From £18, €23.95, $32.99, 1,500 Philippine pesos
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There is nothing unlucky about this recommendation for Friday the 13th. This glorious dry white wine, made by the talented Noel Pinguet in his penultimate vintage, is already drinking beautifully. There was a time when Loire Chenins needed almost a decade in bottle before they were broachable – often because of excessive sulphur additions. But Pinguet led Domaine Huet into a much more expressive regime – surely at least partly because of his dogged devotion to biodynamic viticulture (see Whites that last a century).
We tasted this wine in Paris last weekend, thanks to Mark Williamson of Willi's Wine Bar and Macéo, who shared a bottle with us, and absolutely loved it. It was bursting with so much eloquent, quince-like fruit that the trademark high acidity was barely discernible. There is also somehow a hint of toastiness – not the sort that has anything to do with oak but the sort that enriches the whole impact of a fine Chenin Blanc. Vouvray Sec can have up to 5-6 g/l residual sugar (hardly any) and I assume there was more than the threshold 2 g/l but not enough to make any gustatory impact.
I enjoyed this after a week in Burgundy and revelled in the value offered for such a pure, expressive wine. This is every bit as well made and satisfying as fine white burgundy yet costs a fraction as much. The Wine Society in the UK (on whose website this image is published) list it at just £18 and it is widely available in the US from $32.99. This is a wine that will continue to develop in bottle throughout the decade. As demonstrated in Whites that last a century, there is never a hurry to drink a Huet Vouvray; the difference with this wine is how delicious it is already at just three years old.
Take full advantage! And see this current thread on our forum about the relative merits of white and red wines.
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