The 2007 Brut Blanc de Blancs Comtes de Champagne continues to show very well, and it hasn’t evolved appreciably since I last tasted it a few months ago. Revealing a pretty bouquet of lemon oil, lily pollen, dried white flowers, blanched almonds and crushed chalk, it’s medium to full-bodied, chiseled and tensile, with excellent depth at the core, racy acids and a pure, precise and notably chalky finish. Tight-knit without being austere, it’s a very classically balanced middleweight Comtes that has a long future ahead of it.

One of Champagne’s largest houses, Taittinger is also among the region’s largest landholders, with their 288 hectares of vineyards supplying some 40% of their requirements. Since 2006—once again under family control—Taittinger has been going from strength to strength. Vinification is mainly in stainless steel, though around 30% of the maison’s small Folies de la Marquetterie cuvée ferments in foudre, and since 1988, a small proportion—amounting to around 5%—of the vins clairs for Comtes de Champagne spend a few months in wood. The Taittinger style is pure and expressive, emphasizing charming fruit but gaining in tension and taking on a gently reductive edge as one ascends the house hierarchy to the flagship Comtes de Champagne bottlings. Comtes is one of the most reliably age-worthy wines in Champagne, yet it continues to represent terrific value when compared to—frequently inferior—tête de cuvée bottlings from other Grandes Marques. And the eagerly anticipated 2008 vintage, previewed during this tasting with chef des caves Alexandre Ponnavoy, will be worthy of enthusiastic pursuit when it is released sometime within the next 12-18 months. Two others cuvées that fly under the radar are the Folies de la Marquetterie—from parcels Taittinger is farming in pursuit of riper, more concentrated fruit—and the Prélude Grands Crus, a seriously age-worthy Champagne that sometimes gets somewhat lost in the Taittinger range. I’ll be reporting in more depth on this important house in the near future, but for now, all these releases come recommended.