Château-Chalon

Discover the Château-Chalon appellation

Located in the Jura wine region, Château-Chalon is an appellation area covering about fifty hectares, renowned for its Yellow Wine (officially recognized as an AOC since May 1936). Only four municipalities in the region are legally authorized to produce the Château-Chalon appellation: the eponymous Château-Chalon, Menétru-le-Vignoble, Nevy-sur-Seille, and Domblans.

In this production area, the vineyards benefit from a semi-continental climate influenced by the Jura Mountains. The vines are perched on steep slopes offering breathtaking panoramas. The soil of the vineyards is composed of a blend of limestone deposits, sands, and gray marls. This unique terroir gives Château-Chalon wines a distinctive minerality and remarkable depth. Here, grape varieties such as Chardonnay would suffer from the compactness of the soil, while others like Savagnin thrive without problems (although yields, by definition, are lower than in other Jura vineyards).

The reigning grape variety in Château-Chalon is indeed the Savagnin, used to produce the famous Yellow Wine. It was the Benedictine monks who created the local vineyard, as they were the first to plant this grape variety on the slopes of the Jura during the Middle Ages. Poulsard is also cultivated in the region and is used for light and fruity red wines. These two varieties represent the majority of grapevines in Château-Chalon.

The Yellow Wine of the Château-Chalon appellation (which has been subject to extremely strict annual controls since 1958) earns its reputation as the "wine of kings" not only from its superb Savagnin grape variety but also from its unique aging process in oak barrels for over 6 years. During the vinification process, a thick layer of yeast forms on the wine, giving it its unmistakable taste. Château-Chalon is a wine with an exceptionally long aging potential, as it can be stored for up to 100 years in a cellar.

Check out the wines from Château-Chalon.