Domaine Huet - Clos de Bourg Moelleux 2016

If a grape variety can cover the full range from dry to sweet and also bubbles, then you have to take advantage of it. Chenin Blanc can do that and we are working on our part of the collaboration between grape variety and drinker. To that end, after Dry and Semi-dry with this time 57 grams of residual sugar, we now have a version in the glass that can be described as distinctly residual sweet. Like the first two Chenin Blancs, this one comes from the Loire. This one from the appelation Vouvray. There, Domaine Huet has been making wine since 1928. The grapes for the bottle today come from the Clos de Bourg site, grow there on clay soil and were harvested in 2016. The Domaine farms its 35 hectares biodynamically and has made a great name for itself internationally with a complete range of Chenin Blanc. The wines have the reputation of being able to age forever. That leaves us with this bottle only scratching the surface. But you have to start somewhere.

The wine smells intense. It seems creamy, sweet, smelling of honey and apricot jam on freshly baked yeast plait. That on a Sunday afternoon and the day is saved. So things are off to a good start. There’s also something in the nose that reminds me of berries. Raspberry spirit without the alcoholic note. The Chenin then seems much less sweet on the tongue than I would have expected. There is freshness and above all there is a lot of structure on the back of the tongue and a touch of minerality. I like this so much right away that I don’t care how long this could have aged.

A day of air does not impress the wine at all and it stands virtually unchanged in the glass. Perhaps the slice of yeast plait has been cut a bit thicker, so the fruit has become a bit more subdued and all together a bit nuttier. What stays the same is the lovely mouthfeel, the creaminess, the intensity with which the wine fills the mouth without ever seeming fat or clumsy. This is also due to the freshness, which nicely balances and enriches the sweetness. The wine can stand completely on its own, replacing the entire dessert on its own and making you happy all on its own. However, there happened to be Thai curry, we cook that quite often, and it cuts a fine figure with that as well. Sure I would be interested to see how the taste changes with significantly more time on the bottle. But not for one second did I regret pulling the cork.

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