Gewurztraminer Vendanges Tardives
⏳ Drinking Window
2024 - 2045
🍽️ Food & Wine Pairings
Foie gras, Munster cheese, fruit tarts
✨ Technical Specifications
Famille Hugel's Gewurztraminer Vendanges Tardives is a monument to Alsace winemaking, born from a legacy deeply intertwined with the region's history. It was Jean 'Johnny' Hugel who championed and drafted the strict legal guidelines for the 'Vendanges Tardives' (late harvest) designation, officially enacted in 1984. Sourced from the steep, clay-limestone slopes surrounding the medieval village of Riquewihr, the grapes are left on the vine to overripen, often developing noble rot (Botrytis cinerea) under the autumn mists. Hand-harvested with painstaking selection, the grapes undergo a slow, natural fermentation in the estate's historic, century-old oak casks. The resulting wine is a sensory masterpiece: intensely aromatic with notes of lychee, rose petals, and exotic spices, offering an opulent sweetness perfectly balanced by a spine of vibrant acidity and mineral depth. It represents the pinnacle of Alsatian late-harvest craftsmanship, marrying power, elegance, and historical pedigree.
🍾 About the Producer
Established in 1639 in the picturesque medieval village of Riquewihr, Famille Hugel is one of the most venerable and celebrated wine producers in Alsace, France. Managed continuously by more than a dozen generations of the Hugel family, the estate combines historic family vineyards with carefully sourced fruit to champion the diverse terroirs of the region. Hugel was instrumental in establishing the official regulations for Alsace's revered late-harvest categories, Vendanges Tardives and Sélection de Grains Nobles. Renowned globally for their purity, elegance, and ageability, the winery crafts benchmark dry and sweet expressions of noble Alsace varieties, particularly Riesling, Gewurztraminer, and Pinot Gris, vinified traditionally in century-old oak foudres.
🍇 Grape Varieties
Gewurztraminer
🍷 Alcohol By Volume (ABV)
12-13.5%