Famille Hugel, Classic, AOC Alsace, Rouge, 2024

Pinot Noir now represents 8% of the total production of Alsace and with global warming the wines are steadily gaining in density.

The winter of 2024 was one of the mildest—and above all, one of the wettest—of the past decade. A few nights of severe frost occurred in early December, but for the remainder of the season, temperatures stayed above freezing.
As winter came to an end, groundwater levels in Alsace were at 150% of normal capacity, providing a generous reserve to carry the vineyards through much of the spring and summer. Budbreak occurred during the first week of April, and by April 10th, the vines had already reached the 3-leaf stage. Unseasonably warm weather—10°C above average, with two consecutive weekends reaching 25°C—was suddenly replaced after April 15th by cold, gloomy conditions. Frost warnings were even issued for northern France. Temperatures dropped to 5°C below seasonal norms, with nighttime lows around 5°C and daytime highs struggling to reach 10°C (!).
This chilly and extremely wet weather persisted until mid-July, putting considerable stress on the vines. The 2024 harvest owes much of its survival to the relentless efforts of our vineyard teams, who worked tirelessly to rescue a growing season that had started off poorly.
Relief finally came with summer, and a sunny, warm month of August helped the vines make up for lost time. Although the official harvest window opened on September 9th, Hugel began picking on September 23rd.

Harvested in the first days of harvest, exclusively by hand, from clay and limestone vineyards in a dozen of the most favoured localities in and around Riquewihr. A cool and long growing season give this unique dry wine great finesse and balanced intensity.

The grapes are taken in small tubs to the winery, they are 100% destemmed and macerated for 6 to 7 days. After malo-lactic fermentation, the wine is matured in vats until it is bottled in early summer the following year.
The bottles are then aged in our cellars until released for sale.
The whole production of this wine is closed with DIAM the cork without the risk of cork taint.