'La Boutanche' Melon 2016

This wine begins with fruit sourced from Domaine Landron-Chartier, a family estate run by Bernard and Benoit Landron in the Coteaux d'Ancenis zone northeast of Nantes. Their vineyards sit on soils of schist, micaschist, and gneiss from the ancient Massif Armorican, and the estate has been certified organic since 2010. Melon de Bourgogne is not a permitted variety under Coteaux d'Ancenis AOC rules, so these grapes cannot carry that appellation — the wine is classified as Vin de France.

Quentin Bourse of Le Sot de l'Ange brought the grapes to his cellar in Azay-le-Rideau, a sub-appellation of Touraine roughly 150 kilometers east of the source vineyard. Bourse's own estate is certified biodynamic. He used a long, slow pressing into stainless steel tank, native yeast fermentation, and aged the wine entirely in tank before bottling with no added SO2.

The 2016 growing season in the Loire was marked by April frosts, a wet spring, and then a dry late summer. Moderate temperatures through harvest helped preserve acidity and a clean fruit profile in the finished wines.

Because this Melon de Bourgogne was neither grown in a Muscadet zone nor vinified within one, it carries no appellation beyond Vin de France. What it does carry is the mineral density and salinity typical of the grape on ancient crystalline soils, without the lees-aging that defines textbook Muscadet.