Before the tasting in the cellar, Dominique gets into my car and while directing me to go "zieuter" a few plots here and there, he quickly explains the situation of this appellation. Up to 360 ha planted in the 18th century, there are today about 20 ha of vines planted (including 10 ha for Dominique). These are dozens and dozens of plots, sometimes really small and spread over several communes. This small surface area is partly explained by phylloxera, the two wars and by the strong attraction for other trades (machining of small parts for the Swiss watchmaking industry in Cluse). Moreover, today landowners prefer to keep their land in the idea that it could become constructible...
Dominique now alone at Winery, after the departure of his brother in 2007, has not been idle and has not been able to find a job. Remote from the harshness of the terroir, steep slopes, complicated (hard) soils. Dominique has been running this Winery since 1988. A family Winery created in 1947 then in polyculture. Now, back to our visit, after having seen some of the plots of highnesses (which are part of the great jorasses), we are heading towards the mythical terroir of Winery or even the place called "Le feu" ( red clay loaded with iron alumina, the peculiarity of"Le Feu") where we can find this endemic and unique Grape variety "le gringet" (the gringet). Dominique's plots are also fragmented here but less than elsewhere, but the slope is steep and we understand the great difficulty of the work done here.
Moreover, it should be noted that Winery employs the equivalent of 8 to 9 employees per year. Dominique insists on the hard work in the vineyard and explains that this is largely what makes the price of the wines of his Winery. To this, we must add that the transition to Biodynamics has not reduced this work :)
Around 6pm we return to the winery to taste some wines. We meet a person we know well: Yann Pernuit (former employee of Winery Genoux - Château de Mérande); Indeed, Yann arrived at Winery Belluard during 2018 to first help Dominique in the operation of Winery and, in a second time, why not settle down in the area as winemaker ! To be continued but nice news.
We taste the 2018 (small harvest as bcp of winemakers on this vintage....) some tanks are finished, others not ... the tasting takes place on the fire, the Alps and the world and then we taste different maturations: tank, jars finally it's time to settle down and we go to the small tasting cellar located in the depths under the maison. There, Dominique goes to get the wines we have been selling since March 2091, namely Les Alpes 2017, Le feu 2017, Montblanc 2015, everything is in place, the fire as always will take time to deliver. Mont-Blanc (traditional method) based on Gringet and with an ageing of at least 3 years goes straight on aromas of yellow fruits, smoky touches!
It's getting late 8:30 pm, everyone goes to their evening occupations (dinner for one, aperitif for the other and the road for me).
Dominique did not count his hours and saved his big body to make this Winery, one of the jewels of Savoy but not that... What work, what energy, what will. It is when we visit these estates, these winemaking friends, that we see the best of what they have to offer. that we feel all the difficulty of this job. We sometimes even try to reassure them and we never fail to congratulate them: Bravo Dom! and thank you, sincerely!"
Find HERE Dominique Belluard's wines!
