2007 Gewurztraminer Selection de Grains Nobles S

Wonderful, fragrant tropicality. Ornate but not impenetrable. So honeyed, very creamy and thick, rolls over the tongue. Brilliant. (RH)

The Hugel 2007 Gewurztraminer Selection de Grains Nobles “S” (The capital letter denoting a special level of selectivity and quality) boasts Riesling-like acidity to go with its phenomenal extract and residual sugar, and there can be no doubt that it is among the greatest wines in an illustrious line of nobly sweet Gewurztraminer essences that reaches far back into the Hugel history. Yellow plum preserves, kirsch, brown spices, litchi, caramel, gardenia, white truffle, and honey are all intimated on the nose, but in the mouth that this wine positively explodes with richness and concentration. Salt, honey, and implosive essences of mirabelle and citrus leave your gums quivering and your salivary glands pumping. This will give the phenomenal 2005 a run for its money over the next 30 years or more. It’s more severely concentrated, however, and hence, for now, less winsome. Jean “Johnny” Hugel – a man without whom the reputation and evolution of Alsace wine since the end of the Second World War is unimaginable – died last summer. His wit will be irreplaceable, but his spirit and insights will continue to guide and inspire not only his family’s 371 year old firm, but – with luck, at least – the future development of Alsace wine as a whole. Not surprisingly, the Hugels were thrilled with their results in 2007, but as Marc Hugel points out “twenty years or more ago, a rot- and mildew-prone summer like 2007’s would have spelled disaster.” As for what would have become of 2006 “in the old days” even with the best will in the world, the Hugels preferred not to dwell on that. “I have to be honest,” relates Etienne Hugel, “in 2006, when I saw the grapes that came in toward the end from the estate – not to mention the purchased grapes – I said, ‘Mark, we aren’t going to be able to sell that!’. We scarified the fruit from less well-drained soils and picked those last. And we ended up selling off one third of our grapes.” That said, from a widely-distributed, combined estate-negociant like Hugel, a vintage such as 2006 with its extensive declassification offers a wide range of consumers the potential to drink wine from top estate sites at a lower price. And as it is, Hugel – like their best-known friendly competitor in the U.S. market, Trimbach – has hardly been resting on their laurels or neglecting the quality of their basic (or, as they prefer “classic”) bottlings: on the contrary, these are becoming steadily better and more consistent. Importer: Frederick Wildman & Sons, New York, NY; tel. (212) 355-0700

Bright yellow-gold. Pungent, pristine aromas of citrus fruits, flowers and lichee; wonderfully elegant on the nose. Utterly brilliant in the mouth, with great purity and intensity to its yellow fruits and flowers, all sharpened by firm (7.7 grams per liter) acidity. A saline element and some honey in the background just add to the complexity of this essence of gewurztraminer. Wonderfully racy for a wine with 172 g/l r.s., and incredibly long on the aftertaste. It's premature to compare this to Hugel's epic 1976 Gewurztraminer SGN bottlings, but this wine may be even finer.