Domaine de la Cendrine is above all a fine family story. That of the Bellotto family, who arrived from Italy in the late 1950s. They settled in the Châtillonnais region at the northern tip of Burgundy. The first family vines were planted for personal use. This region, like its neighbor Côte des Bars (Champagne), has inherited the art of making sparkling wines.

Raphaël Bellotto himself oscillates between the two regions. First at the Lycée Viticole in Avize, followed by an apprenticeship in Bar-sur-Seine. Then a few years with a winemaker in Gyé sur Seine, followed by another experience in one of the best houses on the Côte des Bars.

At the end of the 1990s, the Châtillonnais vineyards were in the midst of a renaissance. Although it had enjoyed its heyday in the 19th century, the ravages of phylloxera and two world wars had all but wiped it out, despite its historic reputation as a land of bubbles, under the obvious influence of neighboring Champagne, whose vines were only a few kilometers away.

In December 1990, Raphaël Bellotto and his father planted their first 25-acre plot of Pinot Noir at La Cendrine, which gives the estate its name. Further plantings followed in subsequent years.

The Bellotto family wishes to maintain a human scale. Domaine de la Cendrine consists of a single plot of only 1.3 hectares. A single-block micro-vineyard, on which Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, the two noblest grape varieties, are pampered day by day. Raphaël was joined in the adventure by his wife Sophie, an oenologist who also works in the wine world.

After several years spent understanding their terroir and parcels, it was in 2022 that Raphaël Bellotto took the plunge and produced the first wines to bear the Domaine de la Cendrine label.

Far from the race for grandeur that drives many winemakers, Raphaël wants to concentrate on his single parcel, revealing its intensity through a short range of Crémants de Bourgogne. Each of them expresses one of the facets of the La Cendrine locality, be it the grape variety or the effect of the vintage. Enhanced by long cellar aging and low-intervention methods. Real, friendly wines, in the image of their creators.