Hugel reaps praise for Schoelhammer

Hugel reaps praise for Schoelhammer Riesling 2014

Writing in Jancis Robinson’s Reasons to be grateful feature on 27 November, Alder Yarrow, summarised his view of the wine as follows: ‘’Tasting thousands of wines per year can, if we wine writers are not careful, easily lead to a jaded palate, especially when the vast majority of what we taste hovers somewhere between mediocre and very good. It proves wonderful, then, to occasionally be jolted out of the wagon rut of our daily expectations by wines that are truly transcendent. They’re a delicious window into the apogees of experience that fuel our ongoing passion for wine. The wine that knocked me upside the head this year was the 2014 Famille Hugel Riesling Schoelhammer from Alsace, France. It wiped the slate of my palate clean and rung it like the chime of a prayer bowl, focusing my attention utterly for some moments as waves of flavour and texture carried me to that place that only the most profound wines take us, a place that is simultaneously inside and outside of ourselves. I wouldn’t have said that I needed reminding of just how much I love wine, but when that reminder showed up in a glass, it was deeply appreciated’’.

‘The wine that knocked me upside the head this year was the 2014 Famille Hugel Riesling Schoelhammer from Alsace, France’

Founded in 1639, Hugel has remained 100% family-owned throughout its long history and is now run the 12th and 13th generations of the family. Today, their winery remains in the picturesque town of Riquewihr where they first settled.

The family owns an estate of 30 hectares of prime sites around the historic town of Riquewihr in the heart of Alsace, where vineyards have been cultivated for more than 2,000 years. More than half of these vineyards are classified as Grand Cru: the Schoenenbourg, known for its Riesling, and the Sporen for its Gewürztraminer. All grapes are, and always have been, picked by hand. They are exclusively planted with the noble Alsace grape varieties and the vines have an average age of 35 years.