2014 Taittinger Comtes de Champagne Blanc de Blancs, Champagne

Apricots, hazelnuts, lemons, white flowers, sliced almonds and hints of licorice on the nose. It's creamy and layered, with soft, rounded bubbles that spread across the palate. Lovely balance of breadth, ripeness and freshness, with delicious wildflower honey and nut notes lingering. 100% grand cru chardonnay from Avize, Mesnil-sur-Oger, Oger, Cramant and Chouilly. Drink or hold.

97 points jamessuckling.com

The 2014 Comtes de Champagne is pristine. In this tasting, it comes across as a mini-2008, similar in its linear personality, with just a touch more mid-palate creaminess. Readers will find a Comtes that plays in the realm of tension and energy. Citrus confit, white flowers, chalk, mint and chamomile are all finely sketched. Light tropical overtones grace the finish. What an absolute delight. The 2014 can be enjoyed now or cellared. Dosage is 9 grams per liter. (Drink between 2026-2044)

97 points vinous.com

Closed in style and character like the 2013, Taittinger's 2014 Brut Blanc de Blancs Comtes de Champagne reveals aromas of ripe orchard fruit, confit citrus, dried flowers, herbs, spring blossoms and mirabelle mingled with customary autolytic notes. Full-bodied, seamless and enrobing, it has a delicate, elegant, fleshy core of fruit and racy acids, all enhanced by a saline, fresh and penetrating finish marked by finesse and elegance. This refined, chalky-inflected Comtes de Champagne has the potential to age gracefully over the next 30-40 years.

96 points robertparker.com

Taittinger Comtes de Champagne Blanc de Blancs is one of the great pure expressions of Chardonnay in Champagne, a wine built on patience, precision and an obsession with old vines in the Côte des Blancs. The Comtes story begins deep underground, in the ancient crayères carved beneath Reims, where chalk was quarried by Romans and where Taittinger houses its rarest wines today. Only in exceptional vintages is Comtes produced, and only from Grand Cru vineyards in Avize, Le Mesnil sur Oger, Oger, Cramant and Chouilly. These chalk rich slopes give Chardonnay its unmistakable luminosity, tension and almost weightless intensity. The result is a Blanc de Blancs that has become a modern legend, revered by collectors and critics for its finesse, longevity and quiet grandeur.

Winemaking is meticulous and traditional. A proportion of the base wine ferments in oak, adding structure and slow building complexity. The rest remains in stainless steel for purity. After blending, the wine descends into the chalk cellars for an extraordinarily long maturation on lees, often close to a decade, gaining richness, depth and that unmistakable Comtes creaminess. Taittinger is known for elegance above all else, and this wine remains the pinnacle of that philosophy.

The bouquet is stunningly layered. Chalk dust, lemon curd and white peach weave together with acacia blossom, pear skin, almond cream and whispers of pastry. With air, deeper tones emerge: hazelnut, grilled brioche, candied citrus peel, vanilla bean and a faint smoky mineral note that recalls cool stone. There is clarity and richness in equal measure.

The palate has remarkable presence, yet glides with effortless finesse. Fine, tiny bubbles carry waves of citrus and orchard fruit, spring florals, green almond and crisp white peach. The mid palate shows gentle opulence threaded with persistence and tension, shaped by long lees ageing. A saline, chalk flecked line drives the wine toward a finish of astonishing length, where citrus oil, hazelnut and minerality linger with poise. The ageing arc is legendary. Twenty years is normal. Thirty is not unusual.

It is sublime alongside lobster with lemon butter, scallops, caviar, truffle gnocchi, roast chicken with tarragon, creamy seafood dishes, soft cheeses, sashimi, or simply as a celebratory centrepiece on its own.