Meta-Muscadet
A few years ago I was at a round table tasting of Muscadet. I can’t recall whether the table was actually round but the conversation was certainly circular. There was the usual melange of movers and shakers, a couple of journos, a smattering of wine merchants, sommeliers, pr la di da ders and we were all present to proclaim unanimously that now indeed was the hour of Muscadet, that it was a much under-rated, wonderful, versatile wine and you were allowed to drink without oysters and blistering barnacles. After tasting various examples with three or four dishes of a distinctly Mediterranean timbre I noticed that the last wine to be matched was our 2002 Le Clos de Noelles Excelsior kumbaya my’lord kumbaya. I muttered under my voice in my best Jack Nicholson: “Wait till they get a load of this”. The wine delivered the requisite gob-dropping wowies and then some, with oodles of floral, spicy notes and yet also rich, creamy and mineral flavours. Muscadet, but not as we know it, Jim, disporting cru classé cojones.
Spool on a few years and we (the Wregg family) are at Philippe’s and he pulls out the cru above the cru, the DRC of Melon de Bourgogne, or the 1er Mousquetaire of Muscadets. I recall when he visited the vineyard a few years ago and waxed lyrical about the hill and the highly specific volcanic terroir and thus planted the germ of burgeoning anticipation. Like an annoying small child ever since I’ve kept asking him: “Is it here yet? Is it here yet?”. And, indeed, here it was. I’m fond of quoting Andy Marvell’s line: “Stumbling on melons, as I pass”. I warrant he never stumbled on a “melon” like this!
Few things are generally worth the dribbling wait and I duly ratcheted down my expectation. We carafed the wine and let it unwind. Initially, it was super-taut with cool oyster shell notes, but then unveiled more complex aromas of salt butter, gorse blossom and river stone with simply soothing acidity. The wine reminds me Galileo’s observation that “wine is light held together by water”. And in this case add a liberal sprinkling of stones and shells. A profound wine by any standards; now all I have to do is remember its name.
The 1999 L d’Or du Luneau tasted afterwards seemed to be in the first flush of youth, but lacked the energy and palatal drive of its cousin. A fine wine nevertheless.
Guillots’ Clos des Vignes du Maynes Macon-Cruzille, enjoyed with slow cooked lamb on the bone, was a thrumming summer pudding of wild fruits. The colour of the wine was almost bouncy and there were wonderfully lifted aromas of fresh red cherries and just ripe raspberries and a mint leaf lurking in the background. The palate mirrored the nose with soft fruit nirvana bolstered up by fruit acidity and a nice mineral crunch.