With a 2017 base, the NV Champagne Grand Cru Brut has 50% reserve from 2014-2016. It pours a medium golden hue and offers aromas of biscuit, yellow flowers, orchard peaches, and pineapple. The palate is medium to full-bodied, and it has a broad texture as well as an energetic and pillowing mousse. With a savory saline edge and richness, it’s broad but has long concentration. (AF)
John Gilman
Review Date: 08/2022
The new release of Francis Egly’s non-vintage Brut bottling is from the base year of 2017, but with fully half the blend made from reserve wines from the previous two vintages. Ninety percent of the fruit comes from his family’s vineyards in Ambonnay and the balance from their holdings in Bouzy and Verzenay. The cépages is seventy percent pinot noir and thirty percent chardonnay, with the vins clairs barrel-fermented and aged in cask, but not going through malo. Ten percent of the casks are renewed each year. The wine aged fifty-two months sur latte prior to disgorgement in November of 2021 and was finished with a dosage of a single gram. The wine delivers an excellent nose of apple, hazelnut, fresh-baked bread, a complex base of soil, a touch of buttery oak and plenty of smokiness in the upper register. On the palate the wine is brisk, full-bodied and shows off fine depth at the core, with frothy mousse, snappy acids and fine focus and grip on the long and complex finish. Good juice that will be even better with another few years’ worth of bottle age.
