Marc Hugel (Alsace): “2014 will be a year for the history books of Riesling”

marchugel

The Hugel family, pioneers in Alsatian winegrowing and members of the Primum Familiae Vini – Marchesi Antinori, Château Mouton Rothschild, Joseph Drouhin, Egon Müller Scharzhof, Champagne Pol Roger, Famille Perrin, Symington Family, Tenuta San Guido, Torres and Vega-Sicilia– has seen its fair share of harvests since 1639. Today, we will take a look at their latest harvest, the 2014 vintage, with Marc Hugel.

How did this year, 2014, go?
Marc Hugel: “We had an exceptionally mild winter with almost no freezes and ploughed soil that then wasn’t crumbled in the spring. The very early bud burst was around 21 March and then we spent 2 anxious months worrying about a spring frost, but in the end we didn’t have a frost. The early flowering, around 30 May, made us think there would be an extremely early harvest like in 2003. We had very regular and even flowering spread over two weeks, with just a bit of blast in particular for the Gewurztraminer. The month of July saw record rainfall (147 mm) as did the beginning of August, which together with the cool temperatures slowed ripening. September was dry (27 mm) and temperatures were moderate, so conditions were ideal right up until the end for slow maturation.”

And the harvest?
Marc Hugel: “The Hugel Family 2014 harvest lasted one month all told. We began on 16 September and ended 16 October, with low yields, even lower than in 2013 and 2010. High acidity, perfectly healthy grapes, superb ripeness, we can already tell today that 2014 will be a year for the history books of Riesling. On the flip side, it was a hard year for Pinot Noir. As for vendange tardive, we’ll have a small amount of Gewürztraminer VT. While we’re happy that we will be able to produce a Riesling 2014 Sélection de Grains Nobles, we decided not to have a VT or SGN of the other varieties.”

Did you have any problems with drosophila Suzukii?
Marc Hugel: “Drosophila Suzukii didn’t cause us any particular problems, with the exception of a very few Gewürztraminer bunches from plots located near fruit tree that were affected. We had to harvest more slowly and sort the bunches, but unlike in the sorting for a SGN, the affected grapes were removed. For the Hugel domain, the impact of drosophila Suzukii has been minor. In reality, as we’ve seen in French vineyards, the drosophila Suzukii is much more interested in red grapes than in white grapes. On the whole, we are thrilled with the quality of this year’s harvest in Alsace, except for the yields. With barely 45 hl/ha for the Hugel domain, we’re below average and this will not help us meet the strong demand we have seen for the Hugel Family wines over the last 10 years…”