The first Pellé winemakers made wine for their own consumption, to have something decent to drink with their Sunday lunch and something to quench their thirst while working in the vineyards or fields. And then, because the wine was so good, they sold it to friends for parties and weddings, and to local cafes and taverns. Our earliest written commercial records indicate that Paul Pellé was transporting and selling barrels of wine to brasseries in Bourges at the turn of the 20th century. At that time, there was little reason to aspire to much else…
It was Paul’s son, Ernest Pellé, who took the family business to the next stage by complementing the wine production with a vine nursery that supplied young vines to winegrowers across the Menetou-Salon and Sancerre appellations until the early 1990s
In 1959, the creation of the Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée (AOC) helped the wines of Menetou-Salon to build their image. Recognising the quality and diversity of the Morogues terroirs, the young Henry Pellé, Ernest’s son, obtained permission for the village name to appear on the label, unusual in the French wine regions. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, he acquired additional vineyard land in his native village of Morogues whenever he could.
Since then, our Menetou-Salon Morogues has remained the flagship wine at the heart of the Pellé range.
Henry firmly established the Pellé family in the heart of the village of Morogues when he commissioned the construction of a semi-buried winery on the iconic Les Cris plot, designed by architect Christian Gimonet, a pioneer in bioclimatic design and energy efficiency. Built in the 1970s, the cellar was ahead of its time, using gravity to move the grape juice naturally through the winemaking process.
To promote their wines, Henry and his wife, Alberte, participated in numerous regional wine fairs and began building distribution channels in France and abroad. Alberte supported Henry by handling the administrative side of the business. Her firm hand was instrumental in the growth of the business. She continued in this role until 2001.
Their determination and perseverance, combined with the quality of the Morogues terroirs, helped establish the Domaine Pellé as a benchmark for the Menetou-Salon appellation.
Henry and Alberte were joined by their son Éric in 1980. The estate grew to its present size. Having fulfilled his ambition, Henry began to take a back seat, while Éric’s drive and charisma attracted fresh ideas and opened up new markets further afield.
When she married Éric, Anne Pellé naturally became an integral part of the estate’s story. She was soon working alongside her mother-in-law on the admin side of the business and quickly became the Grande Dame of the estate, which she remains to this day!
Tragically, Éric died in an accident in 1995. Anne and Henry found a new right-hand man in Julien Zernott, then a young oenology graduate. Together, they carried the estate’s legacy forward, and under Julien’s guidance, Domaine Pellé maintained its reputation as one of the appellation’s top producers. At the same time, Julien embarked on his own venture, creating Le Pas de l’Escalette in the Terrasses du Larzac, in the Languedoc region.
In 2007, Julien passed the reins to Paul-Henry Pellé, Anne and Éric’s son, who produced his very first vintage that year.
