As I mentioned in my last post, until now I had only come to France once a year in November on a dedicated tasting trip, while my friend David of Kosher Wine Musings had come a second time in May. The IDS visit is a perfect example as to why I also needed to come twice.  The wines that we tasted through this trip included all of the 2022 Aegerter Burgundies as well as all of IDS’s 2021 vintage offerings, in addition to a one-of-a-kind kosher 6 Puttonyos Tokaji. How could I afford to take a shot at not tasting through these?! As I have noted many times, IDS is by no means the second largest producer of kosher wines in France. The top two are clearly Royal and Taieb. But, following Royal, they are the number two producer of higher end wines in France – all but ignoring the lower end of the scale that Taieb excels at. That leaves Royal’s portfolio as probably the most balanced from a cost perspective. But, just because you target the higher end, that doesn’t mean you are going to produce wines that live up to expectations!  We have seen many producers try to do kosher runs of higher end French wines only to fail miserably or create excellent one-offs and then desert the producer – or worse, produce horribly inconsistent results after an initial acceptable vintage. IDS has managed to focus on the high end and deliver year after year. That’s not say there aren’t misses! No one bats 1000. But they consistently produce wines that are of exceptional quality year in and year out. This tasting was no exception – and it included their 2021 releases. Now, not all of the ’21 reds escape the characteristics of the vintage. In Bordeaux, the vintage is the vintage. There is no running away from it. Having said that, there are a couple of wines here that absolutely excellent and one which is a steal. These along with a few of the higher end wines from Royal were really the only good kosher Bordeaux wines that the ‘21 vintage produced.  Here are my notes: