Château du Hureau, 2013 Update
Drawing my series of Saumur updates to a close we have the wines of Philippe Vatan, the man behind Château du Hureau. I first discovered Philippe’s wines quite a few years ago now, and in recent years I have had more opportunities to revisit them and familiarise myself anew with his portfolio. This has partly been through tasting bottles Philippe has sent over to me (often samples drawn from cuve, giving a fascinating insight into the wines as they develop), and partly through meeting up with Philippe in the Loire.
My most recent notes seem to grind to a halt with 2009, a vintage which was a great success for Château du Hureau, Philippe (pictured) having turned out a fine range of wines. For this reason it was a pleasure, on meeting up with Philippe again earlier this year, to discover that he was pouring the 2010 and 2011 vintages, bringing my notes much more up to date. I tasted all the reds first (from 2011 and then 2010) before progressing onto the white wines from these two vintages. In this report, however, I will deal with the two vintages separately, starting in each case with the white wines.
The 2011 Vintage
We started with the more recent vintage; curiously, Philippe opined that he finds the wines of the 2011 to be in a riper style, with less acidity than in the 2010 vintage. He feels the fruit character in 2011 is warmer in style, and more reminiscent of the 2003 vintage. This was a statement I found surprising, as although 2011 certainly was a very warm year overall – in the Loire and Bordeaux, just slipping both of my regional hats on for a moment – the temperatures were above average because of unseasonably warm weather in spring and autumn, and summer was in fact cooler than usual. Thus although in many regions picking was advanced, the wines haven’t on the whole showed to me the characteristics of a hot vintage.
