This Loire sparkler has been enjoying plenty of love among those who know it, and no wonder. It’s a hand-harvested, estate-grown, biodynamic, naturally fermented, low-dosage fizz that shows up many conventional Champagnes for both quality and value. Topping off an impressive package is the marvellous label designed by iconic French illustrator Michel Tolmer (of Mimi, Fifi and Glouglou fame).

Jo Landron is not a fan of using Muscadet’s Melon de Bourgogne for sparkling wine, preferring instead a blend of around 50 to 60% Folle Blanche (grown on sandy clay) with a balance of Pinot Noir (grown on gravelly soils). Vine age ranges from 18 to 30 years. The yields are typically between 50 and 60 hl/ha—far lower than the average yields in Champagne. The base wines ferment naturally and then go through a traditional second fermentation in bottle, where they remain for a minimum of 24 months. The dosage ranges from zero to a low 5 g/L (depending on the bottling). Moreover, the fruit for this cuvée is always from a single vintage (2020 in this case).

This list of attributes sounds like the approach of a top Champagne grower, not a humble Muscadet producer! It's no surprise, then, that the result is a wine of impressive depth and complexity. Expect a super-mineral, earthy, rocky wine with waves of racy citrus, fresh nectarine and lots of flinty, talc-like, salty complexity, then a delicious lick of smoky Pinot cherry to close. This is simply one of the classiest sparkling bargains going around.

Biodynamic. Jo Landron’s La Louvetrie originates from soils rich in amphibolite, sand, clay and gneiss. It remains the estate’s only wine made from a blend of different sites (and includes younger-vine fruit from Landron’s top vineyards). The vines for this release are 15 to 30 years old and cropped low (for Muscadet) at just 50 hl/ha. It was bottled with a low dose of sulphur after maturing for eight to 12 months. It is a blinder of a wine packed with juicy fruit and vibrant Atlantic zing. Stony and creamy, this year’s release revels in ozone and ripe apple scents with generous, zesty, pithy lemon/lime fruit alongside a wash of salinity. A pourable zinger that reminds us that terrific-value French wine is not a thing of the past. 

Biodynamic. The Château de la Carizière in La Haye-Fouassière dates to 1926. Jo Landron took over the estate’s vines in 1998 and immediately began converting the vineyard to organics. There are 10 hectares on orthogneiss planted with vines aged between 55 and 70 years old. Le Clos La Carizière is drawn from four hectares, where the yields are strictly curbed as low as 38 ha/hectare. Harvested by hand and fermented with indigenous yeasts, the wine aged on its lees for 10 months before bottling. The orthogneiss terroir and old vines bring real finesse, mid-palate texture and savoury minerality to a wine that tastes even better with a bit of time in bottle. Expect chalk dust and white blossom mingling with iodine and smoky notes, with a line of freshness driving to a bitter citrus and sinewy, refreshing close.

Biodynamic. One of Landron’s emblematic cuvées, Amphibolite, takes its name from the greenish metamorphic bedrock (amphibolite) where this wine is grown. Produced from vines aged between 35 and 40 years, this was vinified with only a short period on lees, as Jo Landron wants to retain as much freshness and minerality as possible. “It’s a free-spirited Muscadet,” he says. Only minor doses of sulphur are used to block malolactic conversion. With some lovely textural padding this year, it’s an ultra-pure, racy expression of Muscadet loaded with white floral notes and all kinds of citrus underpinned by the briny, iodine minerality that is a hallmark of this cuvée. Bottled without filtration at just 11.5%, it’s a refreshingly pure, mineral zinger that will disappear in a heartbeat. 

Biodynamic. Les Houx, in La Haye-Fouassière, is one of Landron’s oldest vineyards. The mature, low-yielding vines are rooted in shallow sandy/clay soils, rich in quartz and shot through with iron, which gives the wine a flinty nature. The bedrock is gneiss and clay. It’s a brilliant terroir that gives a denser, fleshier, more complex style of Muscadet. Although more opulent and layered than Landron’s other wines, this parcel's rocky, acid soils impart a balancing freshness, even in warmer years. 

The grapes are harvested by hand and ferment with indigenous yeasts. The wine ages on its lees for a lengthy 18 months before bottling. Landron is now using the Italian-made Tava amphorae for 30% of the wine and is delighted with the results. The lion’s share still ages in glass-lined concrete. It’s a dynamic Muscadet that goes far beyond the drink-with-oysters cliché. Pair it with substantial fish or white meat dishes that call for something savoury and mineral. 

Landron’s tour de force, Le Fief du Breil comes from a single, six-hectare biodynamically farmed vineyard, situated on a south-facing slope above the Sèvre river in La Haye-Fouassière. Fief is a term from the Middle Ages which means a piece of land once associated with (and probably owned by) the local Abbey or Duke. This in turn implies quality, as the local rulers tended to keep the best parcels for themselves. Breil means ‘next to the forest’, indicating the woodland this parcel borders. The vines are also surrounded by old walls, another sign of its historical significance.
The soils here are rich in silex (flint), river pebbles, quartz and granite, all laid over a bedrock of orthogneiss—a geologically complex site. While Muscadet is generally flat, Jo notes that this vineyard is on “a hill by local standards”. The vines are also open directly to the south—ideally exposed to produce one of the region's benchmarks. The vines here are 45 years old; Landron prunes very short, and also thins the shoots to restrict yields.
Hand-harvested, the juice was slowly and naturally fermented before being raised in Landron's large, subterranean cement tanks. This bottling has spent a full 26 months on its lees, resulting in the sort of multi-layered complexity that is about as far removed from the regional stereotype as can be imagined.