Muscadet

Muscadet is alive and well at Legal Sea Foods. It was the first wine we served at the original Inman Square, Cambridge restaurant in the late 1960s and it remains a mainstay, especially during the spring and summer months. Why? Because this light, bone dry, crisp French wine is a classic with raw shellfish and, in fact, is equally wonderful as a refreshing aperitif or to accompany most any fish dish.

Muscadet is one of those wines that is “of a place;” it is only possible to produce it in one location on earth, the Pays Nantais at the western edge of France’s Loire Valley, bordering the Atlantic Ocean. Planted outside its homeland, the Melon grape, sometimes referred to as Muscadet, makes a vastly different and much inferior wine. Although it originated in Burgundy, the grape’s been grown in the Loire since the early 18th Century. The area where Muscadet is principally grown, along the Sèvre and Maine tributaries, is cool and rainy, with stony, silica-rich soils. This is the perfect breeding ground to create slightly appley, tart, low-alcohol white wines with sharp edgy flavors. Vines here hug the river banks in order to pick up extra warmth and sunshine for ripening; these locales are also ideal for helping vines survive the area’s frost prone springs. 

Production for most Muscadet is another distinguishing feature. Most often the bottles you’ll find are labeled “sur lies,” which translates to “on the lees,” or aged on the yeast remaining at the bottom of a vat after fermentation. Lees aging imparts more freshness and softer textures; it bleaches the wine’s color, and often adds a slight spritziness to make Muscadet taste livelier. When bottled directly from the vat without exposure to oxygen or oak, as is traditional, Muscadets have a steely bite, along with aromas of yeasty bread dough. “Muscadet de Sèvre et Maine Sur Lies,” as it’s known, is actually one of France’s largest individual appellations, ranking second only behind basic Bordeaux. 
 
At most of our restaurants we feature a Muscadet by the glass and list it in the “Great Shellfish Wines” section of our menu. As is well known, we choose the majority of our wines through blind tastings. Today, and for the past number of years, our winner, not surprisingly, was the figure I have long associated with impeccable quality in the area, Louis Métaireau. His “Petit Mouton” is moderately priced and generally rings truest to the traditional style: pale, bone dry, and precise in flavor, with citric and apple-like sea water accents. The 2009 shows intriguing aromatic notes of herb and mineral that set up a great balance with clams and oysters. Métaireau is a grape grower in a region dominated by merchants, but the firm owns only a handful of vineyards. Associated with a handful of other small landholders as “Les Vignerons d’Art,” who together control a substantial 250 acres, the guiding philosophy is upholding time-honored practices, in particular harvesting early in the fall when the grapes will retain a firm structure. All of the wines are made at individual properties and then tasted blind by the group of grape growers to determine the best individual lots, which then go into the Métaireau-labeled bottles. Of the several different Métaireau Muscadets, Petit Mouton is the freshest and most direct in flavor.

Our most recent blind tastings have uncovered some other amazing Muscadets that we will be excited to introduce in July. Most restaurants will be featuring Claude Branger’s “Le Fils des Gras Moutons” Muscadet de Sèvre et Maine Sur Lie 2009, a very tangy wine with lemon, green apple, olive and lime zest flavors that echo with vibrant salinity. This is a concentrated “old vine” Muscadet that is family-owned and estate bottled.  Another standout from the blind tastings is the Guy Saget “Clissages d’Or” Muscadet de Sèvre et Maine Sur Lie 2009.

Interestingly enough, for such a moderately priced wine, Muscadet is capable of long aging in the cellar. We conducted a dinner a few years ago at Park Square where we featured fifteen and twelve year old vintages from Métaireau and they were delightfully fresh.

We invite you to come in and celebrate spring’s arrival with a refreshing plate of chilled oysters and accompanying glass of Muscadet. We think you’ll agree: they were made for each other.

Sincerely,
Sandy Block, Master of Wine