Fallet-Prévostat

The story begins in 1960, when the Fallets released their first bottle in Avize — he in the vineyard and the cellar, she handling sales. A few years later they made the decision that would come to define the Domaine: extending the ageing to seven years instead of the fifteen months required by the appellation. Today the baton has passed to their daughters Sylvie and Martine, doctors who run the estate alongside their profession, and, since 2025, to Thomas Crouzet, a young journalist who left the newsroom to return to the family vines.

In Avize there is no sign on the door, no website and no sales network, because the Domaine has deliberately remained invisible, and anyone who crosses its threshold steps into a suspended kind of time. Beneath the house, three levels of cellars carved into the chalk hold tens of thousands of bottles, including old vintages still under cork. The historic names Fallet-Prévostat, Fallet-Crouzet, Fallet-Gourron and Fallet-M refer to branches and names of the same family, with no hierarchy between them, the labelling being done by hand and only intermittently.

The five hectares, mostly in the Avize Grand Cru, on south-east facing slopes and chalk soils, are planted exclusively to Chardonnay, with vines averaging fifty years of age and reaching close to eighty. The harvest is always fairly late, to wait for full ripeness, and vinification takes place entirely in Alsatian foudres of 23 to 46 hl, around forty years old. The blend brings together several vintages, with a smaller share of reserve wine, and the wines age at least seven years on the lees, giving Blanc de Blancs Champagnes that are vinous, golden and saline — ones to discover unhurriedly.