Item Number: 6660 UPC: 0805109755031

Country: France
Region: Loire Sub Region: Loire
Appellation/AVA: Muscadet-Sevre et Maine AOC
Estate Grown Wine: Yes
Vintage: 2012
Grape(s): 100% Melon de Bourgogne
Type: Wine - White
Bottle Size: 750ml Pack: 12
Closure: Cork
Alc by Vol(%): 12
Viticulture: Practicing Organic
Soil Type: Dense gabbro
Tasting Notes: Produced from a single parcel of old vines planted on gabbro soils, this should age well for some time. Fermented and aged in tank. Crisp and refreshing, this brims with Granny Smith apple and lime cordial along with leesy notes on the nose and the palate. Medium-bodied with reasonable texture it spills into the finish with lemon curd and notions of slate/minerality. This is a summer quaffer also pairing well with pan-seared scallops under a squish of fresh lemon.

About Muscadet: Brittany, parts of Normandy, and the western part of the Loire valley are essentially build on a foundation of cooled lava and magma. Over millions of years this lava has metamorphosed into many kinds of geologoical structures. The most common in the Loire is granite, and in Muscadet, it is everywhere. Vineyards are carved out of its hard surface and the hallmark minerality that it helps to produce makes Muscadet one of the great white wines of the world. In one village in the Muscadet region, Monnières, this cooled lava didn't change into granite. Instead, it stayed in relatively unchanged fashion, and today is galled gabbro. It is one of the purest forms of molten magma as it is formed underground and, without an escape route, turns crystalline.

About the Estate: Michel and Nathalie Delhommeau, a young couple making some of the most crystalline Muscadets you can find, own 27 hectares of vines planted on this gabbro. The property, which is in conversion to organic certification, is one of the few in the region to vinify by parcel and use indigenous yeast.