I can’t get Huet wines in Oregon so I was excited to see some on a recent visit to Seattle. This will be my first time with this famed producer. I picked up 4 bottles:
2 2006 Le Haut Lieu Sec
1 2005 Le Mont Demi-Sec
1 2007 Le Mont Demi-Sec
How should I drink these? I am guessing pop and pour isn’t wise. How long a decant should I give them? I do want to drink them all now, I may go back and pick up some more to put away, but for now I am just curious to try some Huet wines. That having been said, if any are just inpenetrable now, I am willing just sock them away for some other time. I am especially worried about the '05. Any advice is greatly appreciated.
Based on a tasting of Huet secs a few months ago, I’d say drink 'em young or very old. The 07s were wonderful, but the 05s and 02s showed little at this stage, though both had been wonderful on release. (These were all double-decanted.) The old man evidently recommended holding on to them for 30 or 40 years.
The Huet wines, like many of the top chenin-based wines in the Loire, tend to close down very tight for hibernation after three or four years, so you will be best off tasting the 2007 now. I just tasted a bottle of the 2006 Le Haut Lieu Sec a couple of months ago and it was already beginning to start to shut down, and while it was still enjoyable to taste, you will not get a real sense of its depth, complexity and dimension on the palate for many years to come now. Equally, the 2005s are pretty closed now as well, but I did just have a bottle of 2002 Clos du Bourg Demi-Sec that was already beginning to come out of its sleepy phase and was splendid after decanting it for an hour. When Vouvray closes down tightly, it can give off a very chalk dusty, almost musty character that can make the wine seem almost corked, and during this phase you generally do not want to waste your bottles. IME, the usual progression is firm shutting down around age three, followed by this dusty phase from age 5 to 10 or so, after which the wines again begin to blossom and you are in for a very long period of great drinking. So pop your 2007 Le Mont Demi-Sec now to see how you like the domaine’s wines, but let the other three bottles rest comfortably in the cellar for several more years, as they will be absolute cellar treasures when they blossom again. The 2007 can be drunk over several days without oxidizing, so I would pop and pour it from the bottle, but maybe have a couple of glasses an hour apart the first night, and then do the same over the next few nights to see the various layers unfold. Eventually when the wine is mature, you will get all those layers at one time. I wrote a piece on the domaine’s history and its wines a few issues back, which I would be happy to send you if you are interested. Just email me at jbgilman@ix.netcom.com and I will send it along to you if you would like to read it.
BTW, Wine-Searcher shows a very wide array of Huet vintages and bottlings available on the market still. I would suggest that if you want to try an older vintage that is beginning to come out of its dumb phase and blossom, concentrate on the 1996 vintage. It has less botrytis than 1997, and consequently is a bit less pricey, and it is a great year for Domaine Huet. Or if you want to reach for the stars, try a few 1989s. If shipping into Oregon is not an issue, you should be able to very nicely expand your Huet experience and let your great bottles of 2006 and 2005 rest comfortably in the cellar.
Thanks for the note on how these closed wines show. I recently had an 04 Baumard that I thought might be flawed. Your description of how they close up pretty closely matches how that bottle showed.
I really wouldn’t let the absence of Huet in your local market turn a delightfully affordable pleasure into a rationed special-occasion wine. Why don’t you order a mixed 6 or 12 of the stuff from a store like Chambers Street - the cost with shipping will still be cheaper than anything of comparable quality from all sorts of other regions. And if they still have the 375ml bottles of the '89 sec you will get a chance to taste a great Huet in a perfect drinking zone for the same price as a current release demisec.
My experience with the '02’s is that they actually never closed down and are still drinking surprisingly well now. Needless to say, this has shocked me because you know I’m pretty much in line with you with regard to their aging curve. I’m wondering if the reduced use of sulfur at the estate will have an effect on what we’ve come to know as their fairly established aging cycle? Any idea what the difference in their sulfur regimen is these days versus what they used to do?
Btw, for those that don’t know, John wrote perhaps the best article I’ve seen to date about Huet in his Nov/Dec 2007 newsletter a couple of years ago.
I also second John’s drinking recommendation. Since this is your first experience with Huet, I’d try them over a few days to track their evolution. It’s a very educational process.
