BLANC DE NOIRS VIEILLES VIGNES
EGLY-OURIET

“Some in Champagne can achieve grandeur of dizzying proportions, and the most talented can summon delicacy of light-footed grace, but no village marries the two as effortlessly as Ambonnay, and no practitioner as masterfully as Francis Egly. Vielles Vignes is his masterpiece, succeeding in capturing the golden sunlight grandeur and chalk mineral airiness of his tiny amphitheatre-shaped lieu-dit of vines planted in 1946. The essence of Pinot Noir.”

“I was very taken with the Blanc de Noirs Grand Cru Vieilles Vignes NV, a single-site Ambonnay wine, 100 per cent pinot noir from vines about 60 years old, barrel fermented and aged. The colour is surprisingly light, while it has tremendous complexity of bready, straw-hay yeast autolysis characters, and the palate is powerful and very dry but smooth and superbly balanced, with very fine structure. A really special, and rare, champagne.”

“This wine gets better and better with each release. It’s a Selosse-like, exotically okay, organically influenced giant of a Champagne. The flavour layers are fantastically generous and multi-faceted ”