Clos du Bourg Moelleux 1ère Trie 2015

Lush ripeness, depth and complexity, without the wine ever feeling heavy. On the nose, a basket of fully ripe mirabelle plums, apricots and peaches, the same fruits once again candied and dried, alongside honeydew melon, kumquats and sultanas. Layered on top, notes of butterscotch.

The Clos du Bourg lies on the Première Côte in Vouvray. Gaston Huet secured this vineyard in 1963 and considered it Vouvray's greatest site: its austere, stony soils of limestone and clay combine intense minerality with a generous texture.

Pure Chenin Blanc. The designation 1ère Trie denotes the first picking pass, in which only the noblest berries are harvested by hand. Whether botrytis develops is up to the weather, not the winemaker, which is why this bottling comes about only in exceptional years. The wine is aged in neutral vessels in the deep rock-cut cellars of Domaine Huet, which hold a constant temperature. Since 2020, cellar master Benjamin Joliveau has been responsible for the wines.

Silky on the tongue, the fruit concentrated and multi-layered: peach, quince, papaya, yellow plum, orange and melon. The acidity of the 2015 vintage carries the sweetness; at 11.5% vol., the wine remains light on its feet.

The wine's spice notes call for a cuisine built on curry, saffron, coconut and ginger. Specifically: lobster with sauce maltaise and tarragon foam, pan-seared foie gras with cotignac d'Orléans and fresh goat's cheese, and to finish, roasted pineapple with tamarind, ginger, chilli and coconut ice cream.

Domaine Huet has farmed biodynamically since the late 1980s and has been fully Demeter-certified since 1993. The first bottle takes five years of patience, the last one fifty.