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Another round of QPR (Quality to Price Ratio) Hits and Misses, 12 QPR WINNERS – December 2025
With this post, I will be caught up on the Solar Calendar for 2025. This post is not as long as my last QPR (Quality-to-Price Ratio) post, but it still weighs in at 24 wines.
QPR (Quality to Price Ratio) Wines
It has been six or so months since my last QPR (Quality to Price Ratio) post, and many people have been emailing me about unique wines I have tasted and lovely wines that are worth writing about.
Thankfully, no matter how much garbage and pain I subject myself to, we are still blessed with several excellent QPR wines.
Throughout the year, I post many QPR posts for almost all of the main categories. I will continue down this road until I find a better way to categorize and track QPR WINNERS wines. People are still asking me what a QPR (Quality to Price Ratio) Wine is and what the score of WINNER denotes. Once again, those are explained here in this post.
Some things that made me stand up and take notice (AKA QPR WINNERS):
All of these wines come from the last three months of tasting in my home. All the other group tastings have been posted in other posts.
Liquid Kosher Wines
There are three wines from LiquidKosher here. The 2024 Weingut Gehring Roter Hang Riesling is solid. The 2024 Clos du Moulin Rosé and Blanc are both lovely wines. All three are QPR WINNERS. Again, these are not mind-blowing wines but they are enjoyable and they hit the mark.
Another Godin Wine Winner
We last tasted a few Godin wines last year, and now they have two new ones. One of them was a WINNER, the 2022 Godin Red Reserve, Douro, which is bright and not round. Hits the point – nice stuff!
Two Fantastic Domaine du Castel (Razi’el) Sparkling Wines
There are two sparkling wines here that are expensive, but they are also fantastic wines! Those are the N.V. Raziel Rose, Brut, and the N.V. Raziel Brut. Sadly, Yarden has taken a step back, and I think Raziel is taking their place! The Rose smells like a Burgundy red; it is shocking and glorious! The Brut smells on point and feels like what I want from a sparkling wine. Coming at these blind, they will not taste like Champagne, but they will taste very special, unique, and lovely! Bravo!
The Rest
The 2024 Shiloh Pinot Noir (NOT Mevushal) did shock me. I had it first at KWD, earlier this year, and having it in the house, to taste slowly and without the noise, allows one to appreciate what they are tasting. Still, it is/was much like what I remembered from that night, a solid Israeli option!
The 2024 Goose Bay Sauvignon Blanc is another hit from the Goose Bay label, and add to that the Pinot Noir I loved in Miami, and they are really putting together some excellent wines from 2024. This is bright, on point, and again a wine that is not overly New Zealand in nature. It has a hint of gooseberry, but not overly so, and I would think most people would not even guess it is from the tropics.
The highest-scoring wine here is the 2021 Aura di Valerie Barolo DOCG. It is an excellent wine. It tastes, smells, and acts like a Barolo, and it is really lovely! I recommend you guys go and get some before it’s all gone and you miss out! Enjoy!
The 2023 Château Puygueraud Francs is showing much better than it did the last time we had it in Paris. I think it has come into its own and is on point now.
The 2021 Chateau Pedesclaux, Pauillac, was a surprise for me. It takes a bit of time to show well, but even on opening, the minerality is shocking, and the pop is there!
The last wine is a retaste/repost with a different score. The 2022 Marchesi Fumeanelli Terso Vento Bianco, Veneto IGT, is such a wine. When we had it in September, it was an oak bomb, and while it did calm down that evening, the wine felt out of kilter to me. Tasting it again now, it does have the balance needed to join the WINNER circle.
Final Thoughts
OK, that is a wrap! I did not break out any other QPR categories beyond WINNER because the list of wines below does not really shine outside the WINNERS.
