2009 Domaine Huet Haut Lieu Vouvray Clos du Bourg Moelleux

Quince and white peach preserves fill the nose caressingly coat the palate from Huet’s 2009 Vouvray Moelleux Clos du Bourg, which displays a combination of lift and delicacy with its honeyed richness that none of the present collection tasted up until this point approach. Here are brightness, energy, and efficacious acids driving the quince, pineapple, seamlessly forward. Here, too are mineral nuances too often missing from the sweet Vouvray and Montlouis of this vintage. Expect this superbly persistent bottling to be worth following for a quarter century. 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