2020 Vouvray Demi-Sec Le Haut-Lieu

The 2020 Haut Lieu Demi-Sec offers a lick of juicy sweetness in its plump mid-palate but don't expect it to be heavy. It has a delightful texture that will leave you licking your lips and the inside of your mouth on the finish, giving an almost gourmand character. Fragrant, floral and fruity with pineapple, nectarine and florals. Fine, fresh and drawn out on the finish.

The 2020 Vouvray Le Haut-Lieu Demi-Sec is clear, pure, subtle, deep and fresh, with highly refined chalky/sandy lemon aromas. Rich and intense yet silky textured and refined on the concentrated palate, this is a juicy, highly elegant, perfectly balanced, persistently salty and mouth-salivating Haut-Lieu with very fine tannins and a long, firm and pretty powerful but elegant and complex finish. Still more stringent than the Le Mont Demi-Sec in the beginning, but after aeration, this is not just a greatly finessed Chenin but one of the finest Haut-Lieu's I have tasted from Huet. Tasted as a tank sample in April 2021.

The 2020 Le Haut Lieu Demi-Sec is made in a perfumed, floral style, offering aromas of pear, orange citrus, white flowers and agave nectar. There's a sense of effortlessness about this wine, like floating along on a cloud of Chenin Blanc with nowhere to be in any hurry. And yet there's a real tension and poise on the finish. While it's demi-sec, offering 19g/L of residual sugar, the pH is a low 3.16 and provides a line of acidity that anchors the wine, leaving a just off-dry impression on the precise finish. A very complete wine, in its diapers yet massively drinkable already (Haut-Lieu tends to be the domaine's earliest vineyard to get into its stride), although Domaine Huet fans will know this has an assured future.