Disappointing Huet

A couple of nights back I opened a 2010 Huet Clos du Bourg sec. Purchased several at release and early openings years back were spot on delicious. After opening and pouring it was clearly more yellow than it should be. Had slight sherry notes on the nose and in the mouth it was showing oxidation. Spouse was not happy with it so I opened another white wine. Looks like we will be drinking our other Huets sooner rather than later.

Not happy to read this. I haven’t touched my 2010s yet.

I think the longevity of these dryer ones are overrated. Witness 2002.

And you are basing this on the 2002s, the only vintage known to have a serious premox problem?

I opened a 2005 Clos de Bourg Sec a couple of weeks ago, and it was delicious!

2002 is not a basis for judgement.

Here’s a thread about this wine from earlier this year. I haven’t had an oxidized 2010 Huet Sec yet, and I’ve gone through several cases. There are a few notes suggesting oxidized bottles amongst the majority positive TN’s. Don’t sell them short; most are still outstanding, with a long life ahead.

Cheers,
Warren

Trolling Brad Kane, trolling Brad Kane?

Gary,
It’s been awhile since I bought much sec but . . .
I wish to quote an old friend: “you can always dump it but why don’t you wait and see what happens?”
Especially with Huet; my suggestion - decant for 24 hours and see if it still shows oxidized.
Best, jim

Gone through a case+, with about 14-16 left, no issues, and loved every one. Every time I drink one there is one left Huet by Noel Pinguet left in the world…

I think I’ve had two or three 2010 Huet which showed early premox.

Jim - I did indeed try it the following day and the oxidation progressed to where on day 3 it was undrinkable.

Will try the 2010 Le Mont and Haut Lieu next to see where they are at. Clos du Bourg has always been my favorite Huet for depth of complexity. That being the case some years the RS is slightly above my liking.

What Jayson said. The '02s are outliers.

I’ll always lean towards storage/transportation issues first until I see repeated problem notes from a lot of geographic areas.

Slight thread drift, but whatever happened to him? Does he have another project?

Buek, I decided I would play it conservative and open my last bottle of 05 Sec Bourg. ####! Whatever is going on with this wine and some other bottles of it that people have had, this bottle right now that I am sipping from is not suffering from any of those criticisms. What an electric bottle of Huet Sec…lovely. I have Brig coming over later and I am going to pour it for him blind and see if he can guess the vintage/age.

  • 2005 Domaine Huet Vouvray Sec Clos du Bourg - France, Loire Valley, Touraine, Vouvray (7/14/2019)
    Damn it. Between my last note from 2017, when I thought the bottle was probably hitting the apex onto the downhill side, and along with the last 4 TNs on this wine from other users, I thought I better get this opened. It’s perfect. Paid $25 for this back in 2012 from Envoyer. Absolutely zero premox or advanced markers of any kind in my bottle today. Opened about 15 mins ago, with the cork just falling apart into a mess of pieces. I got the inner 1/2 out cleanly, then poured the wine. Such a beautiful melange of peach, honey, citrus pith and a big plast of acidity in the finish. Damn it. This could fool me for a wine that is less than 5 years old, and in comparison to a 2015 Chidaine Choisilles I opened, it has the livelihood of that wine which is a decade younger. This is a cracking great bottle of Huet Bourg that drinks like it is connected to an electrical current. Damn it, what an awesome bottle of wine.

Posted from CellarTracker

Buek, I decided I would play it conservative and open my last bottle of 05 Sec Bourg. ####! Whatever is going on with this wine and some other bottles of it that people have had, this bottle right now that I am sipping from is not suffering from any of those criticisms. What an electric bottle of Huet Sec…lovely. I have Brig coming over later and I am going to pour it for him blind and see if he can guess the vintage/age.

  • 2005 Domaine Huet Vouvray Sec Clos du Bourg - France, Loire Valley, Touraine, Vouvray (7/14/2019)
    Damn it. Between my last note from 2017, when I thought the bottle was probably hitting the apex onto the downhill side, and along with the last 4 TNs on this wine from other users, I thought I better get this opened. It’s perfect. Paid $25 for this back in 2012 from Envoyer. Absolutely zero premox or advanced markers of any kind in my bottle today. Opened about 15 mins ago, with the cork just falling apart into a mess of pieces. I got the inner 1/2 out cleanly, then poured the wine. Such a beautiful melange of peach, honey, citrus pith and a big plast of acidity in the finish. Damn it. This could fool me for a wine that is less than 5 years old, and in comparison to a 2015 Chidaine Choisilles I recently opened, it has the livelihood of that wine which is a decade younger. This is a cracking great bottle of Huet Bourg that drinks like it is connected to an electrical current. Damn it, what an awesome bottle of wine.

Posted from CellarTracker

With the 2002 Huets, you also have to wonder whether they might have been sitting in a non-climate-controlled warehouse during the Summer of 2003.

The European distribution channel simply wasn’t prepared for 2003.

Have you ever been to their cellar? That’s not a worry.

Haven’t had any issues with 2010s…Still got a few 06/07 secs that are really lovely.

I’ve had about half a case of 10’s this year and no prob

For most white wines in the summer [and early autumn] of 2003, it could have been anywhere in the distribution channel.

Perhaps Huet holds onto their wines a little longer than do others [before finally releasing the wines to the channel], but my impression has always been that the overwhelming majority of white wines are bottled & packaged & pallet-ed & container-ed up for transport by the summer after the harvest.

For a while now, I’ve been wondering if that’s why so many of the Theise/Skurnik 2002 German Rieslings were torched - I can easily imagine those wines sitting in a pallet within a metal shipping container within a non-climate-controlled metal warehouse [or out on a dock, in the direct sunlight], during the summer of 2003, waiting until it was their turn to be loaded into a cargo ship, and being fried for weeks on end.

BTW, this scenario would apply equally well to any wine [red or white] which was moved into the [non-climate-controlled] channel in the summer [or early autumn] of 2003.

[For the reds, it could have been older vintages which might have been at risk for frying in the summer of 2003, such as 1999/2000 for Bordeaux, or 1997/98 for Barolo, although perhaps those wines were considered sufficiently valuable for their entire channels to have been climate-controlled.]