Joseph Mellot, Menetou-Salon (Loire Valley, France) 2022

 Put this wine on your shopping list for your summer house wine.  It is bright, light, and dry with juicy, citrus flavors and a gentle edge of flintiness.  Serve it as an aperitif before dinner or for a picnic or just because.  Pierre-Etienne Mellot established the family estate in 1513.  Auberge Joseph Mellot, the first restaurant in Sancerre, was opened in 1882.  In the 1960s the family opened a wine store and Joseph began building sales in Europe.  A family split in 1969 divided the family vineyards and the winery was renamed Joseph Mellot.  The grapes come from the Menetou-Salon wine region located near the end of Loire River in France where the soils are made of Kimmeridgian marls and limestone.   If you want to know more about Kimmeridgian soils, check out the column by my WineReviewOnline colleague Wayne Belding, “The Kimmeridgian Exposed and Explained.”