2008 Vouvray, Le Mont, Moelleux Première Trie, Domaine Huet, Loire

2008 Vouvray, Le Mont, Moelleux Première Trie, Domaine Huet, Loire

Product: 20088111957
 
2008 Vouvray, Le Mont, Moelleux Première Trie, Domaine Huet, Loire

Buying options

Available by the case In Bond. Pricing excludes duty and VAT, which must be paid separately before delivery. Storage charges apply.
You can place a bid for this wine on BBX

Description

Extreme weather conditions have produced a compact battleship of a wine. From a very small area and balanced by 62 grams of residual sugar, it's bolstered by the implacable terroir and a brilliant biodynamic approach: a wine that will run and run. .

wine at a glance

Delivery and quality guarantee

Critics reviews

Wine Advocate91/100
The Huet 2008 Vouvray Moelleux Le Mont 1er Trie smells of distilled herbal and floral essences mingled with saline and alkaline marine notes. In the mouth, hints of white raisin and caramel are pitted against slightly detached citricity. This harbors lots of energy though and achieves really long, saliva-inducing finishing savor. While the sec and demi-sec 2008s have noticeably more residual sugar than their 2009 counterpart largely as the result of a decision to assist balancing the acidity, this 1er trie harbors only around two-thirds the sugar of the corresponding 2009, simply because the 2009 material was so very rich and thus left so much sugar to spare. But I like the less sweet balance in this 2008 that needs at least 3-4 years in bottle and ought to perform well for 25 or more.
David Schildknecht - 31/08/2010 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.

Find out more
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.

Find out more
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.

Find out more