Gewurztraminer Selection De Grains Nobles 2005

In its very early days, Hugel’s 2005 Gewurztraminer Selection de Grains Nobles is already truly noble! Orange marmalade, caramelized peach, spiced pear and yellow plum preserves, cinnamon and mint candies, roses, and honey and white raisin fill the nose. Spectacularly luscious and expansive on the palate, honeyed, silken-textured, and loaded with primary, vividly juicy fruit such as one seldom encounters in this grape variety much less at stratospheric ripeness, this fills ones head with sweet perfume and dreams of future vinous glory – if only you can give it at least twenty years. And if one must drink it today, despite considerable sweetness, this amazing Gewurztraminer already displays not just prodigious length and profundity of flavor – saline chalky mineral suggestions and deep smoked meat pungency lending a darker side to its performance – but elegance, poise, refinement, and remarkable lift and refreshment.

Score: 97

David Schildknecht, Wine Advocate, RobertParker.com 01 February 2008