I have grouped all the QPR WINNER wines at the top. The rest of the wines are listed in the order they were tasted (AKA Timeline order). The wine notes follow below – the explanation of my quality “scores” can be found here, and the explanation for QPR scores can be found here:
2021 Aura di Valerie Barolo DOCG, Barolo – Score: 93+ (QPR: WINNER)
The nose of this wine is incredible, dirty, earthy, musty, smoky, with rich red fruit, soy sauce, truffles, rich mushrooms, and dense smoke. Lovely! The mouth of this full-bodied wine takes time to open. GIVE THIS TIME, WOW, this wine is AWESOME! The fruit, the crazy acidity, the intense tannin structure, draping, elegant, smoky, dirty, with plush cherry, raspberry, and dense smoke. The finish is long, dirty, earthy, with more mushroom, soy sauce, saline, and minerality. WOW! Drink this from 2030 until 2037. (tasted November 2025) (in San Jose, CA) (ABV = 14.5%)
Four solid QPR WINNER from Portugal – imported by Allied Importers
Recently, I saw posts from Allied Wine Importers about Portuguese wines they were importing. I had tasted the 2022 Solar das Boucas Loureiro in Israel and posted it. I thought that would be the end of it and then I saw these posts from Allied and I had to try them. I emailed Shai Ghermezian and he was very kind to send me the wines. As always, I stated, in the email, I would post what I taste, but I already knew one of them was a WINNER.
I received the wines and let them sit for almost two weeks and then I opened them this past Shabbat. The last time I had a tasting where every wine won the QPR WINNER score, was Covenant. In the end, this is impressive and great work by Allied to get these wines here and price them well.
All four of these wines were great from opening until finishing and that is proof of a good wine. Further, these wines are not for keeping. The Alvarinho may evolve a bit more, but even if you leave it open for a few hours you will get much of what may or may not appear in a year. Buy these wines and enjoy them, leave other wines for the cellar.
My thanks to Shai Ghermezian for sending me the wines and letting me taste them. 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 Godin Vihno Tinto, Red, Douro – Score: 91+ (QPR: WINNER)
This wine would be impossible in a blind tasting, buy it and test your friends, good luck! The nose of this wine wants to take you to Israel, no it is not date juice, at all, but is it ripe, yes! Still, the acidity, the minerality, the tart, the refreshment of it, it is just an obvious old-world wine, but go ahead and guess it! With floral notes, blue and red fruit, smoke, flint, graphite, rock, loam, and root beer, good lord!
The mouth of this full-bodied wine takes you to Israel, but then you run away, once the acidity and minerality slam you in the face, followed by rich boysenberry, plum, dark raspberry, hints of the dreaded blackcurrant, with rich tannin, acidity, and mouthfeel. The minerality is what saves this wine, along with the acidity, and red fruit. With time the tannin and acidity shine, the fruit is in balance, and then mango and red fruit pull you in, a really unique wine!
The finish is long, tart, mineral-driven, and refreshing, this is a wine that pulls you in and never lets go! Nice! Drink by 2026. (tasted September 2024) (in San Jose, CA) (ABV = 13.5%)
2023 Godin Branco, White, Douro – Score: 91+ (QPR: WINNER)
This wine is a blend of 25% Malvasia Fina, 25% Viosinho, 25% Rabigato, & 25% Fernao Pires. The nose of this wine is unique showing lemon, lime, intense minerality, orange blossom, classic beeswax, honeyed melon, orange peel, smoke, and flint. The mouth opens a bit slowly, but it shows a nice plush mouthfeel, with good acidity, and nice focus, very refreshing, and lacks complexity, but it makes up for that with the saline, minerality, lemon, lime, honeydew, beeswax, and rich saline. The finish is long, the fruit is balanced, and the minerality and salinity are really good. Drink now. (tasted September 2024) (in San Jose, CA) (ABV = 13%)
2022 Solar das Boucas Loureiro, Vinho Regional Minho – Score: 91 (QPR: WINNER)
This wine tastes just like what I had in January in Jerusalem, Israel, a very nice to enjoy! The nose of this wine is nice, showing good minerality, nice stone fruit, yellow plum, lemon blossom, and sweet tea. The mouth of this medium-bodied wine is nice, showing great acidity, nice tension, and good fruit focus of peach, apricot, yellow plum, lemon/lime/grapefruit, minerality, slate, flint, and good precision. The finish is long, tart, and refreshing, with nice fruit, acidity, slate, flint, and orange fruit lingering long. (tasted September 2024) (in San Jose, CA) (ABV = 11.5%)
