2004 Huebuhl

Jean-Michel Deiss was remarkably relaxed for a man whose wife had just given birth to a daughter two days before my visit. Given the size of the collection here, as well as his leisurely release schedule, Deiss showed me his 2005s destined for reasonably early sale (essentially his "fruit wines," as opposed to his "terroir wines" and grand crus), most of his 2004 range and a number of his single-vineyard bottlings from 2003 and 2002, which are just now making their way to export markets. Thus the bulk of my coverage of this superb domaine appears in this issue. Deiss described 2005 as a year of fruit and 2004 as a year of foliage. Following the extreme vine stress in 2003, the vines snapped back with a vengeance in 2004, said Deiss, and he literally eliminated half the crop beginning in mid-July. Even so, he still got 45 hectoliters per hectare on average, compared to a more typical 40. "This was a year with a good climate for us, but the crop was huge," he summarized. On my latest visit, I tasted a couple of new vins du terroir, Deiss's field blends of two or more varieties designated only by their site.