Pépière 2025 Muscadet Sèvre et Maine Briords Vieilles Vignes

First produced in 1988, this great Muscadet is made from a three hectare parcel of old massale-selection vines (all over 60 years old, with a high percentage much older) on a slope above the Maine. The bedrock is Granite de Château Thébaud, a fissured rock that allows the vines to penetrate deeply, with ideal thin topsoils of clay, with sand and gravel allowing good drainage.) Having enjoyed this wine in every vintage produced, I can safely say that 2025 is a wonderful year for Briords, lacking only the higher acidity of 1996 and 2014, for example, to put it in the very top rank. Tasted last February in France, the wine showed beautiful aromas of white flowers, white fruits, citrus and - if you could smell it - granit. The palate is quite round and ripe, at this point showing more fruit than terroir, but the minerals are certainly there along with complex herbal, citrus and stone flavors that continue in the round but nicely bright and bitter finish. Try to give this wine 10 years in the cellar, but chances are you'll drink it all much sooner. (Note - the NY allocation of this wine is already sold-out - we have a good quantity but don't delay!)