La Mauguit: Old Vine Muscadet from Pierre Goiset
Pierre Goiset's La Mauguit 2022: Melon de Bourgogne from vines planted around 1950 on gneiss and quartz, made naturally, unfiltered. With honest caveats.
Vines planted around 1950, and they’re still bearing fruit. Pierre Goiset’s La Mauguit 2022 comes from vines like that, a Muscadet from Maisdon-sur-Sèvre. Citrus and green apple up front, a saline minerality underneath. The kind of Muscadet that knocks down its image as simple oyster wine.
The maker
Pierre Goiset was a cameraman before he started his estate in 2021, where the Sèvre Nantaise meets the Maine, south of Nantes. He has about three hectares, mostly Melon de Bourgogne, known locally as Melon Blanc. There’s more on him in my profile of Pierre Goiset.
He farms organically and biodynamically, and ploughs with a horse. That keeps the soil loose and its life intact.
The parcel
La Mauguit comes from the La Mauguitonnière parcel. The vines were planted around 1950, on a mixed soil of gneiss, orthogneiss and quartz. His Le Quéry comes from a different parcel, and Goiset wants you to taste the difference.
How it’s made
The grapes are picked by hand and gently pressed. Fermentation runs on indigenous yeasts; Goiset never uses cultured strains. The wine then spends eleven months on its lees in neutral fibre tanks. It’s unfiltered and gets at most 25 milligrams of sulphur per litre.
Tasting Note
Appearance
Luminous golden straw and clear, despite being unfiltered.
Nose
Citrus, green apple and delicate white flowers.
Palate
Bright citrus freshness against a deep mineral structure. Saline minerality and texture, from old roots and the nearby sea.
Quality
A Muscadet with depth, at 12.5% alcohol.
What to watch for
First, the estate is young. The first harvest was 2021, and frost cut it to 13 hectolitres per hectare, against a target of 30. This 2022 is only the second. Old vines, but few vintages yet to judge the maker by.
Second, finding it. There are few bottles per vintage, and Goiset’s wines go mainly to natural wine specialists. A regular wine shop rarely has them.
Third, unfiltered and low in sulphur. The wine stays alive in the bottle. As with any unfiltered, low-sulphur wine: store it cool.
At the table
This is a wine for seafood. Oysters from Brittany suit its saline edge. Delicate white fish with herb butter works too: the wine’s structure can handle the butter.
- Producer
- Pierre Goiset, Maisdon-sur-Sèvre
- Wine
- La Mauguit
- Vintage
- 2022
- Region
- Muscadet, Loire, France
- Grape
- Melon de Bourgogne (vines from around 1950)
- Soil
- Gneiss, orthogneiss and quartz, La Mauguitonnière parcel
- Winemaking
- Indigenous yeasts, eleven months on lees in neutral tank, unfiltered
- Sulphur and alcohol
- 25 mg/l, 12.5%
Sources
- My own tasting note
- InterLoire: vinsvaldeloire.fr
- INAO, Muscadet cahier des charges: inao.gouv.fr
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