As always, one of the highlights of my trips to France is our visit to IDS. For a number of years, I used to make a single trip in November, as this is when Royal released their wines – and with all due respect to everyone else, no one produces as much wine with such consistent levels of quality as Royal. So, November each year it was. But, while I was making annual trips in November, David Raccah of Kosher Wine Musings. who always organizes everything for all of these visits, was making an additional yearly trip in May – and this is when he would usually taste the IDS wines as they release a few months later than Royal. Therefore, when we would get there together in November, he had already tasted a bunch of stuff – and I would miss out.  I corrected this mistake a few years ago – and if there was ever a reason to justify a second trip, this was the visit. 2022 was a special vintage with some truly awesome wines produced – but the top of the heap, perhaps the GOAT, is the 2022 Smith Haut Lafitte. My notes for that are below, but while tasting, I noticed something that I had ignored each time I had tasted an SHL -there is QR code on each bottle that attests to its authenticity. Each bottle has a unique code – and each case lists the bottles contained therein.

There is a time stamp showing when the bottle was activated and a separate timestamp on the case showing when the case in question was packed. This is something that has been going on for the kosher releases as far back as 2009. And if you look at the results, the kosher releases are given unique trackers – in other words, the inventory is carefully managed down to the bottle.  In the kosher world, I believe this is unique to SHL and just shows you how much the brand puts into making sure its customers – kosher included – are getting the quality product they expect. Anyhow, enough wine-geekery – though I can say, if there was ever a wine that deserved high-end inventory control and tracking, it’s this one. On top of the SHL we have wonderful showings from Château Lafon Rochet (a QPR superstar especially in France) and Domaine de Chevalier. We only tasted six wines in total (one of which was not an IDS wine and so is not included here but will be included in my next post) – so this visit was relatively short, but super sweet! Here are the notes: