Comtes de Champagne Blanc de Blancs 1998 Taittinger

Professional reviews

Robert Parker (94)

The 1998 Blanc de Blancs Comtes de Champagne is simply beautiful. Sweet notes of honey are intermingled with candied citrus peel, flowers, smoke and minerals as this gorgeous wine opens up in the glass. Comtes de Champagne is always an understated, elegant wine, but its pedigree is impossible to miss. Readers seeking instant gratification will find much to admire even today, but this is clearly a wine that has the potential to develop positively in bottle. If past vintages are an accurate indication, the wine should acquire the liqueur-like sweetness in bottle that is its hallmark over time. Old vintages of Comtes de Champagne are unlike any other wine. The Comtes de Champagne is 100% Chardonnay from the grand cru villages Avize, Cramant, Chouilly, Beergers-les-Vertus, Vertus and Mesnil-sur-Oger. A small amount of the wine is aged in new French oak barrels.

Winespectator (94)

Plenty of graphite and citrus on the nose, followed by butter, coffee and toast flavors. Racy, with a refined texture and excellent vigor. Beautifully put together, this seems youthful, with great potential.

BOW (8.50)