Domaine du Gringet is a hotly-anticipated new project continuing the work of the iconic, sadly departed Savoie vigneron, Dominique Belluard.

Belluard put the small Alpine village of Ayze on the wine map. He proved that the terroir here (an area known more for ski chalets than wine production) was world class, alongside a very obscure local grape variety known as Gringet. There are barely 22 hectares of Gringet planted in the world, half of which are found on Belluard’s family property, along with a tiny bit of the just slightly less obscure Altesse.

It’s perhaps not surprising that Gringet is so obscure. Locals consider it a simple grape, historically used as a blending grape for bulk production sparkling wine. When Dominique took over his father’s property in the early 90s, he followed his neighbors’ example and began producing simple, conventional sparkling wines geared towards the local tourist market.

But legendary Savoie vigneron Michel Grisard showed him another path. Grisard was an early adopter of biodynamics and was also working with a rare grape, in this case Mondeuse. His wines were wild and intense, leaning into the dark, brooding, irony intensity that Mondeuse can transmit. Grisard inspired Dominique to evolve his farming in order to uncover the hidden potential of Gringet.

The results were immediate. Whereas the conventionally farmed Gringet had produced innocuous wine, with biodynamics, Dominique's vineyards sprung to life. He started fermenting the wines naturally and giving them an extra long rest on their full lees in concrete eggs. The resulting wines were loaded with undeniable electricity and high-mountain mineral crunch. They quickly found an audience with the international natural wine community. Belluard became a star and, for many, a gateway to the unique Alpine pleasures of the Savoie.

Sadly, Belluard died during the early days of the pandemic. leaving his widow Valerie and young son to figure out a path forward. Jean-François Ganevat helped finish the last wines that Belluard had begun, and the family sold some fruit to friends like Nicholas Jacob (Jura), Theo Dancer (Burgundy), and Frank Balthazar (Cornas). But Valerie did not want to continue the work on her own, so she began to look for a vigneron who would take care of the vines with the same love and dedication of her husband.

A quartet of friends heeded the call: Frank Balthazar, his winemaking assistant Vincent Ruiz, and Belluard’s French distributors Raphaël Bennour and Miguel Sarzier decided to purchase the estate; Ruiz was installed as the person on the ground in charge of farming and vinification. They built a new, gravity-fed cuverie and Domaine du Gringet was born.