Riesling Schoelhammer, Hugel & Fils 2014

The 2014 Riesling Schoelhammer is from a single parcel in the heart of the midslope of the Schoenenbourg Grand Cru, with more clay than usual. Shyness on the nose allows a touch of waxiness and wet earth to shine through. Having just tasted the 2014 Grossi Laüe, also from the Schoenenbourg, the youthfulness of this is astonishing - especially since the Grossi Laüe is only just starting to open up. Here, the main notions are not chamomile but citrus, namely dried lemon peel. It has that same emollient, balm-like nature of the Schoenenbourg site but an inner density that is immense but channeled into the smoothest, calming, profound energy. The finish is long, chalky, creamy, lemony and so sustained. You need not be in a hurry to drink this at all. (Bone-Dry). Drink 2028-2060.

Hugel's 2014 Riesling Schoelhammer opens with a clear and remarkably fine and herbal bouquet that indicates perfectly ripe and concentrated fruit that is reminiscent of ripe mirabelles. On the palate, this is a rich and textural, very elegant and refined yet highly complex and long-lasting Schoenenbourg that combines power with incredible finesse. The finish is very long, stimulating and complex due to the remarkably fine saline acidity. This is a stellar Riesling from Alsace, and although I didn't taste it along with the great 2010, I dare say this is possibly the finest Schoelhammer Hugel has produced so far. 13.5% stated alcohol. Diam cork. Tasted at the domaine in April 2024. Drink 2024 - 2060.

How can a dry riesling that’s not far off 10 years old have this much vitality and purity of yellow fruit? It’s something only a few very special top sites can give you. Concentrated, juicy and extremely fine this has close to perfect balance. This ravishing beauty is a miracle, because, generally speaking, this vintage was afflicted by a ton of problems. Drink or hold.

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.