Pierre Luneau-Papin, 2014 Update
There are few more friendly faces that those of the Luneau-Papin family. Should there be a psychologist out there looking for evidence of the genetic inheritance of happiness, then I would urge them to look no further than the Luneau-Papin domaine in Vallet. Here you will find Pierre Luneau-Papin, always smiling (I couldn’t find a recent photograph of him with less of a grin than the one below), always happy to see you, hand eternally outstretched in greeting. These traits can also be seen in his son, Pierre-Marie Luneau, who seems to have found a soul-mate in his wife, Marie Chartier, equally charming and full of fun. And let us not forget Monique, Pierre-Marie’s mother, who as everyone knows makes the best sauce for langoustines, an intensely flavoured reduction of Luneau-Papin Muscadet, this side of Gibraltar. Perhaps that is the secret of the family’s happiness?
Spending time with the Luneau-Papin family is, as you might imagine, a joy. Happily, some of their charm seems to find its way into the wines, which often impress with their shimmering vibrancy, the clean cut-pear and citrus fruit of the Melon de Bourgogne packaged with a raft of delicious minerality and bright acidity. They are without a doubt some of the best and certainly the most reliable domaines in all of Muscadet. When you add a superb vintage such as 2012 into a mix like this then the wines have the potential to be stellar. As indeed they are. The tasting notes presented here are on three wines from the 2012 vintage, a year in which Muscadet (as well as Sancerre, and the other central vineyards, by the way) excelled. I also tasted a few wines from the 2013 vintage, all samples from cuve, but I have already written these up in my Loire 2013 report, and so I won’t go over old ground here.
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