Nose: Quince, apple peel, flowers, dried mint. Palate: Bruised apple, membrillate, honey, kombu, lemon juice. Salty. Light grip. Very high acidity balances the sugar. Acid scalds my tongue like eating too much pineapple. Finish is savory and goes on and on.
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Nose: a panoply of apple (bruised apples, apple skins, apple sauce, apple pie filling complete w/ cinnamon), faint butterscotch or burnt honey.
Palate: waxy citrus confit; unctuous attack but a clipped finish (yet the pith/chalk impression lingers as a grip after the flavors quickly vanish). There is also a deep but tightly-wound salty-sweet component, like salted caramel, as a backbone.
Having read so much about this producer and vineyard, and given what I paid for this bottle, I'm left wanting. Solid and intriguing wine for sure, by my personal dollars and attention are perhaps better spent elsewhere.
Probably just way too young to capture the magic?
Edit: an hour or so later -- starting to show like a top Norman cider but with near-infinite complexity... okay, now we're talking. Happy to be proven wrong.
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Connie's. Pale gold with sweet honeysuckle nose and honeydew melon, apple and orange on the palate. We debated whether the RS was more than usual or the acidity not simply enough for balance, but then 'balance' was subjective depending on one's appetite for sweetness.
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Wtf is up with these 2020 whites that have these fleeting pyrazines? I’ve seen it in some Chablis as well. This really ruined this wine for me tonight. Straight up cigar-like.
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Pale gold. On the nose pronounced cloying honey. On the palate medium sweetness medium acidity medium alcohol. Pear apple and honeysuckle. A bit high on the residual sugar for my taste. Good but lacks integration and balance.
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Features a youthful mix of aplle and pear with strong nuances of stony minerality. Rich and focused yet accessable with generous fruit well lifted by its searing acidity.
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Very pale straw. The nose was initially almost completely closed. Only after a splash decant did some white apple fruit emerge. One-dimensional and just way too young. The palate shows the potential of the wine though. Softly sweet fruit with perfectly integrated acidity, wrapped around a clear mineral streak in the mid-palate which carries the wine through to a long finish. For my palate, hold. This is simply too embryonic to appreciate even 10% of what this wine will be able to offer when it starts to mature.
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Nice Chenin funk on the nose here, very classic; bright, pretty style with vibrancy from the acidity carrying things along, lovely flavour. Full and rich, nice viscosity here. Great weight in the mouth, perfect. Very long.
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Located above the church of Vouvray, Clos du Bourg covers six hectares of vineyards surrounded by an old stone wall - hence "Clos". It is one of the oldest Grand Cru plots in France. It is mentioned as early as the 7th century. The flat soil of the vineyard is clay with flint and chalk inclusions. It is located on a typical Turonian tuffeau limestone rock. Here the vines reach the tufa after only one meter.
In 2020, the harvest took place between September 7 (the earliest date in the winery's history) and September 25. Since the vintage was strongly characterized by sun and warmth, mainly residually sweet wines were produced. As usual, the grapes were meticulously sorted, pressed and fermented spontaneously. Malolactic fermentation took place only in exceptional cases and in individual barrels. The wine was aged in used demi-muids. Demi-Sec means at Huet: between 15 and 25 grams of residual sweetness. In this case it is 20 grams.
The 2020 Clos du Bourg Demi-Sec is quite closely related to the Le Haut-Lieu Demi-Sec on the attack in this vintage. Both possess a Mosel-like playful lightness combined with ripe fruit and bright stone and herbal aromatics. The Clos du Bourg, however, is more chalky in keeping with its status, a bit firmer and a touch darker. Yellow citrus along with abrasion meets crisp apples and pears, dried herbs and blond tobacco, and finally fresh apple cider. A bit of smoke and flint are also in play.
On the palate, the wine starts silky and warm, or as Rebecca Gibb MW puts it on Vinous, "Drinking the 2020 Clos du Bourg Demi-Sec is like taking off your shoes and dipping your feet in warm water after a long day of hiking: Pure satisfaction and relaxation." Le Clos du Bourg offers almost quaffable pome fruit, stone fruit and some citrus at the start, showing off in a downright juicy way here. The sweetness is mainly on the tip of the tongue, behind which the spice and acidity hide for a short time. But then both emerge clearly, and suddenly the flavors swirl in a whirlpool of freshness and saltiness. The Chenin Blanc has volume and concentration, but they never become too heavy. Rather the opposite. The wine prances across the tongue despite the power, despite the 13.5% by volume, and despite the slightly dark-seeming spice. It has an exceedingly seductive effect, and as so often in recent years, one does not know how one can force oneself to allow this wine to age in the bottle for several more years and at the same time deny oneself this pleasure for so long. And yet, this wine will still evolve wonderfully over time.
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4/22/2024 - jnewman77 Likes this wine:
Young, but excellent; classic Chenin earthy notes and wool, orchard fruits, honeysuckle, lifted floral notes. Super tasty and fresh.
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2/9/2024 - gpunch Likes this wine: 93 Points
Nose: Quince, apple peel, flowers, dried mint.
Palate: Bruised apple, membrillate, honey, kombu, lemon juice. Salty. Light grip. Very high acidity balances the sugar. Acid scalds my tongue like eating too much pineapple. Finish is savory and goes on and on.
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12/12/2023 - lvjohn wrote:
Very excellent wine right now, but will probably be better in a few years. Nice fruit that showed up on the second day.
