What grape is Muscadet made from?

Muscadet is made only from Melon de Bourgogne, called melon B in the official rules. It has nothing to do with Muscat: Muscadet is bone-dry and not grapey.

What does sur lie mean on Muscadet?

It means the wine rested on its fine lees, the spent yeast from fermentation, through the winter until at least March 1 after the harvest, and was bottled straight off them. It gives a rounder texture, more complex aromas and sometimes a faint prickle of natural CO2.

Is Muscadet sweet or dry?

Dry. The appellation is only for still dry whites, and the rules cap sugar at 3 grams per liter for Muscadet sur lie and for Muscadet Sèvre et Maine.

What are the Muscadet crus?

They are seven village names that can follow Muscadet Sèvre et Maine on the label: Château-Thébaud, Clisson, Gorges, Goulaine, Monnières-Saint-Fiacre, Mouzillon-Tillières and Le Pallet. These wines stay on their lees until at least October 1 of the second year after harvest.

What food goes with Muscadet?

Oysters and other shellfish are the classic match. Wine Folly also suggests mussels with fries, scallops, whelks and dishes with beurre blanc or fresh herbs.

Muscadet Wine: Sur Lie, Crus, Taste & Food Pairing

Muscadet is a bone-dry, light white wine from the western end of France’s Loire Valley, around the city of Nantes, made only from the Melon de Bourgogne grape. It is crisp, lemony and slightly salty, and the best bottles rest on their yeast lees (“sur lie”) for extra texture. If you want an affordable white for oysters, mussels or a plate of fried fish, Muscadet is the classic choice.

Muscadet at a glance

Fact	Muscadet
Grape	Melon de Bourgogne (melon B) only
Where	Pays Nantais, the Loire Valley’s Atlantic end, in Loire-Atlantique and Maine-et-Loire
Vineyard	About 9,000 hectares (22,240 acres) and around 450 growers, per Divine Loire
Wine type	Still, dry white only
Main sub-area	Muscadet Sèvre et Maine
Classic food	Oysters and shellfish

Despite the name, Muscadet has nothing to do with Muscat. Wine Folly notes that Melon de Bourgogne is related to Chardonnay, Gamay, Auxerrois and Aligoté, which fits its Burgundian name.

What Muscadet tastes like

Wine Folly describes Muscadet as a bone-dry, light-bodied white with high acidity, with green apple, citrus and mineral notes in basic bottles and an “almost saline” edge. Lees-aged wines add fresh bread and preserved lemon flavors and a creamier texture. Divine Loire lists lemon, grapefruit, pear and green apple, with a light salinity.

The official rules keep it dry: AOC Muscadet allows at most 5 g/L of sugar, and 3 g/L for “sur lie” wines and for Muscadet Sèvre et Maine. They also cap alcohol at 12% after any chaptalization (adding sugar to the must).

In our view, Muscadet is one of the best-value dry whites in France, and good producers make wines with real character.

What “sur lie” means

Lees are the dead yeast cells and other fine solids left after fermentation. Most white wines are racked off them quickly. Muscadet sur lie stays on them. The 2019 cahier des charges (the official rulebook) for AOC Muscadet says a wine labeled “sur lie” must:

rest on its fine lees from the end of fermentation until at least March 1 of the year after the harvest;
spend only one winter in tank or barrel, and still be on its lees when bottled;
be bottled in the winery where it was made, between March 1 and November 30 of the year after the harvest;
reach shoppers no earlier than March 8 of that year.

Muscadet Sèvre et Maine has its own, slightly different rulebook: its 2025 version lets sur lie wines be bottled from March 1 after the harvest up to June 30 of the second year, provided they spend no more than one summer in tank or barrel.

Why bother? The cahier explains that the lees add roundness and weight, and that keeping the wine untouched under its own carbon dioxide limits oxidation and holds on to the fermentation aromas. That is also why some sur lie Muscadets have a faint prickle on the tongue. The rules say the “sur lie” mention was defined in 1977, and bottling at the winery has been required since 1994. The method itself grew from local habit, per the cahier: growers kept a barrel of their best wine on its lees to open at family celebrations the following spring.

Divine Loire sums up the effect as a silky texture with brioche or hazelnut notes. Wine Folly adds that many producers age their best wines on the lees for 2–3 years.

Where Muscadet grows

The vineyards spread across about fifty communes around Nantes, per Divine Loire, on old metamorphic rocks: gneiss, schist and granite. There are four appellations:

Appellation	What to know
Muscadet	The regional appellation, created in 1937
Muscadet Sèvre et Maine	The heartland, on the slopes east of Nantes and along the Sèvre and Maine rivers; created in 1936
Muscadet Coteaux de la Loire	Small: 189 hectares in 24 villages, per Wikipedia; created in 1936
Muscadet Côtes de Grandlieu	717 hectares in 19 villages, per Wikipedia

Sèvre et Maine is the one you will see most. According to its 2025 cahier des charges, it covers about 6,000 hectares (14,826 acres) farmed by 390 producers (2023 figures), makes almost 70% of the volume sold across all the Nantes appellations, and more than half of its wine is labeled sur lie.

