Marc Pesnot "Coeur De Raisin" Blanc 2024
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Press 4 Mix/White • June/July 2026 Direct Press Selection
Marc Pesnot bought his father's small winemaking operation in the Muscadet appellation back in 1979, and he will be retiring soon, but he has become one of a very small group of natural winemakers in the mostly industrial wine growing area near Nantes. "I used to make uninteresting, bland wines with added commercial yeast," he says. "In the late 1990s, I encountered the vins naturels, and it was as if I woke up in another country. It was then that I fully realized that for nearly 20 years, despite getting all the accolades, gold medals, etc., I didn’t like the wines I was making. I realized it all starts with a naturally strong vineyard, as I told you, and I stopped using herbicides. This was a sea change right away, in terms of the complexity and concentration of the wines. I never looked back."
He is not into official labels, be it organic, biodynamic, or abiding by the Muscadet appellation rules. In most cases, he finds they are too lax. For instance, he uses less copper in the vineyard than is allowed by biodynamic rules because he thinks it is toxic. Similarly, he farms his Melon de Bourgogne at half the yields permitted by the AOC, picking later and allowing malolactic fermentation to occur, unlike most AOC Muscadet. And the wines express the soil in a way only the finest Muscadets can.
"Melon is very responsive to the rock it grows on," Pesnot explains. "Especially as the vines get older and their roots deeper — its own aromas are rather neutral, but that’s why it can easily 'pick' the influence of its soil and elevate it, especially with aging."
His Coeur de Raisin is a younger, fresher take on Muscadet, grown on schist soils. Aged for just a few months before bottling, it's primeur or 'nouveau' style, often bottled in November, with just small dose of sulfur, less than 20 ppm. It's superbly crisp with Granny Smith apple notes but retains a ripe, round profile decorated with flourishes of Meyer lemon, spicy pepper, and the minerality the region is so famous for, despite not being officially sanctioned. Interview courtesy of Jenny and François Imports, tasting notes by Jonathan Kemp
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