Domaine Le Fay d’Homme, 2020 Update
One of the Muscadet region’s most humble vignerons, Vincent Caillé started work at his father’s side more than three decades ago. Just a few years later, in 1992, Caillé senior retired, and Vincent took the reins single-handed. Today Domaine Le Fay d’Homme is run using purely organic methods, certified by Ecocert, and Vincent fashions a very smart portfolio of wines from the fruit he harvests.
One of my earliest encounters with Vincent (pictured below) and his wines focused on Terre de Gneiss, a cuvée he makes in a joint project with Christelle Guibert called Vine Revival. I recently reported on some of the most recent releases from this project, in my 2020 Vine Revival Update; in this report I continue with the wines Vincent makes at Domaine Le Fay d’Homme.
The Wines
Vincent’s range of Muscadets are well worth investigating. The traditional sur lie wines feature three terroirs, gneiss, orthogneiss and gabbro, and at one or two years of age they can provide great value drinking. Having already reported on what 2019s I tasted in my 2019 Loire Valley Nantais report, my notes below relate to the 2018 vintage. Of the three I thought the 2018 Clos de la Févrie (from orthogneiss) had the edge on the 2018 Le Fief Seigneur (from gneiss) and 2018 Fiefs des Coteaux (from gabbro), the latter two wines not living up to the promise they exhibited from cuve this time last year. All three should drink well though, in the short-term at least, as they all provide at least some acidity to act as a foil to the rich fruit and texture of the vintage.
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