Tag Archives: Muscadet

My favorite Muscadet wines all seem to share a similar aroma that is difficult to describe, something like clean, white cotton sheets in a spring breeze, like laundry detergent makers want you to think their product smells like. Or it could be the smell of rain, a few, fat drops that fall on sun-baked concrete and immediately vaporize. It’s not exactly that either. It’s more like the core of the fruit, it’s essence, the smell of it and all the Melon de Bourgogne grapes before it. Or it could just be the result of aging on the lees. Whatever it is, all my favorite Muscadet wines have it.

Jo Landron’s 2004 Domaine de la Louvetrie Muscadet Sèvre et Maine “Le Fief du Breil” has it. That and crusty bread and lemon peel and the most distant note of fruit trees in bloom. A mouthful is marked with a bracing acidity that brings with it more citrus and eventually levels out across the taste buds to finish crisp. Our friends at Gang of Pour will vouch. Good luck finding a $14 bottle of white wine better than this one.

Wine of the summer (so far)

I have spent the past couple months slowly depleting my local market’s shelves of Joseph Landron’s muscadet ($15 Detroit dollars). I find this wine inevitably drinkable in all situations. Most recently with an uncomplicated sandwich of lightly breaded, sweet fried lake perch on a Kaiser roll.

Amphibolite Nature is all green mango and dusty stones above a tart drink of sun, allegedly the expression of near-coastal France. So why is it a drink conjures the purple clouds on the horizon of Lake St. Clair after an evening of trolling for walleye, a languid stroll through the summer orchard, every thing green, soft curls of water caressing a sandy shore?

Yes, it is good with clams and broth. It is perhaps at its finest while reading poetry by candlelight on the front porch, marveling at the sadness of a train’s whistle. I fear this wine has rooted itself into my being and my being will not be satisfied until the very last bottle is dry. How does this happen?

The inner-ring suburban Detroit neighborhood where I live is full of commotion. Robins struggle for territory. Children play ball on the sidewalks even as Tigers battle Indians on living room televisions. Crocus and daffodil blossoms do their finest impersonations of the sun. It is an epic scene.

This is a neighborhood dominated by 20s era foursquares and bungalows. A neighborhood of porches and young couples sipping drinks in spring’s evening glow. Drinks like Joseph Landron’s organic 2006 Château la Carizière Muscadet.

A pale yellow glassful sits on the ledge next to my crossed feet and mere yards from the traffic of historic Woodward Avenue. A deep whiff carries the scents of white flowers, apple, lemon and polished river stones. A sip is all tart, yellow fruit, slightly briny, and finishing with the drawn taste of flaky rocks. Impossibly loud birdsong fills the sky. Trees blush red and green. Muscadet drinks like spring air.

At first it’s a big whiff of dust that quickly turns to summer rain then freshly washed cotton sheets drying in the sun. Beneath is a subtle hint of trees — apple trees and lemon trees and oak trees turning through the seasons. Barely evident under the trees is a layer of twigs and mulch, naturally. A drink is pure muscadet, dry and transparent with a thick vein of stone through the middle. Enchanting.