100% Chenin Blanc

Food pairings: Seafood, Loire goat cheeses, delicately seasoned white meats, and refined dishes that suit dry, mineral Vouvray Sec.

Winemaking: Hand harvest proceeds in successive passes. Intact bunches are pressed into a mix of tanks and old demi-muids for indigenous-yeast fermentation; afterward the wine winters in old barrels before spring bottling. Malolactic fermentation is neither encouraged nor discouraged.

Vineyards and terroir: Le Mont sits on Vouvray's Première Côte. Its green-tinged clay soils are speckled with stone and mica, with less clay and more stone than Le Haut-Lieu, typically yielding the estate's most linear, mineral wines.

Family and history: Domaine Huet was founded in 1928 with the purchase of Le Haut-Lieu. Gaston Huet bought Le Mont in 1957 and later Clos du Bourg, completing the estate's three great Première Côte vineyards. Farmed biodynamically since 1990 and certified since 1993, the domaine is owned by Sarah and Hugo Hwang and run by Benjamin Joliveau, a Vouvray native who joined in 2009.

In the pictures: A Chenin Blanc vine in the Le Mont vineyard, and winter pruning in Le Mont. Photos courtesy of Polaner Selections.