Three hectares, then twenty, and still no hurry
The people
Egly-Ouriet began as about three hectares in Ambonnay. In the early 1980s Francis Egly took over and stopped selling the grapes to négociants, the big merchant houses that buy fruit from growers; from then on the family name went on the bottle. His children, Clémence and Charles, work with him now.
The estate farms about 20 hectares today, with old Pinot Noir vines central to the range. Brut Grand Cru accounts for roughly half of production and spends years on its lees, the spent yeast cells left after fermentation, before release.
Ambonnay at the centre
The place
Grand cru vineyards in Ambonnay, Verzenay and Bouzy provide the Pinot Noir and Chardonnay used across much of the range. Grand cru and premier cru are terms in Champagne’s village classification system. Vrigny adds premier cru Pinot Meunier, bottled on its own as Vignes de Vrigny.
Les Crayères comes from Pinot Noir planted in 1946 on pure chalk in Ambonnay.
Gentle pressing, then patience
The cellar
Only the first pressing is kept. Fermentation relies on yeasts already present, and the wine is aged in a mix of barrels and tanks. Sulphur additions are kept low. The wines are bottled without fining or filtration, two ways of clarifying wine.
Most cuvées, the individual wines in the range, spend three to seven years on the lees; Grand Cru V.P. can reach nine years. Dosage is the wine-and-sugar addition after disgorgement, when the sediment is removed. The usual dosage here is 2 to 5 grams of sugar per litre of wine.
A range built around village and vine
The range
Brut Grand Cru brings together older-vine Pinot Noir and Chardonnay from Ambonnay, Verzenay and Bouzy. Vignes de Vrigny uses Pinot Meunier. Blanc de Noirs Grand Cru Les Crayères is a white Champagne made from dark grapes: in this case, Pinot Noir from the 1946 parcel in Ambonnay.
Grand Cru V.P. Extra Brut is the long-aged cuvée in the range. The domaine also makes Ratafia de Champagne.
Begin with Brut Grand Cru
First bottle
One bottle, three villages: older-vine Pinot Noir and Chardonnay from Ambonnay, Verzenay and Bouzy, 70 per cent to 30, with at least three years in bottle before it is released. Taste this one first; most of the range is built from the same villages and grapes.