Saw that the 2016 has popped up locally, and so I picked up a case yesterday and popped the first one for dinner last night. Given the small production and allocations, I’d say grab them before they’re gone!
2016 Domaine de la Pépière (Marc Ollivier) Muscadet de Sèvre-et-Maine Sur Lie Vieilles Vignes Clos des Briords- France, Loire Valley, Pays Nantais, Muscadet de Sèvre-et-Maine (10/8/2017)
Bottle 1/12. Great stuff, somewhere in between the '14 and '15. Assertive but not slap your face acidity, broad waxy richness, a lick of slate, but less overt salinity than the previous 2 years. Lemon, lemon pith, lemon curd. Grace and balance like a Puligny. Beautiful finish of winesap apples, just ripening banana, and a tiny hint of clove. Drank over the course of 4 hours - was just starting to really sing by the end. 91-92 (92 pts.)
I too gave this a go upon seeing it show up on the shelves at a local retailer 3 weeks ago and as usual it did not disappoint, citrus and mineral driven whilst carrying zippy acidity, delicious to the point where I had to go back for more
UPS guy delivered some of these yesterday, driving through horrendous smoke and wearing a respirator. I was happy to see the skies cleared in our area today so that people who have to be outside working had an easier time of it.
Was a little more equivocal about the 2016 than the prior tasters. Maybe this just wasn’t a great bottle. Or maybe I should have let it settle down some after its long trip west. It had a fairly quiet nose of lime zest and granny smith apple and some brine. On the palate, more of the same, along with some minerals and salt on the clean finish. This lacks the verve and drive of the last couple vintages and is really rather disappointingly sedate. I’m not hating the fact that I’ve got 3 more bottles but I probably won’t seek out any more either.
Katrina, I also found it muted to start… I’m curious if you drank the whole thing pretty quickly, or if it had a chance to breathe at all? For me, it unfurled over the course of the evening.
I had 4-5 oz yesterday and then recorked and refrigerated over night. I had about the same again today. Definitely improved a lot overnight – it was quite flat and disappointing yesterday while today it seemed not flat but well mannered, if a little dull. I still have half a bottle left, so will retry tomorrow.
Definitely puzzled at our different take. Could be the batch/travel vicissitudes on mine since you got yours out here on the West coast while mine had to schlepp via UPS all the way from NY.
Maybe I’ll pop a 2014 or 2015 tomorrow and do a side by side comparison.
Slight drift here, but does anyone have any idea what to expect on the 2017 vintage of this wine? I haven’t purchased any 2016, and the 2015’s, while nice, have been a relative disappointment after the stellar 2014. The 2015 is nice enough, very good even, but after the laser acidity of the 2014, the 2015 seems a little plump. I will say, however, that with Briords I find that they need a little bit of time to come in to themselves.
In this decade, the 2014 is my gold standard, so far. Not that the other vintages are chopped liver.
I’ve just received delivery of the 2016 and will look to drink some in the next few days.
Katrina, I got my bottles in Jersey and drank them at home in Philly. SF is just my work - my office is pretty much next to K&L. I wonder if UPS exposed your bottles to heat. It’s been unseasonably warm out east and in the Midwest this October.
It’s a possibility. Bottles were ok to the touch when they arrived but was high 80s here when delivered and had sat around a warehouse all weekend. (As another data point, a shipment of 2014 Briords I received a couple years ago was quite definitely heat damaged – so I have a sense of what a heat damaged Briords tastes like. The acid/drive wasn’t gone in that batch but it had a slightly stewed flavor. This wasn’t like that)
I had some 05 Tondonia in the box too – that was delicious, and my impressions synched up with many on CT. Of course that red would be a lot more robust.
Some 13 Cotat Mont Damnees was also in that shipment. I’ll pop a bottle of that tonight – I’ll be extremely aggravated if that wine has been affected since that was the entire reason I ordered wine from the East Coast (which I keep telling myself over and over that I will no longer do).
TN: 2016 Pepiere Clos des Briords Muscadet Sevre-et-Maine
Day1: With all the good, familiar Briords characters, but a bit more lush for my taste than most other vintages. Good long finish, with hints of hard candy.
Day2: This is where I find it to be unlike the 2 previous vintages, as the 2016 had quickly lessened in intensity, somewhat a bit thin, and with a clipped finish.
Did not mean to age this for this long, but found it tucked away in the cellar. Popped and poured at cooler than cellar temp. Beautiful shimmering pale gold color. Lovely nose of sea spray and herbes de Provence with just a hint of honey. Very lively palate with good minerality, lemon oil and a nice hit of acidity with that same hint of honey on the finish. Many good years left and an incredible value - I think I paid $14 for the bottle a few years ago.
Nice. I’ve been popping these at the rate of one a year. Haven’t had one this year, so will tee one up soon. It’s too bad the latest vintages have gotten so expensive lately. And by so expensive, I mean… $19.
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I wonder if UPS exposed your bottles to heat. It’s been unseasonably warm out east and in the Midwest this October.![[thumbs-up.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/f/f84c5acc11486ee4baba6dee6cf61dbd133abb18.gif "[thumbs-up.gif]"){kind=small}
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