HUGEL Riesling 2001

Totally dry with high natural acids. This famous grape celebrated in all the Rhine valley combines great elegance, finesse and minerality. Our most gastronomic wine for most fish and seafood dishes and many Alsace specialties.


Presentation

Quick View
It is the Pinot Noir of white wines! Riesling is our most demanding variety as it is also the latest ripening. Dry and elegant, it expresses its best on our steepest slopes with a most complex minerality.
The vintage
The 2001 vintage in Alsace will be an agreeable surprise for many people !
After a succession of very fine vintages, the general consensus of opinion was not to expect too much of 2001. Yet despite our fears in late September, in Alsace, more than in any other French wine region, a superb Indian Summer allowed us pick under optimum conditions. The 2001 vintage exceeded all our expectations, with comfortable quantity and satisfactory levels of maturity for all grape varieties.
In the vineyard
Harvested exclusively by hand from clay and limestone vineyards in a dozen of the most favoured localities in and around Riquewihr.
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 in our cellars until released for sale.
Presentation
Photos of bottles and labels, 3 definitions, max 300dpi
Varietal
Riesling : 100%

Advice

Tasting notes by Serge Dubs, World's Best Sommelier 1989
The principal quality of this Riesling is its youthfulness, highlighted by a bright and brilliant colour with predominant pale green hints.
Its clear, floral aromas of spring blossom and citrus fruit (lime, grapefruit), with just a touch of muscatel, are frank and direct, with an overall attractive freshness.
This wine is refreshingly thirst-quenching and easy to enjoy, as its lively, ripe acidity awakens both the taste buds and the appetite.
To enjoy this superb Riesling at its youthful best, drink it within the year, to accompany seafood, fish in court-bouillon, marinated fish or frogs' legs.
Serve chilled at 8°C.
25 September 2002