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Comtes de Champagne 2008

Taittinger, Champagne, France

Taittinger
Champagne France
  • 99
    Points
  • The 249 best
    of 3 290 954
    wines globally
  • 36 Pros of
    36 recommend
    this wine
662 99
  • Taste
  • Moment
  • WINNER
    100 BEST CHAMPAGNES 2021

  • Country ranking ?

    212

  • Producer ranking ?

    1

  • Decanting time

    20min

  • When to drink

    now - 2035

  • Food Pairing

    sizzling Shrimp Scampi

The Tb points given to this wine are the world’s most valid and most up-to-date evaluation of the quality of the wine. Tastingbook points are formed by the Tastingbook algorithm which takes into account the wine ratings of the world's best-known professional wine critics, wine ratings by thousands of tastingbook’s professionals and users, the generally recognised vintage quality and reputation of the vineyard and winery. Wine needs at least five professional ratings to get the Tb score. Tastingbook.com is the world's largest wine information service which is an unbiased, non-commercial and free for everyone.

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The world's only Champagne magazine and tastingbook.com select the World's Best Champagnes – The winner is Taittinger Comtes de Champagne 2008

 

 

For the tenth time, the world's one and only Champagne Magazine and world's largest wine information platform Tastingbook.com, put hundreds of champagnes in line and ranked the 100 best champagnes on global markets for 2021.

After days of blind-tasting hundreds of champagnes, the fin...

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The Story

Taittinger Comtes de Champagne is the finest expression of the world famous wine from one of the greatest Champagne Houses. First produced in 1952, Comtes is made from 100% Chardonnay grapes from 5 Grand Cru sites in the Côte des Blancs. Showing a pristine pale yellow colour with very light, abundant bubbles which rise uniformly to form a fine mousse. The evocative bouquet opens with notes of pears and fresh cute white flowers. Left in the gla...

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Vintage 2008

2008 -The Champagne vintage set to make history!

A first taste of leading winemakers’ 2008 champagnes reveals a miraculous vintage, bubbling with potential, which – whisper it – might just prove the greatest in living memory.

2008 was not, by any standards, a vintage year for the financial world. And for the greater part of it, 2008 was a pretty poor year for Champagne too: spring was freezing, summer gloomy and overcast. But then, aroun...

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Tasting note

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Written Notes

“Pale shiny lemon colour. The first nose is radiantly fruity with gorgeous gun-powdery toastiness lingering on top of the zingy lemon, lime, peach and grass notes. Refined and elegantly restrained. The palate is linear and precise with long, juicy length lining the purely fruity and luxuriously creamy mouthfeel. Remarkable purity and finesse on this racey and mineral, slowly evolving, still super youthful Comtes packed with energy and tension.”

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  • 96p

Pale lemon yellow. Apples, lemons, minerals, bright and nuanced nose, detailed. Fresh acidity, apples, lemons, minerals, nuanced, detailed, long finish, refined. 96

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  • 96p

Pale copper colour. Tiny bead. Lots of toasty autolysis on the nose and then masses of very crystalline acidity on the palate with a tiny bit of smoky reduction. Really energetic. Should be a great start to our JR.com Christmas dinner and, I hope, a good lead-in to La Grande Dame 1990. Dry finish and super-zesty. Lemon zest at that. Complete and gorgeous. Very long and clean. Beautiful balance.

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  • 96p

Tasted from magnum, the 2008 is broad and ample on the palate, with terrific volume that emerges with time in the glass. Lemon peel, pastry and white flowers give the 2008 brightness, but what I like most here is a very distinctive sense of verticality that gives the wine the spine to balance its more overt leanings.”

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  • 98p

A textbook blanc de blancs in a relatively opulent style, with ample grilled nut, brioche and spice character alongside classic flavors of poached apricot, kumquat, oyster shell and lemon blossom. This rich profile is well-defined by racy acidity, sleek and well-cut, driving the long, lacy finish. A beauty.

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  • 98p

Taittinger Comtes de Cganpagne 2008 / A textbook blanc de blancs in a relatively opulent style, with ample grilled nut, brioche and spice character alongside classic flavors of poached apricot, kumquat, oyster shell and lemon blossom. This rich profile is well-defined by racy acidity, sleek and well-cut, driving the long, lacy finish. A hero.

