Taittinger Comtes de Champagne Blanc de Blancs Grands Crus 2014 [NET] web-published and bottle straight off the

and bottle straight off the gross lees

lifted aromatics

Tinashe Nyamudoka — the Zimbabwe-born sommelier who traded the dining room for the cellar — sources from South Africa's Western Cape and keeps his hands mostly out of the process

Initially strong with agave on the palate

Grapes are hand harvested and vinified with native yeasts

Taittinger Comtes de Champagne Blanc de Blancs Grands Crus 2014 [NET] web-published and bottle straight off theComtes de Champagne is Taittinger's flagship, and it only gets made in vintages the house actually believes in. It is 100% Chardonnay from grand cru villages of the Cote des Blancs, Avize and Cramant and Chouilly and Oger and Le Mesnil sur Oger, and only the first press makes the cut. It then sits for close to a decade in the chalk cellars under Reims, quarried by the Gallo Romans and later put to use by the monks of the Saint Nicaise abbey. What