Dhondt-Grellet - Champagne Roc Solare NV

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 starting gaining real attention when Adrien 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. Most recently, he launched a small negociant project to satisfy his curiosity outside of his own domaine’s style. 

Adrien has an ambitious vision with no signs of slowing down and we couldn’t be more excited about the direction of this young domaine.

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.

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, there’s 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.

Roc Solaire marks a new direction for the domaine, sourced entirely from the Coteaux du Sézannais, including parcels originally planted by Adrien's grandfather in the 1960s and 1970s. This terroir—an extension of the Côte des Blancs with distinctive clay and silex soils—yields broader, earlier-ripening wines. Composed primarily of Chardonnay (with a small portion of Pinot Noir) and blended with a perpetual reserve dating back to 1986, it is vinified in barrel with indigenous yeasts and full malolactic fermentation, resulting in a more solar, generous expression while retaining a saline backbone and mineral tension.

"Derived from vines planted between 1965 and 1975 in the Coteaux du Sézannais and based on the 2022 vintage, complemented by 30% reserve wines drawn from a perpetual reserve initiated in 1986, the second edition of NV Extra-Brut Roc Solare is showing superbly. Disgorged in February 2025 with a dosage of one gram per liter, the wine unfurls in the glass with aromas of lemon confit, dried flowers and iodine, mingled with sandalwood and smoky reduction. On the palate, it is full-bodied and concentrated, driven by succulent yet racy acidity and culminating in a long, chalky finish. One should anticipate a more generous expression than Dhondt’s wines from the Côte des Blancs; yet, with quality of this caliber, it can hardly be regarded as an entry-level cuvée. Readers familiar with my previous article will recall that the grapes are sourced from plots in two villages—Barbonne-Fayel (planted in 1974–1975) and Fontaine Denis (planted in 1965, 1967 and 1969)—characterized by deeper soils and silex pebbles, which release a distinctly flinty aroma when struck together. The blend is predominantly Chardonnay, with a small proportion—averaging around 10%—of Pinot Noir. Like the rest of the range, it is vinified entirely in wood, though in the case of Roc Solare, only about 20% of the barrels are new." - 95 Points, Robert Parker's Wine Advocate

Producer: Dhondt-Grellet

Country: France 

Region: Champagne

Varietal: Chardonnay, Pinot Noir

Appellation: Champagne 

Vintage: NV

Size: 750ml