Domaine de la Pépière's Muscadet "Clisson" is one of the greatest values in French wine. Year after year, it delivers an invigoratingly crisp, textured, multi-layered wine that drinks beautifully in its youth, and has the ability to age and improve for decades. After frost wiped out the entire 2021 harvest from this site, we are so excited to have the freshly released 2022 to share with you and it’s a total stunner.

For the uninitiated, Muscadet ( See our Guide to the Lower Loire: Muscadet and the Pays Nantais) is a region near the Atlantic coast that’s famous for producing zippy, briny, quaffable wines that are a classic pairing with a platter of raw oysters. But, about 30 years ago, a new wave of growers (led in no small part by the now retired Marc Olivier at Domaine de la Pépière) began a quest to prove that Muscadet could produce a truly world-class wine.

By focusing on organic farming, hand-harvesting, natural fermentation, extended lees aging, and single-cru bottlings, Olivier, alongside other iconic growers like Jo Landron and Guy Bossard (Domaine de L’Ecu), transformed the region. Today, it is a hotbed of viticultural energy and innovation.

Domaine de la Pépière's "Clisson" was one of the first single-cru Muscadets and it remains the standard-bearer. The wine is produced from very old vines (between 50 and 100 years old) planted on pure granite soils in the best part of the Clisson cru. Fruit is picked by hand, direct-pressed, fermented with natural yeast and aged for a minimum of two years underground vats on the full lees before being bottled unfined and unfiltered.

The result is a tense, savory, deeply mineral wine bursting with citrus and salt. There’s plenty of power and concentration on hand but it’s all perfectly balanced by zippy acidity and a cooling, herbal edge. It’s virtually impossible to resist Clisson in its ebullient youth, but the pro move is to bury a few bottles deep in your cellar. With even just a few years, layer upon layer of savory fruit and crunchy granitic minerality continue to reveal themselves. This wine is a total win at any price. 

Domaine de la Pépière, Muscadet Sèvre-et-Maine Clisson, 2022 $32.99