Dominique Belluard
Dominique Belluard, known as Dom to his friends, has worked his family’s domaine in Ayse in the Savoie region of France since 1988. In this tiny region high in the Alps, biodynamic wines can be hard to find. Dom, however, has been practicing this way for a long time. When he took over, the domaine was already established as a fully functioning farm, with dairy cows, apples, and other crops in addition to grapes. While Dom is still a farmer at heart, he has expanded his vineyard plantings, mostly with selection massage cuttings of an obscure grape called Gringet. As far as we know, he is the only winemaker currently bottling Gringet commercially, and he is a master at it.
His wines embody the terroir of Ayse and have a purity to them that we can’t get enough of. They are gorgeous, mineral-driven, acid-laden wines that transport you to an Alpine meadow where you’re seated on a few rocks with just a handful of flowers poking up next to the babbling mountain stream. The first wine brought to the US from Belluard back in the mid-2000s was his sparkling Gringet— the Mont Blanc Brut Zero, which is now credited with helping foster a culture of zero-dosage wines from places other than Champagne. Dom later added his Les Perles du Mont Blanc, a sparkling Ayse wine that is a great entry to his wines, and a trio of still whites: Les Alpes, Grandes Jorasses and Le Feu, each with its own unique personality.
Dom’s wines have sparked interest around the world and are now some of the rarest and most sought after Savoie wines, especially for natural wine lovers. We are so proud to have gotten just a few bottles of these beauties.