I bought heavily in 2010 from Huet’s lineup, which has been nothing but superb. But over the weekend, I experienced my first prematurely oxidized 2010 Huet. Not quite undrinkable, but noticeably brown/gold on pouring, and with moderately strong oxidized flavors. This was from a 375ml bottle, and nothing seemed out of the ordinary about the cork, fill or anything else.
I’ll attach a photo below, not sure how well it will relay the color issue.
Hopefully, it’s just a one-off, but it has me wondering how long I can safely hold those 2010s, since I have quite a lot of them.
Thats sad, but hopefully it’s an odd ball. I’ve really been enjoying the Huet’s (Secs) I’ve had from the early 2000s. Had a 2010 in a restaurant as well, lovely!
Thanks, Warren. Just so everyone knows, I don’t post about corked or damaged bottle just to vent, I only posted this one because we’re all trying to understand premox risk and safe drinking windows, plus this producer is of so much interest on the board.
Hopefully, it’s just a one-off bad bottle, since I’m not seeing anyone else replying having experienced this with so young of a Huet.
I appreciate the notes. I’m kinda worried, with reports of premox in the '02 demi’s and others, now this '10 Sec. I was hoping to hold some until old age. The only bad Huet I’ve had yet was a horrid '02 Pétillant, which might have been poxed or some other flaw, I don’t recall.
This thread spooked me so tonight I Coravined a 2007 Sec Le Mont. No premox here, just a real zippy, pale straw colored gem. Plenty of time on this one.
I got a premox’ed bottle of Sec Le Mont about a year ago at a restaurant. I don’t remember the vintage, unfortunately, but it was fairly recent. The somm was pretty shocked.
I think talk of premox is premature until there is a lot more instances in the vintage. The situation with the '02s is fairly unique in that the domaine reportedly reduced their sulfur levels that year. This could be a simply case of poor storage somewhere along the route, which is what was generally the cause of a lot of problems in white wine before everything became tagged with the premox moniker.
I hope you’re right, Brad. However, like you and I, Chris bought a lot of these, so unless he received a batch of mistreated bottles and reports a few more duds, random premox remains worrisome. I hate to repeat myself, but I hope you’re right.
Not (prem)oxed but I had an oxidized '94 Le Mont this weekend that I got directly from the chateau. Cork was in good shape, but seemed to come out a bit easy.
My '02 Petillants seem to be faring much better than my demi-secs. I’ve only had a 2 partially proxed bottles, 1 completely shot bottle - the cork came out very easily on that one, and a majority of pristine bottles.