dhondt-grellet
Adrien Dhondt
Cuis
Côtes des blancs - champagne
Story…
The Dhondt-Grellet story really begins in 1986, when Eric Dhondt & Edith Grellet made the decision to stop selling off their grapes to négociants and began bottling under their own label. The family has taken their focus on farming to produce honest Champagnes from holdings across the Côte des Blancs.
Eric & Edith’s son, Adrien, has now taken over the winemaking and is continuously pushing to take the wines to the next level. He has increased the number of bottlings from the family estate by singling out specific holdings to be bottled on their own resulting in some truly pure expressions of Chardonnay.
Farming & Philosophy…
Adrien believes in having a healthy, living soil with a good balance between microbial life and the vine. Both organic and biodynamic practices are used in the farming, but he is not interested in certification thus is listed as farming lutte raisonée or as Adrien refers to it “peasant farming”. The soils are plowed and compost is made at the domaine, there are no herbicides or insecticides used in the vineyards. In 2021 Adrien introduced horse drawn plowing to his farming practices, his horse is aptly named Thor.
Adrien has long been working towards using only barrels for his wines, the only exception is his Dans Un Premier Temps which is fermented in a combination of barrel & INOX stainless steel tank. All of the wines go through malolactic on their own and primary ferments are done on native yeasts. His barrel program consists of Burgundy barrels from cooper’s; Damy & Franćois Frère. His topping up & bâtonnage régiments are all decided based on tasting the vin clairs as they evolve in barrel, none are done to a set schedule or plan. All of the cuvées receive small amounts of SO2, average dosing is 40 ppm total.
vineyards…
Adrien currently has parcels located in the Cramant & Cuis villages. In more recent years Adrien has begun exploring single site/single village wines and bottling them on their own. This is part of his focus to isolate specific terroirs and highlight their results on their own.
In Cramant he works with 3 different Lieu-dits:
Le Bateau
this was first bottled on it’s own in 2010 | we received a small allocation of the 2015 vintage, this was the first release we have had access to | average vine age is 70 years
Les Longues Verges
this lieux-dit is used in his Cramant single village bottling | early ripening site known for deeply concentrated wines | average vine age is 55 years
La Garenne
this lieux-dit is used in his Cramant single village bottling | an atypical site in the heart of Cramant with sandy soils | historically this was a garden in the village | average vine age is 55 years
In Cuis Adrien works with 9 different plots, a large percentage of them are old-vine parcels of Chardonnay:
Les Nogers
Les Blémonts
Les Basses Vignes
Les Blanchards
Les Sablonniéres
Les Charmiéres
Les Treilles
Les Côtes aux Vents
Les Terres des Basses Vignes
