – Score: 92 (QPR: WINNER (France))
This wine is a blend of 25% Grenache, 25% Syrah, 25% Cabernet Sauvignon, & 25% Mourvedre.
The nose of this wine is ripe and juicy with floral notes, violet, blue, and red fruit, smoke, graphite, and roasted meat. With time, the more savory, earthy, dirty notes come out as well and add complexity and depth to the wine.
The mouth of this medium-bodied wine is fun, floral, juicy, and tart, with boysenberry, plum, dark cherry, herbs, graphite, searing acidity, nice mouthfeel, and a good fruity, balanced expression. The savory notes come out after a few hours and add complexity, Bravo!
The finish is long, tart, and juicy, with nice acidity, graphite, roasted herbs, and red/blue fruit. Drink by 2025. (tasted May 2023) (in Paris, France) (ABV = 13.5%)
2021 Domaine Lebrun Pouilly-Fume, Pouilly-Fume – Score: 92 (QPR: WINNER (France))
This wine is stunning, concentrated, focused, mineral-laden, and so tart/juicy, that my palate was salivating long after I spit the wine out. Nice!!
The nose of this wine is lovely, showing notes of sweet fruit, lovely orange blossom, intense minerality, honeysuckle, honeyed peach, honeydew, and intense smoke/flint.
The mouth on this lovely medium-plus-bodied is truly fresh, ripe, and well-balanced with screaming acid, smoke, flint, gooseberry, cat pee, grapefruit, orange, lovely screaming acid, and layers upon layers of flint/slate! Showing a lovely weight and mouthfeel.
The finish is long, green, ripe, and well balanced, with crazy mineral, screaming acid, and lovely rock, flint, and mineral. WOW!! Drink until 2024. (tasted May 2023) (in Paris, France) (ABV = 13%)
Blind tasting in Paris (Part #1) – Nov 2022
As stated in my previous post, I was in Paris in November, with Avi Davidowitz from Kosher Wine Unfiltered. The sheer number of boxes in our room was insane, somewhere nearly 120 bottles of wine came to our hotel or to Ari Cohen’s home. The poor bellman pushing that cart laden with wine boxes was a site to see.
We were in Paris for a week and during that time Avi and I had three organized tastings with Bokobsa, Royal Wine, and IDS. We also tasted some 80+ wines in the hotel room, blindly, in 5 rounds, each time following the methodology defined below. This post will showcase the wines we had in rounds 1 and 2.
Blind Tasting Methodology
Thankfully, my posts can stop referencing COVID and focus on wine. So, let us get to the process. This time I wanted to break up the normal approach, or taste wines from the distributor or wine producers and instead taste the wines blind in their respective groups. The methodology was simple, bag all the wines, hand them to Avi who wrote a number/letter, and then line them up for the tasting. Then we taste them in numerical/alphabetical order and write the notes. After the first pass, we taste the wines again to see if they have changed. Then we show the wines and write the names down. We did find a few anomalies in the system. First, the more closed wines needed time to open and those were tasted again later. If there were flaws at the start those stayed in the notes, at least for me, and if there were issues after they were also written.
White wines and Sparkling Wines (First Round)
There were a few shockers, in this round, the shockers were all for the bad! Sadly, this round and the subsequent one with simple red wines were underwhelming to deeply disappointing. There were TWO WINNERs in the first TWO rounds and they were repeat WINNERs from previous tastings I had with Avi last year in November 2021 and with Nathan Grandjean in 2017. I have also included a wine I tasted TWICE over the past month or so, the 2016 Yarden Rose, Brut, it is underwhelming, much akin to its brother the 2016 Yarden Blanc de Blancs. Both are underwhelming and very sad as this is the first time that I ever had a Yarden Sparkling wine I did not like on release. Very sad indeed! If you want sparkling wines stick to Drappier, Laurent Perrier, Gilgal, and others.
The other disappointing wine was the highly anticipated 2020 Chateau Olivier Blanc, sadly it did not live up to expectations. At the start it was horrible flat peach juice, if you read my original blind tasting – it went like this, “This wine is cooked peach juice, flat and useless. Drink never.” Literally. The wine evolved over three days! The same thing could be said for the 2020 Chateau Olivier red and the famous 2020 Carillon d’Angelus Saint-Emilion. Though the reds wines were less flat and more closed tightly.
