2011 Taittinger Comtes de Champagne Rose, Champagne

Beautiful orange-cherry color, exuding aromas of dried flowers, cherry stones, wild strawberries, cloves and cinnamon pastries. It’s medium-bodied with excellent weight and balance. Soft bubbles. Layers of soft, supple berry fruit. Pastries and walnuts come through on a seamless finish. Drink or hold.

96 points jamessuckling.com

Disgorged in October 2022, the 2011 Brut Comtes de Champagne Rosé is a blend of 40% Chardonnay and 60% Pinot Noir, including fully 14% of red wine that lends it notable depth of color this year. Evoking aromas of cherries, buttery pastry, raspberries and tangerine, with an attractive minty top note, the bouquet is complex and incipiently spicy. Medium to full-bodied, layered and vinous, with chalky structuring extract, it concludes with a long, sapid finish. The limitations of the vintage mean that this is a giving, rather open-knit Comtes Rosé, but it is nevertheless a great effort in a challenging year and exhibits none of the herbaceous qualities that mar some of the wines produced in this year. Drink it now and over the next decade.

Taittinger's imminently released 2011 Brut Comtes de Champagne Rosé has turned out well in what was a disruptive vintage for Champagne, since spring weather was summer-like, while the summer was spring-like. The early harvest took place during a sunny and warm spell. "The 2011 vintage was marked by a hot and early-ripening growing season and early harvest. April was hot, with temperatures around 4 degrees Celsius above seasonal norms. The vegetative cycle went fast, so by the beginning of May, the phenological stages of grape development on the vines had a 15-day advance compared to the 10-year average," explained Damien Le Sueur, managing director of the Taittinger house. "We started the harvest under scorching temperatures of 33 degrees Celsius and finished on September 7."

94 points robertparker.com