Thanks for the advice! I’m going to let them rest for a few weeks and then I’ll start with the '07. I’ll probably give the '06 a whirl as well, (even if it is starting to shut down), since I have two of those and they cost me all of $22.00.
I’m very, very excited to finally taste some Huet wines.
through the courtesy, and generosity, of Robert Bohr we got to taste this wine blind @ the end of a great wine meal served at Cru earlier this month…
no way i guess this was old Chenin Blanc as the wine seemed completely primary to me showing a deep golden color with some pink hues too, like Viognier, and peach notes on the limited nose with real sweetness in my mouth. lengthy finish shows off the quality of the winemaking and i guessed this was a really good, recent, Sonoma dessert wine - Viognier or Pinot Gris - nobody came close to ID’ing this one. lots of tannins still readily noticeable i would guess this wine outlives me easily. somebody said @ 20 years old it needed a 2 week decant! Robert said he last had this bottle 4 years ago and thought it might begin to show now thru 2014. afterward he recalibrated that DW out another 5-10 years!
FYI, the article is also on CellarTracker for your subscribers, and anyone can register on CellarTracker and turn on a 2-week trial of John’s WONDERFUL publication, View From the Cellar: Partner Integrations - CellarTracker" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
I have a case of the 89 Clos du Bourg and although have tried a bottle each year in the past three I still think it needs more time.
The 89 Cuvee Constance we had the other day was corked!!
The '89’s will outlive most folks over the legal drinking age.
Btw, unfortunately there seems to be a high incidence of cork taint with a lot of their '89’s. I’ve experienced maybe a dozen and a half corked '89’s over the past ten or so years, including 3-4 corked Constances. Just a few months ago I had a corked '89 demi-sec. Frustrating, but when the '89’s are on, they’re magical.
On your list, it depends on whether your are more interested in drinking dry or sweeter versions from Domaine Huet. The list you attached is loaded with great bottles. On the sweeter side, the two absolute steals on the list are the 1996 Le Mont Moelleux Premier Trie at 37 (euros?) and the 1985 Le Mont Moelleux at 30.00. The 2006 Clos du Bourg 1er Trie at 29.00 is also a very good price, but that one will need to be aged. I have not yet tasted the 2008s (my samples have just arrived from France and I will let them settle in for a few weeks before tasting them), so I cannot comment on them, but I suspect you would be happy with any of the '08s that you taste now, as they will be wide open for the next 18 months or so. With the Demi-Secs, the 2006 and 2005 Le Mont bottlings are both stellar, but will be in the process of shutting down or already in hibernation and in need of extended cellaring (but you would congratulate yourself heartily if you bought them now and put them in the cellar and started pulling them out to drink in ten year’s time). I have not tasted the 1999 Le Mont Demi-Sec, but at 12 euros, that is the one that I would be most tempted to try for current drinking. With the Sec bottlings, I think any of the 2008 or 2007 bottlings would show well now, but 2006 is the finest vintage of these three recent years (and is a superb year for Huet). In terms of terroir, all three vineyards (Le Haut Lieu, Le Mont and Clos du Bourg- never had the Vodanis bottling, which they no longer produce) are exceptional, with the Le Haut Lieu perhaps the least stony and minerally of the the three (and usually the most flattering to taste when the wines are young), and Clos du Bourg considered by many as the greatest vineyard of them all in Vouvray. But that said, Le Mont is a profound vineyard and definitely not to be ignored.
Francois Chidaine claims that his wines will not shut down due to the manner in which he vinifies his wines. He didn’t explain what that meant but I assumed he was talking about minimal SO2 dosing. In my mind, copious amounts of Sulfur violates the spirit of biodynamie. I wonder if the trend amongst the Vouvray elite isn’t to filter more and sulfur less. I drank an '05 Foreau Demi-Sec a few months ago that didn’t show even the slightest hint of dumbing down. It clearly needs lots of time to integrate but it was concentrated, balanced and complex. Very enjoyable. I was shocked by the showing and will be interested to see how its drinking next year. On the other hand, I have some '05 Champalou’s that have shut down hard. I doubt they have the structure to live a very long life so I will be curious to see what they taste like in 2011 when I dare open one again.
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