Other than the lone WINNER and the disappointing 2020 Chateau Olivier Blanc, there were no wines that were very interesting at all. There were a few new ones, like the 2020 Les Vins de Vienne Saint-Peray, Les Bialeres, disappointing, and lacked acidity and balance. The 2021 Casa E.di Mirafiore Roero Arneis DOCG was also a dud, both white and red. Overall, nothing very good here, but hey my pain is your gain!
2020 Vintage versus 2021 Vintage in Bordeaux
I will repeat what I wrote previously, as this post will showcase far more 2021 wines from Bordeaux. So far, the sample size of 2021 wines from Bordeaux includes very few big names because they are still in the barrels. Or should be! So, the sample size of 2021 wines from Bordeaux is all simpler and of lower starting quality. Still, what is apparent, from this sample size, is that 2021 will be a very hard year. The 2020 vintage, by contrast, is hit and miss, and so far, while the hits have been solid, there are no home runs, and we have tasted most of the wines we expect to rave about from the 2020 vintage. There will be one 95-scoring wine, ONE, from all the wines we tasted on this trip. I expect even fewer exceptional wines from the 2021 vintage and I personally, will be buying far fewer of the 2020 or 2021 wines. Finally, the wine notes from the 2020 vintage should be witness to the fact that while the 2020 wines are OK to good, they are far more accessible than previous vintages. The glaring exception to that will be highlighted in a subsequent post.
Read the rest of this entry
Final Tasting from my trip to Paris – November 2021
As stated in my previous post, I was in Paris in November, and while it took forever to post these notes, I am happy to finally be getting to them at this point. The total number of boxes in our hotel room, much like in June, still makes me laugh!
As I stated, in my previous post, I kept to my hotel room for much of the trip. I was joined by Avi Davidowitz from Kosher Wine Unfiltered. Even vaccinated, I was worried, as such we kept to ourselves, where possible. Almost all the wines below were tasted with Avi, in our hotel room, a few were tasted after he returned home to Israel.
Marmorieres Wines
I truly enjoyed the Château de Marmorières Les Amandiers, La Clape, Languedoc we had in June. So, I made sure Avi tasted that along with other wines from the winery, which was only released after I left Paris in June. The rose and white were nice while the Cab and Merlot were less interesting.
White wines from all over France
For the most part, the list was weak as it had too many boring Chablis. There were one or two nice wines, so look for those WINNERS. The best of that group has the worst name I have ever seen – LaCheteau Sauvignon Blanc – like seriously??? Anyway, horrible name – great wine!
Charles Pere & Fils Burgundy Wines
I was hoping to enjoy some 2020 Burgundy wines, but sadly, none of them stood out in a good way. They felt rushed, not complete, and overall, lackluster. I hope subsequent vintages will be better.
Rhone Wines
We had wines from Famille Daubree and Les Vins De Vienne and neither of them stood out. Again, they were very ripe, and we gave them days to come around, they never did. These are not what I am looking for. They are well made but too ripe for me. If you like well-made ripe French wine, try them out.
Various Bordeaux Wines
This group was a total loser, just like in June, except this time – there were no new wines to save me! Thankfully, for Avi, there were many of the wines I enjoyed in June, but for me, there was not a SINGLE red wine I would drink. That is how bad the options were!
German Weingut Gehring Wines
These wines were the most enjoyable and reasonably priced wines we tasted in our own tasting. The wines were made for an Israeli entrepreneur, who was going to sell them to hotels and restaurants, but sadly, he died, and the wines just sat in Germany! Some of them made their way to Israel anyway and that is where Avi and a few others saw them and worked crazy hard to buy them. Avi brought one wine with him, but I wanted to taste them all, there are three of them.
Weingut Gehring made three kosher wines with this gentleman who passed away, a Riesling, Grauer Burgunder (Pinot Gris), and an off-dry muscat. So, while I was in France I called the winery and paid them to ship the wines to my hotel, which worked perfectly! That was how I was able to taste all three of them. The wines that were sent to me all have Hebrew back labels as they were meant for the Israeli market and while the Hechsher is good it is not one many would know.
