Wine Advisor
Egly Ouriet, Brut Millesime Grand Cru 2013
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Description
Tasting notes
Reviewed by: William Kelley
Francis Egly has produced another profound Champagne with the 2013 Brut Grand Cru Millésime. If the monumental 2008 stands out for its power, structure and intensity, the 2013 is distinguished by its harmony, finesse and completeness; both vintages are very great wines but thus quite different in style. Wafting from the glass with scents of Anjou pear, crisp yellow apple, freshly baked bread, clear honey, iodine and fresh mint, it's full-bodied, ample and pillowy, with a layered, concentrated and effortlessly balanced core of fruit, uniting precision and sensuality to compelling effect. Girdled by racy acids and animated by a delicate pinpoint mousse, it concludes with a long, penetrating finish. Is this the most elegant wine Egly has produced to date? It's certainly among the most compelling that this high quality but initially underrated Champagne vintage has delivered.
Reviewed by: Antonio Galloni
The 2013 Millésime Grand Cru is flat-out stunning, in fact it’s one of the best vintage Champagnes I have ever tasted. What I admire most about the 2013 is the marriage of power and transparency. Plum, kirsch, ginger, spice and dried flowers all come alive in a striking, vivid Champagne that delivers so much pleasure. It’s a riveting, captivating Champagne from Egly-Ouriet. What a knock-out! Dosage is 2 grams per liter. Disgorged: July, 2022.
About the Producer
Francis Egly sets the standard for wine-growers throughout the Champagne region, with his stringent work ethic, levels of stock that allow long fermentation on lees, and precise labeling that states the date of dis-gorgement and the duration of that fer-mentation on lees. The warm soils of Ambonnay bring the pinot noir to peak ripeness, maintaining a consistent level of quality in his grapes for the past ten years. Egly's two most outstanding cuvees are, first, the incredible, uniquely opulent non-vintage Blanc de Noirs: and the Coteaux Champenois, a wine made in pitifully small quantities but arguably the very best avail-able in Champagne today. But even at entry level, the deliciously subtle, 100 per cent pinot Meunier Les Vignes de Vrigny puts on exemplary performance. This is, in short, the most complete, homogeneous range of wines ever from this exceptional producer, who now boasts ultramodern facilities that should allow him to raise the bar even higher.
