NV Dhondt-Grellet “Les Terres Fines” Extra Brut Blanc de Blancs 1er Cru, Champagne, France

ABOUT THIS WINE

100% Chardonnay from a number of small parcels scattered around the village of Cuis and Chouilly. It is vinified in stainless steel and is 70% of the base vintage with the remainder a perpetual reserve started in 1986. Dosage is under 1g/l. Its his most fine-boned cuve.

ABOUT THIS PRODUCER

In 1986, Eric Dhondt and Edith Grellet decided to stop selling off grapes to negociants and started Dhondt-Grellet. Their focus on farming translated into honest Champagnes from great holdings across the Cte des Blancs.Their son, Adrien, now in his 20s, has taken over the winemaking and is quickly bringing his family’s wines to another level. He has slowly increased the range of Champagnes produced by isolating their holdings across the villages of Cramant and Cuis and bottling pure expressions of Chardonnay.

The Dhondt family have worked with a perpetual reserve since they began estate bottling in 1986. After drawing off 30% of his reserves for the new years tirage, Adrien replenishes the loss with wine kept back from the new vintage and racks the resulting blend to barrelaccompanied by the fresh lees of the latest vintagein May. Come harvest time, when empty barrels are needed, the perpetual reserve is returned to tank. Each year, the process is repeated, ensuring the domaines barrels are never empty.

Adrien uses organic & biodynamic practices but he is not seeking certification, preferring to work in the spirit of what he calls peasant viticulture, using no synthetic products, no herbicides or insecticides, enriching his soils with homemade compost and, as of Spring 2021, plowing each plot with his horse, Thor. His philosophy is to have a living soil with a healthy balance between microbial life and the vine. In the vines, theres a lot of manual work: he prunes short and debuds severely to limit yields and produce ripe, concentrated fruit at harvest time. He often cites inspiration from great Burgundy estates by practicing plot selection.

In the cellar, Dhondt has moved almost completely to barrel fermentation with ambient yeasts, filling his fts after a very short six hours settling (or dbourbage) and adding minimal sulfur dioxide. The vins clairs spend eight months on the lees before tirage without cold stabilization, filtering or fining. During those eight months of levage, the wines are topped up when Dhondt deems it is appropriate judicious: about every month and a half, Id say, but I decide whether to top upand whether to perform btonnageby tasting. As of 2020 Adrien is now uses almost exclusively oak barrels for his wines with the exception of the Dans Un Premier Temps, where he uses a combination of barrel and inox.