Pépière's granite soils in the Loire give this Melon de Bourgogne its spine. Certified organic farming on vines planted between 1950 and 1989, which is a long memory for a grape most people still think of as cheap seafood wine. Direct-pressed, fermented in stainless, then eight months on its lees in glass-lined underground vats: that's where the texture comes from, a saline mid-palate with real weight behind the citrus. Minerality you can actually taste, not just read about.
Winemaker Notes
The fruit is direct pressed and the juice settles naturally for 12 hours. It is then ferments in stainless steel and ages on its lees in large, glass-lined underground vats for around eight months. SO2 additions are three to five grams per hectoliter after alcoholic fermentation with a possible adjustment at bottling.
About the Producer
Thank you to importer Louis/Dressner and Jules Dressner for this profile of Pépière : (Click here for Louis/Dressner's Pépière notes and photos from visits and interviews) It feels strange re-writing profiles like Pépière’s. Almost like erasing the past, a past I was only tangentially part of! Joe and Denyse first visited Marc Ollivier in 1989. They likely began selling his 1988 in NYC shortly thereafter. Kevin McKenna, an equal partner at LDM since 1995, was their first customer for it when he was the buyer at Astor! It was our first Loire wine! I was three years old! But the Pépière profile…
