raffaele Mastrovincenzo

In my last wine trip I had the pleasure to visit the new upcoming producer Flavien from the family Nowack. The house Champagne is situated in the "Valle de la Marne" in the village of Vandieres in the right bank where the Pinot Meunier is the main cepage, with various soils predominaly sandy and clay. Vandieres with Damery, Chatillon sur Marne and Reuil give to this part of Champagne a great importance. Flavien Nowack is a young guy with experience outside of champagne, he worked in east Europe in the region Etyek Budai with the producer Hernyak Birtok and also work with the famous Mersault producer Coche Dury. Flavien in order to finance his new project, he continue to make traditional blended Champagne under the family label (Champagne Nowack) a great traditional producer. Flavien start at his father domaine in 2012 with 3 hectare of vine with the idea to convert everything in organic farming, in-fact in 2016 all his vines in total 6,5 hectare has been certified. H

The Domaine Dhondt Grellet is situated in Flavigny in the Cotes des Blanc near the grand cru Avize, the propriety owns around 6 hectares of vines classified Grand Cru and Premier Cru with different Lieu dit in Cramant (grand cru) and Cuis (premier cru) mainly chardonnay.  The Domaine start in 1986 with Eric Dhondt and Edith Grellet when it was decide to stop selling grapes to the negotiant.  Currently, Adrien the son has taken over the Domaine and he has given to the Maison a different perception converting all the land in organic farming, separate vinification of the single vineyard lieu-dit to give a more expression to the terroir. Adrien welcomed us in the domaine and we tasted different wine from barrels, from his solera which start in 1986. The Vin Clair were complete wines with tension energy and roundness, doing harvest at the perfect maturation. This allowed them to not doing chaptalisation also to create a base wine for the second fermentation with complexity a