History

The Taittinger family, at the head of the House for nearly a century, has a constant desire for excellence. “Having the name of our family on a bottle imposes a responsibility and demands at all times. This signature bears both the know-how of the past and the commitment to tomorrow, "Pierre⁠-⁠Emmanuel Taittinger likes to say. A commitment that he has embodied for 40 years and that he shares today with the members of his family (his son Clovis and his daughter Vitalie) within the management team of the House. They all form a tight-knit and very complementary team.

Terroir

The estate operates an area planted with vines of approximately 287 hectares. The grape variety is made up of Chardonnay blanc (90%: king variety), Meunier noir (5%) and Pinot noir (5%). To develop its range, the estate obtains its grapes from outside supplies. The vines enjoy a moderate oceanic climate and a degraded continental climate. The terroir exploited by the Champagne Taittinger estate is essentially composed, in more or less large and scattered quantities, of lignite clay, green marl, Bartonian limestone, Ludian limestone, sands, flint, 'Sparnacien clays, Campanian chalk (Côte des Blancs), Thanétien marls (Montagne de Reims), Thanétien sands, Cuisien sands, Lutétien marls, Bartonien marls (Marne Valley) , Turonian chalk (Upper Cretaceous, between 94 and 90 million years ago), gray marl chalk, Kimmeridgian limestones, Kimmeridgian marls (Côte des Bar), clay marls, hard limestone platelets, silt and chalk at Bélemnites (Côte des Blancs). Finally, the vineyard is in sustainable agriculture.

Vinification and aging

The Champagne Taittinger estate uses the traditional Champagne-type winemaking method. The grapes are then vinified in temperature-controlled stainless steel vats. The estate sets up undergrowth vinification in oak barrels and oak barrels for all or part of the cuvées it produces. The riddling of the bottles (to allow the wines to regain their clarity after champagnisation) is both manual on a wooden desk and mechanical by gyropalette. After riddling and aging on slats (obligatory for champagnes), it is necessary to evacuate the deposit which has accumulated in the bottle at the neck. The estate then performs disgorging with ice and by disgorging on the fly.