Thoughts on this tasting
Overall, these wines were unimpressive, but wow did we find some real sleepers! The 2020 LaCheteau Sauvignon Blanc, Les Cimes, Haut-Poitou, Loire Valley is a no-brainer for those in France/Europe. Same for the two german wines. Other than that it was a total mess and I hope the next trip will have better options!
Though none of these wines will ever make it to the USA shores, some are in Israel and I feel bad for you. The LeChateau is in Israel, but I have no idea if there were transport issues, like with many other French wines imported into Israel, in the past. The two German wines were in Israel but I have no idea about their distribution. Either way, thankfully, these wines can stay in France/Europe, there is nothing I want here, other than maybe the German wines, but I think they are all spoken for.
The wine notes follow below – the explanation of my “scores” can be found here and the explanation for QPR scores can be found here:
Chevalier Wines
2020 Chevalier De Marmorieres Rose, Vin de France – Score: 90.5 (QPR: GREAT)
Clean smelling rose with good lines, bright fruit, floral notes of violet, honeysuckle, raspberry, honeyed fruit, and tart lemon. Nice job, the mouth on this medium-bodied rose is tart, right on the money, well priced, with lovely strawberry, sweet pomelo, mango, with searing acidity, tart lemon, lemon pith, sweet peach, and nice refreshing acidity to bring it all together – nice! The finish is long, ripe, and well-balanced, with slate, acid, and good fruit. Nice! Drink now! (tasted November 2021)
2020 Chevalier De Marmorieres Blanc, Vin de France – Score: 90 (QPR: GOOD)
The nose on this wine is very fruity, smells a lot like Viognier, with white peach, apricot, funk, guava, and sweet fruit. The mouth on this opens slowly, with nice acidity, that is slow to fully show, nice acidity, with guava, ripe peach, Pomelo, sweet honeysuckle, honeyed tropical fruit, and ripe melon. The finish is long, tart, ripe, and well balanced, with more funk, saline, mineral, and slate. Nice! (tasted November 2021) (in Paris, France) (ABV = 12.50%)
Kosher Sparkling wines for the end of 2020 – WINNERS from Drappier and Yarden
With 2020 coming to a close, I am posting the top sparkling wines, but to be clear, I drink sparkling wine all year round! We have been blessed recently with Yarden selling their Gilgal Sparkling wine for under 20 dollars a bottle! Honestly, there is no better deal out there and that is why they were the wines of the year last year! Yarden continues to impress with their 2014 entries and they are the sparkling wine producers to beat, for anyone entering this market.
How is Sparkling wine made?
There are many options – but the vast majority of sparkling wines fall into three categories:
- Le Méthode Champenoise (Méthode Traditionnelle)
- Methode Ancestrale
- The Charmat Method
Le Méthode Champenoise (Méthode Traditionnelle)
So, what is Champagne and how do we get all those cool bubbles? Well, it all starts with a grape of some sort, in most cases, Chardonnay, but we will get back to the other varietals further down. For now, like all wine on planet earth, Champagne starts with a grape. It is picked (often early to lower alcohol and increase acidity), then crushed, pressed, and allowed/encouraged to go through primary fermentation, exactly like all white wines on planet earth. At this point, most houses ferment the base wine in metal tanks or barrels. Some still use wood, but they are the minority.
Of course, like much of France (Bordeaux, Burgundy, Champagne), especially in Champagne, the wine can be chaptalized after racking, until an 11% ABV. Now before the heat waves that have covered much of this earth (call it what you wish), Bordeaux and Champagne prayed to hit their desired mark of ABV, and therefore they used to add sugar to bring up the ripeness on their fruit. Nowadays, Champagne is picking earlier and earlier, and Chaptalization is not a common thing anymore, as mother nature is taking care of the fruit’s ripeness all on her own!
Once the wine has been fermented the next question arises, should they let the base wine go through a wine’s second natural fermentation called Malolactic Fermentation? Most allow the fermentation to take place and require it, a fact that is easy nowadays with controlled winery environments, though some do not like it at all. Finally, the barrels/tanks are blended or in the rare case, kept aside as a Vintage Champagne, meaning the base wine used in it, is sourced from one vintage and not a blend of a few vintages.
