The NV Extra Brut V.P. Grand Cru (Vieillissement Prolong?) is a rich, textured Champagne that expresses all of the natural intensity gained after having spent eight years on its lees. Baked apple tart, pastry, spice, chamomile and lightly honeyed notes infuse the V.P. with tremendous flavor complexity to fill out its broad, expansive frame. It is a wine of remarkable depth and vinous intensity. In a word: superb.

A blend of the 2009, 2010 and 2011 vintages that was bottled in 2012 and disgorged in early 2019, the latest rendition of Egly's NV Extra-Brut Grand Cru V.P. will be released later this year, and it will be well worth seeking out. Unfurling in the glass with notes of crisp yellow orchard fruit, pastry cream and almond paste, the wine is medium to full-bodied, concentrated and precise, with a layered core, impressive structuring dry extract and an elegant, pinpoint mousse, concluding with a long and penetrating finish. Even in the context of an impressive track record, this rendition of the V.P. impressed for its purity and definition.