Biodynamic. Les Houx is one of Jo Landron's oldest vineyards, a single parcel in La Haye-Fouassière that shows just how much depth Muscadet can offer. Its mature, low-yielding vines grow in shallow sandy clay soils packed with quartz and threaded with iron, over a bedrock of gneiss and clay. That combination gives the wine its flinty edge and a denser, fleshier, more complex profile than Landron's other cuvées. The rocky, acidic soils keep it in balance, bringing freshness even when the season runs warm.
In the cellar, Landron takes his time. The grapes are picked by hand and fermented with indigenous yeasts, then the wine spends an extended period on its lees before bottling. Most of it ages in glass-lined concrete, with a portion in Italian-made Tava amphorae, a vessel Landron has been delighted with. This is Muscadet with real presence, well beyond the oyster cliché. Serve it with substantial fish or white meat dishes that call for something savoury and mineral.