
Tasting Notes
This is 70% Pinot Noir and 30% Chardonnay from 40-year-old vines in Ambonnay. The wine was aged completely in barrel and there was virtually no dosage (one gram per litre). It is a seductive, layered, yet powerful expression of Ambonnay and, with the Blanc de Noirs, represents one of the very finest wines of the Montagne de Reims Grand Cru area.
While it can be difficult to generalize about vintages in Champagne, there is little doubt that 2012 is one of the greatest years in the region in living memory. When you combine this fact with the quality of the terroir and the standard of viticulture practiced by the Egly family, well, greatness is assured. - Importer Note
"Francis Egly's 2012 Brut Grand Cru Millésime is predictably brilliant; but it's also a serious, structured wine that will need time to unwind. Mingling notes of citrus oil, pear and stone fruit with hints of freshly baked bread, praline and baking spices, it's full-bodied, deep and multidimensional, with huge concentration and a taut, layered core. Built around a racy spine of acidity and prodigious reserves of chalky extract, it's long, precise, and remarkably fine-boned and elegant for such a powerful wine. Make no mistake, this is one of the wines of the vintage, but—like the 2008—it will demand patience. With more age on cork, however, I wouldn't be surprised if it began to close in on a three-digit score." 98+ points, William Kelley, The Wine Advocate
'Few producers can equal Francis Egly in skill and experience, and larger houses cannot hope to emulate the cultivation norms, " - Michel Bettane, The World's Greatest Wines.
'What Larmandier-Bernier achieves with Chardonnay, so Egly-Ouriet manages for Pinot Noir: wines of riveting purity and concentration. " - Andrew Jefford, The New France