Hugel "Grossi Laue" Riesling 2014 (Alsace, France) - [WA 96] [VM 96] [JS 94]

Hugel "Grossi Laue" Riesling 2014
(Alsace, France) - [WA 96] [VM 96] [JS 94]


$110.00 $104.99 Save $5.01
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WA96 VM96 JS94
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About the Wine:

Great classic Riesling which starts to show its promises 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. Grossi Laüe signifies the finest vineyards in Alsace dialect and represents an equivalent to the German Grosses Gewächs or the Burgundian Grand Cru.
Vintage:
2014 will go down as an exceptional vintage for the whole of France with one of the hottest and driest summers since 2003 and a quality reminding us of vintages like 1945 or 1976! Spring was pleasant and sunny and the vines budded slightly later than usual, around the 13th April, but blossomed during the first weeks of June, an early sign of an early vintage. This was to expect considering heat wave and the record low rain falls, 30mm between 4 May and 24 July! Riquewihr and its clay soils seem to have escaped the worst and the heavy rain that came in mid-August saved the crop just in time.
We started grape-picking on the 10 September, three days later than the rest of the Alsace, and the first grapes to arrive in the winery gave every indication of an exceptional vintage. Only one day of rain disrupted the harvest, which was already well underway at the time. A nice outbreak of botrytis meant the most part of our Riesling de Schoenenbourg were harvested in late harvest, and once again the Engelkritt (Angels' Vine) won us not one but two "Sélection de Grains Nobles" for this grape variety, the most concentrated being at a potential of 23°!
About 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 - Hand harvested grapes from the family estate's Schoenenbourg 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 as individual plots "parcellaire" in temperature-controlled century old foudres (at 12 to 18°C). The wines are racked just once, before natural clarification during the course of the winter. The following spring, the wines are tasted, assessed and the best ones are selected in a family tasting session to be blended as Grossi Laüe. The final blend 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.

Specifications
Alcohol content : 13.5 % vol.
Residual Sugar : 5.8 g/l
Tartaric acidity : 8.27 g/l
pH : 3.03
Age of vines : 31 years old
Yield : 43 hL/ha

 

 

Ratings and Reviews:

96 Points - Robert Parker's Wine Advocate:

"The 2014 Riesling Grand Cru Schoenenbourg Grossi Laüe is pure, bright and fresh on the deep, still reductive but coolish, precise and herbal yet well-concentrated nose. Full-bodied, refined and rich on the palate, this is a dense, generously fruity, highly complex and almost massive Riesling with fine salinity on the clear, precise and defined finish that is also long, intense and complex. This is a remarkably elegant and balanced Schoenenbourg Riesling that is slowly opening up. 13.5% stated alcohol. Diam cork. Tasted at the domaine in April 2024. As always, the Hugel tasting with Jean Frédéric Hugel includes a range of vintages, with the 2022 being the youngest and the 2014, 2016 and sweet 2015 the oldest. The 2014 Schoelhammer from Schoenenbourg, which is not marketed as grand cru, is an outstanding Riesling from the vintage and even surpasses the estate's own still-very-superb grand cru Schoenenbourg, of which the 2014 and 2016 vintages are available for purchase. The 2016 Sporen is once again a great Gewürztraminer, and the generic Vendange Tardive also shows once more that Hugel is one of the best producers of this variety in Alsace. The same applies to the 2016 Pinot Gris, particularly from the Clos du Pflostig and the grand cru Sporen. Hugel is also contributing to the rapid upswing of the Alsace Pinot Noir, because the 2016 Clos du Pflostig is remarkably fine and elegant but also intense and has an irresistible umami flavor." - SR (Feb 2025)

 

96 Points - Vinous Media:

The 2014 Riesling Grossi Laüe is harvested from four parcels across the midslope of the marls of the Schoenenbourg Grand Cru. From a cool vintage, with a cool, rainy summer where the autumn made the vintage. This sends out only gentle notions of chamomile tincture with emerging highlights of clear honey but with an ethereal lift and a lovely smokiness that allows you to stash this way. The palate is serene, gorgeously smooth and emollient with its cooling, soothing, chamomile-scented, fresh gentleness. This is a Riesling like a caress, like a balm, while cooling, healing and soothing. The 2014 is long and understated, just about opening up but perfectly equipped to go the distance, a wine of equanimity and class." -AK (Apr 2024)

94 Points - James Suckling:

"This vintage was really trashed by the wine scene, but this ripe and refined dry riesling shows what was possible in a great vineyard site (the Grand Cru Schoenenbour) if you did everything right. Wonderfully creamy mouth-feel and complex minerality behind it. The peach and pear fruit is just beginning to really unfurl. Long, beautifully balanced finish. Drinkable now, but best from 2025." (Aug 2024)