White Loire

Louis Métaireau’s 2014 Muscadet-Sèvre et Maine Sur Lie presents a good example of the refreshing acidity and crushed seashell minerality typical in Muscadet. This wine is built on a bed of piercing acidity that bristles over your tongue – not quite pétillant or frizzante – but vibrant, like a billion infinitesimal electric shocks. It displays lemongrass and green pear on the nose but the flavors are closer to tart Granny Smith apple skins and lemon peel. Subtle yeast notes seem to surface as the wine warms, but I kept coming back to that briny, stony, seashell thing. The other tasters couldn’t taste it so who knows, maybe it was just a fluke. Sometimes I flounder with descriptions. $16

Rating:

(3 / 5)

 

In 2013 La Berriere produced a sur lie wine from the broad Muscadet appellation that illustrates the round, mouth filling consistency that lees contact imparts to wine. On the palette, La Berriere’s leesy viscosity wears down the zesty, underlying acidity, eroding it like the winter waves that pulverize oyster shells in the nearby Atlantic and send their iodine rich scents into the salty mist that washes over casks of maturing wine in nearby Nantes. The aromas and flavors speak of nutty almonds with tangy lemon and lime zest afloat in a tide of crunchy minerality. $13

Rating:

(2.5 / 5)