A rare Chardonnay-led cuvée in Egly-Ouriet’s celebrated lineup, Les Vignes de Bisseuil expresses remarkable energy, focus, and chalk-driven elegance. Crafted from 70% Chardonnay, 15% Pinot Noir, and 15% Pinot Meunier, this Premier Cru reveals notes of Mirabelle plum, citrus zest, toasted almonds, and brioche, finishing with a precise mineral lift. Vinified in oak and aged extensively sur lattes, it balances power and purity with the meticulous craftsmanship that defines Francis Egly’s wines. A luminous, textural Champagne of remarkable depth and tension — unmistakably Egly-Ouriet.

Decanter | D 93
Published: Jan 7, 2024
Drink: 2024-2030

A solitary Chardonnay-led cuvée in the Egly-Ouriet portfolio, this nevertheless feels like one of the family with its expressive Mirabelle plum, tangy lemon and toasted nut aromatics, finishing with an energetic chalky squeeze. Francis Egly is a fan of the 'perfect' 2018 vintage, and this example shows admirable focus and concentration for the year. A blend of 70% Chardonnay, 15% Pinot Noir and 15% Meunier from Egly's vineyard in the village of Bisseuil.
Closure: Cork
Alcohol: 12.50%
Body: Medium
Grapes: 70% Chardonnay 15% Pinot Meunier  15% Pinot Noir

The Wine Advocate | RP 93
Published: May 8, 2025
Drink: 2025-2037

A considerable step up from Les Prémices and Les Vignes de Vrigny in complexity and tension, Egly's 2019 vintage-based NV Les Vignes de Bisseuil includes reserve wines from 2018 and 2017 and was disgorged in October 2024 with one gram per liter dosage. Heavily based on Chardonnay with 15% Pinot Noir and 15% Pinot Meunier, all vinified in oak, it derives from a south-facing site on chalky soils in Bisseuil. Wafting from the glass with aromas of fresh citrus fruit, bread crust and crisp pear, it is medium- to full-bodied and concentrated yet racy and fresh, with notable cut and a chalky profile, concluding with a long, precise finish. Just like Egly's grand cru bottlings, this too will richly reward patience.

Far from resting on the considerable and well-deserved laurels that Francis Egly has accrued over a 35-year career, this 20-hectare domaine continues to refine and improve, producing wines of intensity and power without the weight—something that has become scarcer in the hot years from southern slopes like those of Ambonnay and Bouzy. The devil is in the details: few winemakers in Champagne are as precise and meticulous, from vineyard to cellar. While the quality of Egly-Ouriet wines is no longer a secret, these wines number among the best in Montagne de Reims, particularly the exceptional Blanc de Noirs Les Crayères and the Millésime.

In a sense, Francis Egly is a contrarian. In a region that wholeheartedly embraced herbicides, he has always cultivated his soils mechanically; in France’s highest-yielding appellation d’origine controlée, dominated by productive clones, he rigorously restricts the yields of his family’s massal selections; and while most Champagne is fermented in stainless steel, Egly vinifies much of his production in oak barrels. Yet, though they flew in the face of contemporaneous trends, to Egly, these choices were self-evident and dictated by a meticulous and unyielding pursuit of quality that finds its expression in some of the most intensely characterful wines produced in France.

Francis Egly’s family came to Champagne over a century ago, when his great grandfather moved to the countryside from Paris in the 1870s. Founded in 1945, the Eglys have always cultivated their soils, and they number among the few vignerons who rejected the spreading of “boues de ville”—shredded municipal trash—on their vineyards, a practice that means that many of Champagne’s greatest vineyards are still littered with fragments of plastic, metal and glass. The estate’s contemporary excellence, in other words, is built on firm foundations.

Francis himself began working at the domaine full time alongside his father, Michel, in the 1980s after completing his studies and military service. “But I wasn’t making the decisions until around 1990,” he explains. “1990 was the first vintage I saw where the grapes were truly ripe, which was instructive; and at this juncture, we also met Michel Bettane [the French wine critic] who was instrumental in a lot of ways. He encouraged us to bottle a blanc de noirs, to ferment our vins clairs in oak barrels and to try to produce a Côteaux Champenois using more Burgundian methods.” The time between 1990 and 1995 was when most of the evolution happened.