So, at this point what we have is base wine, and while it may be an OK wine, it is far from what the final product will be like. Most base wines are nice enough, but it would be like licking on a lemon, these wines are highly acidic, and not normally well balanced at that point.
The next step is to bottle the wine, with yeast and basic rock sugar, which causes a second fermentation. The actual amount of the two added ingredients is a house secret. The wines are closed with a simple beer bottle cap. You will notice that ALL wines made in this manner have a lip around the top of the bottle, where the cap is attached to. Again, if the year is exceptional then the wine becomes vintage champagne and is aged for at least three years. If the vintage is normal then the bottle’s content is a blend of a few vintages and is aged for at least one and a half years.
All the while during this second fermentation process, the wine is aged and the wine becomes more complex from the yeast. The yeast breaks down as it eats the rock sugar, adding the effervescence, and while the yeast breaks down, it adds a lovely mouthfeel and rich complexity. This process is known as autolysis, releasing molecules that are slowly transformed as they interact with those in the wine.
The process is a dual transformational process. First, the yeasts are broken down, but if that occurred in a 100% hermetically sealed environment, we would have SERIOUS issues, like HS (Hydrogen Sulfide) and mercaptan (think nasty rotten eggs). Oxygen is a two-edged sword, with too much a wine oxidizes, and with too little, you get HS and nasty foul egg smell. So, the cap that covers the Champagne bottles as they rest for 18 months to 3 years in these cool racks, actually allow for a certain amount of oxygen to flow through, the caps are not hermetic seals. The special stoppers, AKA caps, allow the wine to mature on the lees, with a very slow feed of oxygen coming through, thereby allowing the wine to mature at a rate that is best for it. You can mature them quicker, with a different cap, but you would lose the value of a wine sitting long on the lees.
According to Wikipedia, the effects of autolysis on wine contribute to a creamy mouthfeel that may make a wine seem to have a fuller body. The release of enzymes inhibits oxidation which improves some of the aging potentials of the wine. The mannoproteins improve the overall stability of the proteins in the wine by reducing the number of tartrates that are precipitated out. They may also bind with the tannins in the wine to reduce the perception of bitterness or astringency in the wine. The increased production of amino acids leads to the development of several flavors associated with premium Champagne including aromas of biscuits or bread dough, nuttiness, and acacia. As the wine ages further, more complex notes may develop from the effects of autolysis.
Finally, it is at this stage, after the bottles have matured their proper time, based upon their label (blend or Vintage), we get to the final stage of Champagne, remuage (or “riddling” in English) and Dosage. To get rid of the lees (the dead yeast cells and other particulates), the bottles are hand or machine manipulated to convince the lees to move towards the cap. Then the neck of the bottle is frozen, and the cap is removed, the lees come flying out in a frozen format, and then the bottle is recapped with the famous champagne cork, but not before it is dosed with more sugar. This very last step is the reason for this post, but let’s leave that till further down in the post, for now, let’s talk varietals and color/style.
Color/style and Varietals
So, we have covered the how part of Champagne (well almost more on Dosage below), and now we need to talk color and grapes. The base grapes for Champagne are Pinot Meunier, and Pinot Noir, and Chardonnay. There are very few houses that also use Arbane, Petit Meslier, Pinot blanc, Pinot Gris. Champagne, like the rest of France’s wine industry, is controlled by the AOC (appellation d’origine contrôlée).
So, for Blanc de Blancs Chardonnay, which is white from white, Chardonnay is the only grape allowed. Meaning, that the juice from Chardonnay is 100% of a BdB Champagne, or in rare occasions from Pinot blanc (such as La Bolorée from Cedric Bouchard).
For Blanc de Noirs, the Champagne is made from either Pinot Noir or Pinot Meunier, or a blend of the two. Finally, for Rose Champagne, it can be a blend of the three grapes.
