1945 Vouvray, Le Haut-Lieu, Moelleux, Domaine Huet, Loire

1945 Vouvray, Le Haut-Lieu, Moelleux, Domaine Huet, Loire

Product: 19451316179
 
1945 Vouvray, Le Haut-Lieu, Moelleux, Domaine Huet, Loire

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Description

An exceptional vintage and made by Gaston himself (who returned from war in early spring). This was the most complete wine from a tasting of old Vouvray with Huet Pinguet in September 2012. Tiny quantities were made of the 1er Trie, where the grapes are picked berry by berry. It is exceptionally concentrated, yet delicate at the same time. Roasted apples, hazelnuts, honey and caramel on the palate with a linear saline note that lifts the wine and is explosive on the finish. 
Fine Wine Team

There was a much smaller quantity of the 1945 wines made due to frosts for eight days in May. It would seem this concentrated the quality and the finest rounds of natural selection took place as what was left has made astonishingly fantastic wine. The nose is a tumult of preserved and lightly caramelised lemons. Beneath this there is layer upon layer of complex white nuts and subtle dairy, almost creaminess framed by a focussed subtle dryness.
Gary Owen, Account Manager

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Critics reviews

Wine Advocate98/100
Aged 70 years, the amber-colored (still with greenish reflections!) 1945 Vouvray Le Haut Lieu Moelleux comes from the FU plot within the lieu-dit Haut-Lieu. Dominated by chalk and silex, it has by far less clay compared to the rest of the site. The FU is vinified separately in certain years though not designated on the label. The 1945 was an exceptional vintage and was made by Gaston Huet himself, who returned from war in early spring. The wine shows a fantastically intense and refined peach and apricot fruit on the nose along with subtle stony, spicy and mineral flavors that give an extra purity and complexity. Five days later, the bouquet was even finer, showing honey and caramel flavors. Sweet, round and generous on the highly elegant palate, gorgeously intense and with great finesse and a finely drawn acidity, this is a beautifully concentrated and seductively sappy Chenin of great balance. The finish is absolutely delicious. A simply marvelous wine from a vintage that, according to Richard Kelly, ranks alongside 1947 as one of the greatest ever vintages ... A frost on 1st May, one of the latest ever recorded, greatly reduced but helped concentrate the crop. The summer months were excellent with excessive heat. There were two specified harvest dates; 1st and 22nd October. (755 EUR)
Stephan Reinhardt - 30/11/2015 Read more

About this WINE

Domaine Gaston Huet

Domaine Gaston Huet

 
Gaston Huet and his wife built up a domaine with a formidable reputation over the years following its creation by Victor Huet, his father, in 1928. Gaston, war hero and one-time mayor of Vouvray, managed the family domaine from 1947 until his death in 2002. He was a prisoner for most of the Second World War and longed for his home and for the taste of his Vouvray. He managed to arrange a special wine celebration in the POW camp. "It saved our sanity… Talking about wine and sharing it made all of us feel closer to home and more alive. It was only a thimbleful but it was glorious and the best wine I ever drank."

The Huet Style
The entirety of the vineyard plantings at the estate were given over to the versatile and often under-appreciated Chenin Blanc. Climate plays a huge part in the wine-making in each vintage with warmer years creating unctuously sweet wines (mo?lleux for which Huet is renowned and doux the sweetest of all styles). Cooler vintages result in fruit which is used in the production of vivacious demi-sec, bone-dry sec or pétillant sparkling wines. It is important to emphasise that regardless of the sweetness level, the hallmark of Chenin Blanc and indeed Domaine Gaston Huet is an unmistakable freshness and natural acidity which permit the wines to age for centuries

Biodynamic techniques have been used at all of Domaine Huet's vineyards since 1990. The estate comprises three vineyards, all with their own unique blueprint and personality: Le Haut-Lieu, Le Clos du Bourg and Le Mont. The original vineyard, Le Haut-Lieu (literally meaning ‘the high place’) surrounds the house and extends for some nine hectares. The soil is made up of three metres of clay at the surface, underpinned by Vouvray’s famous sedimentary limestone. Its wines are opulent and approachable when young but are genuine vins de gardes and benefit from long-term ageing.

Le Clos du Bourg, which was purchased by Gaston in 1953, is the oldest site in the appellation of Vouvray, dating back to the eighth century. The allure of this vineyard is not entirely contained within its neat and historic walls but moreover its reputation for producing formidable sweet wines. The final musketeer completing the trio is the most famous, Le Mont, with its green-tinged soils and late-harvesting vines from which Gaston produced his longest-lived and arguably most famous wines.

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Vouvray

Vouvray

Based just outside Tours, in the Touraine district of the Loire, the small, 2,000-hectare semi-continental Vouvray appellation covers a range of dry, through off-dry, sweet to sparkling styles. Its Chenin Blanc vineyards, perched above chalky tuffeau cliffs give the wines vibrant acidity and a stony, floral and at times waxy character.

Ideally, under perfect skies, the producers aim for moelleux sweet wines, hand-harvested by trie, often imbued with noble rot and rich with residual sugar.

A less successful season would deliver more demi-sec, sec and, if really tough, sparkling mousseaux. Vinification is principally in large, inert vessels such as stainless-steel, old oak foudres and demi-muids. Malolactic fermentation is avoided.

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Chenin Blanc

Chenin Blanc

Chenin Blanc is an important white grape variety planted in the Anjou-Saumur and Touraine regions of the Loire Valley and the most widely planted varietal grape in South Africa.

In the Loire it produces high quality dry wines in Savenniéres, and luscious sweet, dessert wines in Coteaux du Layon, Bonnezeaux and Quarts de Chaume. In Vouvray and Montlouis it can be dry, medium dry, or sweet, and still or sparkling. Whether dry or sweet, the best Loire Chenin Blancs possess marvellously concentrated rich, honeyed fruit together with refreshingly vibrant acidity. It is Chenin Blanc's high acidity that enable the wines to age so well.

In South Africa Chenin Blanc is easier to grow and is prized for its versatility. It is used as a cheap blending option with Chardonnay, Colombard, and Muscat but also bottled unblended. The best producers keep their yields low and produce impressive mouthfilling wines.

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