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A brilliant and luminous trail illuminates their lives. They are the daughter and son of chalk, white, sweet, and glowing. They led their steps under the light of a path drawn in 1830 in the heart of the Côte des Blancs, in Champagne. Chantal and Pierre Gonet, the brother and the sister, are carrying it on.
There lies the wine-grower’s intention: conveying the pure beauty of the alliance of both an exceptional cellar and the vine. It behooves Pierre to create wines of terroir that are precise, delicate, and defined by champagne aesthetics, and to Chantal to spread those wines around the world.
The beginnings are of Virtues, a predestined name. Chantal and Pierre were pressed into service after the untimely death of their father Philippe. At 22 years old, Chantal had made an eloquent journey at the Ecole Polytechnique Feminine (EPF), Pierre completed his diploma in viticulture and oenology in Beaune at age 23. The awareness of a dual affiliation to a 6 generation winegrower line and to a fabulous terroir, was to bond the brother and the sister.
The beginnings are of Virtues, a predestined name. Chantal and Pierre were pressed into service after the untimely death of their father Philippe. At 22 years old, Chantal had made an eloquent journey at the Ecole Polytechnique Feminine (EPF), Pierre completed his diploma in viticulture and oenology in Beaune at age 23. The awareness of a dual affiliation to a 6 generation winegrower line and to a fabulous terroir, was to bond the brother and the sister.
A profound sense of responsibility and the unwavering desire to go further did the rest. Chantal lived with her young family in Singapore where she traded by the love of the family’s champagne. Pierre alone learned his trade.
The irremediable absence of their father, instead of weakening the champagne, reinforced its design and ambition of excellence: to create champagnes, worthy of the mythical terroirs grand cru of Le Mesnil-sur-Oger where the Gonet family was housed since 1910 when Charles Gonet, the founder’s son, married to Marie-Louise Gardien daughter of a winemaker, leaned every day on his plots. Charles, whose talent invaded the markets of France, loved commerce.
In the 1950s, Jacques, his charming and worldly son, seduced the spheres of luxury, haute couture, and gastronomy, where he befriended the chefs of Lenôtre and Lucas-Carton.
Agronomic science and oenology applied by Philippe, brilliant engineer, moved the Gonet bubbles from the courtyard to the champagne elite. Imprinted with the family philosophy, Chantal and Pierre created their first wine Roy Soleil. Then came another vintage Belemnita, Extra-brut 3210, and two flashes of inspiration, TER Black and TER Blanc, the latest pure gem of Gonet jewelry.
