Domaine Brégeon, 2023 Update
The wines of Domaine Brégeon were responsible for upending my understanding and greatly increasing my appreciation of Muscadet. At that time the domaine was under the direction of the inimitably pony-tailed André-Michel Brégeon, a key figure in the push for the recognition of the wines of Gorges, work that eventually led to the creation of the Gorges cru communal. His long-lees-aged cuvées, released under the Gorgeois moniker, were wines to mess with the mind of any anti-Muscadet drinkers who might have encountered them.
Not that chance encounters with those wines were very likely. Even a certified Muscadet addict I know (I’m describing a friend, honest) found it impossible to track down the wines and pen a profile for his website. Eventually, that friend (ahem!) drove up from Bordeaux, at the end of a week-long tasting trip there, to visit the domaine.
These days tasting opportunities are easier to come by. The domaine has changed hands, following André-Michel’s retirement (after 47 vintages in charge), and the new man in charge – one Fréd Lailler – pops up with some regularity at various seminars and salons. I recently picked him out among the crowd at La Levée de la Loire, a tasting of wines from organic domaines in Angers. Of course I made a beeline to his table. Well, you would be disappointed in me if I did not, surely?
The Wines
Fréd started with two vintages of his Original Muscadet Sèvre et Maine sur lie, essentially the entry-level cuvée for the domaine, in this appellation at least. Neither hailed from this Muscadet-lover’s preferred vintage, 2020 being a warm year which engendered attractive wines but without the strident acidity I look for, and while 2021 was cooler, the climatic conditions tempered the level of achievable quality within the wines. The two examples tasted here seemed to fit with these broad overviews, but they will no doubt provide some attractive and unfussy drinking in the right setting.
