So a day or two ago we wrote about being let down by Champagne. Which, to be honest, wasn’t fair to Champagne, it was more about the cost penalties of living in and buying wine in BC. Most decent Champagnes in BC retail before taxes at around the $60 mark. But here’s the rub: If you’re truly willing to spend $60 on a bottle of wine, why not go all out and get a Loire Chenin?
In December, when we pull out all the stops on decent bottles, we love to love Domaine Huet. (The blog has a smattering of Huet posts including a 2001, 2005, 2008 and 2009, of various sorts and sites.) We usually rip through a variety of the house, from sparkling on down (or up, as the price point goes and as our budget allows). For a special day in advance of Christmas we pulled out the Mont Demi-Sec: and the semi-sweet is, well, rapturous.
Online I’ve seen reviews all over the map, so many adjectives I don’t know what the pros are thinking, it’s like they just wrote down words, maybe it was euphoria, but in a rare moment of total accord I would say the team over at WA hit the nail on the head when they described it as being “deep, rich and flinty on the nose, with caramel and vegetable flavors indicating a great complexity. Full-bodied, dense and powerful, this is highly complex and persistent, yet refreshing and transparent Chenin with a juicy fruit and lots of grip, energy and tension” and then blessed it with 96 points.
I would say, from the layperson’s view, if you can appreciate it, if you can even wrap your mind around how mind-numbingly harmonious this wine is, it is worth every penny of the $60 you will shell out. And umpteen times more memorable than a bottle of Mumm. Or, as we wrote recently, Moutard.
Price: $60 from Marquis. God Bless Marquis.
Market Liquidity: A trip to the moon on gossamer wings.
