TN: 2006 Taittinger Comtes de Champagne

WINE TALK
41

Alan, I had two bottles in September and both were great.
Brian, mine bought from Crush in 2015.
Fu, no doubt!

42

weinberg what were your bottles?

43

Domestic or euro? Importer?

44

1 - Wein Wolf
1 - Kobrand
The rest are all Euro.

I also have a couple of 2004 which are also Wein Wolf. Here’s to hoping they are all good, but if Kobrand bottlings have some weird batch issue then I’ll still be very happy to only have 1 off bottle.

45
46

Sorry, don’t have any at home in Minneapolis right now. Bottles are in Colorado and at Domaine.

47

rest are in storage. Don’t know.

48

I (and my Wednesday Champagne drinking partner) opened a bottle of the 2006, and we were astounded. USA label. I have had a fair amount of this stuff, and most bottles have been pretty darn good. He had not had this one, but he flipped. Actually, I did, too. Gorgeous Champagne I wish I could drink every day. We agreed it was better than the Dom we had for my birthday. The majority of my previous positive notes stand. Yes, I sounded a note of dissatisfaction on maybe 2 bottles? But this one is upper tier (under $200).

49

Just had one last night as well with a bunch of winos. Superb Champagne, very fresh, creamy, develops a ton of minerality with air. Held it’s own no problem against 2004 Krug Brut.

50

This is a very nice wine, but there is some variation to it; it isn’t a huge amount, but it needs to be considered. In my experience it doesn’t matter if the bottle is sampled at the winery, in the US, in Europe, in Asia; it doesn’t matter if it is in bottle or magnum - in other words, in my experience neither the importer, distribution, nor bottle size is the issue here. I do not know why, but this wine has a higher than normal number of affected or ‘off/bland’ bottles. I don’t know where in the process things went sideways, but some bottles are just not quite right and I cannot pinpoint which bottles these are as they appear to have the capability to show up anywhere. I also don’t know what the flaw is or if it is even a flaw. Please note, that I haven’t done a huge amount of digging on disgorgement, batches, or which releases went through which tanks. Simply put, I do not think there is an easy answer to this mystery.

That being said, most bottles are very good (not 2002 or 2004 good, but darn good). As for how many are kind of ‘bland’ or slightly off, my guess would be about double the norm (normal off or affected bottles would be 2-3%). 4-6% is twice the number of disappointments and not a great thing, but not a disaster either; you just need to account for this when purchasing. Also, the bottles that seem a bit ‘bland’ are not bad, just boring. Again, I have no clue why this is. On the positive side, most bottles of this vintage are very good and a slight step up on the 2005 though not as forward, soft, or creamy for consuming right now.

* Edited to correct the misspelling of ‘an’ as ‘nan’ in the last sentence of the first paragraph

51

The more I hear about these kinds of “batch” differences, the more I conclude that it is all about blending in tank, and not doing a good job. If production is too large for a single tank, cross blending is no simple thing. Producers don’t like to pump wine around, and I think that leads to substantial variation across large production wines.

52

I had this from magnum yesterday at the Fête in NY, and while it was very very good as usual, I haven’t changed my view that it is not at the level of the 2004 or 1995 for my palate.

53

Alan,

As with most big name prestige wines, quite a few hundred thousands bottles of this wine are made. The wine is vinified and aged separately by plot/location in tank and barrel, but it isn’t all going to fit into one tank for blending. As with any mass production item there is going to be some variation. I agree that pumping can affect things, but even producers who do their best to use gravity are subject to variation. It just takes one bad batch or slight slip to affect things. Unless you are going to go single tank or single barrel from pressing forward, you will have variation. I still like the 2006 Comtes.

54

Interesting that DP makes millions of bottles but seems to have pretty good QC.

55

Michael,

In the big picture, DP is just as variable as most NVs. I think, because production is so large, that people expect and accept it. Normal DP vintages are probably similar in variability to what people are talking about with 06 Comtes BdB.

When you make 5M bottles, people praise you for being fairly consistent, but if you make 300-400k bottles with the same consistency, you are in trouble. I get it, but don’t agree. What I do agree with is that DP does an awesome job at QC in most vintages.

56

I had a bottle of this last weekend with a notable skunky streak that just didn’t seem to blow off. Purchased at a popular Beverly Hills retailer just a week before, but I suspect some kind of storage issue. I was a little nervous about the display racking that was nearest the big windows in the front of the place, but figured they must be turning the stock quickly enough that it hadn’t been an issue… because well, they sell a lot of wine and nobody seems to be complaining. Should have trusted my gut!

57

'Twas a Kobrand labeled bottle, for those keeping score at home…

58

Thanks for noting…as I’m trying to keep score! [cheers.gif]

59

Wow, 100,000+ bottles for a supposedly luxury cuvee [scratch.gif] Sounds more like Pepsi! pepsi

60

John,

You do realize that MANY “supposed” luxury cuvees produce well over 100,000 bottles per vintage.