Luneau Papin

2022 Muscadet Sèvre et Maine Cru AOC Cuvée L d'Or

Mother rock of granite and gneiss with two micas of the Armorican Massif, this plot is a historic treasure of the Luneau family in the cru village of Vallet. The site rises up between two villages and has a river running through it; the plot lies at the top of a hillside forming a 500m wide seam of granite that descends gently to the signature gneiss of Le Landreau. • Vines replanted in 1984. • Pneumatic press (strength and length of pressing adapted to each vintage); spontaneous fermentation; matured in Italian terracotta amphorae and in traditional underground glass-lined vats on the lees without racking until summer 2023. • Serve at 12º with pike with beurre blanc, pike perch and citrus butter, jellied oysters, or extra mature Comté cheese.

This plot is one of the historical treasures of the Luneau family. The parcel is called La Claretière. It rises up between two villages and has a river running through it. Officially part of the village of the recently minted cru village of Vallet, the vineyard lies at the top of a hillside forming a 500 meter wide seam of granite that descends gently to the gneiss of the village of Le Landreau.

It was a wonderful treat to see this wine get the airtime it deserves in the recently released tome by Jon Bonné, 'The New French Wine': "But more than anything, Marie Chartier-Luneau is one of the best evangelists of the potential of Muscadet to evolve and grow into great wine—as good as the finest Chablis. This is why, when she starts talking about their cellarful of back vintages of L d'Or, she pauses: "Just wait. Someday it'll be priced like Raveneau." On that note, Bonné describes the wine as "more tense and edgy with white sesame, white miso, a pretty fragrant melon aspect, plus a big dense mineral knot that shines with fifteen years or more of aging."

Jim Budd of Decanter speaking on the 2021 vintage: "Showing opulent aromas from a variety of exotic fruits, this is richly textured, with good balancing acidity. A very precise, crisp, crystalline wine with a long finish. It is still a little tight and ideally needs more time in bottle. In common with many of the Luneau-Papin wines this flagship wine has great potential to age. The domaine’s reputation was made by Pierre and Monique Luneau, who have now retired, with their son Pierre-Marie and his wife Marie taking over. They have taken this excellent domaine to a new level – firstly becoming organic and more recently biodynamic." -96 points

MW Richard Hemming on the 2020 vintage: "Tasting the 2020 L d'Or is as refreshing as standing at the end of a pier and feeling the cold Atlantic washing your face. Muscadet is a marine wine, and this cuvée delivers a great gust of sea-breeze salinity. The fruit is tart but not unripe: bright yellow lemon, crisp green apple. After the first wave of flavour, there is a generous shake of dried herbs alongside persistent citrus fruit. It's utterly delicious. I scored it 17+, indicating that the wine is likely to improve over its considerable drinking window, which I conservatively estimated at ten years."

Serve at 12ºC. Will age for 10-20 years.