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9/17/2023 - scorbett Likes this wine:
Nose: a panoply of apple (bruised apples, apple skins, apple sauce, apple pie filling complete w/ cinnamon), faint butterscotch or burnt honey.
Palate: waxy citrus confit; unctuous attack but a clipped finish (yet the pith/chalk impression lingers as a grip after the flavors quickly vanish). There is also a deep but tightly-wound salty-sweet component, like salted caramel, as a backbone.
Having read so much about this producer and vineyard, and given what I paid for this bottle, I'm left wanting. Solid and intriguing wine for sure, by my personal dollars and attention are perhaps better spent elsewhere.
Probably just way too young to capture the magic?
Edit: an hour or so later -- starting to show like a top Norman cider but with near-infinite complexity... okay, now we're talking. Happy to be proven wrong.
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4/12/2023 - Neecies Likes this wine:
Connie's. Pale gold with sweet honeysuckle nose and honeydew melon, apple and orange on the palate. We debated whether the RS was more than usual or the acidity not simply enough for balance, but then 'balance' was subjective depending on one's appetite for sweetness.
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3/25/2023 - Gargantua Does not like this wine:
Wtf is up with these 2020 whites that have these fleeting pyrazines? I’ve seen it in some Chablis as well. This really ruined this wine for me tonight. Straight up cigar-like.
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12/9/2022 - jtreger wrote: 92 Points
Really nice apple, melon, and honey on the nose with good acidity on the palate to balance the residual sugar.
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10/1/2022 - ben7210 wrote: 87 Points
Pale gold. On the nose pronounced cloying honey. On the palate medium sweetness medium acidity medium alcohol. Pear apple and honeysuckle. A bit high on the residual sugar for my taste. Good but lacks integration and balance.
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7/22/2022 - Umay Ceviker wrote: 92 Points
Features a youthful mix of aplle and pear with strong nuances of stony minerality. Rich and focused yet accessable with generous fruit well lifted by its searing acidity.
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6/16/2022 - ThijsV wrote: 90 Points
Loire trip 2022; 6/15/2022-6/19/2022 (Loire, France): [At Domaine Huet] This is only about the potential, today it is mainly (or just) lemon, lime, grapefruit. This feels sweeter than LHL DS
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11/25/2021 - jlm wrote:
Very pale straw. The nose was initially almost completely closed. Only after a splash decant did some white apple fruit emerge. One-dimensional and just way too young. The palate shows the potential of the wine though. Softly sweet fruit with perfectly integrated acidity, wrapped around a clear mineral streak in the mid-palate which carries the wine through to a long finish. For my palate, hold. This is simply too embryonic to appreciate even 10% of what this wine will be able to offer when it starts to mature.
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11/25/2021 - MichaelMA wrote: 92 Points
Luscious
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10/7/2021 - vespasian wrote: 94 Points
Nice Chenin funk on the nose here, very classic; bright, pretty style with vibrancy from the acidity carrying things along, lovely flavour. Full and rich, nice viscosity here. Great weight in the mouth, perfect. Very long.
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8/18/2021 - originalverkorkt Likes this wine: 92 Points
Located above the church of Vouvray, Clos du Bourg covers six hectares of vineyards surrounded by an old stone wall - hence "Clos". It is one of the oldest Grand Cru plots in France. It is mentioned as early as the 7th century. The flat soil of the vineyard is clay with flint and chalk inclusions. It is located on a typical Turonian tuffeau limestone rock. Here the vines reach the tufa after only one meter.
In 2020, the harvest took place between September 7 (the earliest date in the winery's history) and September 25. Since the vintage was strongly characterized by sun and warmth, mainly residually sweet wines were produced. As usual, the grapes were meticulously sorted, pressed and fermented spontaneously. Malolactic fermentation took place only in exceptional cases and in individual barrels. The wine was aged in used demi-muids. Demi-Sec means at Huet: between 15 and 25 grams of residual sweetness. In this case it is 20 grams.
The 2020 Clos du Bourg Demi-Sec is quite closely related to the Le Haut-Lieu Demi-Sec on the attack in this vintage. Both possess a Mosel-like playful lightness combined with ripe fruit and bright stone and herbal aromatics. The Clos du Bourg, however, is more chalky in keeping with its status, a bit firmer and a touch darker. Yellow citrus along with abrasion meets crisp apples and pears, dried herbs and blond tobacco, and finally fresh apple cider. A bit of smoke and flint are also in play.
On the palate, the wine starts silky and warm, or as Rebecca Gibb MW puts it on Vinous, "Drinking the 2020 Clos du Bourg Demi-Sec is like taking off your shoes and dipping your feet in warm water after a long day of hiking: Pure satisfaction and relaxation." Le Clos du Bourg offers almost quaffable pome fruit, stone fruit and some citrus at the start, showing off in a downright juicy way here. The sweetness is mainly on the tip of the tongue, behind which the spice and acidity hide for a short time. But then both emerge clearly, and suddenly the flavors swirl in a whirlpool of freshness and saltiness. The Chenin Blanc has volume and concentration, but they never become too heavy. Rather the opposite. The wine prances across the tongue despite the power, despite the 13.5% by volume, and despite the slightly dark-seeming spice. It has an exceedingly seductive effect, and as so often in recent years, one does not know how one can force oneself to allow this wine to age in the bottle for several more years and at the same time deny oneself this pleasure for so long. And yet, this wine will still evolve wonderfully over time.
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