Our No. 2 wine was the rich and textured Domaine du Fief aux Dames, while at No. 3 was the fresh, minerally La Pépie from Domaine de la Pépière, one of the best Muscadet producers. La Pépie is an accessible bottle, delicious now, while the more structured Pepière cuvées, like Briords, are at their best with a little more aging.
Next came the savory, stony Domaine de la Bregeonnette from Stéphane Orieux. We called this our best value at $13, but really, all of these wines are great values. Only two of our top 10 cost $20, and seven of them were $15 or under.
Also well worth trying are the structured, deep La Louvetrie from Jo Landron; the lively, balanced Domaine Haute Févrie from Sébastien Branger; the earthy yet delicate Domaine du Haut Bourg; and the subtle, deep Domaine de Bellevue from Jérôme Bretaudeau.
The vast majority of the bottles in the United States come from the Muscadet Sèvre et Maine appellation, but one bottle, the Haut Bourg, came from the rarely seen Muscadet Côtes de Grandlieu area south of Nante and closer to the Atlantic.
Several top Muscadet producers were not in our tasting, like André-Michel Brégeon, Domaine de l’Écu, Pierre Luneau-Papin and Vincent Caillé. They are well worth seeking out.
I realize that I’ve gotten this far and have not even mentioned how transparent Muscadet can be in expressing differences in terroir. Many of the best producers, like Écu, Landron and Pépiere, have long offered multiple cuvées dedicated to the varied and complex geology of the region.
It’s great fun to compare and contrast. You can taste the difference between the softer, rounder wines grown on gneiss or amphibolite soils; sense the firmer minerality of a wine from orthogneiss; and feel the greater complexity, at least in my opinion, of the wines from granite and gabbro, a black, particularly hard form of granite.
