Taittinger Comtes de Champagne Blanc de Blancs Champagne (Gift Box) 2013 (750ml)

Taittinger's 2013 Comtes de Champagne Blanc de Blancs is made entirely from Chardonnay grown in the grand cru villages of the Côte des Blancs, in Champagne's heart. Disgorged in late 2023 with minimal dosage, this is a wine built for patience and complexity, though it drinks beautifully now.

The wine opens with layered aromas of toast, biscuit, lemon, almond, and chalk, with hints of fennel and oyster shell underneath. The palate is full-bodied yet precise, driven by bright acidity and fine bubbles that create considerable tension. Flavors of nashi pear, lemon confit, and freshly baked bread move into poached apricot and candied ginger, all anchored by a minerally spine of smoke and saline finish. There's richness here, notes of brioche and meringue, but the wine never becomes heavy; instead it stays sleek and incisive, the kind of Champagne that rewards lingering over the glass. This vintage shows its best days ahead; it will age gracefully for two decades or more.