Sending / WeeksEnd wine

b"sd
What to give, when to give and why.
Sometimes not easy to decide.
A battle in the mind;a conviction to at least try.
And from a joyfull giving
Success will apply.
Have a good one; H

Going to spend Shabbat with our daughter's family and bringing one of her (and my) favorites - Flechas De Los Andes Gran Malbec 2009. It should go very nicely with her delicious brisket.

Shabbat Shalom!

Tonight, the 2010 Jeunesse, from a D-Mag!

Capcane Peraj Petita 2010 tonight

Two reds on friday night:
Teperberg Reserve 2007 Cabernet - Classic full bodied Cabernet with Cassis and berries on the nose. Deep and concentrated with a long satisfying finish.
Tzuba 2007 Pinot Noir - my last bottle of this wine. Still going strong but not for further cellaring. Raspberry and violets on the nose going to raspberry jam and sour red cherries in the mouth, with black licorice on the finish. One of my favorite Israeli Pinots.

With Shabbat lunch we had the Recanati 2011 Sauvignon Blanc. It may have been a bad bottle because it opened with a slightly musty nose and tasted simple and somewhat one dimensional.

Josh

Hi Harry! Shavua tov folks,

Friday night:

I was hosted by close wine-lovers friends of mine and brought over very proudly a bottle of Psagot Cabernet Sauvignon 2008. Then arrived a couple of guests, also very close friends but not at all vinos who looked like they had absolutely no idea in the world about what they had in their hands. I wasn't able to hold myself back and said out loud in french something like 'holy cow!': Yatir Forest 2008. Believe it or not but almost to my surprise the Psagot gave quite an honorable fight to the Yatir.

Psagot, Cabernet Sauvignon 2008: Very dark garnet towards purple, throwing a good deal of sediments (was probably bottled without filtration, should inquire) great nose here with loads of blackberries, cassis, cherries and sweet cedar wood. Full-bodied with on the palate cassis, dark cherries, blackberries, some licorice, Mediterranean herbs, vanilla and dark chocolate with the tannins rising and gently caressing on the long, mouth-filling finish. Richness, elegance and complexity here again, really velvety. this is exactly my favorite kind of CabSav, I really love this wine and I heartily concur with Rogov z.l. as it's also the best wine I've tasted so far by Psagot. Great job!

Yatir, Forest 2008: I wish we could have given this wine the time it deserves but we still gave it the GG's shock treatment (aerator+ big shake in a decanter carafe, a gift I smartly offered to my host a few years ago) and it definitely helped. As (almost) always, a Bordeaux-blend this time with the 5 varieties: 58% Cabernet Sauvignon, 5% Merlot, 32% Petit Verdot, 3% Malbec and 2% Cabernet Franc aged for I-forgot-how-long in french oak barrels. Dark, almost black royal purple with on the nose cassis, plums, blackberries and vanilla. Full-bodied with on the palate ripe blackberries, juicy dark plums, cassis, licorice, vanilla, roasted coffee beans and dark chocolate with still searing tannins on the very long finish. Perhaps that's due to its relative youth but I didn't exactly get the "oh wow, phenomenal!" (no need to open the book or look up his TN, I would have not forgot it anyway) Rogov z.l. wrote when rating it 95 but personally I'd give it 93. That's not so bad, right?

Shabbat lunch:

GHW, Golan Cabernet Sauvignon 2010: Although not as good as the 2008 vintage of which I recently enjoyed a perfectly drinking and nicely matured bottle, this vintage is still one of the best deals out there below 40 shekels/$11-12. Dark garnet with purple reflections. On the nose blackberries, plums and toasty oak. Medium to full-bodied with on the palate blackberries, plums, a hint of pepper and vanilla on the moderately long finish. Quite a good table wine.

Wishing you all a fantastic week,

GG

2006 Domaine Bunan Cotes-du-Provence. This is the kosher wine put out by this domaine, which also produces non-kosher Bandol wines. The importer (a friend of mine) calls this a "country cabernet". I guess that refes to its chunky style. When I first had this wine, a couple of years ago, I was not crazy about it; it was rough. Previous vintages hadn't been that rough. Now it's getting a bit more mellow, though still retaining a fairly heavy body. Might be even better in another year or two.