Late Disgorgement
This has been all the rave recently, LD or Late Disgorgement. All this means is that the house or winery (outside of Champagne) kept the bottles capped for a longer time. So the 2007 Yarden Blanc de Blancs was sold in 2014 or so. It is a lovely wine and recently Yarden released a 2007 LD Yarden Blanc de Blancs. It is the same wine, just held longer in capped format (another 4 years or so), and then recently they disgorged the wine, more on that below, and put in the dosage and the Champagne style cork and released it now. Essentially, for all intent and purpose, Yarden aged the Sparkling wine 4 more years and released it later on. The interesting thing will be to taste the two wines (the LD and normal 2007 Yarden BdB and see how 4 extra years of lying on lees helped/hindered/or did nothing). I will be doing that soon enough.
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A wine tasting of some incredible 2015 and 2016 kosher French wines with Nathan Grandjean
When I last left off on the story of my trip to Israel and Europe, I had just ended an epic tasting of the new 2016 wines from Royal Wines. I then jumped on a train and came to Strasbourg for a tasting of Alsace wines and other wines that are not made by Royal. It included some new 2016 and 2017 wines but it mostly involved French wines from the 2014 and 2015 vintage.
Last year we made a run for Von Hovel, and I wanted to do that again this year, and maybe even Nik Weis. Sadly, they told me there were no new wines for 2017 or 2018. I am really so sad, those wineries have so much potential, but I guess Gefen Hashalom (“Vine of Peace”) felt they had too much inventory already. I am really not sure what they have that is not sold? All the Nik Weis wines are sold, from what I know, Gary got the rest of the 2016 wines. Von Hovel did not make any wines after the 2015 vintage, and they have nothing left either. I really hope they make wines in 2019.
After last year’s epic tasting with Nathan Grandjean, I had tasted all of the 2014 French wines that I know of. The 2015 wines are slowly being released, from producers other than Royal. Kosher Wine International, the producers for all the Magrez wines, has now just released the 2015 wines. Rose Camille is slowly releasing the 2014 wines now. Bokobsa has released many of the 2016 wines, along with Taieb, though Taieb has not officially released the 2016 Pommard from Lescure yet.
I have yet to taste the new 2016 Lescure Pommard. I have a couple of bottles and will post soon. I have also not yet tasted the 2015 Pape Clement, I have a few bottles to get to soon. I have not yet tasted the 2015 Haut Condissas, but that is not in the USA yet, or if it is, it is not for sale as Royal still has the 2014 vintage to sell. I have tasted all of the Magrez wines, other than the Pape, and I will post those on a subsequent post (buzz killer – they are not that great). Nathan and I did taste two of them, and yeah, they are OK, nothing great. They are far too ripe for me to be happy. I would stick with Royal’s options any day before them.
If you are interested in these wines, they are mostly wines that are here or will be here eventually. If you cannot find them or do not want to wait, Nathan Grandjean has them for sale on his website: www.yavine.fr (I DO NOT work for wine stores, never have and never will. I get no kickback or payment for this). I state this here only as information. It also seems that kosherwine.com will hopefully have some of these as well.
We tasting these wines twice, once in the evening and once more the next day. This did help some of the wines to open, but most of the wines were either unchanged or some were worse off. I posted here scores from Koenig wines and from Giersberger, as we had visited them both earlier in the day and took some of the wines with us to taste again, the notes here are the best of those wines.
My many thanks to Nathan, and his family (for putting up with us). The wine notes follow below – the explanation of my “scores” can be found here:
Bordeaux whites and one Swiss White
Let me make this 100% clear if the notes are not obvious enough. The 2015 Magrez Fombrauge Blanc, is a HUGE letdown. The 2014 vintage is a home run, in comparison. The clear overall winner here is the Barrail white – like WOW, crazy wine for the price, sadly it is still only available in France, come on Kosherwine.com, get moving already!
2015 Chateau du Grand Barrail, White – Score: 91 (Crazy QPR)
The nose on this wine shows smoke, flint, with lovely dry fruit, showing rich honeysuckle, white flowers, with honeyed apples, and lovely Asian pears. The mouth on this medium bodied wine shows riper fruit than the nose, showing more sweet fruit, with sweet melon, with a richer mouthfeel than I would expect, with rich acidity that shows a bit further in the mouth, with intense honeydew, melon, and lovely grapefruit, and Meyer lemon. The finish is long, truly searing with acid, and rich with more honeyed fruit, and lovely citrus fruit. Bravo! Drink now till 2023. (This is sadly only available in France)
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