2022 Solar das Boucas Alvarinho Old Vines White, Vinho Regional Minho – Score: 91+ (QPR: WINNER)
The wine has some slight effervescence and that blows off with time. The nose of this wine is very unique, the last Albarino wine we had was very different from this one, showing notes of petroleum, melon, sweet pear, almost tropical with pineapple, dried guava, dried stone fruit, and nutty oxidation. The mouth of this medium-bodied wine is balanced with great acidity, weighty, and almost plush, with more citrus, lemon, lime, petroleum, dried apricot, rich salinity, minerality, and more notes of nutty oxidation. The finish is long, and tart, with great minerality, saline, sea salt, sea spray, rock, and more roasted walnuts, very unique wine, and one I think can age and evolve a bit more. Drink until 2026. (tasted September 2024) (in San Jose, CA) (ABV = 13%)
My short but meaningful trip to Israel
As stated in a previous post, I was in Israel, in early 2024. To state that things are different yet the same would be a simplification of reality. A quick, sad, yet real note, I had not been to Israel for almost 5 years, since Passover 2019. Crazy! Also, it marked a 10th anniversary, for me, and Israel, for my last meaningful trip, when again, Israel invaded Gaza, just crazy! Just read the last post (from 2014) and compare that to my takeaway post from my time in Israel for Passover in 2019.
I will not get into gloom or the such that I felt in 2014. That was indeed a very dark time for me, personally, in regards to my trip, at that time, for many reasons. This trip was sad, of course, but I thought it uplifting, given the state of the people I met. My hotels were filled with people who had to evacuate their homes, and the hallways felt like a building in Har Nof. I was perfectly fine with what was going on but I truly felt for those in these hotels. Breakfast felt more like a school cafeteria, with kids everywhere, packing lunches and the like. Just take a moment to think about what those people must feel like, what they must be going through! There was this lovely young girl whose birthday it was, one of the days I was in the hotel, she refused to have her party, in the hotel basement, because none of her friends or even family would be there. It really helps to open your eyes and realize how spoiled we all are.
The trip revolved around spending time with my family and my Rabbi and even that was limited, sadly. In the end, it was too short, it was too crazy, and I wish I had more time. Wineries and folks did reach out when they found out I was in town, and of course, I politely refused, given the already limited time I was going to be there and the people I wanted to spend time with. That said, I did carve two evenings to spend a few hours with my friends. One night I hung out with Avi Davidowitz and his family and one night I hung out with the French clan in Jerusalem. The evening with Avi and his family was lovely and the evening with the French guys was Tu B’Shvat.
We did do a large-ish blind tasting the second night, with the French guys, and I must say, the 2023 vintage for Israeli wine is horrible! There is no other way to say it, a total disaster. There are SOME okay wines, but they are the minority and the sad truth is that 2023 will be remembered as a horrible, sad, and depressing year for Israel, and the wine, at least so far, is not making up for it.
I was going to keep this short, so my many thanks to those who hosted me and the gang. I really need to thank Avi and his wife Michal and Joel and his wife Delphine for hosting me and the gang at Joel’s! Both evenings were lovely, and the food was awesome, sadly, I cannot say the same for the wine on the 2nd night. The evening with Avi and the wines were top-notch, minus a couple, listed here. The second evening was a blind tasting and man – was it painful! REALLY! All the 2023 wines were pretty much useless. There were a couple of Shmitta wines from 2022 and a couple of reds as well. Also, many thanks to Joel for taking the pictures!
The wine notes follow below, in order of tasting – the explanation of my “scores” can be found here and the explanation for QPR scores can be found here:
The first evening – none tasted blind
2021 Vitkin Riesling, Judean Hills – Score: 88 (QPR: EVEN)
The nose of this nice is nice with gooseberry, honeysuckle, flowers, and rich saline, flint, peach, and slate. The mouth of this light to medium-bodied wine is boring, lacking acidity, with some fruit, and essentially nothing to grab you. Next. (tasted January 2024) (in Jerusalem, Israel) (ABV = 11.5%)
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