Domaine Huet Le Mont Sec 2014
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Robert
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Huet's 2014 Vouvray Le Mont Sec is the other wine that wine lovers should buy and store, especially those with a heart for crystalline and extremely mineral wines. If Clos du Bourg is like something between Chablis and Riesling, Le Mont is comparable with Sancerre from Silex soils, but again also dry Riesling from the bedrock parts of Lower Austria (along the Danube river). Its aroma on the nose intertwines white and green fruits like apples and lemons with coolish flint stone, spicy and floral aromas in a subtly intense, very intriguing and complex way. There is a great purity and linearity on the complex and elegant, intense and persistent palate, but also some ripe fruit flavors that remind not just of crystalline Riesling but also aromatic wines from grape varieties such as Muscat or Sauvignon Blanc. This is a powerful and intense but much more finesse-full, purely mineral and highly elegant wine with a beautiful touch of sweetness (say roundness) and lovely citrus flavors. This is the most elegant and delicate Chenin of Huet's dry trio and its aromatic length, energy, salinity and spell-binding finesse is truly unrivaled. This is simply great Chenin Blanc and Huet's hallmark wine of the vintage. Chapeau!
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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.