2020 Egly-Ouriet Coteaux Champenois Cuvée des Grands Côtés Vieilles Vignes Rouge Ambonnay

Community Tasting Notes (3) Avg Score: 95.5 points

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  3/24/2024 - Yuchen Likes this wine: 98 Points

  Like a long-buried treasure
  Covered in mud and moss
  For a moment, it's hard to tell if it's the depths of a muddy swamp
  Or the damp rainforest
  Gloomy, gray
  Can't touch it, can't see it
  
  Indeed, decant is needed
  An hour later at the restaurant, after three rounds of drinks, it's opened again
  
  The swamp turns into a flower field
  The rainforest turns into an orchard
  In the flower field, immature girl dance
  Each glance arouses the boy's hormones
  
  Every smell, every sip, intoxicated within
  Time unknowingly passes another hour or two
  The flower field gradually loses its colour
  The orchard withers once again
  And this bottle of wine completes this unique journey of life

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  3/24/2023 - Gas Station Wine Guy Likes this wine: 93 Points

  A young wine with loads of potential. No notes taken but a denser pinot with red fruits in the driver seat.

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  1/11/2023 - mmilgate Likes this wine:

  It is not commonly known that Egly-Ouriet is also one of France’s great still Pinot Noir producers and, that in France at least, its Ambonnay Rouge Cuvée des Grands Côtés—a 100% Pinot Noir dry red — is as sought-after as its sparkling wines.
  So I was very fortunate to be allocated 1 bottle of this wine from my allocation on wines that arrived in Australia in November 2022.
  One of the reasons that this wine is not well-known is that it’s made in tiny quantities. It comes from a single parcel of 50-year-old Pinot Noir (Pinot Fin) vines, situated mid-slope in the Grand Cru of Ambonnay. This vineyard is in a slight depression that forms a kind of amphitheatre, or sun trap, and this, combined with the old vines, clay-rich soils and low yields, leads to a Coteaux like no other. The yields are further controlled by short pruning and a green harvest. Then at the harvest, the grapes are sorted, berry by berry, meaning yields are typically at or below Burgundy’s Grand Cru limits (something like 35 hl/ha on average). The wine is vinified entirely in barrique, only 200 cases are produced each year, and it’s only ever bottled (by hand and without filtration) in the finest years. Another feature of the wine is the 20 to 24 months élevage it always receives in Dominique Laurent ‘Magic Cask’ Tronçais barrels.
  The result of all this is simply a remarkable wine, which is arguably as good as any French Pinot Noir. It displays the same density, power and longevity of a top Côte d’Or Grand Cru red, although its personality is obviously unique. Remember that Ambonnay was one the few villages of Champagne that was famous for its still wines prior to sparkling wine taking over — this wine shows us why.

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