Egly-Ouriet Champagne Premier Cru Les Vignes de Vrigny NV

While Egly-Ouriet is best known for the Pinot Noir grown on its home turf in Ambonnay, this cuvée shows a different, equally compelling side of the estate. Fourth-generation winemaker Francis Egly — who took over from his father Michel in 1980 and pushed the family's already-respected wines toward the absolute top of the Champagne hierarchy — also farms a small, prized parcel of Pinot Meunier in the neighbouring Premier Cru village of Vrigny, on the Petite Montagne de Reims. Les Vignes de Vrigny is 100% Meunier from a single east-facing site, vines now over fifty years old, farmed organically with the same painstaking restraint Egly applies everywhere: gentle pressing, only the purest first-run juice kept for the wine, native-yeast fermentation with no malolactic, and ageing entirely in stainless steel rather than the oak barrels used for the Grand Cru bottlings. The final blend typically combines the base vintage with around 50% reserve wine from the two preceding years, aged 36 or more months on the lees before a low, careful dosage and release unfined and unfiltered.

Where lighter Meunier-driven Champagnes often lean simply fruity, this is serious and structured — proof, as Egly himself has shown, of what the grape can do when treated with Grand-Cru-level attention. Expect baked apple, apricot, citrus oil, and toasted almond on the nose, opening onto a broad, layered palate of ripe pear, spice, and a touch of smoke, all framed by Egly's signature chalky intensity and taut, persistent acidity. Critics have repeatedly scored it in the low-to-mid 90s, prizing its rare combination of richness and freshness. Pour it with roast poultry, wild mushroom risotto, or aged Comté — this is Champagne that proves Meunier deserves a seat at the table with the region's more celebrated grapes.