Domaine Huet Le Haut Lieu Moelleux 2018
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Winemaker Notes
The nine hectares of Haut Lieu have the richest soils and generally yield the most precocious wines.
Professional Ratings
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Vinous
A perfect example of how 2018 wanted to be sweet and not dry. Harvested late, this sweet wine has 48 grams per liter of residual sugar. Beautiful pear and quince, as well as white blossoms on the nose. Pretty and complex on the palate, with lots of finesse and verve, this is a shapely, stunning sweet wine. Drinking window: 2020 - 2038
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2018 Vouvray Le Haut-Lieu Moelleux is clear and seductively ripe on the elegant, still yeasty nose with a mineral backbone and its chalky background. Sweet and lush but fine and filigreed on the palate, this is a salty, frisky, elegant, densely woven and well-structured Haut-Lieu with fine tannins and a long, complex finish that is rich and finessed at the same time, with lingering piquancy and stimulating salinity. This 2018 is a very charming but also serious Chenin Blanc with fine tannins, good tension and aging potential.
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Wine Spectator
Round and harmonious, with a suave texture and notes of ripe Bosc pear, white peach and elderflower. Shows hints of brioche and glaze, while the acidity cuts through, giving this balance and vibrancy. Drink now through 2033.
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Today, Domaine Huet may be making its most consistently great wines. As was one of the earliest adopters of biodynamic practices, and with years of experience working with the appellation's greatest terroirs, winemaker Jean-Bernard Berthome and his team are achieving a fascinating level of transparency, purity, and knife-edged balance in the wines.
Unquestionably one of the most diverse grape varieties, Chenin Blanc can do it all. It shines in every style from bone dry to unctuously sweet, oaked or unoaked, still or sparkling and even as the base for fortified wines and spirits. Perhaps Chenin Blanc’s greatest asset is its ever-present acidity, maintained even under warm growing conditions. Somm Secret—Landing in South Africa in the mid 1800s, today the country has double the acreage of Chenin Blanc planted compared to France. There is also a new wave of dedicated producers committed to restoring old Chenin vines.
An important white wine appellation in the Touraine and one of the top in all of the Loire, Vouvray uniquely specializes in a wide range of styles from dry to sweet, and still to sparkling, each with its own definitive character. Vouvray is almost always 100% Chenin blanc (however up to 5% Menu Pineau is theoretically allowed but not often used).
Vouvray is also the name of a pretty little town just east of Tours on the northern bank of the Loire—its vineyards surround it to the northeast. Houses and cellars are carved out of the local tuffeau, a chalky or sandy, fine-grained limestone. Vineyards inhabit clay and gravel topsoil over tuffeau on the plateau, the best of which have a slight slope with a southerly aspect.
Chenin blanc’s high acidity and natural adaptability allow it to produce a wide range of styles with enormous success. Styles under the Vouvray name include sparkling, both Brut and Demi-Sec and still: Sec (dry) and Tendre (off-dry) as well as Demi-Sec (noticeably sweet), Moelleux (very sweet) and Liquoreaux (botrytized). Most can age about five years but the best quality versions will continue to improve over decades.