2008 Vouvray Sec Clos du Bourg

Fresh lime, fennel, pear, and dusty intimations of chalk on the nose of Huet’s 2008 Vouvray Sec Le Haut Lieu lead to a bright, mouth-filling surge of citrus and a finish of palate staining salinity and chalkiness, harboring considerable bite and bitterness of radish and citrus rind. This is almost whip-wielding, and what a lasting impression it leaves! The acidity is so efficacious that 13 grams of residual sugar still don’t preclude a dry taste. Approach with caution over the next couple of years, but expect this to be worth following for at least half a dozen. I have not tasted the corresponding Haut-Lieu sec bottling. Noel Pinguet professes great confidence in his 2009s and pleasure in one of those rare vintages where it was possible to bottle everything from sec through Cuvee Constance. That said, he admitted that achieving a balanced dry wine was challenging, and total production of sec was down from the estate norm; that of demi-sec, surprisingly, even more so (represented by a single bottling); virtually half of the vintage production being moelleux. While acknowledging similarities to 1996, Pinguet finds 2008 most closely resembles 1988. His is one of the few 2008 collections from Vouvray or Montlouis that is clearly less consistent than the corresponding 2009s, which he also finds more interesting. Importer: The Rare Wine Co., Sonoma, CA; tel. (800) 999-4342