TN: 2004 Taittinger Champagne Comtes de Champagne Blanc de Blancs Brut

Engaging from the get go with a nose of toast, brioche, baked apple and blossom. It is rich and buttery in the mouth, with intense but delicate orchard fruits and touch of aniseed spice. Mousse is light and vigorous, bead tiny and length of flavour superb.

I love this vintage of CdC. It might be my favorite since the 1995. I’m not claiming it’s the “best,” just that I love it.

At the risk of repeating myself, I too love this vintage of Comtes. IIRC, it’s the only 2004 champagne I’ve ever seen Mich@el Ch@ng post a positive note. I think Blake Brown recently said he prefers the 2005 to the 2004.

Here’s my last note:

These keep betting better. It’s the coy, classy older sibling to the wanton 2006, and as attractive but more soft spoken than the 2002. Nice combination of citrus and orchard fruit, brioche with the spectacular Comtes mouthfeel. I really like this vintage of Comtes. I would date 2002 and 2006, but marry 2004.

Cheers,
Warren

I love it Sarah and Warren.

Sarah, I thought the '95 Comte was better than the '96. Something I don’t think I could say about any other Champagne where I have had both of these vintages.

I had this vintage blind recently and was impressed. At least for current enjoyment, I prefer it to the 06 and 07 versions.

they do seem to crush so-called off vintages. a 2007 last week was stellar.

I have a few 1995s and a recent bottle showed extremely youthful. Is that consistent with your experiences? Wasn’t planning on opening another one for a while.

2004 was anything but an off-vintage especially for Chardonnay and the Cote des Blancs. 2002, 2008, and 2009 are better overall, but for Chardonnay and the Cote des Blancs, 2004 was the top of the decade in my book. In fact, I would call it the best year for Chardonnay Blanc de Blancs between 1995/1996 and probably 2019. 2013 is right up there too, but I still like 2004 more.

Thank, Brad. I’m going to pop my last '04 Dom Ruinart tomorrow and see how it’s doing. The last one I think was corked so I don’t have a good baseline. Hope it’s on point so I can score some more at a reasonable price.

Andrew,

The caveat I will add about Dom Ruinart BdB, is that Ruinart uses a decent amount of Montagne de Reims Chardonnay in the wine and that changes things in terms of the 2004 and 2002 wines. Both are great wines, but the 2002 Dom Ruinart BdB is a rare Chardonnay where I prefer the 2002 version over the 2004.

i love these posts. so, who else shall we look at for 2004 chardonnay cote des blancs?

Just a moment ago, we finished an ‘04 C. Heidsieck Blanc de Millenaires that was spectacular. It’s put on a lot of weight since the bottle I had last year.

Cheers,
Warren

I have drunk a lot of '04 Comtes since release and I have always thought it was a good Comtes, but not on the level of '02 or '06. It always seemed be missing some of the fruit that I found in the others and it often showed a bit of a green streak. I have been underwhelmed by most other '04’s and I considered this the best, along with Cristal, Krug CDM and '04 Bolly rosé, of just an ok vintage. Well, I had a bottle this weekend with homemade pizza and this was by far the best bottle I have had. It had a lot more depth to it, showing lemon, brioche, red apple, orange and baking spices. Much more Cristal like. Age has been kind to this bottle. I have also been underwhelmed by '04 BdM, but based on Warren’s post above and seeing the change in the Comtes, I bought some of that recently.

A number of us did a 2004 big house tasting recently, and the almost universal conclusion was that the Comtes (with air) and the Krug were the best for current drinking, with the Cristal having the most future promise.

I have not had the '04 Krug in a while and I was in the camp that did not like it, but Krug is tough young for me. I think I will open a bottle this weekend. A recent bottle of '04 CdM was excellent. Back in March I had the '04 Cristal and Comtes back to back one night. I made the mistake of serving the Comtes after the Cristal and it did not show as good as this weekend’s bottle. The Cristal was opened a few hours beforehand but the Comtes was a late entry since I did not think our guests would want another bottle after the Cristal. I had another bottle of the '04 Cristal a couple of weeks ago and it was just outstanding again.

04 dp on monday evening was very impressive but also very young. Needed another decade.

The 95 comtes was spectacular this last wknd.

I’m in the “don’t touch it for another decade”
camp on ‘04 BdM. Two recent bottles were tight as hell. Seemed to me like it needs a several hour decant at this point to emerge from under a reductive phase, but it’s still not what I fully expect it will be. So I’m surprised yours showed.