Hugel tops Alsace tasting

Hugel tops Alsace tasting

Famille Hugel were delighted to take first and second places in a recent tasting of Alsace Grand Cru wines conducted by the World of fine Wine.

Famille Hugel were delighted to take first and second places in a recent tasting of Alsace Grand Cru wines conducted by the World of fine Wine.

Grand Cru Schoenenbourg Grossi Laüe Riesling 2015 

Andrew Jefford – 95 Points

This completely authoritative wine deserves the widest audience, and if you harbour any doubts about Alsace, try it!

Stephan Reinhardt – 95 Points

On the palate, this is a generous, lush, very intense, saline, finely tannic Riesling ….. there is a certain sweetness, but it is rounding the fruit rather than masking the terroir. Highly promising. 2030–60.

Anthony Rose – 95 Points

Still fresh and bright in aromas, there’s a fine tingle on the tongue, and no shortage of intense, lime-like citrusy fruit quality when you taste, thanks to serious concentration and richness, but not at the expense of delicacy; on the contrary, the evident mineral structure of fruit-flavour concentration and acidity here has maintained an excellent balance, and it’s not as if it’s even out of the straps yet. Impressive or what?

Riesling Schoelhammer 2012 

Andrew Jefford – 94 Points

Did you know Riesling could be so open, so mellow, so brightly feathered, so soft, so allusive, so forceful, so demonstrative, so breathy, so exuberant, so carnivalesque? All the aromatic allusions are here on the palate in one broad, serene, harmonious, and cavalier array. Lovely stuff.

Stephan Reinhardt – 92 Points

This 2012 Schoenenbourg is just beautiful on the intense but refined and balanced nose, which shows a ripe and concentrated fruit (pineapple), with delicate but obvious oak aromas. Round and quite sweet on the palate, this is a charmingly round and lush Riesling, with creamy, sur-lie, textured, fine tannins and again some oaky flavours.

Anthony Rose – 95 Points

The fruit, when you taste it, is pure and surprisingly almost shockingly youthful, thanks to an evident underlying nerve of fresh, minerally acidity to keep it real; the real deal, in fact, and a Dorian Gray of an Alsace Grand Cru.