From Kimmeridge

We took one of the bottles of wine which spun out of the wine tasting noticed at reference 4 last night, a 2017 Morogues Blanc from Domain Pellé. A member of the Menetou-Salon family, with the oddly named Menetou-Salon being a very old place on the eastern fringes of the Loire wine region, also sporting a very fine castle, a castle with old bits but largely a nineteenth century reconstruction.

The wine took a bit of getting into, the top of the bottle being capped with a hard blue wax, requiring the oyster knife - more usually used for opening oranges - and, appropriately, French - to break through it. The cork underneath was relatively easy to remove. But the wine itself was rather good, a far cry from our usual Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand. And not particularly dear either. I shall probably buy some more in due course.

Amusingly, grown on Kimmeridge clay (or something of that sort), a geological formation which I now know to be important to fossil people, to oil people and to wine people, and named for a village near Swanage. Perhaps now that we have left Europe, the French will get around to renaming all their geology with proper French names. See references 2 and 3.

Reference 1a: Domaine Pelle - Une famille et des terroirs (henry-pelle.com).

Reference 1b: Morogues Blanc - Domaine Pelle (henry-pelle.com).

Reference 2: Loire Valley Wine Guide: Central Vineyard Geology: Kimmeridgian Limestone • Winedoctor (thewinedoctor.com). Preview for free, but it looks as if you have to pay if you want more.

Reference 3: Kimmeridge Clay - Wikipedia.

Reference 4: psmv4: Wine buffs.