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 Côte des Blancs. Starting with two hectares, the domaine has now tripled in size and started gaining real attention when Adrien Dhondt took over winemaking in 2012 at age 22. Today, joined by his sister Alice, 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.

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 plowing each plot with his horse. In the cellar, Dhondt has moved almost completely to  barrel fermentation with ambient yeasts, filling his fûts after a very short six hours’ settling 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 élevage, the wines are topped up when Dhondt deems it is appropriate.

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 year’s tirage, Adrien replenishes the loss with wine kept back from the new vintage and racks the resulting blend to barrel—accompanied by the fresh lees of the latest vintage—in May. Come harvest time, when empty barrels are needed, the perpetual reserve is returned to tank. Each year, the process is repeated, ensuring the domaine’s barrels are never empty.