2020 Domaine de la Pepiere Muscadet Sevre-et-Maine Clisson 1.5L Magnum, Loire, France

100% Melon de Bourgogne. The heart of Marc Ollivier’s estate is a 10-hectare plot near home in the Clisson cru; 8 hectares of it go into this bottling. Its distinguishing feature is the soil type, called granite de Clisson, which is a particularly poor, hard, compact granite with little clay and a lot of quartz and mica over hard granite mother rock. The certified-biodynamic Ppire vines range from 50-110 years old and are harvested and worked by hand. As with the rest of the Pepire wines, the fruit is direct-pressed in whole clusters and the juice settled naturally for 12 hours. It is then fermented in stainless steel tanks with natural yeasts; the wine is aged on its lees for 2 years in large underground vats until being bottled without fining or filtering.