Cuvée Marguerite

Matassa likes to say it makes pale reds and dark whites, and Cuvée Marguerite is one of the dark whites. Tom Lubbe brings together Muscat of Alexandria, Muscat à Petits Grains and a little Macabeu and ferments them together.

How long and in what depends on the year and on whom you ask. One importer describes the 2025 as five to seven days on the skins in concrete, then a rest on the lees in large used oak. Another describes the 2024 as mostly Muscat of Alexandria, pressed and fermented in used 500-litre casks and left a full year on its lees.

The constants are the house rules. Fermentation runs on native yeasts, no sulphur has been added at Matassa since 2015, and the wine goes into bottle unfined and unfiltered. It is sold as Vin de France, a choice the domaine made to stay outside the appellation rules.

Three white grapes, up to a week on the skins, and a white that has been somewhere darker.