Bonnet-Ponson Champagne Seconde Nature

Since 1862, our family has been crafting champagne in Chamery, with Grégoire Bonnet as one the first recoltant manipulants of the village. After him, Jules Bonnet extended the domain by purchasing more parcels in Chamery and installing a 5500 kg wooden press powered by human strength, before the electricity reached the village, around 1902. His son Raoul moved to another location in the village after the destruction of the family cellar by a Second World War bombing. He then initiated the construction of our present caves to store his small production of about 5000 bottles a year. He was quickly join by his son André, who was in charge of ploughing the family vines with his two horses at the age of 14. In the year 1956, André Bonnet met Monique Ponson, herself being from a winegrower’s family of Vrigny, another village of the Montagne de reims. With their union, André and Monique started the domain Bonnet- Ponson, growing few plots of Meunier and Pinot noir in Chamery, Vrigny and Coulommes la Montagne. After a life of hard work, the surface of the vineyards was extended to 9 hectares, planted with the three grape varieties in equal parts. In a constant search for quality, André and Monique also increased the capacity of the cellars, digging the new caves by themselves, in Chamery’s sandy ground, in order to age their Champagne longer. When their son Thierry joined the domain in 1979, all the step of champagne making were already being processed by the family and their 3 workers, including bottling and disgorging “a la volée” of the 70 000 bottles produced per year. During 30 years, Thierry Bonnet continued the development of the domain with the construction of new caves and the addition of one more hectare to the vineyard, several new parcels in the villages of Chamery, Vrigny and Verzenay. After studying oenology and working as a red wine maker in the southwest of France, Cyril Bonnet joined the family domain in 2013, starting at the same time all of the vineyard began conversion to the organic method of cultivation.