Domaine Huet Haut Lieu Moelleux Premier Trie 2018
-
Robert
Parker
Product Details
Your Rating
Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
This wine has a pale yellow color. The nose is dominated by aromas of mango, papaya and wax. The palate is silky with a well-integrated acidity and flavors of exotic fruit with notes of plum. Ends with a smooth finish.
Professional Ratings
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2018 Vouvray Le Haut-Lieu Moelleux Première Trie is deep and intense yet pure and chalky on the distinctive, slightly flinty and yeasty nougat-scented nose. Vital, vibrantly fresh and tight yet fine and pure on the playful palate, this is an intense, sweet and impressively rich Chenin with tension, salt and finesse as well as fine but grippy tannins. This is an exciting Haut-Lieu that is already dangerously ready to drink but will become even more complex and dimensioned with bottle age. Definitely the Haut-Lieu of the vintage!
Other Vintages
2022- Vinous
-
Robert
Parker -
Wine
Spectator
-
Wine
Spectator -
Robert
Parker
Today, Domaine Huet may be making its most consistently great wines. As was one of the earliest adopters of biodynamic practices, and with years of experience working with the appellation's greatest terroirs, winemaker Jean-Bernard Berthome and his team are achieving a fascinating level of transparency, purity, and knife-edged balance in the wines.
Unquestionably one of the most diverse grape varieties, Chenin Blanc can do it all. It shines in every style from bone dry to unctuously sweet, oaked or unoaked, still or sparkling and even as the base for fortified wines and spirits. Perhaps Chenin Blanc’s greatest asset is its ever-present acidity, maintained even under warm growing conditions. Somm Secret—Landing in South Africa in the mid 1800s, today the country has double the acreage of Chenin Blanc planted compared to France. There is also a new wave of dedicated producers committed to restoring old Chenin vines.
An important white wine appellation in the Touraine and one of the top in all of the Loire, Vouvray uniquely specializes in a wide range of styles from dry to sweet, and still to sparkling, each with its own definitive character. Vouvray is almost always 100% Chenin blanc (however up to 5% Menu Pineau is theoretically allowed but not often used).
Vouvray is also the name of a pretty little town just east of Tours on the northern bank of the Loire—its vineyards surround it to the northeast. Houses and cellars are carved out of the local tuffeau, a chalky or sandy, fine-grained limestone. Vineyards inhabit clay and gravel topsoil over tuffeau on the plateau, the best of which have a slight slope with a southerly aspect.
Chenin blanc’s high acidity and natural adaptability allow it to produce a wide range of styles with enormous success. Styles under the Vouvray name include sparkling, both Brut and Demi-Sec and still: Sec (dry) and Tendre (off-dry) as well as Demi-Sec (noticeably sweet), Moelleux (very sweet) and Liquoreaux (botrytized). Most can age about five years but the best quality versions will continue to improve over decades.