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  • Country ranking ?

    1 545
  • Producer ranking ?

    81
  • Decanting time

    15min
  • When to drink

    2020-2025
  • Food Pairing

    Seafood, Salads & Consommes

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The Story

With 288 hectares of vines, the Taittinger family are one of the largest vineyard owners in Champagne. Their holdings provide half of their needs for their annual Champagne production. Such extensive vineyard ownership is viewed as a way to control quality, but the company also concentrates on workforce management.

A system of task-related employee contracts has been adopted over the last 20 years at Taittinger, replacing hourly contracts. Today, each employee has sole responsibility for about three hectares of vines, including a requirement to meet specified yields. In other words, they work in a similar way to independent growers and are paid by the task rather than by the hour.

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Vintage 2013

The Champagne harvest 2013– late, but potentially outstanding

It has been another strange year for Champagne, starting with a cold, wet winter, followed by a gloomy, chilly spring with a lot of rain. Vine development started two weeks behind the ten-year average, and never made up for that lost time.

Along the way came a hot dry summer, boosting fruit quality thanks to the most sunshine ever recorded in Champagne in July and August.

Rain came from 6 September onwards, which helped to fatten the berries - then fortunately stopped in time to allow good conditions for final ripening. Considering the lateness of the harvest, the weather this year was exceptionally good – almost summer-like with unusually warm temperatures and sunshine, and a wind from the east to help keep the grapes healthy.

It was a year of big differences in the timing of the harvest, with picking in the most precocious plots starting on 24 September and in the slower-ripening areas on 9 October. Most plots commenced harvesting in the first days of October – the latest start date seen in Champagne for two decades.

Bearing in mind the economic situation, Champagne's governing body has set the yield limit at 10,000 kilos per hectare. Most crus should achieve this yield, excepting only a few that were partially affected by millerandage (shot berries), hailstorms and botrytis.

An average potential alcohol of nearly 10% ABV and good acidity averaging around 8.5g H2SO4 per litre together suggest a promising balance for the eventual wine. The Champenois are already drawing favourable comparisons with the vintages of 1983, 1988 and 1998 – these too being the product of late harvests.

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Tasting note

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Written Notes

An incredibly impressive Taittinger that shows off the entire house's typical spectrum in a showy strong shape right from the start. Here it smells just like in Taittinger's beautiful Gallo-Roman cellar in Reims. That unique mix of vanilla wood together with moist belemnit chalk. The fruit is upset exotic with tighter undertones of green apples and already now there are notes of chocolate and nougat in the picture. Full-bodied and rich with a little lower acidity than usual.

  • 91p
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1 official sellers in 1 countries

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Information

Origin

Reims, Champagne

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Collection

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Cuvée Prestige

Demi-Sec

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Prelude

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