Muscadet, The Flavor of Stone: Bossard, Luneau-Papin, Louvetrie, Pépière, Brégeon and More!
8/19/14 -
(Domaine Louvetrie "Fief du Breil" vineyard)
We're happy to acknowledge the fine article on Muscadet by Eric Asimov in the New York Times (Currently on-line, in the print edition this Wednesday) by offering our full selection of these great and affordable wines from our favorite producers. Please note some recent arrivals to Chambers Street, including two young organic growers, Stéphane Orieux and Jérôme Brétaudeau (at Domaine Belle Vue), as well as our new friends at Domaine Parentière who have been organic for over 30 years! For a bit of history and geology, read on.
South and east of the French city of Nantes, about 25 kilometers upstream from where the Loire River empties into the Atlantic, the appellation of Muscadet–Sèvre et Maine covers approximately 8,000 hectares of the southern bank — plateaus and gently rolling hills, which descend to the Sèvre and Maine rivers, tributaries of the Loire. The scenery is bucolic but unspectacular, and the French consider the wine uninspiring. They buy it in supermarkets for three euros to wash down their oysters and mussels or to sip on vacation in Brittany. The average citizen of Nantes is unaware that great wine exists on his doorstep. At Chambers Street Wines, however, we are somewhat obsessed with Muscadet and the small group of superb growers who make distinctive wines of terroir from the acidic soils. The aromas of Muscadet are subtle, hinting at lemon peel, pear, white peach, and flowers often with — in a ripe vintage — a touch of fennel or licorice. What makes the wine special is its extraordinary minerality: tastes of wet stone, flint, and earth with a saline, acidic finish. And although many wine writers advise drinking Muscadet within two years of the vintage, we're very happy to have a few older bottles to sell (and in my cellar) as the best wines age beautifully for 20 years and more.
Melon de Bourgogne is “not a noble grape,” according to Jancis Robinson’s authoritative Oxford Companion to Wine. Yet despite, or perhaps because of, the grape’s lack of breeding, the land imparts its particular qualities to the wine. During the Precambrian era a vast upwelling deep within the earth brought molten material, mostly granites, to the surface. It formed what is called the Massif Armoricain, which underlies Brittany, Normandy, and the lower Loire Valley. A later period of enormous pressures and uplifts left folds of metamorphic schists and gneiss with veins of the original granites and of the dark, granular, very hard stone called gabbro, a more alkaline volcanic rock similar to basalt. Millions of years of erosion then leveled the area along the Sèvre and Maine, so it lacks the distinctive features of more famous wine regions.
The ancient granites and the minerals they contain, principally quartz, feldspar, and mica, have weathered into nutrient-rich clays. Combined with sands, silicas, and various other stones, they make vineyard soils that are unique in France. The geologist James Wilson, in his fine book, Terroir, writes that these granite soils are acidic, which helps the vines assimilate micronutrients, such as iron, zinc, manganese, and copper. The granites — occurring elsewhere in France in certain Alsatian grands crus (Sommerberg, Brand, Schlossberg), the volcanic hills of the Haut-Beaujolais, and the western edge of the Massif Central (Hermitage, Côte Rôtie, Cornas) — give the best Muscadets their ethereal, palate-exciting minerality when young, and the acidity and structure necessary to evolve into wines of great complexity and distinction.
Bu the future of Muscadet is unclear. “It’s difficult for young people to continue,” Marc Ollivier said. “If their parents are winemakers, they see how little money is made, and if they sell to négociants they don’t make a living. And today banks won’t lend to a young vigneron because prices are so low.” About 50 top growers are involved in an effort to create a grand cru classification for Muscadet, which they recognize as their best chance for higher prices and economic survival. A number of “Crus Communals,” defined by terroir and location, are proposed, including “Gorgeois” on gabbro, “Clisson” on granite, "Château Thébaud" on granite, “Le Pallet” on orthogneiss and gabbro, and “Goulaine” on mica-schists and gneiss. “The objective,” according to Romain Mayet of the Syndicat de Défense de l’AOC Muscadet, “is to recognize by Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée certain great Muscadets known for their richness, their complexity, and their capacity to age.” Each Cru Communal would designate the best vineyards in its sector, limit yields, mandate a minimum aging on the lees of 17 to 24 months (depending on the cru), and each producer’s wine would have to be accepted by a tasting panel. Two Cru Communal wines are included in today's offer - the brilliant 2010 "Goulaine" from Luneau-Papin and the superb "Château Thébaud" from Domaine de la Pepiere. As wine lovers acknowledged in the 18th and 19th centuries, and as I have found repeatedly in tasting, the Pays Nantais can produce outstanding wines of terroir that age beautifully and that offer the consumer an outstanding and affordable accompaniment to diverse cuisines. Let us hope that changes in the rules for AOC Muscadet–Sèvre et Maine and more attention from the press and consumers will enable the tradition to continue. (Portions of this article first appeared in 2010 in The Art of Eating as "The Flavor of Stone.") (Restaurants offering a wide range of Muscadet including older vintages are Racines NY, 94 Chambers Street and Maison Premiere, 298 Bedford Ave, Brooklyn). DL
