Domaine de la Pepiere 2005 Cepage Cot
$8 to $10, from Louis/Dressner Selections

Place: France, Loire Valley, Vin de Pays du Jardin de la France to be exact
(translation: where the Loire river meets the Atlantic, Muscadet)

I met Marc Ollivier a few months ago when he was in town as part of Dressner’s French wine tour. His Muscadet gives me chills, and the entry level one is the best on the market.

I have an easy time selling Muscadet to steely white wine lovers in Seattle. I just tell them to imagine the bleak Washington coast, under a uniformly grey sky, and the salty, briney chilled air whipping around when it’s oyster season. Muscadet is all about that. Northwesterns should respect their kick ass oysters’ a-thor-i-tah and slurp them with nothing but.

So I had to try Ollivier’s Cot, the unintentionally derogatory diminutive for Malbec in France. Malbec used to occupy a lot of space in Bordeaux, not so weird to find it in the Loire. But if you know the difference between Cab Franc from Bordeaux and Cab Franc from the Loire, you understand the intrigue. The first is juicy, rich, a finer cousin of Cab Sauv. The second is a much lighter, greener, acidic pleasure–Italy by way of France I always think. But when I talk wine, I’ve always parlay Esperanto.

OK, where was I? Right…Malbec from the Loire, made by a wicked smaht guy… I drank mine while scouring the kitchen and baking rye cake.

Light-bodied with fresh and bracing raspberry character, this wine is peppery and has great acidity. It reminds me of really good young Beaujolais, the kind restaurants tap kegs of all over France. If you like Pinot Noir, but can’t afford it on a regular basis (like I), this is a fabulous stocker-upper. **But beware, it is a little bracing, and if you’re used to new world wines you might see it as “thin.”