2015 Domaine de la Pepiere Clisson
Muscadet Sèvre et Maine Clisson, France
Regular Price $29.99
Sale Price $23.99
We bought this wine ‘blind’ (without tasting) a few weeks back and poured it our ‘Wild and Wonderful Whites’ tasting shortly thereafter. We knew the producer and his reputation, the importer (and their reputation) and the AOC (Clisson), so we didn’t really feel that we were taking much of a risk. Are only regret is that we didn’t buy more.
We all know Muscadet as the inexpensive wine from Loire that matches perfectly with oysters. Crisp, unassuming and a bit salty, the general rule of thumb (historically) was that the grape (Melon de Bourgogne) was not particularly age worthy; the resulting wines were best consumed while young and fresh.
In the early 2000s, groups of Muscadet winemakers started defining particularly interesting plots and chose to emphasize the variety of terroirs in the region. Clisson is one of those. Around the same time, many of these same winemakers began re-examining out-of-fashion winemaking methods, such as extended ‘lies’ aging and “bâtonnage”, the practice of regularly stirring the wine with the yeasts that comprise the lies. The result are rich, full, aromatic, bold wines that are complex and dynamic.
This wine is all that and a bag of chips. What’s more, it’s the perfect wine to drop some red food coloring in to show your brother-in-law, the wine ‘expert’ just how silly his ‘red wine’ only policy really is.