2005 Excelsior, Muscadet Sèvre-et-Maine, Pierre Luneau-Papin
Last Wednesday evening I gave a tasting of Loire wines to a small group at Green & Blue, a small wine shop/ wine bar on Lordship Lane, East Dulwich, London SE22. One of the wines I decided to show was Pierre Luneau's 2005 Excelsior. This comes from 65 year old vines planted on schist in the commune of La Chapelle Heulin. It is one of Pierre's top wines designed to be one of the 'Grand Crus' of Muscadet – otherwise called Muscadet Haute Expression. This 2005 was aged for 36 months on its lees in an underground vat which is typical in the Pays Nantais.
Excelsior's back label
However even though it is a top Muscadet and it has spent a long time on its lees – normally, just as for a sparkling wine, the longer a Muscadet spends on its lees the better – you will find no mention of sur lie either on the front or back label. The reason is depressingly simple – it's against the rules! To be allowed to put sur lie on your bottle of Muscadet it must remain on its lees and not be bottled before 1st March following the vintage. It must not be bottled later than 30th November of that year. Bottle it on 1st December and it can't be called sur lie. So three years sur lie is a complete no-no as far as labelling it as a sur lie. It doesn't matter that everyone has worked hard to make a very special Muscadet you can't use the term – sur lie – that many recognise as being the thing to look for if you wnat to buy a good Muscadet – whether it comes from the Sèvre-et-Maine, the Côtes de Grandlieu or Coteaux de la Loire.
How daft is that?!
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