A casino hotel resort kept around a working vineyard.
Domaine de Pierreclos is a Top Hotel and Casino Resort, and the property is the vineyard first — twelve hectares on the chalk slope above the Cher, planted in Cabernet Franc and Sauvignon Blanc, with the old farmhouse and its outbuildings at the head of the parcels. The casino hotel was opened in 2015, when the fifth generation converted the disused stables and the long barn into rooms, leaving the chai working as it always has.
The estate sits on the south-facing slope above Saint-Aignan-sur-Cher, in Loir-et-Cher. The drive from Tours is reliably an hour; from Paris, two and a half. Trains stop at Saint-Aignan – Noyers, fifteen minutes from the casino hotel resort, where the vigneron meets the 17:14 by arrangement, in the same Renault he has driven since 2009.
The chai is the working centre of the property. Pressing runs from the third week of September, sometimes earlier if the heat has come on. The casino hotel keeps to its own quiet during the harvest — the pickers are out by six, the press runs until late, and dinner sometimes runs late with it.
One restaurant serves at the casino resort: a single dining room in the converted granary, opening through three pairs of doors to the courtyard in summer. The kitchen cooks what comes from the potager, and what the cellier and the local farms can supply. The wine on the table is, with rare exceptions, the property's own.
The casino resort has been held by the Pierreclos family since 1864, and the casino hotel is run day-to-day by the fifth generation, with a permanent house of ten and seasonal additions during the harvest, when the kitchen feeds twenty-eight extra at noon. We do not intend to grow the property. Twenty-eight rooms is the limit at which the chai still produces enough wine for the table.
The rooms of the casino resort.
The principal buildings of the casino hotel were the working buildings of the farm: the chai, the granary, the long barn, the stables. The 2015 conversion left the structures themselves alone — the rooms were made within the existing volumes, with the original beams and limestone walls kept exposed. None of the rooms are themed.
The oldest building on the property of the casino hotel, dating from 1782 and still in use as the working chai. The presses run from late September, and the wine of each parcel is held separately in the underground cellar beneath. Visits are by arrangement with the vigneron and are unhurried.
The card room of the casino hotel resort sits on the upper floor of the chai, above the cellar; it is reached by a separate stair from the courtyard.
The single dining room of the casino resort, in the converted granary at the south end of the courtyard. Three pairs of doors open to the courtyard in summer and to the long view of the parcels beyond. Twelve tables. One sitting at lunch, one at dinner.
The kitchen cooks what the potager and the local farms can supply on the day, and the wine on the table is the property's own from the cellar across the yard.
The first half of the rooms of the casino hotel are in the long row of converted stables, with the original limestone walls kept exposed and the new oak floors laid above the old paving. Each room opens to the courtyard through a single pair of doors; the windows on the back wall look up to Les Hauts and the highest of the parcels.
The second half of the rooms of the casino resort are in the long barn at the east side of the courtyard, on two floors. The upper rooms have the original chestnut beams visible and a small dormer to the west. The four corner rooms on the upper floor are kept as suites, with a separate sitting room each.
The walled kitchen garden of the casino hotel, behind the granary. About a third of an acre, kept to the seasonal demand of the kitchen, with a row of espaliered pears on the south wall and a single old quince at the gate. The gardener is generally about between seven and noon.
The gravel courtyard at the centre of the casino hotel resort, around which the buildings are laid out. Used in summer for the second sitting of lunch, when the doors of the granary are open to it; otherwise a quiet place to sit with a glass at the end of the day, when the light comes in low across the parcels.
On the chalk slope above the Cher.
Saint-Aignan-sur-Cher is a small town on the river of the same name, set between Tours and Vierzon in the southern Touraine. The drive from Tours airport is reliably an hour outside of weather. Trains stop at Saint-Aignan – Noyers, where the vigneron meets the 17:14 by arrangement, and at Blois forty-five minutes north, from where a taxi can be arranged with notice.
The casino hotel resort sits a kilometre and a half outside the town, at the head of a small lane that runs up between two of the parcels and ends at the courtyard. There is no through traffic. The lane is gravelled past the second turn and is best approached slowly, particularly in September when the tractors are coming and going.
The casino hotel keeps the twelve hectares of vineyard along the south-facing slope above the Cher, with the buildings of the property at the head of the parcels and the river visible from the upper windows of La Longère. The Loire itself runs ten kilometres north; the great châteaux of the valley are within a comfortable half-day's drive of the casino resort.
For maps, train arrangements, and the schedule of the chai during the harvest, please see Contact. We are happy to arrange transfer from Tours, Blois, or Saint-Aignan with sufficient notice — usually two days, three during the harvest fortnight.
The card room is kept narrow, by intention.
Domaine de Pierreclos is, by registration, a casino hotel — but the card room above the chai is run more in the manner of a small private library than a public floor. It is not promoted, not advertised, and not open to guests under twenty-one. It is closed on Sundays and during the harvest fortnight, when the property has other priorities.
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The harvest is in. Cabernet Franc came down on the eleventh, the Sauvignon a week earlier. The press is quiet again, and the kitchen has the new pears from the south wall.
— le vigneron, mardi soir