The Vouvrays of Domaine Huet
rank among the greatest white wines of the Loire, superb examples of Chenin
Blanc which from great years like 1990 may live for fifty years and more.
The estate, created in 1919, owes its deserved pre-eminence to Gaston Huet,
now a sprightly octogenarian and one of the great personalities of Touraine,
who was mayor of Vouvray from 1947 - 1989. Noel Pinguet, his son-in-law,
has been the winemaker since 1976.
A mathematician by training,
Pinguet is a quiet man with a fine analytical brain who realised early on
that, as the familys vineyards produced quite exceptional Chenin grapes,
the less the winemaker intervened the better the wine would be.
The Huet estate is divided into
three main vineyards, each producing wines with different characteristics
from different soils: Le Haut Lieu on very deep clay-limestone produces supple
wine; Le Mont, stonier with a significant presence of silex, shapes a more
delicate style; and Le Clos du Bourg yields powerful, solidly structured
wine because the vines are in direct contact with the limestone rock.
As much in the vineyards as in
the cellar, Pinguet employs the most natural methods. The estate has never
used chemical treatments on the vines, which since 1988 have been cultivated
"bio-dynamically". Bizarre-sounding products like horn dung and nettle valerian
(in place of copper sulphate) are sprayed onto the vines at certain phases
of the moon. Crazy you may think, but the end result is wines of exceptional,
pure flavours. As in most Vouvray estates, they may be Sec (dry), Demi-Sec
(medium-dry) and Moelleux (sweet) depending on the vagaries of the vintage
and consequently how much sugar there is in the grapes.
Huet dry Vouvrays are austere
when young, with a smell of tart fruits such as greengages and a piercing
acidity - but the flavours are long and persistent. The demi-secs have a
hint of honey restrained by a zesty freshness, perfect wines for sweetbreads.
The moelleux wines are altogether exceptional; le Clos du Bourg 1er Trie
1990, in particular, is a nectar-like drink melding the flavours of honeycombs
with palate cleansing herbs and should still be in fine form in the middle
of this century, if stored in a cool cellar.
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