Muscadet

I love taking wine classes.  The classes are always fun and they’re a good way to get exposure to new and different wines.  Recently I took a class at one of my favorite wine shops in Manhattan.  The topic was wines from the Loire Valley region of France.  I knew very little about the wines of this region, but walked away from this class with a new found love: Muscadet.

Muscadet has a clean, mineral taste.  It is not an oaky wine like a chardonnay.  It's refreshing, clean and crisp. A light bodied wine, dry and with very little (if any) residual sugar.

This is not a fancy wine.  It's the kind of wine you want to drink ice-cold on the beach or at a barbecue.  To me, it tastes like the sea.

My Favorites

1.  La Grenouille Muscadet Sevre et Maine

This is a crisp wine with notes of apple and citrus.  It's dry - not sweet, but very light.  Pair this with oysters and it's heaven!  It's about $13 to $14 a bottle.

 2. Delhommeau Muscadet de Sevre et Maine Harmonie

This light wine is citrus-y and tastes like the sea.  I love it. At about $14-$15 a bottle, it's a bargain for the quality. 

Food Pair: the best food to pair Muscadet with is oysters.  Something about the mineral taste in Muscadet combined with the briney-ness of oysters is perfection.  Goes well with any shell fish and seafood.

Nifty Tip: Muscadet comes from the Loire Valley and the best Muscadet comes from Sevre et Maine sub-region of the Loire Valley.  If you see "Sur Lie" written on the label, that means the wine has been exposed to yeast during the fermentation process for about 4 to 6 weeks.  The result is a wine that is more full bodied.