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  • 98p

Taittinger’s 2008 Blanc de Blancs Comtes de Champagne is simply breathtaking. I have tasted it many times over the years in various trial disgorgements and it has never been anything less than compelling. The final, finished wine captures all of that potential. Bright, focused and wonderfully deep, Comtes is a fabulous example of a vintage that expresses so much energy but with real fruit intensity, the signatures that distinguish it from other vintages (1996 comes to mind) that were similarly taut, but more austere in the early going. Although the 2008 impresses right out of the gate, it only really starts to open up with several hours of air. The 2008 Comtes represents the purest essence of the Côtes des Blancs in a great, historic vintage. Readers who can find the 2008 should not hesitate, as it is a truly brilliant epic Champagne that no one who loves the very best in Champagne will want to be without. 

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  • 98p

Light, green colour. Pronounced refined nose with plenty of tastineess, roasted coffee, spearmint.  Dry, rich, dense creamy texture. Super refined mousse, great fruit intensity, and vivid minerality with seductive floral spiciness form a sophisticated tasting experience with a long precise finish. So SMOOTH and what an intensity! One of the best, if not the best Comtes de Champagne, I have ever had. JL 98p (28/10/2020)

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  • 98p

A slightly more luxurious nature to the 2008 than the great 2007. Full-bodied with a lovely framework of acidity and dry fruit, such as apples, pears and peaches. Opulent. Dense and muscular. Yet, it’s balanced and harmonious. Line of acidity at the end. One for the cellar. Release in 2020. Drink or hold.

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  • 99p
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1 official sellers in 1 countries

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Information

Origin

Reims, Champagne

Grapes

100% Chardonnay

Other wines from this producer

Brut La Francaise

Brut Prestige Rosé

Brut Réserve

Brut Réserve FIFA 2014

Collection

Comtes de Champagne Rosé

Comtes de Champagne Rosé Vinothèque

Comtes de Champagne Vinothèque

Cuvée Prestige

Demi-Sec

Future version of Comtes de Champagne

Les Folies de la Marquetterie

Nocturne

Nocturne Rosé

Prelude

Vintage

Inside Information

This wine is showing brilliantly, unfurling in the glass with a vivid bouquet of citrus oil, green apple, warm brioche, crushed chalk and blanched almonds. On the palate, it's full-bodied and searingly intense, with striking concentration and incisive but perfectly integrated acids, displaying a fine mousse, and remaining quintessentially elegant despite its undeniable power and persistence. The finest Comtes de Champagne since the brilliant 2002, this is a terrific vintage for this dependably age-worthy cuvée, and though it's already impressive, the wine is built for the long haul: conserved in a cold cellar, the 2008 will still be in fine form three decades from now.

Robert Parker Wine Advocate

 

This cuvée was created in 1952 and named as a tribute to Theobald IV, King of Navarre and the greatest Count of Champagne. It is produced in the former Abbey of Saint-Niçaise, erected in the 13th century in Reims.

 

It is made exclusively from the juice of the first press of Chardonnay grapes sourced exclusively from Côte des Blancs grands crus of Avize, Cramant, Chouilly, Le Mesnil-sur-Oger and Oger. Since the 1988 vintage, 5% of the wines are aged for four months in oak barrels (renewed by one-third every year). Depending on the vintage, and after eight years of ageing on their lees, 150-300,000 bottles of Comtes de Champagne are released.

In the 55 years separating the first Comtes the Champagne from the latest release – the 2006 – only 35 vintages have been declared. Highly rated by international critics, Taittinger’s prestige cuvée is often considered the epitome of Chardonnay alongside other icons like Dom Ruinart, Krug Clos du Mesnil and Salon Cuvée S.

Recently there has been a shift in both trade and consumers’ perceptions about prestige cuvées, with many increasingly considering them as bluechip assets in the same vein as fine Bordeaux or Burgundy grands crus. Leading Champagne houses like Dom Pérignon and Krug have certainly contributed to this trend, generating vigorous interest through special releases, limited editions and restricted allocations.

In the long term, however, with consumption levels reducing the amount of available wine on the market, the best vintages – such as 2002, 2004 and the not-yet-released 2008 should be safe investments. In all recent auctions, 2004 and 2005 rose but the most important increase was observed for the limited and acclaimed 2002 which sold for €164, increasing by 31% from its 2015 price.

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