Domaine Le Fay d’Homme, 2019 Update
Vincent Caillé may not be as widely recognised in the Muscadet region as cult figures such as Marc Ollivier or Pierre Luneau-Papin, but this is surely set to change. A fifth-generation vigneron based near Monnières, he has overseen the conversion of his family’s domaine first to organic viticulture in 2007, followed soon after by the introduction of biodynamic methods. He makes a trio of terroir-specific cuvées worth looking out for (I know for a fact they converted at least one Chinon wine-bar proprietor to pouring Muscadet, ahead of more local wines – “I never realised they made wines this good in Muscadet”, he told me last year), and he also happens to make two of the most impressive crus communaux wines in existence.
Vincent has had it far from easy though, although to be fair this is true of many in the region in recent years. He lost 80% of his crop across the 2016 and 2017 vintages due to frost. Losing that much of your harvest in one year can be a make-or-break situation, across two years is a disaster. I am delighted that the 2018 vintage has been a little kinder here, and once again Vincent has vats (and amphora, and cement eggs) full of wine for him to bottle and sell.
The Wines
On this tasting I checked out his three terroir-specific cuvées first from 2018, three wines which showed the ripe generosity of the vintage, with the 2018 Fiefs des Coteaux, from a gabbro terroir, showing the greatest potential to my palate. Having said that in terms of quality the wines of 2017 were not that far behind, perhaps not that surprising as, once the frost had passed, this too was a good vintage. The harvest was tiny though, and Vincent found himself with a particularly small volume of his 2017 Clos de la Févrie, not enough to touch the sides of one of his subterranean cuves. In the end he purchased an amphora that would do the job, so this wine has seen out nine months élevage in this vessel rather than the more usual cuve.
