2019 Domaine Delaunay Muscadet Sèvre et Maine Goulaine

Professional Reviews

Staff Reviews

KM

Keith Mabry

Keith Mabry

K&L Buyer

Review Date: 02/2025

Goulaine is one of the Crus of Muscadet. Much like Beaujolais a few decades ago, Muscadet got its act together and started paying closer attention their terroir and producers excited to make more complex wines drove the conversation forward by focusing on smaller parcels and extended lees aging. The Goulaine sees between 24 and 30 months on the lees on average. It is a deeply complex style showing notes of dried pear, quince and marzipan. This is long on the palate and gives you all the beautiful sensation of an aged Chablis. This is lovely stuff and will surely help drive the conversation at the table when served alongside a delightful meal of roast chicken, roasted potatoes, and a chevre salad.

AH

Aaron Hughes

Aaron Hughes

Review Date: 06/2025

The nose opens with loads of white flowers, a soft line of orchard fruit, chalky minerality, and citrus. This wine has a beautiful density and mouthfeel, super richly textured wine, but the palate is light and fairly crisp with a really nice savory complexity, the fruit is still very soft and complimented by a soft nuttiness and a bit of a pithy finish. This wine is a case study in why texture can be so important, since it makes every sip really pleasurable, especially when complimented by the soft and pretty palate. I really want to have this with something a little bit more substantive than oysters or sushi, I think it could stand up to something with a nice and fairly rich sauce on it. This is just phenomenal.

Notes

One of the emerging stars of Muscadet is Domaine Delaunay located in the commune of Loroux-Bottereau. They are located in the Cru region of Goulaine, known for its mix of metamorphic rock including gneiss, mica-schist and leptynite with veins of the Amphibolite rocks running throughout the soils. Florent Delaunay returned to his family vineyards in 2017 following in his father's footsteps. He took over managing the vineyards in 2020 and began the conversion to organic farming. The "Goulaine" is all from a small parcel planted on a south facing slope over serpentine and amphibolite soils. All hand-harvested, it is vinified in tank and then aged for 24-30 months in glass-lined tanks and demi-muid (large oak barrels). The Cru wines of Muscadet are more powerful and rich, showing an intensity and length that rivals some Premier Cru Chablis.