1959 Vouvray, Le Haut-Lieu, Moelleux, Domaine Huet, Loire

1959 Vouvray, Le Haut-Lieu, Moelleux, Domaine Huet, Loire

Product: 19591316179
 
1959 Vouvray, Le Haut-Lieu, Moelleux, Domaine Huet, Loire

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Description

Similar strange nose to the 1957 Haut Lieu Demi-Sec, maybe it’s the decade! This again blows off to reveal a honey and caramel nose reminding me of sugar cane honey I’ve had from eastern Andalucía, near Granada.
A real beauty on the palate, all in place and all as it should be, plenty of rich honey fruit, mouth-filling sweetness and beautifully balanced with perfect acidity, deep, long and delightful. Almost as good as the 1947.
Chris Pollington - Private Account Manager

Extremely dark in colour, the colour of caramel I dip apples in on Bonfire Night in fact. The toffee apple note appears on the nose too, but the palate is extraordinarily complex. Interwoven marzipan, sweet apricot and a whole variety of yellow stone fruit stride elegantly across the palate. Darker, more concentrated and sweeter than the 1961 Clos de Bourg this 1959 tries to make you think it is a big brute of a wine which is dead set on knocking you over with intensity and richness, but it’s just too refined and elegant to do that. It’ll tap you on the shoulder and ask you to have another glass, if you wouldn’t mind awfully, Sir.
Gary Owen, Account Manager

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Critics reviews

Wine Advocate98/100
The first bottle of Huet's 1959 Vouvray Le Haut Lieu Moelleux was unfortunately corked, although it comes from the best vintage since 1947. Loire expert Richard Kelley says, This is more a passerillage vintage, denoted by the lighter appearance and raised acidity within the sweeter wines. The first bottle shows a dark yellow-golden color. The clear and by itself noble bouquet with its delicate lemon, canned peach and earthy aromas is affected by dull flavors. On the palate this is a rich, elegant and very intense Chenin with power, concentration and firm, fairly drying tannins, whereas the astringent finish detects the dull flavors of the nose again. Tragically, this bottle is be affected by TCA. No rating. Jrgen Franke was generous enough to send me a second bottle of his stock and this was beautiful in its purity and balanced richness. Golden-yellow, with an apricot-yellow shimmer in its intense yellow color the 1957 shows a clear and intense yet stunningly young and pure bouquet of mocha, yeast/brioche, white nougat, honey and peach/quince confiture mingled with very well defined spicy and mineral flavors that don't just give purity and precision, but also freshness and energy to the wine. On the palate this is a sweet, intense, full-bodied, very elegant and powerful wine with a firm and tight-woven structure and great persistence. This is an outstanding Haut Lieu, more dry than nowadays, very pure, fresh and mineral despite its richness, with great vitality, finesse, balance, and tension in the endless and thrilling finish. This is one of the finest, and from the matured wines it is the most youthful Huet of this tasting to be served in top restaurants today, not only with cheese (Vacherin, Epoisses, Fourme d'Ambert) but a rice dish with black truffles, mushrooms, black pepper and whatever your Sommelier considers as convenient (hopefully Bresse chicken). Honestly, I would not drink this wine at home, but hire the best cook available to create the once-in-a-lifetime combination. I will do that with the rest of this bottle knowing that no Burgundy on earth (at least of this age) could give me a greater pleasure. The 1959 could reach an even higher score in ten, 20 or 30 years. Regarding its clear fruitiness, concentration and sweetness, it has more similarity to 2003 than to any other vintage. (335 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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