Wine Advisor
Egly Ouriet, Brut Millesime Grand Cru 2009
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Description
Tasting notes
Reviewed by: Stephan Reinhardt
Egly's 2009 Brut Grand Cru Millésime is a 100% Ambonnay blend of Pinot Noir (70%) and Chardonnay (30%). Fermented in Burgundian barrels for eight months and disgorged in April 2018 with two grams of dosage, this cuvée offers a very fine, bright, pure, finessed and elegant bouquet with some toffee flavors. On the palate, this is a lovely round, rich, intense yet pure, refined and elegant, fresh and fruity 2009. It's not heavy or massive at all and isn't very challenging either. It delivers great drinking pleasure and lots of fruit and iodine flavors to your palate, and these do remain. It's a great and really delicious 2009 vintage Champagne that drinks beautifully today and will continue to do so for at least the next 10 to 15 years.
Reviewed by: William Kelley
This bottle of the 2009 Brut Grand Cru Millésime was disgorged in July 2018 after 96 months on the lees, and it's already showing brilliantly, wafting from the glass with complex aromas of smoky red berries, green apple, oyster shell and English walnuts, with a faint hint of fino sherry on the upper register. On the palate, the wine is full-bodied, broad and vinous, with searing concentration, a beautifully refined mousse, brisk acids and a long, indeed seemingly endless, finish. This thrilling vintage Champagne exemplifies the intensity and power without the weight that Egly routinely achieves and testifies to his status as one of the region's very best producers.
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.
