Menetou Salon - Hunt for Wine

Out of Burgundy and into the Loire Valley
A few years ago in Paris I had dinner at a restaurant in the 11th with colleagues.  The wine was really delicious and inexpensive and I took a picture of it thinking I would pick up a few bottles.  I looked everywhere for it in vain.  When planning the Burgundy trip I noted that the small village of Menetou-Salon was not that far away from our last stop of Vézelay.  We dialed it into the GPS and off we went.

Without guidance from the satellites we'd probably still be driving around in circles in the French countryside.  We passed hundreds of mustard fields and after we crossed the Loire river the rolling green hills gave way to flat farmlands.

We must have driven through fifty small villages.  Just outside each one there would be a white wooden sign announcing the town and another on the back-side telling you you were leaving.  It seemed redundant because after you passed by the last of the handful of buildings and were out into the country again it was clear you had left the town.

Menetou-Salon was no larger than any of the other villages we'd seen along the way.  I was surprised how small it was.  We had lunch at one of the town's two brasseries.  We sat amongst the grape farmers and waited for a menu that never came.  This was really small-town France - they just start bringing you courses.  Salad, bread, roast pork, a medley of vegetables and the best goat cheese I've ever tasted in my life.  I asked the matron for a glass of wine and she responded "Menetou?"  Bien sur, madame!

We later drove up to the road to Domaine Jean Teiller and I spoke to Monsieur Teiller himself.  He was very curious how an American and a Singaporean managed to find his small family vineyard and smiled when I explained about the restaurant in Paris.  We happily packed up our six bottles of Menetou-Salon and started our drive back to Paris.  We drank five of them in Syracuse with the Sal-ster and left her another bottle in the fridge.