Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Scents of fresh lemon, pear, mint, jasmine, green tea, and lightly-toasted hickory nuts rise from the glass of Luneau-Papin 2007 Muscadet de Sevre et Maine Sur Lie L d’Or which then saturates the palate with succulence of sweet pear and melon unusual for Muscadet. Hints of fruit pip and toasted nut bitterness add interest on a startlingly luscious transparent palate through which shimmer saline, (metaphorically!) crystalline suggestion of things mineral, which it is hard not to ascribe to the eroded granite, serpentine, and mica-schist soils in which these old vines grow. The saline, citric finish tugs relentlessly at the salivary glands. This should be an utter delight to follow for at least the next half dozen years.
Made famous in Muscadet, a gently rolling, Atlantic-dominated countryside on the eastern edge of the Loire, Melon de Bourgogne is actually the most planted grape variety in the Loire Valley. But the best comes from Muscadet Sèvre et Maine, a subzone of Pays Nantais. Somm Secret—The wine called Muscadet may sound suggestive of “muscat,” but Melon de Bourgogne is not related. Its name also suggests origins in Burgundy, which it has, but was continuously outlawed there, like Gamay, during the 16th and 17th centuries.
The Pays Nantais, Loire’s only region abutting the Atlantic coast, is solely focused on the Melon de Bourgogne grape in its handful of subzones: Muscadet-Sèvre et Maine, Muscadet-Coteaux de la Loire and Muscadet-Côtes de Grandlieu. Muscadet wines are dry, crisp, seaside whites made from Melon de Bourgogne and are ideal for the local seafood-focused cuisine. (They are not related to Muscat.) There is a new shift in the region to make these wines with extended lees contact, creating fleshy and more aromatic versions.