The grape’s history here is long. The cahier for AOC Muscadet records plantings of the “plant bourguignon” under the name Muscadet from the mid-1600s. After the harsh winter of 1709 destroyed much of the Nantes vineyard, the frost-hardier Melon was replanted on the best sites. Wikipedia adds that Dutch traders encouraged planting the variety and had much of the wine distilled into brandy.

The seven crus

The most serious Muscadets carry a village name after “Muscadet Sèvre et Maine.” Locally they are called crus communaux (Divine Loire uses the term for Clisson and Gorges); the official rulebook calls them complementary geographical names. The 2025 cahier lists seven:

Cru	Rock underneath, per the cahier	Style, per the cahier
Clisson	Coarse-grained granite	Very concentrated; ripe and cooked-fruit aromas
Gorges	Gabbro	Powerful attack, acidity, mineral or minty notes
Goulaine	Gneiss with veins of green rock, near the Goulaine marsh	Round, velvety, very low bitterness
Château-Thébaud	Orthogneiss and granodiorite	Fine and elegant; salty, fresh, taut
Monnières-Saint-Fiacre	Weathered gneiss	Ripe or candied fruit, ample and creamy
Mouzillon-Tillières	Gabbro, along the Sanguèze river	Closed when young, then floral, citrus, brioche
Le Pallet	Little-weathered, deeply fissured rock	Smooth, with a very fine floral bouquet

The rules for these crus are much stricter than for basic Muscadet:

Lees ageing until at least October 1 of the second year after the harvest, so roughly two years, and bottled at the winery straight off the lees.
Lower yields: 45 hectoliters per hectare, against 55 for Sèvre et Maine.
Riper grapes: at least 11% natural potential alcohol, against 10%.
Older vines: grapes count only from the fifth year after planting.
Bottle rest: the wine can’t be sold until 60 days after bottling.

We’d buy a cru Muscadet if you think you already know what Muscadet tastes like. They are fuller and age-worthy, and the cahier credits the longer ageing with giving these wines good potential to improve in bottle.

How to read the label

“Muscadet” alone is the regional wine: simple, fresh, for drinking young.
“Sèvre et Maine,” “Coteaux de la Loire” or “Côtes de Grandlieu” name a sub-area.
“Sur lie” tells you the wine was bottled from its lees after at least one winter. In our view it is worth the small extra cost.
A village name such as Clisson, Gorges or Le Pallet marks one of the seven crus, aged on the lees for about two years.
The vintage matters. Basic and sur lie Muscadet are best young; crus can be older on release.

Food pairing

Muscadet’s high acidity and salty edge make it a natural seafood wine. Wine Folly says its true calling is seafood, especially bivalves:

Food	Why it works
Oysters	Bone-dry, briny wine meets briny shellfish; acidity cuts through
Mussels, moules frites	Wine Folly’s “perfect pairing”; lemony wine with salty fries
Scallops, whelks, clams	Light body won’t swamp delicate shellfish
Beurre blanc, Gruyère, fondue	Wine Folly’s cheese and sauce picks; acidity balances richness
Herbs: tarragon, chives, thyme, parsley	Wine Folly notes these match the wine’s green, fresh side

We’d pair a sur lie or cru Muscadet with richer dishes such as fish in beurre blanc, the Nantes sauce, and keep basic Muscadet for the raw bar. For more ideas, see our guide to wine with seafood. If you like Muscadet, also try a Chablis or a Sancerre: both are crisp, mineral French whites for the same foods.

Good-value bottles to try

We don’t name specific Muscadet bottles on this page yet. Our picks follow how we rate wine: every wine needs a published critic score for a named vintage and a US price checked at two or more retailers, and we haven’t completed that check for a Muscadet.

What to look for: a Muscadet Sèvre et Maine sur lie from a recent vintage is the safe, inexpensive choice, and a cru such as Clisson or Gorges is the step up. Under our thresholds, a Muscadet scoring 90 to 92 points is a Great Value at $20 or less and a Good Value at $30 or less.

How to serve it

Temperature: In our view, cru Muscadet shows more if you let it warm a few degrees in the glass.
Glass: a standard white wine glass.
When to drink: basic Muscadet young; sur lie within a few years of the harvest; crus can keep longer.

Tip: A faint fizz in a young sur lie Muscadet is normal. The rules mention a light perlant from the wine’s own carbon dioxide. It is a sign of freshness, not a fault.