Domaine Huet Sec & Pétillant, 2014
It feels a little strange penning an update on Domaine Huet at this time of year. I always meet up with the Huet team in February, in order to taste through the latest releases, usually followed by a selection of older wines. I suppose, therefore, that I could have combined these notes with those I will no doubt scribble down in February. I decided, however, that there were a couple of important issues raised by my tastings of these wines that deserved some discussion, and I didn’t want these issues to fade into the shadows cast by my notes on the 2013 vintage. The issues in question are firstly quality, with particular reference to the 2012 vintage, and secondly oxidation – premature oxidation, to be precise – with particular reference to the 2002 vintage.
The wines described here were mostly pulled from my cellar, and tasted at home, over the course of the last two months. This means each bottle was given appropriate time to shine, and show all that it had to offer. Equally, niggles, problems and doubts were also allowed to bubble to the surface. The only exception to this ‘at home’ rule are the two wines featured from the 2012 vintage. Nevertheless these were also given due time to shine, the only real difference being the venue, as I tasted these during the course of an evening with Jim Budd, at his house in the Loire. All the wines have been purchased by me, except for the 2012s which were purchased at the cellar door by Jim Budd.
I have divided this update into four pages, and correspondingly I have split my tasting notes four ways. Below, I look specifically at the 2012 vintage, followed by two new notes on these wines. On the next page I look specifically at the oxidation question, accompanied by several notes on sec and pétillant wines from the 2002 vintage. On the subsequent pages I follow on with notes on a selection of other sec wines, back as far as 1995, and then other pétillant wines back to 2001.
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