This is a continuation of my posts about my November 2023 France Trip with my good reind David Raccah of Kosher Wine Musings. Once we finished with the incredible tasting at IDS, we walked down the block to meet Christophe Bardeau of Domaine Roses Camile (and its associated properties) and Ben Sitruk of Wine Symphony, who is the French distributor of all of Christophe’s wines, among many others. France consistently confuses me. Tiny little alleyway streets that barely appear in Google Maps, the crazy arrondissement system, etc. – and so, we often found ourselves a little lost when trying to make our way from point a to point b for the first time – and Ben has a habit of arranging a new place to meet each and every year. But we got there, and it was worth the wait.

Besides the finished wines we tasted, we also tasted a couple samples, including the 2016 Marquise de Binet Cuvee Abel that we have been waiting for a while, and a new parcel of land that I have written about before, whose wine is in the final stages of barrel aging – specifically the 2020 Domaine Roses Louise! Spoiler, the wine is epic. But as those are samples – and Christophe has been known to hold wines at whim for another year or two regardless of release schedules (with the Abel we are still talking about a 2016 tank sample!), I will not include notes here – but suffice to say that I am excited about both releases.

Lastly, we tasted a number of wines that Ben of Wine Symphony also distributes, and I have included those here as well.

Two asides: First – the tasting area was a bit cramped, as Ben laid out a very generous spread of food for us to enjoy after the tasting. As a result, there were a couple of pictures that I neglected to take. Second – as part of the food, we were asked to try a Tunisian delicacy called Bottarga. It is some sort of fossilized fish roe covered in wax. As David is of Tunisian descent, he was familiar with this delicacy and knew what was coming – I was not. I am now familiar. I will not be getting to know this food any better than I already do. I know that every culture has its foods – and I am all for good Tunisian,  Moroccan, Algerian, and Syrian food. Really – I am up to trying whatever! But this is not that. First, I was IMMEDIATELY thankful that we had finished the tasting prior to any food being eaten. The smell of this stuff brought tears to my eyes. The taste brought rumblings to my stomach. There were four different kinds, and to be polite, I tried all of them. If there are more than four varieties of this stuff, I don’t want to know. I can say that it took hours for the taste to leave my mouth. Thank the Lord we did IDS BEFORE this and not after! Again, this is not to disparage Ben’s hospitality (he didn’t bring the stuff, another guest did); he is an excellent host. This is just to serve as warning- if someone offers you Bottarga – RUN.

Here are my notes from the tasting (you can find David’s notes here):