2000 Taittinger Brut Blanc de Blancs Comtes de Champagne

SKU #1071121 96 points Robert Parker's Wine Advocate

The 2000 Brut Blanc de Blancs Comtes de Champagne is a huge wine bursting with ripe varietal fruit, smoke, ash, crushed rocks and slate. This is an unusual Comtes that deftly balances richness and power while maintaining considerable minerality. The 2000 will be hard to resist in its youth, but should also age beautifully for a number of years. It is a stunning, flat-out great bottle. This is Lot L0346UJ05700. Disgorged October 2010. Anticipated maturity: 2012-2030. (11/ 2011)

94 points Stephen Tanzer's International Wine Cellar

Pale gold. Deep, pungent aromas of dried pear, toasted nuts and grain and white flowers, with a subtle citrus note in the background; pretty exotic stuff. Broad and silky in texture, with slow-mounting minerality adding focus to its powerful, smoke-accented orchard fruit flavors. Shows an energetic, spicy quality on the finish, which echoes the mineral, smoke and floral notes. This Champagne is still very young but I suspect that it will be more a mid-term drinker than a long ager. (11/ 2011)

94 points Wine Spectator

A savory, aromatic accent of dried herb and candied orange peel notes mixes with yellow peach, kumquat, honey, graphite and creamy mineral. Very refined and elegant, with finely tuned acidity driving this to the mouthwatering finish. Drink now through 2020. (12/ 2011)

K&L Notes

This top cuvée from Taittinger is consistently one of the finest prestige wines of the big houses, and would make a sumptuous beginning or end to any celebratory occasion.