Hi, Harry, shavu'a tov,

2009 Ella Valley Cabernet Franc: ever so lovely, but I think the 2010 Psagot beats it "by a nose" [no pun intended]

2010 Elvi Matiz Rioja. Delicious.

A good week to all,

Isaac

Friday night: 2006 Recanati Special Reserve. Simply superb. When that ran out, I opened a 2004 Ella Valley Vineyard's Choice RR. Good out of the bottle, but got better after it had the chance to sit for a while.

Shabbat Lunch: 2009 Bravdo Shiraz (Gabriel - how did you know I love this wine?)

Shavua tov,

Mark Lieser

Funny Yoel I have tasted that wine often, a few years ago, and I liked it sometimes and other times not. I tasted a rose from the same domaine this past week - so so. French wines, and none of them are very interesting - sad really.

http://kosherwinemusings.com/2012/12/01 ... -recently/

David

Also, I missed a previous week - sorry Harry. It was Israeli, California, and Spanish blend week. Many great wines, but the 2009 Tzafit (shmitta wine beware), was really unique with its orange rind aromas - quite nice! I wonder if anyone else has had the tzafit recently?

http://kosherwinemusings.com/2012/12/01 ... the-world/

David

French wines, and none of them are very interesting - sad really.

http://kosherwinemusings.com/2012/12/01 ... -recently/

David

David, I've also noticed that some of the kosher wine comming out of France is poor quality. It's really hit or miss with kosher French wine even when paying relatively high prices.
I guess some people think that any wine made in France with a French label must be great, so they succeed in selling the plonk.

It is a real shame because there are some really excellent kosher French wines; (like you say, you need to know what you're buying).

Josh

hi; two wines where i didnt find a match with the Rogov TN's. Gamla merlot 2007,this wine is full and heavy.Again wonder if it will get more expressive with time. Galil Mt cab 2009, as they donskied. h

Tulip Mostly Cabernet Franc 2010 and Gamla Syrah 2009. Two very different wines.
The Tulip is made in a community of developmentally disabled adults in the Galil. They went through a lot to become kosher, and I am proud that they did. It is made out of 85% Cabernet Franc and 15% of one or more other unnamed grapes (in the past, Cabernet and/or Merlot). And, the grapes are from Moshav Matta and Hulda in this area. So, I wanted to love this wine. At the tasting, my feeling was that this would be a great wine in a year and is a very good wine now. At home, with food, I really enjoyed it. The richness and flavor came out.
The Gamla Syrah is the forgotten ace in Golan Winery's sleeve. All the buzz for a while has been about Yarden and its single vineyards. But, for any other winery, this would be a wine to be proud of. It's a full, rich Syrah (not a fruit forward Shiraz by any means). It has the fullness of a French hideaway.

Hi Harry,

Tzora Judean Hills 2009 - I have been under the impression that a wine's weight does not change over time, but I must have been wrong. About a half year ago, when I had this wine, I recall commenting that this wine has a refreshing light body and that its fruitiness is reminiscent of a Barbera, but all that has changed. The wine no longer sports a bright ruby translucent color, assuming a much darker hue, and it seems to have gained substantial weight. Stylistically, the wine now reminds me of the Galil Mountain Yiron of the 2009 vintage. Spice and herbs dominate the palate, and are playing at an octave above the dark fruit. Maybe it'll come back around in a year. The blend is 72% Cabernet Sauvingon, 18% Merlt and 10% Syrah. 14.5% AbV. About $20 directly from the winery. C+/**

Fletchas des Los Andes Gran Malbec 2009 - There are some beautiful plum notes performing a duet with the warm cardamom and cloves. However the tannins interfere with some rough edges that have not mellowed out and feel out of place. 14.5% AbV. About $32 at Tops. B-/**

Best,
-> Pinchas

Grading for quality: A - marvellous, B - good/intriguing, C - mediocre/uninspiring, D - subjectively flawed, F - objectively flawed
Grading for value: *** - it's a steal, ** - it's a reasonable deal, * - you've been robbed

Two interesting red wines from 2007, from the Hevron Heights winery. The interesting but not terribly complex Judean Heights Merlot, which has probably seen better days but still presented a fruity and easy drinking style of Merlot, and the far more impressive 2007 Armageddon. The Armageddon states that it is an "unfiltered" wine and this was clearly the case as ample sediments at the bottom of the bottle, including bi-tartrate salts (know to cooks as "cream of tartar") and condensed tannins. The Armageddon was much appreciated by our group: me and 15 or so of my favorite in-laws with a 4 course Moroccan Shabbat dinner at my mom-in-law's. I wouldn't hold it any longer as it was smooth as a baby's bottom decanted off the sediments.