Over the ensuing decade, the Egly-Ouriet style crystalized: low yields, picked ripe; fermentation and maturation in oak barrels, which he acquired from his friend, Dominique Laurent—some 15% of which are renewed every year (with oldest barrels six to seven years old); long sur lattes aging; and disgorgement with very low dosage, typically less than two grams per liter these days. In these respects, as in others—bottling a lieu-dit from Ambonnay’s Les Crayères, labelling wines with their date of disgorgement and producing a cuvée exclusively composed of Pinot Meunier—Egly numbers among the true pioneers of what we today think of as the grower Champagne movement. Indeed, if Anselme Selosse, by dint of chronological priority, personal charisma and pedagogic reach, is often cited as the father of that movement, Egly and Selosse were independently pursuing many of the same ideas at the same time.

Of course, given Egly’s perfectionist temperament, there have been many refinements over the years, even if the fundamentals are by now well established. Today, a state-of-the-art Coquard press drains into a refrigerated press pan that immediately cools the must in ever-warmer vintages; a peristaltic pump handles the musts and vins clairs gently; and a repeatedly expanded winery gives Egly the space to work as precisely as possible. Over the years, Egly has also disgorged later and later: a total of around one million bottles, equivalent to five years of production (while he sells about 140,000 bottles a year), are sequestered in the cellars, sur lattes.

The range begins with two wines that are vinified entirely in tank—the southeast-facing Les Prémices derives from the village of Trigny in Massif de Saint-Thierry and is a blend of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier, while Les Vignes de Vrigny comes from four parcels planted with Pinot Meunier in 1970. Without the structural elegance that defines the rest of the lineup, these two entry-level wines are more widely available, as they don’t seem to receive the same appreciation as the rest of Egly’s wines. A considerable step up in complexity and tension is Les Vignes de Bisseuil, which is heavily based on Chardonnay with 15% Pinot Noir and 15% Pinot Meunier, vinified in oak.

The grand cru quartet of NV Grand Cru, Rosé, V.P., Blanc de Noirs Les Crayères (the only one of the five grand cru bottlings that doesn’t feature the 30% Chardonnay component) and the vintage-dated Millésime completes the range. Egly's Grand Cru is sourced mainly from Ambonnay, complemented by 20% fruit from Bouzy, Verzenay and Verzy. It is a serious and structured wine, despite being the largest cuvée by some margin. For the Rosé Grand Cru, the majority is sourced from Ambonnay (with the remainder from Bouzy and Verzenay), incorporating 5% red wine from the same village. It is a bright and beautifully defined rosé Champagne that works well not just at the table but also as an apéritif.

Disgorged after extended time sur lattes, Egly's Grand Cru V.P. is a wine that offers greater textural plenitude and aromatic range than any of the previous cuvées, combining tension with the complexity that comes with such long aging on the lees.

Year in and year out, the Blanc de Noirs Grand Cru Les Crayères is one of the most reliable wines coming out of this estate and Montagne de Reims in general. It derives from a south-facing lieu-dit in Ambonnay that was planted between 1946 and 1947 on shallow, chalky soils with as little as 30 centimeters of topsoil. Until 2000, Francis Egly produced this bottling from a single vintage, later making a choice to produce it from two years to minimize the effect of a single growing season. Concentrated and layered, with ample chalky structuring extract and mouthwatering acidity, it’s as good as Ambonnay gets.

The only wine in the range that derives from a single harvest is the Grand Cru Millésime. This is often the greatest wine in the cellar, though in some years it is Les Crayères that takes this praise. As with the rest of the grand cru wines (except for Blanc de Noirs Les Crayères, of course), it is a blend of 70% Pinot Noir with 30% Chardonnay, though in this case, it is sourced entirely from Ambonnay. It is a serious, structured wine that spends the longest time on the lees in the bottle but also needs the most time to unwind.

As vinous and concentrated as they are seamless and elegant, these wines occupy an important place in the recent history of Champagne. If the region today produces wines fit to stand alongside the greatest of the world and if small growers now set the qualitative standards in a region long defined by large négociants, Francis Egly must take a considerable share of the credit.