2022 Domaine Claude Branger “Le Fils des Gras Moutons” Sur Lie, Muscadet Sevre-et-Maine, Loire Valley, France

Claude Branger is a tall, soft-spoken gentleman with silver hair. He dresses neatly and modestly, and there is about him, as there is about his wines, a clear sense of refinement. His grandfather created the wine domaine of Haute Févrie during the first World War. Following his father, Claude took over in the mid-1970s, and handed the reins to his son Sébastien in 2008. But Claude still works the vines and drives the tractor. Together these two farm close to 70 acres of vines in two adjacent parishes in the heart of the Muscadet Sèvre et Maine Appellation. Among the small cadre of committed growers—and it remains a small cadre—the father and son team of Claude and Sébastien rank among the top. Claude was an early member of Terra Vitis, an organization that sets guidelines for sustainable farming and monitors its members’ practices to ensure compliance. Subsequently, Sébastien embarked the domaine on the road to full-fledged organic farming. The first parcel received certification in 2015 and by 2019 all of the domaine’s vines were fully certified.