On 21st March, we were privileged to host Richard Kelley MW at St Cross for his 8th tasting for the Club. For this very special event, he returned to the Loire, specifically to the wines of Domaine Huet. For Richard the wines of Huet were truly life-changing. Why?
Well, in 1981, at the Bristol Wine Fair, a young man from a teetotal family had a taste of Huet 1969. From that was born in Richard a lifelong passion for the wines of Chenin Blanc, the ‘world’s greatest grape’. The Loire - an ‘underdog region’ in France - was ‘on our doorstep’ and over the last forty years Richard has not only got to know the region intimately but also the vignerons who have devoted their lives to Chenin Blanc.
Foremost among the preeminent producers was Gaston Huet and over a glass of Vouvray Pétilant Brut, Richard gave us something of Gaston’s background and family. Gaston was born in the Auvergne in 1910, the son of butcher and bistro owner who moved his family to the Loire in 1928, buying a house known as Le Haut Lieu and becoming a vigneron. Gaston was originally destined to be a forester but that move sealed his life’s career. He married the daughter of another wine family in 1934, survived World War II despite being captured at Calais and having to walk back from a German POW camp in Silesia.
He was back in time, however, for the remarkable harvest of 1945 (the ‘vintage of the century’) and steadily rebuilt the vineyard and cellars. He was mayor of Vouvray from 1947 to 1989 and a man with influence at the highest levels of French politics. Such was his power that when the TGV came through the Loire en route to Bordeaux he was able to persuade the authorities not only to tunnel under the vineyards at great cost but to mount the tracks on rubber sleepers so that the caves above should not be disturbed by vibrations. He died in 2002 but his family - particularly his son-in-law Noel Pinguet - once converted from a beer-drinker - took on the domaine, added the Le Mont clos to the family holdings and led the shift to biodynamic production. Though Domaine Huet was sold to Anthony Wang in 2003 there was no change to philosophy and practice and it thrives today under the direction of Anthony’s daughter Sarah.
Chenin Blanc came to the Loire over a thousand years ago in the 8th or 9th century and has dominated production there ever since. There’s a small amount of Grolleau and of course Cabernet Franc but Vouvray itself has not allowed red grapes in its 2000 ha of vineyards since its creation as an AOC region in 1936. South Africa dominates global production of Chenin with 27,000 ha, more than the rest of the world put together, but it is in the Loire that it finds its greatest expression and greatest variety in style - from bone dry to lusciously sweet.
The Loire is at the northern limit of grape-growing in Europe and, unlike South Africa, it’s entirely at the mercy of the changing weather conditions from year to year. Until two weeks before the harvest, the producers can’t know what style(s) they can produce. The level of ripeness is affected by the depth of clay over the underlying limestone tuffeau but climate change is having a significant impact on effect. In the 1970s the harvest typically started around 10 October. In 2003 - a heatwave year - it was as early as 22 September but this year the first of the Huet properties began to harvest on 8 September. So much for those who say climate change is a fiction.
Chenin’s great virtue - its consistent charge of (malic) acidity - ensures that the wines, whether sweet or dry, have exceptional longevity. Producers pick for around 12-14% alcohol and bottle early. The level of acidity means that it’s rare to go through malolactic and the wines are aged in stainless or old oak before maturation in bottle. Producers of some South African Chenins - which tend to have lower malic acid - use oak and with global warming it may become more common in the Loire, though it’s not yet on the cards at Huet.
The bulk of Vouvray production goes to NV Sparkling but Huet only offer vintage-dated wines and the 2019 we tasted
to start the evening is their latest release after 3 years on the lees. Dosage is around 10 gsl, making it slightly sweeter than the average Méthode Champenoise or Méthode Traditonelle. The sweetness comes in part from adding a touch of Le Haut Möelleux and the wine itself had yeasty notes with a touch of pear and apple. At 2.5-3.0 bars, a bit lower than champagne, this is an excellent food wine even when young but Richard reckoned it would evolve and last for 20 to 30 years. Try it with some of the charcuterie from Hardouin, the famed Loire traiteur
For wine no 2 we had Le Haut Lieu Sec 2022. Le Haut Lieu - the family’s original vineyard - is now a single 9 ha vineyard at the high point of the appellation and its wines tend to be the most precocious of the Domaine. Another young wine, this had a bright apple-like acidity married to 5-6 gsl. There’s a tendency for Chenin from the Loire to go into a a rather ‘sulky teenage phase’ before they emerge into full evolved maturity over the next 15 to 20 years.
