Riesling Grossi Laue, 2013 Famille Hugel

Famille Hugel

750ml

Code: 4731113

79,40€

Great classic Riesling which starts to show its promisses but which will gain in complexity for 8 years or more. Its minerality and long complex aftertaste will make it the ideal partner to noble fish or seafood dishes.

Product description

Grossi Laüe signifies the finest vineyards in Alsace dialect and represents an equivalent to the German Grosses Gewächs or the Burgundian Grand Cru.

In the vineyard: Produced in a selection of the finest plots of the Hugel estate in the heart of the grand cru Schoenenbourg. This fantastic historical terroir has been almost exclusively devoted to Riesling for centuries. Keuper, marl, dolomite and gypsum, rich in fertilising agents, overlaid with fine layers of quaternary siliceous gravel, Vosges sandstone and Muschelkalk, with at its eastern extremity outcrops of Lias marl limestones.

Winemaking: The grapes are taken in small tubs to the presses, which are filled by gravity, without any pumping or other mechanical intervention. After pressing, the must is decanted for a few hours, then fermented in temperature-controlled barrels or vats (at 18 to 24°C). The wine is racked just once, before natural clarification during the course of the winter. The following spring, the wine is lightly filtered just before bottling, and the bottles are then aged extensively in our cellars until released for sale. The whole production of this wine is closed with DIAM the cork without the risk of cork taint.

Residual Sugar (g/l) : 3.7

Tasting notes by Serge Dubs, World's Best Sommelier 1989: The wine's colour is the young, fresh, pale green of pistachio nuts and spring lime-tree foliage with silver highlights; it has a wonderful intensity, an alert dynamic brilliance and significant legs. The bouquet is a clear, precise and frank statement of youthfulness with an agreeably perfumed fruity and floral expression of aroma which leaves an impression of healthy and juvenile freshness; there is also an elegantly subtle hint of minerality at first which will become more stated after a few years laid down. The aroma combines spring flowers, fern, almond tree and pistachio nuts, white peach, lemon grass with a hint of salt from the chalky mineral-rich soil. There is the notable signature of the great wine-making region which is typical to a Riesling. On the palate it is clearly a dry Riesling of the highest quality with a full, broad, juicy and strong structure, complimented with a wonderful astringency which adds length and character to the flavour. There is also a remarkably harmonious after-taste.

This is a wine which is fine for immediate consumption but which would benefit from a little patience to allow it to develop the specific regional qualities and minerality that will give it an added aroma of white piedmont truffle in 2 to 5 years. Can be laid down for 15 to 20 years.

Best served at 10°C, should be decantered 5 to 10 minutes before serving. This is a highly gastronomic wine which should be served with roast turbot, sole meunière, lobster, rock lobster, sander, perch, poultry or other white meat. Roasted poultry, pasta with fresh white truffle.

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Product description

Grossi Laüe signifies the finest vineyards in Alsace dialect and represents an equivalent to the German Grosses Gewächs or the Burgundian Grand Cru.

Residual Sugar (g/l) : 3.7

Characteristics
Producer info

Producer

Famille Hugel

Wine color

White

Wine style

Still

Country

France

Sweetness

Dry

Region

Alsace

Vintage

2013

Volume (ml)

750ml

Alcohol by volume

14%vol

Intl grape variety

Riesling

Special Wines

Fine Wines

Winegrowing ancestors since 1639

The first traces of the Hugel family in Alsace can be traced back to the XVth century.

Some two centuries later, Hans Ulrich Hugel settled in Riquewihr, which had been devastated by the terrible Thirty Years War.

In 1639 he was made a freeman of the city and soon took charge of the very powerful Corporation of Winegrowers.

In 1672 his son built a fine house in the Rue des Cordiers, and over the doorway was carved the family crest which was the origin of the company’s logo still used today.

During the XVIIIth and XIXth centuries, the Hugel family gained an enviable reputation for their winegrowing skills and for the meticulous way in which they cultivated their vineyards.

In 1902, Frédéric Emile Hugel left the old family property and established himself in premises in the centre of Riquewihr which still form the heart of the family business.

Alsace white wine among the finest in the world

Vines have been cultivated in Alsace for more than 2,000 years, and brought great prosperity to the region, particularly in the Middle Ages.

Thanks to the nearby river Rhine, at that time the most important artery of communications in Europe, the wines of Alsace were exported to Holland, Belgium, Scandinavia and to England, where they were particularly appreciated.

Until the early XVIIth century, Alsace was the largest and most renowned wine producing region in the Germanic Holy Roman Empire. By the early XXth century, the ravages caused by insect pests and by cryptogamic diseases made the situation desperate.

After 1918, a handful of farsighted and courageous winegrowers, including Frédéric Emile Hugel, took steps to save the vineyards of Alsace. This veritable pioneer devoted his entire life to the promotion of high-quality wines from noble grape varieties. His son Jean continued this crusade. By his perseverance and hard work he proved that Alsace wines merited a place among the finest wines in the world.

His three sons, Georges, Jean and André, have strictly followed this same course, and they have obtained official recognition for Alsace late-harvest "Vendange Tardive" and "Sélection de Grains Nobles" wines.

The next generation is faithfully implementing the major principles it has inherited from its ancestors. A noble mission awaits Jean-Philippe, Marc and Etienne : to make Alsace wine the great white wine of the XXIst century.

The "golden rule" of the company

"The wine is already in the grape". As soon as they arrive at the "Hugel" premises in the heart of Riquewihr, the grapes are classified according to precise and strict criteria of quality.

The presses are filled by gravity, not by pumping.

After slow crushing, only the first part of the juice is conserved to merit the famous yellow label. The individuality of each grape variety and of each level of quality is respected. Certain vintages, judged insufficiently distinguished, are partly or wholly eliminated and sold off in bulk to other growers.

Ancestral methods and ultra-modern techniques

Almost all the "Hugel" cellars are situated below well-preserved XVIth century buildings. The cellars contain oak casks more than one century old, including the famous STE CATERINE, dated 1715, which is featured in the Guinness Book of Records.

Such tradition, however, does not exclude innovation : temperature control during fermentation and robotised palletisation at bottling are also present.

Each wine is supervised by individual members of the family at every stage of its development. After bottling, it is cellared for at least two years on average, and is labelled just before despatch, after an ultimate quality control.

A brand image of international renown

The Hugel family was elected by its peers to membership of the "PRIMUM FAMILIAE VINI", an association of 12 family wine companies in the major wine producing regions of the world.