Wine Advisor
Huet, Vouvray Clos du Bourg Sec 2014
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Description
Tasting notes
Reviewed by: Stephan Reinhardt
The 2014 Vouvray Clos du Bourg Sec is brighter colored than the Haut-Lieu and shows a white-golden color. The nose indicates a very delicate, fresh and mineral wine of great finesse and beautifully clear white fruit flavors, which changes somewhere between young Chablis and Riesling from a limestone terroir. This is just gorgeous (or will be one day) and provided with some smoky flavors of Speck or air-dried hamm (jamón serrano), along with lemon juice, chalk, carambola and some floral flavors. Like the 2014 Haut-Lieu Sec, the Clos du Bourg is also quite round and gentle on the first palate; it shows a great finesse, refined fruit elegance and enervating raciness that reminds me of the finest dry (German or Southern Palatinate) Rieslings, although the power and length seems even stronger towards the finish. I have rarely tasted a young Chenin that combines power, finesse, elegance and persistency in such a perfectly balanced way. This is surely a wine to buy, drink and store. The only error possible here is to buy too little of it.
About the Producer
Since its founding in 1928, Vouvray’s Domaine Huet has been the standard-bearer for great, age-worthy Chenin Blanc. And to this day, year after year, the estate produces some of the world’s most compelling white wines—and in a remarkable range that spans sparkling, dry, semi-dry, and breathtaking dessert styles. Chenin Blanc has been identified with Vouvray since at least the 9th century, and many of its great vineyards were known by the 14th century. By those standards, the 90+-year-old Huet estate is relatively young. Yet it was this youngster that established, once and for all, that Vouvray was capable of world-class quality. The domaine’s founder, Victor Huët, was a Parisian bistro owner. However, with lungs and nerves shattered by his experiences in WWI, Victor re-settled to the town of Vouvray in France’s beautiful Loire Valley. He soon purchased the first of his great vineyards, Le Haut-Lieu, in 1928, and Domaine Huet was born. The Grand Crus For all his salesmanship, Gaston understood clearly that quality must come first—and that quality started with great vineyards. His Le Haut-Lieu parcel, which lies on Vouvray’s “Première Côte” (or “first slope”), is home to virtually all the appellation’s acknowledged grand cru vineyards. As the estate prospered in the post-WWII era, Gaston secured two additional prime vineyards on the Première Côte that would ensure the domaine’s stature: Le Mont (purchased in 1957) and Clos du Bourg (farmed since 1953, purchased in 1963). Collectively, these three vineyards, and the wines made from them, account for Huet being the greatest of all Vouvray producers.
