Château Tour Baladoz 2023: A New Benchmark for Kosher Saint-Émilion
Once in a while a kosher wine raises the ceiling for everything around it. The 2023 Château Tour Baladoz Grand Cru Classé is one of those.
This is one of the newest additions to the Liquid Kosher portfolio, and one of the most important Bordeaux wines we have released. It has everything you would want from high-end Saint-Émilion: a great clay-limestone vineyard, a serious family behind it, decades of experience in the cellar, and the formal recognition of Grand Cru Classé status.
It is a serious Grand Cru Classé that belongs in the larger conversation about fine Saint-Émilion. Most importantly, it delivers in the glass.
A New Chapter for Tour Baladoz
The distinction between Saint-Émilion Grand Cru and Grand Cru Classé is an important one. Grand Cru Classé status must be earned through an evaluation of the estate’s terroir, wines, consistency, and reputation over time.
It is recognition of what a château has already proven, not a prediction of what it may eventually become.
Tour Baladoz has now entered those ranks. The 2023 arrives with the estate’s new classification behind it, making this the first kosher release from Tour Baladoz to carry Grand Cru Classé on the label.
The Vineyard and the Family Behind It
Tour Baladoz is owned by the De Schepper family, whose Bordeaux properties also include LiquidKosher favorites Château Haut-Breton Larigaudière and Castelbruck in Margaux.
The family has invested steadily in Tour Baladoz over the years, refining the vineyards and cellar without losing sight of what makes the property special. Its reputation has grown the old-fashioned way: through the quality of the land and the wine.
The vineyard sits in Saint-Laurent-des-Combes, at one of the higher points of the appellation. Its clay-limestone soils are exactly what serious Saint-Émilion drinkers look for. The clay gives the wine depth and helps the vines through warm seasons, while the limestone brings freshness, structure, and a mineral edge.
The result? A wine with plenty of richness, but also the energy and precision that separate excellent Saint-Émilion from merely powerful Bordeaux.
More Than 30 Years of Winemaking
Jean-Michel Garcion has guided the winemaking at Tour Baladoz since 1992. Jean-Michel has also been producing kosher Bordeaux for more than 25 years, longer than almost anyone working at this level. He understands that a kosher release should not feel like a separate version of the estate’s wine. It needs to reflect the same vineyard, standards, and winemaking identity as everything else the château produces.
That experience shows here. The wine is polished and substantial without becoming heavy. The oak gives it shape and refinement, but never covers the fruit or the natural freshness of the vineyard.
Why 2023 Works So Well
The 2023 vintage was warm and sunny, but the vines did not face the extreme drought pressure of some recent Bordeaux vintages. They had enough water to ripen the grapes gradually, preserving freshness while allowing the Merlot to become generous and expressive.
Jean-Michel compares the year with 2015 and 2019, two excellent sunny vintages, though he finds the 2023 rounder and more open in its youth.
That is a big part of the wine’s appeal. You can enjoy it relatively young, especially with some time in a decanter, but there is real structure underneath. The concentration, fine tannins, and limestone freshness should allow it to develop beautifully for at least another decade.
Open one for an important dinner now and put a few away. You will enjoy seeing where it goes.
In the Glass
2023 Château Tour Baladoz Grand Cru Classé
Saint-Émilion / Bordeaux
The blend is led by Merlot, with Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, and a small amount of Petit Verdot. Each parcel is vinified separately before the final blend spends approximately 15 months in French oak, most of it new. That sounds like a lot of oak, but it does not taste that way. The oak comes across as polish rather than flavor.
Ripe plum and blackberry lead the nose, followed by violets, cedar, and gentle baking spice. The palate is round and generous, with concentrated dark fruit and firm, fine-grained tannins. There is enough freshness through the middle to keep everything lively, and the finish is long, layered, and clean. It has the depth and presence you expect from an important bottle, but it remains elegant and unmistakably Saint-Émilion.
96 Points from Decanter
The 2023 Château Tour Baladoz received 96 points at the 2025 Decanter World Wine Awards, an exceptional result for any Saint-Émilion and an especially meaningful one for a kosher release.
This is the same Decanter that recently awarded the 2023 Covenant Solomon Lot 70 Cabernet Sauvignon a perfect 100-point score, the first 100-point score ever given to a kosher wine by a major international wine publication.
Tour Baladoz belongs in that same conversation.
These wines are not being judged on a separate kosher scale. They are being tasted alongside the best wines in the world and earning scores that place them among the elite. Covenant’s 100 points showed just how far kosher wine has come. Tour Baladoz’s 96-point result confirms that this level of quality now extends to classified Bordeaux as well.
A 96-point Saint-Émilion Grand Cru Classé would be a significant wine under any circumstances. Finding one produced as a kosher wine, from a family we know and a winemaker whose work we have followed for years, makes this release particularly special.
Secure Your Bottles
The classification tells you what the estate has earned. The score tells you how the wine has been received. Once you taste it, the quality speaks for itself. And with Rosh Hashanah right around the corner, it is exactly the kind of bottle worth opening as you welcome 5787.
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