Champagne Dhondt-Grellet was established in 1986 in the village of Flavigny, just outside Avize, when Éric Dhondt and Édith Grellet chose to begin estate bottling their own wines. The Dhondt family, originally Belgian farmers, had acquired vineyards in the Sézannais in the 1960s, while the Grellet family is rooted in Cuis and Cramant. Starting with just two hectares, the domaine has since expanded to roughly three times its original size.

A new chapter began in 2012, when Adrien took over winemaking at the age of 22. Today, he works alongside his sister Alice in continuing to shape the domaine’s direction, refining its focus on Chardonnay grown across the Côte des Blancs.

Since the beginning, the family has maintained a perpetual reserve, forming a quiet but essential part of the domaine’s identity. Each year, a portion is drawn off for tirage and replenished with wine from the new vintage before being returned to barrel on its lees. The reserve is moved back to tank ahead of harvest, and the cycle repeats—ensuring continuity while keeping the barrels in constant use.

Recent vintages mark an important step in the domaine’s evolution. The 2021 harvest, in particular, forms the backbone of several key cuvées, often supported by reserve wines to balance the vintage’s natural tension. Wines such as Roc Solaire reflect a shift toward more structured, textural expressions, where élevage and fruit maturity play an increasingly central role alongside freshness.

Adrien Dhondt farms Chardonnay across a focused range of sites in the Côte des Blancs, with holdings centered in Cramant (Grand Cru) and Cuis (Premier Cru), complemented by parcels in Chouilly and the Coteaux du Sézannais. While the domaine continues to expand, these core villages define its identity.

In Cramant, vineyards trace the slopes of the Butte de Saran, a chalk outcrop that forms a natural amphitheater with predominantly east and south-facing exposures. Here, thin topsoils over chalk bedrock, often mixed with clay, produce wines of precision, salinity, and pronounced mineral tension. Key parcels include Le Bateau, a south-facing site with excellent drainage and old vines planted in 1951; Les Longues Verges, on a western slope with slightly greater clay content and water retention; and La Garenne, where deeper, clay-rich soils lend broader texture while maintaining the village’s hallmark finesse.

Just to the north, Cuis shares the same chalk foundation but with deeper topsoils, resulting in wines that are slightly more generous while retaining freshness and mineral clarity. Adrien farms a range of old-vine parcels here, notably Les Nogers, a gently sloping site that balances tension and water availability, producing wines that reflect the broader, more open character of the cru.

In Chouilly, at the northern limit of the Côte des Blancs, variations in chalk depth and soil composition give rise to a range of expressions. Adrien’s principal parcel, Les Longues Verges, lies on the Butte de Saran at the border with Cramant. With a western exposure and chalk soils containing more clay, it produces wines of notable depth and structure, further intensified by low yields from court-noué (fanleaf virus).

The domaine’s holdings in the Coteaux du Sézannais, rooted in family vineyards dating back to Adrien’s grandfather, bring a complementary dimension. Here, clay, limestone, and silex soils, combined with south-facing exposures, yield wines of greater density and a more solar profile, rounding out the range of expressions across the estate.

Adrien Dhondt farms according to a non-certified organic and biodynamic philosophy, which he describes as “peasant viticulture,” focused on cultivating living soils and minimizing intervention. He avoids all synthetic products, relying instead on significant soil work—including horse plowing since 2021—homemade compost, and careful manual practices such as short pruning and severe debudding to control yields and achieve optimal ripeness. His approach is highly parcel-driven, with decisions made site by site. Over the past decade, his farming has evolved from a more traditional Champagne approach toward a more precise, micro-parcel focus influenced by the new generation of growers, emphasizing sustainable practices and a balance between freshness, concentration, and clear terroir expression.

In the cellar, Adrien Dhondt follows a low-intervention, parcel-driven approach, now centered almost entirely on barrel fermentation with indigenous yeasts. After a very short settling (around six hours), wines are transferred directly to barrel with minimal sulfur additions and undergo fermentation and élevage on their lees for approximately eight months prior to tirage, without fining, filtration or cold stabilization. During this period, decisions such as topping up or bâtonnage are made entirely by tasting, reinforcing his highly intuitive, lot-by-lot approach.

Adrien has moved toward predominantly barrel élevage since 2020, using Burgundian barrels (Damy and François Frères), reflecting a clear stylistic influence from Burgundy. Total sulfur levels remain low (around 40 mg/L), and the wines emphasize texture, vinosity, and site expression.

Both malolactic fermentation and aging are adapted by parcel and vintage, with no fixed formula: some wines undergo full malo for roundness, while others are partially or fully blocked to preserve tension. Similarly, aging on lees typically ranges from 24 to 48 months, with certain cuvées extended to 36–60 months or longer.

The overall objective is balance—between freshness and texture, precision and depth—with each wine shaped by the conditions of the vintage rather than a prescribed style.