The white wine of the Nantes vineyard, made from melon de Bourgogne and left on its lees through the winter before bottling. Dry, saline and cheap for what it is, and the city's default glass.

The vines start about half an hour outside Nantes, on the schist and gneiss between the Sèvre Nantaise and the Maine, and the grape is melon de Bourgogne. What separates Muscadet Sèvre et Maine sur lie from ordinary Muscadet is the élevage: the wine stays on its fine lees through the winter after harvest and is drawn straight off them at bottling, which gives it a faint prickle of carbon dioxide and a texture it would not otherwise have. For decades the appellation was sold as cheap oyster wine and priced accordingly, and only recently have single-parcel growers pushed the region back up.

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