Dhondt-Grellet

Dhondt-Grellet is a family estate in Flavigny, on the plain of the Côte des Blancs, just outside Avize. Éric Dhondt and Édith Grellet founded it in 1986, when they took their vineyards out of the village cooperative and began estate bottling. The Dhondt family were originally Belgian farmers who bought vineyards in the Coteaux du Sézannais in the 1960s. The Grellet family is rooted in Cuis and Cramant.

Adrien Dhondt took over the winemaking in 2012, at the age of 22. He works with his sister Alice.

The estate started with two hectares and has grown to roughly three times that size. Holdings centre on Cramant (Grand Cru) and Cuis (Premier Cru), with parcels in Chouilly and the Coteaux du Sézannais. The main Cramant sites are Le Bateau, Les Longues Verges and La Garenne.

Les Nogers is a single-vineyard bottling from Cuis, Premier Cru. The vines are over 50 years old and stand on the same hillside as Le Bateau. The soil is sandy clay at the base and becomes more chalky higher up the slope.

Farming follows organic and biodynamic practice without certification. Adrien Dhondt avoids synthetic products, has used horse ploughing since 2021 and makes his own compost. Pruning is short and debudding is severe.

In the cellar, fermentation takes place in barrel with indigenous yeasts, after a settling of about six hours. Sulphur is kept low, around 40 mg/L in total. The wines are not fined, filtered or cold-stabilised. Barrels have been mainly Burgundian since 2020. Lees ageing across the range typically runs 24 to 48 months, and a perpetual reserve has been kept since 1986.