Just opened about 15 minutes ago. Poured Half the bottle into a decanter to drink tonight and put the rest of the bottle back into the fridge to taste tomorrow. Took a small taste of the wine immediately and, not surprisingly, it shows almost nothing. A hint of wool and a hint of bee pollen on the nose but absolutely zero fruit. The palate is pretty non-descript at the moment as well showing faint apple and pineapple flavors along with a good dose of chalk. Tremendous Acidity. This has 24 g/l of RS but it tastes only faintly 0ff-dry. I am going to do some grocery shopping and check in on this when I return. It shall be fascinating to see what this does with a little air.
Starting to come around now. The wool and pollen notes have fallen into the background a bit with honey and floral nuances starting to take over. Palate is still pretty tight and chalky but some fruit is starting to emerge. Green Apple and unripe pineapple mostly. Finish is long, chalky and pretty austere at this stage. It’s not yet attractive enough to start drinking. I’m going to give it at least 1 more hour.
An hour later and this wine is all chalk now. It is completely unpleasant to smell and to taste. I thinking I may close the decanter and put it in the fridge overnight.
Hard to fathom…can’t say I’ve ever experienced this in any Huet wine that was not corked (except one OLD funky malt like sec)
Typically I LOVE young Huet demi-sec.
You lost me at wool and pollen, what do those smell/taste like?
I’m allergic to pollen, didn’t know it had a smell/taste.
Pete, cannot speak to pollen, but I’ll give some info on “wool”.
Back in my former days in the pharmacy we would use wool wax alcohol, beter known as lanolin, in the compounding room. It has a very distinct, albeit subtle, aroma that would be hard to compare to anything else that I can think of right now. Best thing to do is to find a hypo-allergenic lanolin lotion that has no added fragrance…that is what I interpret wool to smell like.
I told you, Peter. If you stop drinking that Champagne and Burgundy nonsense with Abood every time you come down here, we can crack some Chenin so you know what good wine tastes like. ![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
Brad
Hey I like Chenin Blanc!
Have several Huet Clos du Bourgs laying around the house.
So what does pollen taste/smell like - it irritates my allergies. ![[cry.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/8/853b6e76c6e8406be77a6727c2a27ad1672678b3.gif "cry"){kind=small}
What I get from Huet more often than not is more of a dry honey thing. Imagine the smell and taste of honey, but without all the sweetness.
oops
As of 11:50 this morning the wine is still unpenetrable. Nose is giving off some coconut and lime and the palate is showing pineapple. The finish is still akward and austere. Definately not ready to drink yet, though showing better then it did at 3 am last night as I hit the sack. I’ll try again in a few hours. I thought I had another year before the wine would act like this. I wish I had cracked the $22 sec instead of the $40 demi-sec. I haven’t given up on this coming around yet though.
I don’t think its damaged. I think it’s just in a wierd place. I’m going to leave it open until it starts to show oxidation and hope the wine drinks well at some point before that.
You’ll need to wait awhile. I’ve forgotten 1/4 bottle remainders of Huet in the fridge before for 2 weeks with no real signs of degradation.
Never gotten coconut out of a Huet before. That’s generally an oak induced aroma and these wines don’t see oak.
Lanolin is right on. The same smell often evokes wet laundry for me. It is much more pleasant then it sounds. ![[basic-smile.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/8/83717c74df9b0ce202453063bc4f11baf0ee6b8a.gif "smile"){kind=small}
I usually get an aroma I associate with coconut with Vouvray but it is not the same coconut smell I get from a heavily oaked chardonnnay. Perhaps this is the quince smell everyone talks about. I have absolutely no idea what the hell quince tastes or smells like. I bought some quince at fancy grocery store last year to see what it was. I paid 5 dollars for a single piece of this stuff and it was hard as a rock when I cut into it. I attempted to bake it with copious amounts of butter and sugar and it came out of the oven with a texture of a car tire. This is one Chenin aroma/flavor that is completely lost on me.
That’s gotta be it because quince is pretty omnipresent in young and middle age Chenin. Try some quince paste with Manchego sometime, or you can try quince preserves. That, or next time you see a fresh quince in a market, just pick one up, lightly scratch it with your fingernail and take a whiff.
i’ll hit whole foods this afternoon and see if they have quince paste. It drives me crazy that I can’t identify that smell/taste since I drink Chenin every single week.
After 3 nights in the fridge this is finally starting to resemble Vouvray. This is still holding a lot back, (I mean a lot), but I could drink actually drink the wine at this point. I will continue to let it sit though as this shows absolutely no signs of oxidation. Remarkable.
Brad, I just tried the quince paste. It had no perceptable aroma and the flavor wasn’t recognizable to me from anything I have tasted in any French Chenin Blanc. Damn tasty with manchego cheese though. Maybe I’ll try a larger portion tomorrow and pair it with a Coteaux du Layon. I’m thinking this wasn’t the aroma that suggested coconut to me.
Well, Brad was correct! After two weeks open in the fridge this wine opened up nicely. Very slight hint of oxidation but the wine drank beautifully tonight. Honey, apricots, pineapple, lime, mushrooms, chalky minerality and a long mouthwatering finish. I think I will let my other bottles rest for a good long time.