Muscadet: Getting serious?

Muscadet may be graduating from “bargain white” to “the next big thing,” said Elin McCoy in Bloomberg.com. For some 15 years, the wine’s producers in France’s Loire Valley have been working to overcome Muscadet’s reputation as merely “a gulpable, fresh, crisp white wine ideally paired with oysters.” The result has been a bounty of impressive wines that bring out the best of the area’s most distinctive vineyards.

2007 Excelsior ($28). The melon de Bourgogne grapes in this “dense and round” wine come from 75-year-old vines near the ocean. It’s “full of finesse,” with “a briny edge.”

2009 Granite de Clisson ($25). This powerful Muscadet is “rich and complex”. It pairs very well with cheese.

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1999 Le ‘L’ d’Or ($28). Time has given this wine “weight and softness,” creating “aromas of honey and a complex, tangy ginger-and-lemon taste.”