Taittinger Comtes de Champagne Rosé 2011

Disgorged in October 2022, the 2011 Brut Comtes de Champagne Rosé is a blend of 40% Chardonnay and 60% Pinot Noir, including fully 14% of red wine that lends it notable depth of color this year. Evoking aromas of cherries, buttery pastry, raspberries and tangerine, with an attractive minty top note, the bouquet is complex and incipiently spicy. Medium to full-bodied, layered and vinous, with chalky structuring extract, it concludes with a long, sapid finish. The limitations of the vintage mean that this is a giving, rather open-knit Comtes Rosé, but it is nevertheless a great effort in a challenging year and exhibits none of the herbaceous qualities that mar some of the wines produced in this year. Drink it now and over the next decade.

Salmon coloured in the glass, the nose here offers layers of dried strawberry and rose petal, together with a generous freshly baked bread tone. The palate has a delicate mousse, making for a more vinous style that highlights the savoury lees ageing. Fresh red fruit mingles with notes of peach blossom, but there is an underyling weight of leesy richness. Long and fine to the finish, with a lightly gamey note against the supple fruit.