Taittinger
About Champagne Taittinger
Taittinger is one of the few champagne houses still owned by the family on the label. Its origins date back to 1734 but the name is from a young cavalry officer, and eventual owner, who fell in love with the vineyards whilst serving there in WWI. The house style is high in chardonnay, light and elegant.
About Comtes de Champagne
Inspired by the legendary Thibaud IV, King of Navarre and Comte de Champagne, it is believed that this adventurous romantic brought both the Damascus Rose and the ancestor of the Chardonnay grape back to France from Crusade. The vinous world owes this man a great deal, without whom the stunning Blanc de Blancs style would not even exist!
Making its debut as the Maison’s prestige cuvée in 1952, each bottle is emblazoned with the personal seal of Thibaud IV.
Sourced exclusively from Grand Cru sites in the Côte des Blancs, 5 villages just South of Epernay constitute the areas from which the grapes for Comtes de Champagne are grown and harvested in only the very finest years. Each and every plot under Taittinger’s care is cultivated and worked by hand with the utmost care following environmentally friendly principles.
Vinified plot by plot to ensure each individual terroir imparts its uniquely sublime characteristics into the final wine, the highly skilled cellar team blend the final Champagne from the embarrassment of riches at their disposal. A mere 5% of the wine is aged for 5 months in new oak to impart a gentle and subtle toasty note to the final wine, before the liquid treasure is left to slumber for at least a decade in the chalk quarries beneath Saint-Nicaise.
Product Name | Region | Qty | Score | Price | |||||
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Champagne | 1 | 100 (JS) | HK$7,470.00 | |||||
James Suckling (100)The perfect blanc de blancs. Full-bodied with a lovely framework of acidity and dry fruit, such as apples, pears and peaches. Opulent. Dense and muscular. Yet, it’s balanced and harmonious. Line of acidity at the end. Totally in tune. Superb. Deep and complete. Has everything. One for the cellar. It is the greatest Comte ever. It has everything. A perfect upgrade from two years ago. Drink or hold. |
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Champagne | 1 | 19.5++ (MJ) | HK$4,005.00 | |||||
Matthew Jukes (19.5++)By contrast to the Bollinger, Comte is not a one-off, nor anything out of the ordinary. It is a label that all committed Champagne lovers adore. Predictable perhaps. But, of course, one thing does vary, and that is the vintage. The ‘worst’ Comte I ever tasted was rather lovely. The ‘best’, and there have been many (1959, 1966, 1996, 2002, 2006) are all sublime and you can now add 2011 to this list. Taittinger always seems to shun the spotlight, unlike Dom Perignon and other more attention-seeking brands and this modesty rather suits this House. I did something that I never do after first tasting my sample bottle. I was so shocked with the sheer class that I sealed the bottle with a simple Champagne stopper and then tasted it again and again over two days. The stress-testing sorts the wheat from the chaff. It is unlikely that anyone who bought a bottle would do this. Still, I like to see how a potentially great wine evolves, opens up, sometimes falls over, and sometimes blossoms over a few days because it gives me an indication of its potential and its true baseline of quality. The fruit is so tense, grand and layered it is remarkable. The flavour, the fizz, the length, the momentum and the overall halo of greatness did not change one iota over nearly 60 hours of being open with no preservation whatsoever. This is a genius, B de B and while it tastes scintillating now, I am confident that it will amaze Comte fans for decades to come. |
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Champagne | 6 | - | HK$1,450.00 | |||||