As I write this I am also tasting 2 tanks samples of my 3 wines from 2012 - they are just about ready for barreling since I aeratively racked them last week. These samples were supposed to go to a lab today for analysis but didn't make it there yet. I decided I'll take fresh samples tomorrow, and that I should taste these and talk about them a bit here. What you will get, if continue to talk about these wines as they develop, is a series of snapshots much as the winemaker sees and follows his own wines - only I won't bother with a monthly breakdown as I will actually follow them myself...

Wine #1 is a very inky Merlot from the bottom of an East facing slope. This wine required no acidulation despite being picked very ripe. It's pretty closed on the nose right now - not too surprising since it got a pretty vigorous aeration last week because it was moderately "reduced." It's mostly a pretty straightforward blackberry fruit right now and somewhat brambly. If I didn't know it was a mountain grown hillside Merlot I might mistake it for a classic Sonoma or Napa Zinfandel... I suppose that has something to do with the light exposure directly on the berries and clusters. Those old vine Zins in the Sonoma Valley I worked with when I first graduated Davis were all head pruned, which allows a fair amount of direct sunlight on the fruit. This Merlot, though classically trained to a VSP trellis (vertically shoot positioned) had only just enough canopy to ripen late in September, ie the fruit was well exposed naturally and that leads to jammy-inky wines. It seemed more green and herbal during the fermentation, which are characters I like in my Bordeaux varieties - we'll see if comes back during barrel aging.

Wine #2 is a Cabernet (Givat Yeshayao) and Merlot HarBracha blend, 2:1. The Cabernet was picked even riper than the Merlot, by sugar content. It had small berries and small loose clusters which allows a bit more light onto the surface of each berry, BUT, the clusters themselves were more helter-skelter scattered in different parts of the canopy. The were not nearly as neatly arranged in one fruiting zone as the Merlot was. Consequently the wine has some of that straight balls out herbal/ green bell pepper character that your truly rather loves in his best wines of the Bordeaux ilk. It's far, far from a done deal in early December, but this is gonna go straight into my best barrels in the projection that it will be all or part of my "Special Reserve" Bdx blend. At last whiff, the Cab-Me blend has some spicy/vanilla charcters in its nose even before it's entered barrels, yummy.

Shavua tov all.

Enjoyed the Le Crock 2005 which was great after a few hours. While not quite the YH Best Buy it used to be at less than $30, the 2005 is undeniably the best vintage yet for this under-appreciated French gem. I was also very pleasantly surprised by the Eagles Landing 2008 Sauvignon Blanc which is very much alive, if not as crisply acidic as I prefer my Sauvignon Blanc wines to be - it actually was more reminiscent of a Viognier but kudos to Joe on this one.

As part of my tasting for the coming shipment of the Leket Wine Club, I also enjoyed the Gilgal (f/k/a Gamla) Brut. While I find the whole Gamla/Gilgal mess to be slightly embarrassing to the kosher wine industry as a whole, the wine is delightful - a less sophisticated sibling to the incredible Yarden 2005 Blanc de Blanc that easily holds its own and will provide a refreshing pairing to the oil & grease-laden treats coming up next week!

Hi Harry,

2010 Le Mourre de L'isle Cotes du Rhone
2007 Gamla Pinot Noir

Shavua Tov

Fri Night - Four Gates Cab Franc 2007. Wow.
Sat Lunch - Jenlain Biere Du Mars, very food friendly, and at 5.4% abv, much less effective than your typical fine ale at inducing a Shabbat slumber. A good thing on the very short winter days we have in NYC.

2007 Gilgal Merlot - Must have had a bad bottle before this??
This was MUCH better .. Full body good mouth feel and finish was SOlid.. a surprise...

Friday night - Tzora Judean Hills 2010.
Shabbat lunch- Barkan Assemblage Tzafit 2009.
Shavua Tov.
Zvi

Friday night - Tzora Judean Hills 2010.
Shabbat lunch- Barkan Assemblage Tzafit 2009.
Shavua Tov.
Zvi

Zvi,

Did you get any orange rind on the Tzafit? I got some after a few hours of air and a more fuller body - awesome

Friday night had my last bottle of Ben Hanna 2004 Single Humped Merlot. Alas it was past its prime.

Hi David.
No orange rind from the Tzafit but it was gone a half hour after opening. Forgot to open before leaving for Shule.
Zvi