NV 1er Cru Les Vignes de Vrigny

Francis Egly is a vigneron growing and crafting wines that offer remarkable intensity as well as transparency of site, from vines that are positively ancient by Champagne standards.
Like all great French growers, the Egly philosophy can be defined by one word: terroir. Very low yields, old vines, only great sites, perfectly ripe fruit, extended lees aging (the Brut NV can spend up to 48 months on lees) very low or no dosage and no fining and/or filtration are all decisions taken because Egly believes that they allow his terroir to speak most clearly. These practices are identical to the finest growers in Burgundy and the polar opposite of conventional Champagne production. As Michel Bettane, the leading French critic has written, the “… larger houses cannot hope to emulate the cultivation norms…” that are found here. The resulting wines are amongst the purest, terroir-driven and un-manipulated wines in the whole of France. To quote Andrew Jefford in The New France, they are “…wines of riveting concentration and purity”.