For wine no 3, we moved into the south-facing Le Mont vineyard with another sec wine of 2022. Bought by Gaston in 1971 for his daughter and son-in-law Noel, this is the last site to pick in the Huet domaine, thanks to the level of clay in the soil, but has similar levels of sugar to wine no 2. Deeper, more golden colour with perhaps a touch more citrus / candied lime to complement the ever-present appley notes. This wine has very high levels of malic acid, making it both one of the slowest to come to maturity and the longest-lived. It will age ‘brilliantly’ was Richard’s judgement - a judgement firmly based on his own deep experience (and extensive stock) of these wines going back to the first decades of the 20th century. Lucky man!
From sec we moved to demi-sec, another 2022 wine from Le Mont. Thanks to global warming these wines now have 20-21 gsl rather than the historic 16-17 gsl. Apparently, this is the hardest category of wine from a sales point of view, though it works well with river fish such as sandre or pike, with black pudding or simply with goat’s cheese. Perhaps as a consequence, a new style, Sec Tendre, is now being made with 12-13 gsl but, as with other Loire wines there needs to be a constant balancing act between sugar and alcohol levels.
Courtesy of Richard’s own cellar, wine no 5 was another demi-sec, this one from Le Haut Lieu. Like 2005, 2018 was a very ripe vintage. This example had 17 gsl.
From demi-sec we moved onto four möelleux wines. This is a difficult term to translate. In practice it signifies lusciously sweet (though always with that balancing spine of acidity) but it actually means ‘full of marrow’, signifying a textural quality to the wine.
Wine no 6, from Le Haut Lieu, was from 2022. This year was hot enough to get sweet wine in every one of the Huet vineyards. Yield was held down to 39 hl/ha compared to the appellation’s limit of 55 hl/ha (Sauvignon Blanc consistently crops at 100 hl/ha in the Loire) and this wine has 47 grams of sugar per litre with 12.5% alcohol. Like all the möelleux wines we tasted on this exceptional evening, not excluding the 1993 we ended with, this wine will outlive every one of us in the room. Sobering thought - but a delicious journey to follow with these wines as accompaniment!
Wine no 7 was Le Mont Möelleux 1ere Trie 2022. ‘Premiere Trie’ in this case does not mean the first pick - just the best of the wine! At £68 from Sheldons, this was the value wine of the evening for many members. Prices for these wines are high - reflecting the level of care, the low yields favoured by Huet and the quality and reputation of the domaine. Each vineyard is picked several times. 2022’s warmth meant no botrytis but this wine will evolve steadily over the next twenty to fifty years, the colour slowly darkening and the wine acquiring greater and greater complexity. There’s a lot more sugar than wine no 6 at 99 gsl and commensurately lower alcohol - 11.5% playing 12.5% of the Haut Lieu. In the early 1970s this wine would have had barely 30 gsl and no sweet wine at all was produced between 1976-85 - too cool. Yet another indication of climate change. Right now, there’s a touch of mushroom and pineapple overlaying the apple note of Chenin. Drink on its own or with lightly caramelised tarte tatin or a slice of Roquefort.
For wine no 8 we tasted the same wine - just 19 years older, but ‘still in its infancy’. £115 and already sold out - shame! 2003 was another heatwave year, another year for sweet wine - though once again no botrytis in this vineyard. The domaine compensated for the low acidity by allowing a bit of skin contact to add tannin and the wine still looked wonderful and tasted very fresh even with 89 gsl.
Lastly, we were privileged to taste the 1993 La Haut Lieu Möelleux 1er Trie of 1993. There was rain at harvest time but still a very high quality wine with that typical edge of slightly caramelised orange marmalade. A consequence of higher temperatures is that it’s getting harder and harder to replicate the level of acidity and this wine - in Richard’s judgement - has the ‘precision’ that the equally ripe 2022s lack. Like other great vintages such as 1945, 1947, 1955, 1959 and 1988-89 this will ‘last for ever’. Richard has wines from the earliest years of the domaine - 1918 and 1926 - still alive, still gorgeous.
Even if we didn’t get to taste one of these historic vintages we had the great good fortune to taste wines that will in time be classed at the same level. This was a tasting of and for the ages and the Club owes huge thanks to Richard (and to Phil Jones who set it up for us).
We can only hope that there will bear ninth Kelley tasting…
GH: 24/3/24