Mentou-Salon is the name of a quaint country village about 20 minutes southwest of Sancerre. The production is 80% white wine from Sauvignon Blanc and 20% red, from Pinot Noir. Since Mentou-Salon is on the same side of the Loire River as its more famous neighbor Sancerre, it shares same fossil rich soils (called Kimmeridgean limestone) yet gives a wine with its own unique personality. Domaine de Chatenoy is owned by Pierre Clement, whose family have been winegrowers here since 1560 (14 generations.) and the Clements own some of the finest hillside vineyards in the appellation.

Pierre Clement has raised the quality of his Mentou-Salon wines to new heights. He has equipped his winery with most up-to-date equipment, to ensure the most gentle handling of the fruit and the full extraction of aromas and flavors. Clement vinfies his Sauvignon Blanc grapes using one-third maceration pelliculaire, or maceration with the skins. The temperature of the juice is lowered as the fermentation begins slowly, using only native yeasts. The young wine is left on its fine lees in temperature-controlled stainless steel tanks through the winter and is bottled after a light filtration in March. The Domaine de Chatenoy Mentou-Salon Blanc is an amazingly vivid wine, bursting with aromas of citrus, white peach and flowers. On the palate, it has good concentration, with flavors of red grapefruit, apricot, and minerals. In her A Wine and Food Guide to the Loire, Jacqueline Friedrich rates Domaine de Chatenoy an “Excellent” producer, calling his Menetou-Salon white “super.” This is must-discover wine, both for its value and vivid flavors that match perfectly with lobster and scallops, as well as river fish, white meats, vegetable pastas and rissoti.

Pierre studied oenology in Dijon and his savoir faire with Pinot Noir is evident in the Mentou-Salon Rouge. His Pinot Noir is made from 30-year-old vine planted on ideal clay-limestone soils. The grapes are all harvested by hand and yields are kept to 45hl/ha. At the winery, one-third of the fruit is destemmed. Cuvaison lasts 15-20 days with regular pumping over (remontage) and pushing down of the skins (pigeage) in order to attain the highest level of extraction of color and flavor as possible in the vintage. Both alcoholic and malolactic fermentation takes place (as in Burgundy) in oak casks, one third of which are new each year. Only native yeasts are used. The aging period lasts a full year, and the wine is bottled in the fall, before the next harvest, and then ages for 6 months in bottle before release. Approximately 4000 cases are produced each year. The Chatenoy Menetou-Salon Rouge is an outstanding, sappy, dark-berry flavored mid-weight Pinot Noir that has depth and personality to spare. It is certainly the Loire’s finest Pinot Noir.