Le Mesnil-sur-Oger

Le Mesnil-sur-Oger stretches along the foot of the coteaux in the south of the Côte des Blancs, 13 km southeast of Épernay, between Oger and Vertus; to the west, the commune borders the Oger and Le Mesnil national nature reserve. L’UMC (Côte des Blancs terroir) covers 437.6 ha for 480 winegrowers, the highest number among the Grand Cru: 436.4 ha of Chardonnay and 1.2 ha of Pinot Noir.

The vineyards lie between 115 and 214 m (5th–95th percentile, our calculation based on IGN data), with an average slope of 8.1%; one fifth is nearly flat, while the rest faces east and southeast. The coteaux are made of fossil-rich craie. The name comes from Late Latin mansionile, “small dwelling”; Le Mesnil and Oger are already mentioned in the Grande Charte champenoise of 1114. In 1958, while digging a cistern at Les Mournouards, two Neolithic hypogea came to light: the excavation of the second, conducted in 1959 by André Leroi-Gourhan and published in 1962, renewed the study of collective burials.

In 1816, André Jullien ranked it among the second-class whites of Champagne. It was rated 99% on the échelle des crus; in 1985 it rose to 100% alongside Oger, Oiry and Verzy, and today it is among the 17 Grand Cru villages under the appellation rules. Within the village, the Clos du Mesnil, a walled parcel, belongs to Krug; the village has two winemaking cooperatives and a vineyard museum with old presses. According to the UMC, Delamotte, Duval-Leroy, Krug, Louis Roederer, Moët & Chandon, Salon, Thiénot and Veuve Clicquot have vineyards in the village. Chardonnay, according to the Comité Champagne, produces fresh, floral and citrusy wines that are suitable for aging.

The Champagne wines from Le Mesnil-sur-Oger available from STELT are listed below; Oger, Vertus and the Côte des Blancs have their own pages.