94 pts Wine Advocate (Kelley)
Dhondt’s 2019 Blanc de Blancs Le Mesnil-sur-Oger Chtillon de Haut is showing beautifully, wafting from the glass with aromas of sweet orchard fruit, freshly baked bread, white flowers and beeswax, followed by a full-bodied, deep and fleshy palate with an ample core of ripe, vibrant fruit, a pillowy mousse and a long, expansive finish. As the lieu-dit name suggests, this derives from the upper part of Le Chtillon, where soils are a little deeper and the wines correspondingly richer than lower down the slope.

As I wrote last year, Adrien Dhondt’s small ngociant project under his own name is the fruit of a desire to explore the terroirs of the southern end of Champagne’s Cte de Blancs. Picking small parcels in different sites every year, the first releases from the 2018 vintage featured Avize, Le Mesnil sur Oger and Oger. In 2019, Dhondt instead opted to work with three plots in Mesnil sur Oger: Les Potes, from the top of the slope; Chtillons de haut, from mid-slope; and Les Coullemets, from the bottom of the slope. Readers versed in the Cte de Blancs’s geology will remember that soils are actually thinnest at the bottom of the slope, producing more incisive wines, than they are at the topthe inverse of the situation in Burgundy’s Cte d’Or, for example.

Champagne Mesnil Sur Oger is a Grand Cru Champagne from Adrien Dhondt. This vintage, numbered 13, is the second edition. An exacerbated curiosity. A panel of several plots in search of local wines. Avize, Oger, Le Mesnil sur Oger as playgrounds. Develop sensitive, thrilling and touching wines on utopian terroirs.This champagne comes from old vines located in Le Mesnil sur Oger. The vines are located on chalky soils, at the top of the hillside and exposed to the east. This champagne is vinified in barrels and aged for 8 months on whole lees.
Dosed at 1.5g/L, was disgorged in February 2023.