Champagne Egly-Ouriet

When Francis Egly took over the family business in Ambonnay in 1982, the great age of vintner champagne had not yet arrived. But Egly was one of the leading figures of a new movement and remains one of the most important and best winemakers in the entire Champagne region to this day.

In the 1980s, it is hard to imagine today, Champagne was still a rather poor region in which Champagne was produced almost exclusively by well-known houses and co-operatives. Francis Egly's family also sold most of their grapes to larger houses. However, the young winemaker had a different vision at the time. He wanted to produce his own champagnes and utilise the potential of the vines, some of which had been planted when the winery was founded in the 1940s. Together with Anselm Selosse and a few other charismatic winegrowers, Francis Egly became one of the leading figures in a new movement that produced its own champagnes in small quantities but of outstanding quality. Instead of the usual non-vintage "Brut" and a prestige cuvée, increasingly drier champagnes were produced, often from a single year or a single vineyard. What was still completely unusual in Champagne at the time was the special attention paid to the vineyards and the conscientious work there. Egly is a man of the vineyard, who only harvests the grapes when they are fully ripe and later ages the base wines, primarily in oak barrels for several years, to give the wines more structure, complexity, expression and ageing potential.