Domaine Huet - Timeless Chenin
There’s lovely texture, complexity and drive to the wines this year, alongside a shimmering, light-filled length. From Huet’s chalkiest vineyard, Le Mont ramps up the mineral presence alongside yellow citrus, fresh-cut quince and outstanding, salty length. Clos du Bourg lives up to its reputation as one of the Loire’s great vineyards with its saturating meadow flower and spice-flecked palate, full of complexity and tension. Importer's notes.
Huet Vouvray Le Mont Sec 2023
Le Mont—Purchased in 1957, the steep, rocky, eight-hectare vineyard of Le Mont lies on Vouvray’s esteemed Première Côte, part of a bank of limestone-rich hillside vineyards overlooking Tours. This block's argilo-siliceux soils (stony with green mineral clays and flint over limestone) provide the tight structure and pungent minerality Le Mont is renowned for. With less clay (and a different type of clay) and more stone than Le Haut-Lieu, this site typically produces the nerviest wines of the Huet stable, so mostly dry and off-dry whites are produced. Importer’s Notes
“One of the great dry white wines of the Loire. This dry chenin blanc is rich and concentrated, but also graceful and delicate. Full-bodied but so elegant and precise, with a wet stone minerality that builds in a spectacular manner in the very long, refined finish. From biodynamically grown grapes.
Drink or hold.”96 points, Stuart Pigott, Jamessucking.com
“The 2023 Vouvray Sec Le Mont is precise, upright and flinty. There's just the right amount of juicy, peachy flesh within this light-bodied yet concentrated wine. It has the potential to charm but does so without showing off. Flinty and tightly sewn together, it has curves in the right places, but you're just going to have to wait for it to take shape.” 95 points, Rebecca Gibb MW, Vinous.
Huet Vouvray Clos du Bourg Sec 2023
Perched on the Première Côte just above the town of Vouvray, Clos du Bourg is a monopole generally regarded as the greatest of the three Huet single vineyards. It has been farmed by the domaine since 1953 and was purchased in 1963. Arguably the region’s greatest vineyard, Clos du Bourg makes some of Europe's most powerful, thrilling and long-lived white wines. With only one metre of topsoil over solid limestone, the vines immediately tap into the mineral resources underfoot. The warmth of the site, combined with the mineral complexion of the soils, results in rich, long-lived wines that effortlessly combine intense, charged minerality with generous texture and concentration. Importer’s Notes.
“The aromas of floral honey, cashew nuts and butter are married to a brioche character reminiscent of good Champagne, but this is completely still. On the medium-bodied palate, the interplay of honeyed creaminess and elegant acidity is enchanting, the wine gliding over your palate. Long, supple finish.”93 points, Stuart Pigott, JamesSuckling.com
