Domaine Belluard – ‘Le Feu’ Gringet 2016

We are honored to have received a very limited allocation of these wines.

Dominique Belluard, Dom to his friends, has worked his family’s domaine in Ayse since 1988.  When Dom took over, the domaine was in polyculture, with dairy cows, apples, and other crops in addition to grapes.  Dom is very much a farmer, but he wanted to focus his energies on being a vigneron, so he increased the vineyard plantings.  He was particularly drawn to Gringet, a white variety found only in Ayse that was nearly extinct.  A few local growers sold grapes to the co-op for sparkling wine, but there were no efforts to make fine wine or vins de garde from Gringet.  Dom expanded his family’s plantings through selection massale and has spent the past couple decades becoming the master of Gringet and showing the world its potential in Ayze’s terroir.

‘Le Feu’ is Dom’s single-vineyard Gringet.  Dom named the vineyard Le Feu (the fire) because of its reddish soils, comprised of clay with a lot of iron.  The vineyard sits at 450 meters.  Le Feu shows the heights of Gringet and Dom’s work as a vigneron.