The Art of Eating and Muscadet

If you are a foodie and wine lover, I strongly recommend the magazine “The Art of Eating”.  It is issued quarterly.  The magazine feels as though it is from a bygone era. The articles are long and detailed.  There are no one-page or executive summaries.  Oh heck, there are no ads.  The subscribers solely fund the magazine.  The magazine takes a food or wine topic, such as Comte cheese or Muscadet, and takes an in-depth look by going to the source.  I just subscribed the magazine.

I was given a copy of an article of the June 2009 “The Art of Eating” by Joseph Landron when I visited him.  He gave me the copy of the article, along with other documents, so casually that I did not know I had it until I got back home.  The article is written by Jacqueline Friedrich, who is one of my favourite wine writers.  She is an American ex-pat who has been living in Loire Valley since 1989.  In the article, she writes about Joseph Landron Muscadet.  She writes “Muscadet, one of the most exhilarating, food-friendly, and reasonably priced white wines in the world, may be the most underrated.”  She goes on to describe Joseph Landron Mucadet La Fief du Breil: “After being hand-harvested at 3.5 hectoliters per hectare (this is very low yields)…the wine spends 18 months on its lees and is bottled unfiltered.”  Jacqueline continues “The first impression is tactile: simultaneously lush and with a stinging thread of effervescence, characteristics of long aging sur-lie.  The wine revives with its vigour, focus, and utterly dry finish.  Sensations of minerals and every expression of lemon – zest, pulp, plucked-off-the-tree, preserved…”

Jacqueline’s words sum up my tasting experience with Joseph Landron.  I can’t wait till the Joseph Landron Muscadets get to our shores in British Columbia. 

Above is a picture of Monsieur Landron and yours truly, amongst his biodynamically cared Muscadet vines.  Visiting his vineyards with him is just as exhilierating experience as tasting his wines.