Winemaker Notes
Offering complexity and a delicate tautness, this wine is perfect for an aperitifamongst connoisseurs. Over the years, its generous structure will see it mature toaccompany gourmet meals of wonderfully roasted white meat with grilled vegetables.
Blend: 50% Chardonnay, 50% Pinot Noir
Professional Ratings
-
Tasting Panel
A lovely expression of this house’s Chardonnay-favoring style, this fresh, crisp wine possesses elegant style and racy acidity. Tangy, pure, and lively, it aged in bottle for fve-plus years. 50% Chardonnay/50% Pinot Noir
-
James Suckling
Very attractive grapefruit, white-peach and gently flinty, reductive aromas with a red-fruit edge. The palate has a smooth array of flavors in the same vein with bright, gently bready notes added to the finish.
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2013 Brut Millésimé continues to show very well, reflecting the chiseled, classically balanced vintage that will appeal immensely to purists. Opening in the glass with a precise and youthfully reserved bouquet of citrus oil, crisp green apple and freshly baked bread, it's medium to full-bodied, racy and incisive, with a deep but tightly wound core, ripe but tangy acids and a penetrating, delicately chalky finish. This will merit some additional bottle age and may well prove a sleeper from Taittinger. Rating: 92+
Representing the topmost expression of a Champagne house, a vintage Champagne is one made from the produce of a single, superior harvest year. Vintage Champagnes account for a mere 5% of total Champagne production and are produced about three times in a decade. Champagne is typically made as a blend of multiple years in order to preserve the house style; these will have non-vintage, or simply, NV on the label. The term, "vintage," as it applies to all wine, simply means a single harvest year.
Associated with luxury, celebration, and romance, the region, Champagne, is home to the world’s most prized sparkling wine. In order to bear the label, ‘Champagne’, a sparkling wine must originate from this northeastern region of France—called Champagne—and adhere to strict quality standards. Made up of the three towns Reims, Épernay, and Aÿ, it was here that the traditional method of sparkling wine production was both invented and perfected, birthing a winemaking technique as well as a flavor profile that is now emulated worldwide.
Well-drained, limestone and chalky soil defines much of the region, which lend a mineral component to its wines. Champagne’s cold, continental climate promotes ample acidity in its grapes but weather differences from year to year can create significant variation between vintages. While vintage Champagnes are produced in exceptional years, non-vintage cuvées are produced annually from a blend of several years in order to produce Champagnes that maintain a consistent house style.
With nearly negligible exceptions, . These can be blended together or bottled as individual varietal Champagnes, depending on the final style of wine desired. Chardonnay, the only white variety, contributes freshness, elegance, lively acidity and notes of citrus, orchard fruit and white flowers. Pinot Noir and its relative Pinot Meunier, provide the backbone to many blends, adding structure, body and supple red fruit flavors. Wines with a large proportion of Pinot Meunier will be ready to drink earlier, while Pinot Noir contributes to longevity. Whether it is white or rosé, most Champagne is made from a blend of red and white grapes—and uniquely, rosé is often produce by blending together red and white wine. A Champagne made exclusively from Chardonnay will be labeled as ‘blanc de blancs,’ while ones comprised of only red grapes are called ‘blanc de noirs.’