Vintages: 2020 (50%), 2019 (30%), 2018 (20%)
Bottling: 2021
Disgorgement: July 2024
Time on lees: 36 months
Les Prémices hails from 3.5 hectares of vines in Trigny, northwest of Reims. To use some great growers to geolocate, Trigny is situated just to the west of Saint-Thierry and Merfy (where Alexandre Chartogne is based) and east of Montigny-sur-Vesle (where Aurélien Suenen grows his super La Grande Vigne cuvée). The Egly vines span seven historic lieux-dits in the commune, and like the domaine’s Vrigny vines, these plots come from Annick Egly’s side of the family. The return of Francis and Annick’s two children, Charles and Clémence, to the domaine has enabled the family to produce their own wines from these plots. (Previously, the fruit was being sold as Francis simply did not have the bandwidth to process the fruit himself.) This is now the seventh release of this wine (counting all disgorgements) over four years, so the Egly’s have had time to learn about this terroir. As their experience—and the percentage of reserve wine—has grown, so has the quality of the wine! The new release is superb.
Reflecting what is planted in the vineyards, Les Prémices is an equal blend of Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Meunier. On average, the vines are 40 years old and rooted in clay and sandstone over a chalk bedrock—a soil typical of the Massif de Saint-Thierry area. As always, the classic Egly manifesto applies here—old vines, low yields, hand harvesting of fully ripe fruit, no inoculation, long lees aging, no fining or filtration, low dosage and meticulous attention to detail. One difference here is that the wine ferments and ages exclusively in tank. The dosage for this release was just 1 g/L.