Domaine de la Pépière, 2019 Update

I recently caught up with Rémi Branger and Gwénaëlle Croix of Domaine de la Pépière. It was a matter of vinous urgency of course; I can’t let a vintage pass me by without checking in on this domaine, which continues to turn out some of the best wines in the Muscadet region. Rather like the situation at Domaine Luneau-Papin, on which I also recently reported (well, it’s that time of year), the change of hands here also seems complete. Rémi and Gwénaëlle now appear to have taken charge in a quite consummate fashion, and on this occasion at least Marc Ollivier was nowhere to be seen. Hopefully he was putting his feet up while sipping from a glass of Les Gras Moutons.

The Wines

First in the line up was, as always, the entry level Muscadet Sèvre et Maine, poured in both the 2017 and 2018 vintages. While this cuvée no doubt serves a good purpose, I have on occasion found a large step between this and the next cuvée up the ladder, and this tasting was one such moment. Neither of these two wines had me writing any vinous love letters, but I could be putting quill to scented notepaper in honour of the 2018 Briords, a wine that sets the ripe and pure fruit of the vintage against an attractive acidity, not a universally encountered combination in 2018.

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