WTN:2005 Huet Le Haut-Lieu Sec

I used to swear I never met a Huet Sec I didn't love, but then I stored several cases in the cellar for about a decade, and more, at a temperatured controlled 58 degrees. What traitors! They've turned on me, including some Le Monts and a pair of 1998 Clos de Bourgs that I thought would be singing now. The most disgusting traitors of all, though, are my 2005 LE HAUT-LIEU SECS. Back in 2007, when they were released, my first two bottles were no doubt fine, but the next six, which I opened this year, I poured down the drain and then threw open the window. They were ghastly. I once took a two-day course in wine faults but never tasted anything like this, so I figured the problem was maybe a combination of two or more flaws, and so this weekend I took a bottle to a wine merchant, a distributor, and a winemaker to see what they thought. The consensus: not enough acid, and so the alcohol-sugar-acid ratio was out of balance and I had hung onto the wine too long, they said. A Huet with too little acid? I thought that was an oxymoron. But the winemaker suggested that if I didn't believe him, just put a few drops of lemon juice in a glass of the awful stuff and see if that didn't help. It did help, quite a bit. If I were an alcoholic and this lemon-laced wine were the only booze left in the world I would drink it. To be able to tell my winemaker friend I could do it, I drank two small glasses -- and then poured the rest down the drain.

I know, I know, the conventional wisdom is drink your Haut-Lieus while you wait for your Bourgs to come around, but the old Bourg Secs have let me down, too. I know there are plenty of exceptions, and some of them are bound to show up in this thread, but after my recent string of disappointments I'm not going to spend my money and time looking for one. Mind you I'm not dissing the Huet Demi-Secs and the Moellleux, but from now on I'm going to drink my Huet Secs the first couple of years or so after they are released. And why not. They are delicious young, and the young ones will always have a place in my cellar..

PS. If you every try the lemon juice trick, use only a few drops. More than that and you get something that my wife says "tastes like what I thought a wine cooler tastes like."

From the You Don't Have to Take My Word for It department. In the interest of full disclosure, as they say in the journalism trade, I think I have to tell you the CT TNs on this wine are geneally favorable, with some even saying it may need more time.

[David M. Bueker]

I wonder if it is heading down the premox path.

From the You Don't Have to Take My Word for It department. In the interest of full disclosure, as they say in the journalism trade, I think I have to tell you the only CT TN on this wine, from a year ago, is sort of on the fence and wonders it it needs more time.

I'm confused. Only note on this wine? I look at CT and see 43 Tns, several within last 2 years. Diane (who posts here) thought shut down.
I apparently have a lone 375

Sorry, I see I called up the demi-sec TN, not the sec. I'll correct my post. The sec notes are favorable. Go figure. My first reaction to my wine was possibly premox but the pros say No.

This is depressing news. I have just packed my 3 bottles of H-L 05 into my new wine fridges. If I had read this TN first, I might have preferred to consign them with the rest of the overflow into rented cellar space in Paris or even to have them join the mainly 96 white Burgs in a box exposed to summer temperatures while I go through them to discover if there are any amongst a poxed majority still behaving properly.

[David M. Bueker]

Sorry, I see I called up the demi-sec TN, not the sec. I'll correct my post. The sec notes are favorable. Go figure. My first reaction to my wine was possibly premox but the pros say No.

There are still many pros who are unwilling to accept premox. Part of that is a commercial interest (i.e. they might have to accept the return of flawed bottles), and part of it is not being informed, as the indistry as a whole has been notoriously quiet about the pox.

David, the wine merchant who advised me is more than alert to the premox problem, to the extent that he says he is drinking up all the white Burgs in his cellar to beat them to the punch.

[David M. Bueker]

Yeah, but if he says your Huet is premoxed he might have to give you a refund. Also it is not as well known as an issue outside of Burgs.

My impression is refunds aren't expected after a couple of years beyond release and sale. I bought the wine from the merchant seven years ago and he knows I don't expect a refund. I told him so. The twenty-six buck bottle of wine in question represents a couple of peanuts in comparison with the business he and I do together every year, so If I had the temerity to ask for a refund he would have given it to me, and wondered what in the hell was wrong with me. So forget the refund aspect. But I wouldn't entirely rule out the possibility that premox might be some part of the problem, and I understand why premox first comes to mind.